Never enough time.

Our trip home was good and we had a nice time staying in Narita for two days. It is a beautiful little town by the airport with the old Japanese feeling to it. There is a wonderful park area full of temples both old and new. The old ones have been shipped in and reconstructed to save the history of these  building. It is a very big area with lots of lakes and walkways and one could spend the better part of the day there. We spent a day in Tokyo which is just another big city which is not really to our liking. In Narita there is a pub called Jet Lag which is where a lot of the airline crews hang out and we met up with some on my old work mates and had a couple of good evenings out for dinner.

We arrived back in Vancouver on May 11 and have been flat out busy since. Our first priority was to see the children and grand kids. We had five of the six over for Marians birthday which was a lot of fun and just what she wanted. After she went over to Calgary for four days to see Natalie and our grandsons there

On to the boat front. We developed a fuel leak about three years ago in the port two hundred gallon tank. It was just weeping and we transferred the fuel out to the other tanks at that time. So now we have to get at that which is no small feat. I found the people in Bellingham who have all the schematics of the boat and the dimensions of the fuel tank. The problem is there is no way to get to old out and a new one in with out tearing the whole boat apart. Basically cutting a huge hole in the haul. Hopefully we are able to get around the problem by splitting the tank into two one hundred gallon tanks and use a manifold to connect them together. The tanks are on order and are supposed to be ready by |July 4th. To do this I will need to lift the port engine up into the salon on an A frame so that it will move over so we can have access to the tank which is on the outboard wall of boat. We will have to cut the existing one out and then hopefully the two new ones will fit OK. Judging on how things go with boats go there will be a few issues but we will find solutions to all.

Other little problems have been replacing the fresh water pump and putting in a new hot water heater as the old one rusted through. Lots of other little projects as well as boat hate not being used. We hauled Kilkea out on Monday, we towed it to the lift as I was afraid the engine intakes would be fouled, and found the props, rudders and shafts were just one big ball of mussels, oysters, and other stuff. The hull was fine with nothing on it so the anti foul was still working. The metal parts an other story. We filled three wheel barrows with mussels etc so it was a mess and I'm glad I didn't start the engines. All other times with our boats here we have sanded and painted the bottom but this year we are having the yard do it mainly because the props and all the other metal parts need to be properly ground as we are going to use prop speed anti foulant on them. We have had great success with this produce on Kilkea II over the last five years. Anyway living on the boat and having all this done is a challenge and we will be glad when we have everything fixed which will probably take until mid July at the earliest.

 Our next project is dealing with the house as we will be finished leasing it sometime this year. The lease runs out at the end of December but the renters may want to leave sooner which is fine by us. Right now we have roofers up demossing the ceder shake roof and then after a few months they will come back and start replacing bad shakes and blowouts. This is time consuming and costly but the only other option would be to replace the roof. They will guarantee this for five years so it is a bit of a 50-50. The next thing on the house is to have all the windows, we have wood windows, facier boards and soffiting re stained. Then there is some yard work that Marian want to get at and as we have an acre of property there will be lots to do. These renters have been in the house for four years and have kept the house nice and clean and have even done some painting which is great from our point of view. Also the yard is tidy with the grass mowed and thing looked after but not up to the admirals standards with the flower beds etc. So lots to do there to keep us busy.

Well this is just a few of the bigger things we have been doing along with the medical checks etc. I have had two dental surgeries so far which is a much fun as kissing your sister even thought I don't have one. One thing that we are enjoying is the cool temperatures which makes it so much easier to do things. On the other hand we feel a little out of place being back here as we miss not being on Kilkea II and living our other life. We still do not have cruising plans for next year but do know we will be back to Rebak in October and then up to Thailand until March, past that we have a few options but don't know which way to go right now.

I will try to post some pics and hope not to be so long with the posts.