I’ve been renewing my Spanish lessons the last couple of mornings. I get up, launch the dinghy (we haul it up every night now), make coffee and sit on the foredeck practicing Spanish for 45 minutes or so. Not at bad way to start the day.

This morning Axel promised to come over and help me go up the mast, Ain’t never done it before so nervously excited. It is a thankfully calm morning so a good day to go up. While waiting, I get everything ready, digging out our bosun’s chair and preparing the halyard that will haul me up.

We’re hoping to replace the halyard that broke off inside the mast at the time we purchased it. Axel lends me 100 feet of strong but thin rope – I will drop it down the inside of the mast with a small weight, he will try and fish it out the slot about 8 feet up the mast. Once we do that, I can use the thin rope to pull up a thicker halyard once I buy it.

The view from up top is splendid, tho I am not in the seat perfectly so gets a bit uncomfortable as I wait for Axel to fish the line out of the mast. Still, I’m not afraid and feel pretty safe. Christy operates the winches and lines so now we’re both comfortable we could do it on our own.

Soon enough I’m down again and not too upset about it either. Axel goes on his way and we get ready to catch the free bus at Secret Harbour that will take us to Ace and Budget. We get a few things at both places, most notably 120′ of halyard line – costs C$300 here.

Later on we go back to Hog Island where Christy tries again to fix the SUPs and we re-attach half the dinghy bumper cuz it came off. We cool off in the bay waiting for the glue to dry.

New Brunswick Mike is there and since he is a self-professed McGyver I go over to talk to him to see if he has time to look at our engine problem. I think I’ve got to the end of my abilities. He’s too hammered to be much help. Oh well, I’ll try again over the next couple days but call some of the local pros on Monday.