It’s been a very long hard hot 6 weeks on the hardstand staying in the Marina here in Trinidad and Salsa is finally back in the water and ready to sail west, hopefully tomorrow!  Salsa wasn’t in too bad of shape when I arrived but I kept finding jobs that I wanted to do now that I felt would be very difficult or impossible to do before getting back to the U.S.  Since I’ve committed to at least one more season between Colombia and Panama I put everything I could into the boat (not to mention a scary amount of the last bits of my savings) to get her into very good shape.  I’ll post a list below a list of all the work I did (rather than have done).  To save money I did all the labor myself thanks to the long crash course on boat maintenance I got from James (www.atomvoyages.com) before I left.  I’m a little sad to say that I essentially never left the harbor while I was here and missed all the sights and most of the people of Trinidad.  I chose to work every day until now to get as many jobs as completed as I could and still head west with fair winds.  So this was not a stop of pleasure :-).  Some jobs turned out to be interesting and rewarding, like making a new cabin sole/floor boards and varnishing for the first time in my life (ok I just used epoxy but it’s basically the same!).   So more so than usual I’m looking forward to this passage, for the first time in over 4 years I will be sailing back to a destination that I’ve been to before and therefore officially completing the circumnavigation but still a 1000 miles or so from the U.S. so not quite finishing the ‘trip’.  I’ve got my satellite tracker working again sending out daily updates of my position but I can’t add everyone to that list so if you want to be posted email my Mom, Karen at; karenwrigley1@gmail.com and she will forward the updates to you while I’m underway.  I’m also very much looking forward to the passage because it will finally be an end to all this work, not to mention it has been almost 100’f here in the Marina on most of the days, and the rest of the days it was raining.  Well that’s it for now; I’m tired and still have some final packing and provisioning to do in the morning so I’m off to bed.  Just wanted to let everyone know that Salsa and I are getting underway once again.

Here is a list of only SOME Of the jobs I’ve done here; (probably only interesting for sailors!)

Finished re-riveting the main sail track to the mast.
Change bushings and re-bed Gudgeons, rudder shoe, and replace Pin on bottom of rudder.
Replaced Cutlass bearing and Zincs
Repack stuffing box for prop shaft and rudder.
Aligned Engine
Had Propeller machined/refinished
Wet sand bottom, minor fairing on the hull, re-paint two coats, 3 at the water line, rudder, etc.
Add designated through hull for small bilge pump that was spliced into other throughull before
Replaced stbd cockpit scupper through hull and sea cock, port side new sea cock and rebed through hull
Renewed/improved SSB grounding,
Replaced SSB antenna
Made new floor boards/Cabin Sole.
New water tank  and hose installed
New macerator installed
Head, rebuild, replaced base
upgraded holding tank vent to prevent intake of salt water
Replaced Throttle shifter.
Installed new batteries, 4 Trojan T105s (450 Ah)
Bought used Hypalon Dinghy after trying endlessly to repair my old one.