I do believe I am a bit jealous. Dwight is experiencing the warmest, nicest Dutch spring in 133 years. In our six months in Holland last year we had only about 2 weeks of summer, the rest of the time was rainy and sometimes down-right cold. Dang.
Things haven't turned out as we planned. The boatyard decided that installing our new toilet and holding tank would be too much work so they backed out of doing the job. We don't understand. They had inspected the boat, they knew what was to be done before we left six months ago, they agreed to do it, we wired the money and then when Dwight arrived it was "whoops, that is way more work than we'd figured." We are disappointed but there is nothing we can do about it.
Dwight is not going to paint the hull, either. Boats always look bigger when they are out of the water and painting is not one of Dwight's favorite pass times. He stared at the sides of the boat for awhile, then made his decision. We still have a white hull, however, "Orca" is gone, Dwight painted out that name--goodie, goodie.
Also goodie-goodie, he installed our new bow-thruster propeller so we can turn the pointy end of the boat to both the right and the left. That'll make things easier than last summer when we could only turn to starboard.
And, now Dwight is a hero, of sorts. Nicolas Witsen Boatyard sits on the corner of two well used canals, so, in the hero's own words:
"I just had quite a bit of excitement, a kayak-er turned over right where the canals cross, I had a perfect view. I ran down to the water and tried to help him out but he was too heavy and he was only worried about losing his kayak. He had two friends right behind him, between us we got his kayak out and dry and they went on their way, very cold I might add. I did not have time to think about the camera, sorry."
A picture would have been nice but can you imagine the scene---"please wait until I get my camera before you drown or sink your kayak." Good job anyway, Dwight. 
