Fred is dead.

My wife had pretty much tamed the male day gecko (it would eat from her hand) that hung out with it's conterpart, Wilma, on the espresso maker in the kitchen. We hadn't seen Fred in a couple of days and cleaned out the fridge and found him in the back of it. There's been another male hanging out trying to horn in on Fred's action, so I guess this is his chance, he'd been run off with major head bobbing, body leaning and tongue sticking out threats 'til now. Here's a link to a pic of Fred before the permafrost incident.

So barring any further missing pieces.... I finally have a pretty good idea of when I get the boat back. Whoohoo!!! The paint job is basically done, I'll be enameling the cabin interior after all the wiring is done. The engines have been mounted in place for weeks, but now the throttle and shifting and steering cables are in place, the new ladder's up, the GPS is in, they were hooking up the running lights and stereo when I was by earlier. After that it's just the fuel and power, a couple more things I need (courtesy lights, red/white/red restricted maneuverability lights, macerator pump for the fish hold and a couple other items) and it's ready to go to sea trial. I suspect I'll get it Thursday and then I can take it out for a couple days to break in the engines and do some other stuff I need to get it ready for charter. Finally... I didn't believe them when they said "three weeks" but I never figured it'd be almost 5 months.

The weather's been pretty nice lately. We had some nice cool mornings this week as though winter is coming, but it's kind of muggy this evening. Just another typical fall day here.

Later,

Steve