Here are a few more pictures of some of the work that is getting done. Half the interior is painted and it makes it so much brighter. All the gouges in the wood around the portholes and winches, that had been stolen off of the boat, have been repaired and painted so, in places, it really looks like a new boat. The picture of the bow is Tom's repair. It meant getting rid of all the old rot, replacing it with new wood, and then making frames to cover all that. It looks brand new and perfect! This Sunday we are having one of our infamous potlucks with a movie and we are starting the party off with a swap meet. We will have everything we want to trade/sell up on deck and people can come by and check it our. Kind-of like a garage sale with out the garage. We are hoping to make some money to help us get up in the Sea to deliver our school supplies. Not much else for now. Allison

We have been working at a pretty good pace for the past few weeks, trying to get some much needed projects done before our next big trip in March. I will tell you about that in a bit. We have had a lot of help from a lot of cruisers in the past few weeks. We have Mike on Tehani showing up almost daily to varnish anything we throw at him. He is a really laid back guy with a great sense of humor so it is easy to spend time with him. The kids come over when school and other activities allow and help do anything that needs to be done. Here are some pictures of Isabelle sanding down below and Sam and his friend, Josh, outside sanding the rail. We had a work party last week and had the crew of "Outcast" and Max off of "Sin Fin" helping with everything from sanding to helping Tom replace planks in the bow. It is inspiring to have all these people putting in so much time and effort to help us out. The projects we are completing are replacing parts of the cabin top that had rot and was soft. Tim has been a one man show on this job. He's not a bad carpenter especially since he's the engineer. I have been mainly focusing on sanding and painting down below. We are almost done the main living areas and what a difference it all makes!!!!! Tom has focused all his energy on the rotten area in the bow, above the water line. He has gotten rid of all the rot and has replaced all the wood and planks and it looks amazing! I couldn't get the picture to load this time but I will keep trying. All in all, the boat is taking on an amazing transformation and she is loving all the good strokes. We have taken on a new crew member, Derek, who is 24 and off on an adventure. We have him doing all the jobs we hate and he keeps smiling so we keep piling on more!!!!! He's great and is planning on heading north with us when we go. We are planning on leaving sometime after the 10th of March. We are going as far north as Conception Bay(get a map-look it up)to meet up with a group who may be interested in using the schooner in some of their programs. We will play around there, and show off, a little, and then slowly make our way down the coast, introducing ourselves to new schools and kids. We will end the trip with a big "pirate" party in San Evaristo on the schooner with a movie on the big screen and a small astronomy class using the telescope we found for them last year. We are really looking forward to this next trip, especially with the boat looking so good! I will try to send more pictures when the signal is better. Allison