Friday, 19 May 2017 - West Marine was having a four day sale starting today, so I went over and bought two gallons of two cycle oil for the outboard motors.

Saturday, 20 May - I picked up reading "The Count of Monte Cristo" where I left off yesterday and realized about 1 o'clock in the afternoon that there were to be Dragon Boat Races at Sombrero Beach today. I Googled it to find out more specifics. They had started early, so by the time I got there, it was all over. These Dragon Boats are 20 person paddling canoes based on Chinese war canoes or something like that. Sorry I missed it. There was supposed to be music on the beach and lots going on, and arriving by 2 o'clock, I thought it would still be a party. Nope. Missed it totally.

Sunday, 21 May - I finished reading unabridged version of "The Count of Monte Cristo" this morning. I have a real love/hate relationship with reading. I love to read a good book, but once I get started, I frequently push everything else aside until I've finished the book. In the case of this book, which is probably the longest I've ever read, that meant I got little of anything else accomplished for several days. A great story, but I think a different translation might have been better. The writer and translator both obviously have incredible vocabularies, but all the characters in the book apparently have the same enormous knowledge of the language. In this translation, translated just two years after it was written in 1844, regardless of their level of education, pirate or banker, or slave or state's prosecutor, they all spoke with the same flare and broad usage of the language. I thought that a little odd.
                  I called Mark and Pat Becker, who I had met at Regatta Point, where I bought my boat, then again in Ft. Myers Beach and are now here in Marathon on their boat for a few weeks. We met for lunch at a local restaurant for lunch and had a great reunion.
                  Back at the dinghy dock at the marina, I needed to mail a letter and thought that, surely, they would have a letter dropbox available for after hours. Wrong! As I walked down the dock to my dinghy, I noticed a mermaid drinking from one of the water pipes that exit at the side of the quay. I watched for a moment, then headed further down the walk. She followed me. I know that even though they live in salt water, they love fresh water to drink. The hose that I fill my water jugs with was just ahead and the mermaid was traveling right along side me, so when I arrived at the spigot, I turned it on and turned the hose toward the mermaid. She swam right up, opened her mouth and drank voraciously, then rolled over on her back. I directed the water along her body, washing dirt and silt off her sumptuous body. She and I repeated this several times. I think she must have drunk about 10 gallons of water, and seemed to really appreciate the shower; I wished I'd had a brush, I'm sure she'd have liked to have had her back scrubbed. Then, she simply and ever so elegantly submerged and glided away. Mermaids are quite amazing creatures. They usually glide along serenely about 2 or 3 miles per hour but have been known to approach twenty when an attempt is made to catch them or if they are otherwise frightened. Luckily, I got some pictures. What a beautiful, streamlined body!
                  Later, about 8pm, I dinghied over to the Dockside Restaurant for their open mic night music. When I first arrived, a 99 year old stand-up comedian and trumpet player had just taken the stage. To be still performing at that age is admirable but, unfortunately, I believe he's well past his prime in timing and presentation of his jokes and his performance on the trumpet, too. Not BAD, just no longer good. The next fellow, I had met sitting at the bar at the Overseas Bar & Restaurant last week. Unfortunately, he and the backup group didn't ever seem to get in synch. He had talked "music" much better than he performed it. I guess that's why they're not headlining at a better venue. I left after only one drink and headed back to the boat.

Monday, 22 May - Since last night's music disappointed me so, I decided to go over to the Hurricane and listen to the band Fiddle Rock and have another pizza this evening.

Tuesday, 23 May - I cleaned up around the boat some, picked up my mail that I'd had my mail service forward to me and did some reading.

Wednesday, 24 May - I enjoy the trivia game that is played on the VHF radio here in the marina each morning along with the announcements for the harbor and I had run out of trivia to ask, so I spent some time this morning looking up a few things about M*A*S*H and some music trivia so I can try to stump the harbor. That's pretty hard to do here with the cumulative knowledge of all the boaters, regardless of the subject.
                  Having done that, I went out and cleaned and polished all the windows on the dodger, which is a protective covering that surrounds the cockpit. I had also planned on going to the open mic night at the Hurricane tonight, but I suspect that most of the performers will be the same as at Dockside, I think I'll go to the movie at the library instead. I may get wet, there are some pretty severe thunderstorms threatening this evening.