Kris

It's been about a week now since Kris burned himself. Thankfully things were not nearly as bad as they could be. The only area that continues to concern his doctors is the top of his left foot, from the toes back a couple of inches. They are hopeful that there will not have to be skin grafts.

He has been working pretty hard doing physical therapy. Lots of walking and lots of manipulation of his foot, ancle and toes. The idea is to retain range of motion as the skin heals.

He has been pretty positive about things so far, believing that maybe his higher power has put him through this for a reason. He has been getting very welcome visits from Brenda, Tim, Scott and Dawnell, all members of the bible study group that he attended along with Judy and myself. They are wonderful people!

On the boat front, I have started working on the anchoring system. I was going to focus next on some of the issues I felt were important to sailing, such as lazy jacks and various leads for our control lines, but after having had the misfortune of supplying one of the corner anchors for our last raft up (seventeen boats) I feel that the most important next area is the windless, chain and anchor.

I removed the 200' of 3/8" BBB chain that the boat came with, and took it down to a chain supply house to have an additional 100' added. I am in a quandry about this 200' however, as the galvanizing is pretty much gone on the outboard 100'. There is a very light layer of rust, but no significant loss of metal. I am inclined to keep this but I need to see if I can identify where is was manufactured. Most domestic chains (and maybe foreign chain) have identifying stamps imbedded in the links every so often. There are no such marks to be found on mine, leading me to believe that it might be some cheap crap that lacks the strength of the good stuff. I am going to contact Bob Perry, the boats designer, and see if he has any idea where the boatbuilder might have got it from.

If I can't get a good read on this, then I think I will just buy 300' of new Acco chain and rest assured, while anchored in a gale, that our chain will not fail us. This will not be cheap....$2.84 per foot plus tax.

Also will be rebuilding the Muir Cougar windless and getting an anchor to replace the 45 lb CQR that we now have.