The goal yesterday had two parts:
a.) Replace Robin's five-year-old batteries and,
b.) Replace the rotting plywood platform which allows you to stand on the boomkin, the array of stainless steel pipes that sticks out past Robin's stern and supports the back stay.
The battery work left me sprained in several locations. Robin has two batteries, one mounted on either side of the engine, under the cockpit. To get to them, it is necessary to take down the four steps of the companionway (inside the cabin) and to physically back into the opening and sit on top of the engine.
The old batteries were Group 31. I remembered that they were difficult to install five years ago because they weighed a lot. I swear they have gained weight in the interim. Each must tip the scale at at least 75 pounds.
Like most jobs connected with a boat, handling the batteries was a one-person chore. So I set to yanking them out, one at a time, hoping that I wouldn't drop one and crush the engine.
Once they were removed, I took them to the local NAPA auto parts store in Cambridge, where I traded them in on two Group 27 batteries, each one with as many amps or watts or whatever as the old ones.
The Group 27s were much lighter, which made installation significantly easier but left me wondering what I'd given up in the process. The older NAPA gentleman assured me I'd forfeited nothing.
Next, I took the screws out of the plywood decking on the boomkin. The wood on the port side was so rotten that it came out in two pieces.
I'd fabricated (as in, made) replacement decking out of a dense rain forest wood, solid planks that I doweled and epoxied together and then stiffened with cross braces epoxied and screwed in place.
Since I'd made the decking at home, I didn't realize that the cross braces were in a space that, on the boomkin, is occupied by a one-inch diameter tube. On Saturday, we'll visit Robin and I'll perform surgery on my decking and then, finally, bolt it in place.
In the meantime, about half of Robin's provisions are on board for the upcoming voyage, now less than two weeks away.

It's been a while. Robin is in Cambridge, MD. The trip down two weekends ago with Tom Gilmore

 as crew was uneventful. We learned that one of the batteries could no longer hold a charge, so I'll be replacing both. They have lasted five years. The refrigeration worked great. Kept everything cold when we shut it off from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m. to conserve battery power.
Now the provisions are being gathered for a voyage to Maine in two weeks. Our pups, Lexi and Samantha, will be staying with their cousins in Massachusetts. Crew for the trip north is now uncertain. I may be single-handing, which is fine if lonely.
We had our second sailboat race at the Red Dragon Canoe Club this past weekend. Bluebird got a second and a first -- out of three boats. The racing was quite close between Bluebird and another boat, with our booms overlapping  each others' decks at times as we approached the finish line in the first race. Bluebird lost that one by a quarter-boat-length.
Most interesting  thing to happen here in the last week was the visit by a dog whisperer. She is a disciple of Cesar Millan, the TV star dog trainer.
We had had a couple of problems -- one minor, the other potentially serious -- with Lexi and Samantha. Lexi liked to jump on people as a form of affectionate greeting. Samantha liked to roar after dogs she met on walks as a means of getting near their throats, we worried.
Christine walked into the house, stood like Wonder Woman before the girls, who were in their crates, and within three minutes had both waiting to be shown what to do.
I've taken Samantha on walks since then and we've met dogs. She sits nicely, not making a peep. And Lexi doesn't jump on Monica as she had moments before Christine arrived. We need to have a visitor arrive at the front door so we can teach her how to not jump on them.
I'm ready to be come a disciple and spread the word. No dog needs to be ornery.

The gathering wasn't large -- maybe 30 people in all -- but considering that the temperature up on the highway was at one point 102 degrees Farenheit yesterday, it was surprising that five kayaks and two canoes actually came to the waterfront at the Red Dragon Canoe Club for the Summer Solstice Paddle for Cash Race.
Every boat paid a $10 entry fee, and half the money went to the club. The other half was to be divided amongst the top three finishers in a race, boat-for-boat, no handicapping, around a triangular course through the club's mooring field.
The first heat of three boats started at about 6 p.m. on this, the longest day of the year, lining up along an imaginary line in front of the dock. Race Director Bill Van Keuren waved each boat close to the line, the fleet facing into the current of a falling tide. When he was happy that all the boats were close to the line, Bill sounded an air horn and everyone sprinted for the first race marker, a large yellow sphere attached to a boat on a mooring.
An entire lap round the three huge inflated markers took six to eight minutes. There were two qualifying heats and then a race between the first two finishers in the respective heats.
The winner was a member of a nearby boat club, paddling a western Greenland replica kayak that he had built himself. (Or was it western Iceland?)
On shore, a cookout was underway, with burgers and dogs. And the meteorological gods favored us with a breeze off the river, so that no one was sweltering ashore or on the water.

Work aboard Robin is nearing an end and the day that she heads downstream is near. The electrician finished rewiring the mast yesterday. The windlass is mounted on deck. Today, in the continuing heat, I begin removing tools and trash and anticipate the day that our lady will be pretty, clean and ready to voyage once again.

Success! Robin has refrigeration. I kept a couple of cans of ginger ale cool this morning while I worked on the roller furling. That project was half done when I had to leave, but we'll be back at it tomorrow. The wind is blowing now perfectly for heading down to the sea -- an east by northeast breeze of about 12 to 15 knots that you could ride all the way to the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic. It has me dreaming!

The evaporator -- which is the ice-making part of the refrigerator -- is installed in the box and the lids are ready to be closed.

Today, I make the final connections to the compressor and, with a turn of the switch, everything should be cool aboard Robin.

Some may think our work is play. No, this is play.

The paddlers of the Red Dragon Canoe Club visited the New Jersey shore at Barnegat Bay on Saturday. Monica, in her flashy new life jacket, paddled almost as much as she talked with our companions. As always, she was, I'd venture, the life of the party.
There were 17 boats -- 2 canoes and 15 kayaks -- and 19 paddlers. Some were in their 20s, some may even have been older than we. The weather was sunny with a gentle breeze to keep us cool. The currrent was mild.
This was not a strenuous voyage -- only a few miles in protected water -- but it was completely pleasant and was followed by a cookout for luch at the beach house of one of the paddlers.
Another fine way to spend time on the water.

A wistfulness overcomes me when, crossing a set of railroad tracks, I pause to look, to see as far as the rails are straight -- to the next bend or the crest of the grade --and the disappearing tracks leave a question: What's beyond?
The same thing happens when I walk down to the river. Where we live, the river runs from the northeast upstream to the southwest downstream. In one sense, I know what's beyond: The mountains upstream, the ocean downstream.
But there is a pull nonetheless. I want to follow the water downstream, always and immediately, and when I cannot, I"m not fully at peace.