Greetings,

February was a great month, but as you can see, I have been delayed in getting the February update out. At the beginning of March, when I was completing the February Maintenance Log, my Mac computer died. The good news is I do my backups, so there was no data loss. The bad news is it took quite a while to come up with a solution to the dead computer, and even that is still up for grabs. I am finally caught up on my email, but am woefully behind in scanning and other computer work.

For right now, I am running Linux Mint 16 on a Toshiba laptop. I bought two of the laptops so I would have a primary and a backup exactly the same! The primary system is named Main, and the backup is named Mizzen. Even as I am writing this update in May, I am still working out the kinks of running Linux on these machines. I still may go back to the Mac. Time will tell.

The February Maintenance Log is finally finished. The weather was so horrible in February, I did not make a lot of progress on any outdoor projects.

I had a problem with the Black Beast when I was returning from a Marine Corps League meeting in Abbeville. All of the back lights quit working. Of course, I did not know this until I was pulled over by a Delcambre policeman. I did not know this particular policeman, but since I only had 1/2 mile to drive to home, he let me go!

The next day, I took the Black Beast to our mechanic. He made a quick check of the problem, and determined that the headlight switch on the dashboard had failed. He ordered a new one, replaced it, and that fixed the problem.

I had already scheduled a couple of other repairs to the Black Beast, so we had them taken care of, too. One repair was to fix a very small but bothersome oil leak. It turned out one of the two oil cooling lines had started leaking where the rubber part of the line was swedged to the steel part of the line. I had the mechanic replace both cooling lines. I also had him replace the upper ball joints on the front end. He also worked on the brakes, fixing a couple of problems with the rear brakes. The is all covered in the February 17th entry of the February Maintenance Log.

During this month, I also made some changes and additions to some of entries under the Links page. I removed a link from the Government, Travel And Medical page and added a couple of vendors to the Vendors And Marine Products web page. As I mention on the Links page, I added vendors that I have used, and the links are there for reference. I am not saying one vendor is better than another. If you have had any experience with a vendor who is not on the Links page, please let me know, and I will add their URL to the page.

I also updated some photos on the Galley page.

Kitty and I went to Lake Charles, Louisiana, to attend a Eco-Tourism seminar put on by the Louisiana Sea Grant organization. It was at this seminar that I received my alligator-tooth hat band. Check the 02-11-14 entry in the February Maintenance Log to see a photo of the hat band and catch up on the activiities.

After the workshop, we drove back to Delcambre to attend the Twin Parish Port District monthly meeting.

Kitty and I attended a meeting at the Vermilion Parish LSU AG Center to try and get a kids' boating safety program started. We had a great meeting, and it looks as if we might have a successful program in the making.

During the month, our good friends from England, Nicola & Noel visited for a couple of days. It was pretty embarassing for us as almost every day during their visit, it was colder here in Louisiana than it was at their home in England!

We enjoyed quite a few social activities while they were here. One day we went to St Martinsville to eat lunch St. Johns restaurant, and then to visit the Longfellow- Evangeline State Historic Site. The visit was wonderful and we enjoyed the historical aspects of the site.

It was Mardi Gras time in Acadiana, so we were going to take advantage of it in spite of the weather. All of the details of the activities are covered in the February Maintenance Log. We did attend the Delcambre Childrens' Mardi Gras parade on the afternoon of the 28th. That evening we drove up to Lafayette to attend the big Mardi Gras Festival held there. While at the Festival, we took advantage of all of the junk food and a concert by Geno Delafose & French Rockin Boogie. This is a great band and we did enjoy listening to the Zydeco music. We finished up the night by watching the Mardi Gras parade as it came through the Festival grounds. Of course, we collected a bunch of beads!

On St. Valentine's day, Kitty and I went to the Little River Inn for a celebration. We had been to this restaurant several times over the years, on special occasions, so it was nice to be back. We did our normal thing on these occasions ... we ordered one appetizer, entre, and dessert, and shared it all. It was nice evening, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We received a shipment of some special sealant for our friends in New Zealand that they could not have shipped directly there, and then forwarded the it on to them. The company that makes this product is here in the States, but does not ship overseas, so we helped out!

I had a look at our two propane tanks that we keep on DREAM AWAY, and they were in pretty sad shape. To prevent any future problems, I purchased two new tanks. I painted the bottoms of the tanks, and then put automobile door molding on the bottoms to hopefully keep the rust away for a longer period of time. The older steel tanks had lasted over ten years, so there was no shame there.

I know this update is horribly late, but at last it is here. I will be getting the updates for March, April, and May out in the next few days, so please be patient!

Hope all is well with everyone and that you are starting to enjoy the summer weather.

regards,

jimk

Member Seven Seas Cruising Association

WEB page http://www.dreamaway.net