the internet connection at River Bend is at best unreliable hence the delay in these updates. We completed the work to the hull of the boat in 6 hectic and flue filled days. Hull was cleaned, sanded and given two coats of Micron CSC ablative. The prop was polished and both hull and prop anodes replaced. Neither was completely worn but it is much easier to do the change whilst the boat is out of the water. Topsides were cleaned and polished with two coats of wax and looks a lot better for it. I have decided to leave repainting the hull topsides until we have a really good facility to do it. The climate and humidity here along with the shortage of skills militated against doing it in Lauderdale. Osprey was put back in the water on Thursday and I now have a live aboard berth in the boatyard facilities where we can complete the work. The forestay has had a new toggle fitted to give it the correct freedom of movement and the foil/stay had to be shortened by 3” to accommodate it. We have tested the yankee jib which is OK for length but still have the genoa to test. The new gooseneck turned out to be a disaster as the team did not follow the original plans. As a result the boom and gooseneck have been dismantled again and we are now waiting for the work to be completely re done. The larger main furling system looks good and strong and once we have to gooseneck sorted should work well. Only disadvantage of the new setup is that if we need to change the tension in the main furling system we will have to demount the gooseneck. This is a pretty rare occurrence and was a trade off to keep the furling drum below the gooseneck. The main sail has been modified to suit and a clew sheave built in which gives us a better and flatter sail set up. A new lead block for the Genoa seems to have provided a better lead for that furling gear. Pure filtered water system has been stripped and overhauled and in doing so we found an “off” carton of whole life milk that had slipped behind the shelf. This explained the smell which we though might have been from the Freezer gas system. Cleanup and painting of the main head under sink area is completed and the same work to the shower compartment should be done today.  We are still waiting to finish the bimini and until that is done we can’t finally get the tent sorted. The varnish work on deck is on permanent hold as we cannot find a day without rain to do it. Hopefully this will come before we leave. Otherwise it will have to wait until Antigua. We scrapped dry cleaning the curtains – they wanted $250 to do it here which is more than they cost originally. Might try cold washing one to see if that works. They are not that bad but it would have been nice to have had them cleaned whilst we were here.