We wanted to send out a ginormous thank you to Jacasso and some of the other boaters in the harbor here with us right now. They have all been so wonderful at shuttling us back and forth to land and lending us their dinghies so we can get some things accomplished while our dinghy engine is out of commission. It is so amazing to see how boaters band together to help each other when someone is in need, and this time we are the ones that are definitely in need. I sometimes get on Eben’s case about being the first to run off our boat to help some one when they need it, because, of course, I am totally greedy and would prefer having him here helping me, but all his help towards others has banked us some good karma and now we are on the receiving end.

   Eben and Edric have been driving from coast to coast and working on the outboard for the past couple of days, trying to get us operational again. Without a dinghy you definitely feel trapped and helpless. We don’t have our “car” to run to land to do laundry, groceries, or even getting the girls some running room. This is where all of our friends have come to our rescue to help us not go stir crazy with cabin fever. Because when our girls start getting crazy it is not pretty, they get cranky and loud, high pitched screaming loud. It accelerates the cabin fever for the rest of us by a million.  
   Of course this all happens when we have guests on board, when we would like to be moving around and showing them the sites, and when we are going through food and water at twice the speed, and so we are definitely feeling the pressure of needing our dinghy back, and soon, before we run out of water.

   As Eben puts it, the project has been one step forward two steps back. It seems as they manage to get one part of the engine dismantled something new breaks. But we still have hope, and he keeps on truckin’. We are crossing our fingers, and toes, that by the end of today the engine will be back together and we will have the freedom to move around a bit more, because four adults and two babies don’t fit so well on our Stand Up Paddleboard.

Maybe this is how our engine broke? (old pic from in DR)

a think there is a dinghy or two to spare