Thursday, 13 July 2017 - It rained lightly most of the day, but not enough, I think, to collect more than about 3 - 4 gallons of water with my new collection system tubing. I can't measure it accurately enough to tell exactly how much I collected. I was hoping that since it was going to rain, it would rain long enough and hard enough to fill my tank. I currently need about 40 to 60 gallons more to top the tank off. At least I know now how easy it is to set up and how simply it works. Actually, there really isn't much to go wrong...except for it to not rain enough or for a bird to poop on the bimini top during the rain storm.

Friday, 14 July - The woodwork dried out enough by about noon for me to apply the wood filler to the gouges, scratches, and voids in the teak woodwork on the deck of the boat. Then, in the evening, I went to the municipal park to watch the movie "Chasing Coral". I think this movies is a "must see" for everyone. Period. The time lapse photography on the coral reefs will blow you away and break your heart to see what we are losing. Unfortunately, we don't normally see what's beneath the surface of the oceans, but this movie opens that space to our eyes. The show was very powerful movie about what global warming is doing to the coral reefs and atolls and how that effects all the oceans, weather, and, indirectly, everything else on earth. They made several analogies to the fact that enough coral died WITHIN A TWO MONTH PERIOD OF PHOTOGRAPHING, one third of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, to equal having all the forests along the east coast of the United States die within the same time period. It was very eye-opening, however I thought they could have done a better job of emphasizing that not only the trees would be lost, but so would all the birds of the forest, the squirrels, the raccoons, the rabbits, the wolves and coyotes, the bears, the deer, bobcats and cougars, frogs, salamanders and skinks, and everything else that inhabits that forest. When the coral dies, along with it go 99% of the fish, eels, crabs, lobsters, anemones and urchins, and everything else that feeds on those animals, plus the protection that the reefs produce for the shoreline that they lie along; for instance, the Keys of Florida. Did you know that the barrier reef along the Keys of Florida is the third largest barrier reef in the world? and that the Keys are home to about twenty five percent of the species of fish in the world? With out the barrier reef along the Keys, all those animals would disappear, and I'm not saying swim away, they would perish, and the islands themselves would wash away. This movie opened my eyes to the plight we inhabitants or earth are in more than any other movie, news or magazine article, or "rumor" on the internet ever has. I truly hope that all of you will go see or rent this movie and encourage others to do the same. Unfortunately, the warming isn't even close to being over and won't be until we learn to control it. The movie is available on Netflix, among other places. People my age will, perhaps, only be annoyed and made uncomfortable by global warming during our lifetimes, but that's not all there is to it, and if you're worried about the world that your children, grand children and their children will live in, please go see this movie, then contact your legislators and get something done about it. We're in worse shape than you realize!

Saturday, 15 July - I started sanding the wood filling that I did yesterday, but was interrupted about noon by a rain shower that lasted about an hour. I think my water catchment system filled my tank with about 15 gallons of water. Started sanding about 3pm and, aargh!, more rain, just enough to get everything wet again, then it stopped. Gotta let things dry out again.

Sunday, 16 July - I attended a seminar on hurricane preparedness at the marina today. The seminar included what steps to take on the boat and some of the choices of destinations. Their best suggestion was to take the boat to Montana or Utah now, before there's any immediate threat because once a hurricane is close enough to determine its possible path, it's way too late to move because you can't outrun them and you can't predictably get out of their way. Some have even made turns that made people that had thought they were in their paths exude a sigh of relief only to have the storm completely reverse direction or make a loop and come roaring back. The meeting only lasted about two hours, but I spent the rest of the day going over and reading the brochures and looking at the web links that they gave us.
                  I thought I might actually get to the Dockside Bar in time to hear Fiddle Rock play before the open mic session started, but it was not to be. I ran out of gas about a third of the way there and had to paddle my dinghy back to the boat for another tank. I did miss their first set, but I also missed most of the jokes told by one of Dockside's most revered open mic participants. He's a 99 year old fellow that gets up each week and tells jokes that he probably used in a burlesque routine about 60 or 70 years ago, and plays the trumpet along with the band. I will admit that I admire his tenacity, but to tell the truth, his delivery and trumpet playing have both probably seen better days. I say probably, but in reality, if he was always this bad, he would have never been allowed on stage in his younger days. Everybody cheers in spite of that.

Monday, 17 July - As I sanded the last few days, I consequently got a better look at the flaws in the woodwork and spent all morning applying more wood filler to Island Time's exterior teak. Now I need to re-sand, stain the new wood filler, and get the Cetol painted on. I'm sure that'll take awhile.
                  At 7:30 pm I headed over to the Hurricane Bar for some pizza and met and dance with Liz and Jan there.

Tuesday, 18 July - I got started staining the fresh wood filler early this morning and finished in time to go meet Liz at Sombrero Beach for a swim and Jan showed up about 5:30 to join us. That was refreshing and we had nice clear water on the south side of the island today to swim in. There wasn't a breath of breeze here today and it would have been very hot onboard the boat. Since there was no wind and the wind charger wasn't charging, the solar panels couldn't keep up with the refrigerator by themselves, so when I returned to the boat, I had to run the generator for a couple of hours to recharge the batteries. Left over pizza for dinner. Yum!

Wednesday, 19 July - I painted the first coat of Cetol on the peripheral, deck teak woodwork today. It took about 6 1/2 hours because it involved moving lots of lines and all the gas and diesel jugs that are on deck. Unfortunately, unless the weather stays good, it will take about the same amount of time for each of the second and third coats. It looks a lot better now and is fairly well sealed against the weather again. I think I'll go to the library for a movie again to get out of the heat and humidity.

I hope you'll make time to rent, go see, or download Chasing Coral. I really do think it's the most graphic, convincing and motivational thing I've seen illustrating how we are destroying our planet.