Saturday, 30 September 2017 - I got a call from Mike of the S/V Whensday and the news wasn't good. When he attempted to start the sewing on my small sail, there were too many layers to fit under the foot of his sewing machine, to he took a file to it to widen the gap; then, when he tried again, it broke his machine, so I had to go get the sail back from him. Even when he gets the machine fixed, he won't be able to do the repairs, so I need to find another repairman.
                  Late in the afternoon it was hot so I went by myself over to the Overseas Bar and had one beer and as I returned to the marina, I met Jay and Tami from the catamaran "Avighna". They were on their way to dinner at a small Thai restaurant nearby that I'd been wanting to try out and were gracious enough to invite me along. They had ridden hurricane Irma out up at Little Shark River and I was interested in hearing about their experience there. I hadn't wanted to eat at that restaurant by myself because I would have only discovered what one of their entrees was like. By three of us going together, we ordered three entrees and ate family style, sharing all three dishes. The food was great, the pricing reasonable, and the stories wonderful. I'll definitely be returning to the restaurant and will be seriously considering Little Shark River as a place of refuge if the need arises again.

Sunday, 1 October 2017 - Just before dawn, the phone rang. It was Rob Zwergel, the fellow that had helped me pull the sails off my boat and then reinstall them the day that I left to run from hurricane Irma. I was already up, because he'd asked me to help him move his boat, Aspiration, back onto a mooring ball this morning. I had a quick snack just before he showed up in his dinghy to get me. We returned to his boat as dawn started to light up the sky. The high tide of the day was at about 7am, so we cast off the lines to shore and the off-shore breeze quickly moved us away from the dock. His 57' steel hulled sailboat draws 7.5 feet of water and according to the tide charts, that was almost exactly what we had. All went smoother, perhaps, than expected and we had his boat securely moored in Boot Key Harbor by 8 o'clock so he returned me to my boat.
                  Around eleven o'clock, I took the dinghy to shore and walked the mile and a half to the grocery store, then returned. Later, I took the bicycle to shore for the first time in months and went over to the lobster fisherman's marina to see what Steve Monaghan was up to. He wasn't there, he was at the grocery store, so I pedaled down there to meet him and accompany him back, then we went to dinner at the Overseas Restaurant. The last time we were there, they had two items on the menu. This evening they had about ten, so they're making a comeback.

Monday, 2 October - A breezy day here, which has moderated the temperatures a bit. All day was spent on the boat making phone calls to the VA to make an appointment for next week and to arrange for a ride to get there, and to my boat insurance company, and renewing the annual online Coast Guard documentation of Island Time. I hate the red tape. I'd much rather be "doing something."

Tuesday, 3 October - I had gotten a call yesterday from Will Aitken whose boat had been crushed under others at the "Bridge to Nowhere" about picking his insurance adjuster to Will's boat for an inspection, so I did that today about 10:30. It took about an hour and a half of my time, then most of this afternoon was spent on the internet trying to determine which dinghy parts will fit on my dinghy. I need a new seat and an oarlock base. I wasn't finding the brand of replacement parts on Amazon or Defender where I usually by marine parts. I finally talked to a fellow at Defender that said they could get the parts, but they're almost double the price of others they carry. He was pretty helpful and it sounds like he may be able to find me the brackets for the seat and I can find a good board to make the seat with. I, also, lost a nice padded seat cover that has several zippered pockets under the seat and couldn't find that on their site so he gave me the part number for that, too. I need to get these ordered so I'll receive them before my month of dock access expires along with the right to receive mail here at the marina.

Wednesday, 4 October - Rob Zwergel needed help on his boat again this morning, which gave me a chance to repay him for more of his time spent on my boat removing and then reinstalling my sails before my run to the Gulf to avoid Hurricane Irma. His boarding ladder had been seriously bent out of shape and the two of us, along with some two by fours and a bottle jack got it back into useable shape; not as pretty as before, but at least he can use it again. Later, I got down in the engine room again to take a look at the port alternator and take some pictures of it. They don't put any identifying marks of any kind on those darned things to help with repairing or replacing them. It's aggravating. Unless you know exactly what you have, which I don't, you have to take them into a shop to compare and see if they have a match. What a waste of time and energy.
                  It's been raining off and on and windy all day long, which has kept my batteries charged via the wind charger, but now it's getting too windy to leave it on. It could overcharge the batteries. It is supposed to stop rotating when you shut it off, up to about 30 kts, but I'm finding that's not true. If I turn it off above 20 kts., it continues to spin until the wind dies to below about 18 kts. That's ok if that happens relatively soon, but sometimes it continues for quite awhile. I'm not sure if that will overheat it or the controller or not, so I don't like to allow it. Unfortunately, a modification I made to its tail (I about doubled its size.) keeps me from rotating it away from the wind to allow it to slow down in such cases.

                  I've included a link to a couple of pictures I took this week of some of the damaged boats that still are visible in all directions. Some have been moved, lots are still piled up or sunken. It's going to be a long, expensive job to get these boats back in operable condition. Sometimes I see a beautiful boat that has been totally destroyed and think that maybe the owner, if he had it insured, is lucky. Lucky because he'll be able to buy another boat and not have to spend a year or more repairing the old one. Most will never be the same. I've also included two photos of just one of the huge piles of ruined objects they have collected off the streets to a central location to be moved off the island at another time. This isn't the city dump, just a temporary collecting spot to get the stuff off the streets so people can get around. There's everything you can imagine in those piles and so far the pile in the photo is about 40 feet high, occupies much of a city block and is growing fast daily.

Wait!!! Stop the presses! News flash! There's a woman yelling for help at 9 o'clock on a dark, rainy, windy night!
                  Just as I was about to send this off, a call from the other end of the harbor came over the VHF radio on channel 68, the cruiser's channel in the harbor. Someone could hear a woman yelling for help and his only boat was a rowboat. He figured someone else could reach her first, if he could raise someone on the radio. Several people responded and he gave the location he thought she was in and within moments someone else answered and was on his way to her in his skiff, then, within minutes, he was back on his hand held radio saying he had her out of the water, but the dinghy she had fallen out of was headed west with the motor running. Several people responded, others turned on flood lights on their boats and, again within minutes, it was spotted, chased down and returned. All's well in Boot Key Harbor. That's just one of the reasons this is considered one of the best cruiser's communities in the western hemisphere!