Thanksgiving has come and gone, all in all it was a great one.  My parents came to visit, was great to spend time with them.  I am blessed to have such supportive parents.
As far as Surprise goes, she has a new battery for starting the engine only.  This will take the starting load off the house bank and extend its life.  SSB radio is up and running, I have made a check in with a cruising net once so has pretty good range so far, but still want to do more test to see how far out I am getting.  I have removed the dingy davits from the stern and relocated the dingy to the bow, this will give the Hydrovane more room to work and take some weight from the stern and move it forward.  More importantly it frees the stern up when doing passages for fishing and also prevents the stern rail from leaving with the dingy if a wave ever swamped it.  I have a list of projects that I will work on a little at a time, I will post some of my plans later.  I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.
Capt. Bear

couple of pics with dingy on the fore deck, with a cover for it and all the hatch to protect from tropical sun.