Thursday, 26 January 2017 - I decided to weigh my second anchor, a large Danforth, today. It was the second anchor I put out and since the threat of strong winds has abated, I'm sure I won't need two out here. It has about 20 ft. of chain and 200 ft. of 1" line. I was using a ring that fits over the line and has another line attached to it. The theory is that the ring should slide down over the anchor line to the anchor and allow you to pull up the anchor easily backwards. As usual, reality was a little different. I attached a retrieval line to the ring and put the ring over the anchor line, got in the dinghy and started sliding the ring down the anchor line. It got hung up on the shackle that attaches the anchor chain to the line. I eventually got it to jump over the shackle and could feel it bumping down each link on the chain, but I just couldn't get the dinghy to pull hard enough to back the anchor out. A small sport fishing boat came by and the owner offered to help and I took him up on the offer. After a couple of tries with his larger boat and engine, it broke loose and I was able to haul it up. One technique you can usually use in similar circumstances is to put tension on the retrieval line and let the bobbing of the dinghy on the waves eventually break the anchor loose, but here on the creek there are no waves. This is a good example of why so many people like the boating life, everybody helps each other.
                  I also went to the grocery store and almost bought so many groceries that I couldn't carry them on my bike. The bags, which I hang from the handle bars get caught in the spokes when you turn, even just a little, and they were hanging down so far that each foot kicked the bags every time the foot came around. Next time I'll either buy less or use my hand cart with a milk crate or two to carry groceries in. Come to think of it, I think I heard that the marina has a couple of grocery carts for use by the boaters. That would probably be easier yet. Why didn't I think of that today?
                  At 7 pm., I went to the county library to hear an outdoor concert by a folk group, actually a husband and wife called the Kennedys, that write most of their own songs, sing and play guitars. He plays an electric guitar and she plays a beautiful, old Gibson Super Jumbo acoustic guitar that sounds absolutely beautiful. They were very good, especially her singing.

Friday, 27 January - I took the dinghy on a short exploratory excursion this afternoon out Sister Creek, past the park at Sombrero Beach and over to East Sister Rock, which is a very small island with one large house on it. I meant to take my lead line with me to get some depth readings at the mouth of the creek to see if I can get Island Time out that way, but I forgot the lead line. Off that beach looks like it would be a great spot to anchor the boat to scrape the hull. It would only be about a quarter mile going out the creek, or two or three miles going up the creek, across the mooring field and out the main channel, then around the end of the island to get to the same spot. The charts say it's too shallow, but I've known them to be wrong too many times. Unfortunately, there is only about a 1 foot tide here, so that won't help me much. As I went out the creek today, the water was pretty clear, although I couldn't always see the bottom, but it sure looked like I might be able to make it through there and it sure would be quicker.

Saturday, 28 January - The automatic bilge pump hasn't come on as it should lately, so I've been keeping a close eye on the water level in the bilge and running the pump manually when necessary. Today I replaced the float switch in the bilge and shouldn't have to be repeatedly checking it in the future like I have been.

Sunday, 29 January - Today promised to be a cool, sunless, dreary day, so I decided to take advantage of the lack of desire to get out by continuing my quest for further knowledge about the potable water plumbing system onboard and the further mapping of it for future reference. As I mentioned last week, it's a slow process, and I spent the whole day mostly under the galley sink and adjoining compartments or climbing in and out of the engine room to determine where lines that disappeared on this side of the bulkhead appeared on the other side. I made quite a bit of progress, but there's still a ways to go.

Monday, 30 January - This morning I continued my creation of a schematic of the water system on the boat, and, I believe, I completed a rough sketch. However, there is one valve that makes no sense at all to me. If opened, it would allow salt water to circulate throughout most of the system. Perhaps I missed something somewhere. I'll have to re-check that part before I finalize and clean up the schematic.
                  Most of the time I shower on the boat and if I haven't run the engine within the last two days, it's a cold shower. I needed to go to the marina today so I thought I'd get a hot shower ashore. My timing was bad. There was a waiting line at the showers and...no hot water. It would have been easier to shower on the boat. I did, however, get a package in the mail and update some of my apps via WiFi while ashore. After my shower, however, my time was short, so they closed the marina before I finished, so I'll have to return to finish.

Tuesday, 31 January - Listening to the Cruiser's Net, which is the daily broadcast at 9 am on the VHF radio, I heard a person advertising that they had a full set of dive gear for sale pretty cheap, so I made arrangements to meet the man to take a look at it. It certainly wasn't new, but is newer and more sophisticated than what I have, so I bought it. On the way back to the boat, I stopped by another CSY sailboat in the mooring field and visited with the owners for about 3 hours. Every owner seems to be more than happy to show off their boat and discuss what they've done to update or upgrade it.

Wednesday, 1 February - I worked all day trying to figure out why some indicator lights on my circuit breaker panel stay on. I found that the major ground cable in the panel desperately needed to be replaced and I did so, hoping that that would solve the problem, but it did not. It wasn't until I had worked at this all day that a coincidence occurred that made me realize I have been totally on the wrong track. Just about dusk it was getting dark enough that I was using a flashlight rather than turning on the inside lights to work, when a small boat passed by causing my boat to roll back and forth a bit. I happened to be looking at the indicator lights as this happened and I noticed that they brightened and dimmed as each wave rocked the boat and the wires inside the mast clanged against the mast. Many boats had passed during the day, but the ambient light had been too bright to notice the brightening and dimming of the weak little indicator lights until the sun had set. At least now I know where to start looking for the solution to my problem and can quit searching inside the control panel for the problem. Of course, if the problem is up inside the 60 foot mast, it may not be an easy fix.

Thursday, 2 February - It was one of those days when everything seemed to go wrong. Working on the electrical connections that run up the mast from down under the floor and while laying on the floor, I dropped a small screw as I was trying to re-install it. It went into the bilges, but, I thought, couldn't go far. Well, it wasn't right where I thought it would be, so maybe it rolled through to the next compartment. I opened that and discovered that some of my canned goods, namely the mandarin oranges, a can of black olives, and a can of Rotel tomatoes had all burst, and grown some rather interesting green squiggly things. In the process, of course, they made a mess of several other cans of food, too, so I had to clean that mess up. Getting back to the electrical problem, I still had to find the screw. It didn't seem to be in that compartment, either. Perhaps it managed to fall over into the section on the other side of the centerline of the boat, so I had to unload that side too. Not there. Back on the original side, I finally found it way back in the back under a pipe. I raised the pipe, picked up the screw with my fingertips, since that's all I could reach it with...and dropped it again! It rolled right to the back of the section where the pipe passes through the limber hole, rolled through, and dropped out of sight into the bilge sump. Ok, so I opened that up and looked in, not expecting to see the screw since the sump is usually holds about an inch or two of black, mixed liquids that may include fresh water, sea water, oil, diesel, coolant, and who knows what else. I was right, no screw visible and the sump is so deep I can't reach the bottom of it, so I got into a tool box in the lazarette and got out the spring loaded grabber. Normally, this would be easy...but not on a boat. Almost all screws, and for that matter, most other metallic parts are either brass or stainless steel, so a magnet won't pick them up. I couldn't find it to pick it up, so I got two buckets of seawater to dilute the blackness with. Still couldn't see it. I gave up on that. Time to hit the jars of miscellaneous screws and bolts. I picked out the one with the small screws, poured them into a large pan and started looking. In the whole jar there were only two 10-32 screws. That's ok, I only need one. I cut it off to the length I needed and finally re-installed the wire it was for. In the whole process, all I really found out is that my Bow light and my Foredeck light are shorted together somewhere up inside the mast and that the Running Lights, whose indicator light is also always lighted, isn't. That was enough frustration for the day, so I closed up all the compartments, put the tools and screws away, and called it a day at 4:30. I think I'll start quitting a little earlier like this more often, only working half days from now on. Twelve hours should be enough. I'm supposed to be retired.
                  I think the big question here this week is going to be, "Is it going to be 79°F today or 80°F?" It's predicted to be one or the other all week.