Amazing how much can change in a week! From being ready to hand Al Shaheen over to the first person who smiled at her and said "what a beautiful boat", we're already working out where to haul and repaint, what refurbishing needs doing, how much money to spend - and the plan is definitely to keep her and sail many more miles!!

So what's the change? Well, Metegan Shipyard came over with their mobile apparatus and did a fabulous repair - all sorted and absolutely no problems there: the hot water heater still is spewing water but we have a replacement waiting in Camden (and I guess we can live without hot water showers for a while!). All other systems 100%, no hassles - the sun's shining, and we've moved east, taking three slow days to potter along the coast from Gold River Marina to Le Have Islands (behind Mosher) the first night, then to Carver's Beach the next, and in to Shelburne last night. Didn't actually get the sails up, as there was very little wind and what there was was dead on the nose, but we're out, we're moving, the sun is shining, and Al Shaheen's wonderful!

So what's the plan now? A couple of days here, visiting with Alan and Jan Pulfrey, OCC Port Officers here in Shelburne, waiting for Jan and Nina Kiff on Raven to arrive from Cape Cod (left yesterday morning, should be here tonight), catching up with emails (178 after 3 days offline - oi vey!!!). Then we'll move on Down East to explore those little islands and hidey holes there. Only time we were there was when ducking out of the US because we'd overstayed our welcome by a couple of days!

Gold River Marina was, as always, an absolute delight - Cindy, Darren and Johnny are fanatsic folks to deal with: nothing is too much trouble, everything always has a solution! GRM is agreat little marina - nothing to shout home about in terms of fancy equipment etc, but boy, do they make what they've got work well. Plan probably is to come back and haul out here at the end of the season, but as always plans can change - that's why they're written in pencil.

Every time we come to Nova Scotia there's this incredible tug to move here! We have a lot of friends here, Mahone Bay is just such an incredible place to have a boat - lots of little islands, lots of places to go, and an easy jump-off for both the USA and Newfoundland - and I guess if we're really energetci, back to the UK/Europe! A northern summer home in Nova Scotia and a southern summer home in South Africa?

Watch this space!