December first finds us at the Swan Point Marina. It was a crappy, rainy morning so we pretty much just hung around the boat. I was able to get the rest of the broken damper plate removed and ordered a new one. The new one should be here about 4:30 on Monday. I should be able to install it Monday night. Depending on whether or not I can push the engine back into place by myself, I may get most of it done that night. Between the use of levers, inclined planes and WD-40 I would have made quite the Egyptian. When its time to have a tomb built call me. It will still be Wednesday morning before we can be ready to leave.

Last night we were up on the marina deck accessing the marina Wifi with the dogs. A toy poodle comes walking up completely unattended, Tucker being the alpha male goes nuts. Christy is holding Tucker back while she’s petting the poodle as Molly and this new dog make friends. After a minute or so Tucker is calm enough to interact with this new strange dog. Shortly thereafter a new dog walks into our group and again Tucker is mondo aggressive for a minute or so until the 4 dogs start to interact. Now we have Molly and Tucker tied together via a 10 foot tether but their running semi free playing with their new friends. Then I hear Tucker start to growl and take off running at a new interloper into this new little group, a full blown, 100 pound Rotweiller. Tucker charges this dog while snarling and barking. I think to myself “poor Tucker, he’s gonna die” and the other dog backs down and all is well in dogland. All 5 dogs wander around and get along famously.

We spent a lot of time listening to the VHF today as it was a crappy day with a lot of stranded boaters, including one guy who was towed off then 2 hours later caught fire and grounded again. Cousin Tim was busy as hell and nobody got hurt.

We’re going out to the hoe down here in town tonight (I swear) with the couple that Christy befriended yesterday. Its bizarre how out in the sticks we are, it should be very interesting. They’ve been here since Monday but they can’t remember if it was this week or last. I could see this place doing that to you. We spent time at the marina lounge today with some of the people awaiting parts and a few of the local liveaboards, sometimes its hard to remember that we’re still in the states.