Thursday, 2 November 2017 - Today I worked on the dinghy and tried to trouble shoot the wind instrument wiring again.

Friday, 3 November - I was trying to get water out of the starboard tube on the dinghy by pumping it up, then standing on the tube to get the water to flow back and forth past the hole in the bottom of the tube when Jay and Tami from the S/V Avighna came by and wanted to know what kind of yoga I was practicing. I laughed and then explained what I was doing, then told them that Steve had helped me up the mast Monday and what we'd determined. Jay, again, offered help with the diagnosis, and, of course, I took him up on it. They came aboard, but Tami soon realized we could be awhile, so she returned to their boat. Jay ran me up the mast again to test out each of the five wires in the cable for the wind instrument and all the wires appear to be fine. I brought the anemometer back down the mast and we tried to check all the circuits again directly by putting jumper wires directly from the anemometer to the gauge, but could not get any reading whatsoever. Neither of us could understand that. If we can, at least, get a reading for the wind speed with the wires connected between the two, why can't we get any reading without them?
                  I took Jay back to Avighna, had a cold drink with them, they showed me some of the nice features and rigging on their catamaran, then I immediately went to get Steve returning from work. He brought dinner fixens, cooked them up and we watched a good movie on his iPad.

Saturday, 4 November - I returned to the boat after taking Steve ashore, had breakfast and listened to the Cruiser's net, then immediately headed back to shore to help with the marina clean-up. There were about twenty volunteers picking up trash and getting flotsam out of the water around the docks in the marina. Wow! What a difference it made! It actually looks like a place you might want to spend some time in again; other than the fact that we discovered that there's still at least one sunken vessel in the channel and the docks need about a half million dollars worth of work done on them.

Sunday, 5 November - It appears that Steve has a seven day a week job, so I took him ashore then returned and took resistance readings on the pins on the anemometer to see if there were any shorts between any of the pins. There were not. After that I took my friend Jan Johnson's advice and sprayed Flex Seal (as seen on TV) on some of the leaks in the dinghy. I wish it would cure faster. You're supposed to let it dry for 24 hours, but I'll need to use the dinghy to get Steve after work. I didn't bother with the two big holes in the bottom of the tube. I still haven't gotten the water out of the tube yet, but I am making progress. After spraying the dinghy I reinstalled the jib on its stay, plus the sheets (control lines) for it. The sail went on easily and the repairs look good.

Monday, 6 November - I sprayed another coat of Flex Seal on the leaks that I sprayed yesterday, plus sprayed several abraded spots that weren't leaking and added new registration letters and numbers to the port side of the dinghy that had been rubbed off.

Tuesday, 7 November - The patches that I've done so far have held well with the exception of the one at the union of the hull and the hypalon tube, but I'm still trying to get all the water out of that tube. My biggest problem is going to be that I need to use the dinghy daily, so slow curing adhesives, which are supposed to be the best, won't work for me. I'm hoping that once I get the water out of the tube, a good spraying of the Flex Seal will have enough time to dry sufficiently even though it is supposed to dry for considerably longer than I can allow it to. I'm torn between spraying it during the day, whose warmth will dry the adhesive faster, or in an evening, which would allow it to cure longer. I have hypalon glue, but it needs to cure for several days and contact glue won't run into crevasses well enough so I'm stuck with the Flex Seal spray.

Wednesday, 8 November - I went ashore today and renewed the dinghy registration then caught a cab to my (finally) dermatology appointment. Shortly after getting back from the appointment, Steve got off work and we went to the library to watch one of the Star Wars movies and gobble some popcorn.

Thursday, 9 November - I spent much of today trying to disassemble the anemometer and wind vane pod that contains the electronics inside. It is about as big as a goose egg and shaped the same. The vane and cups for the anemometer are easy to remove, having only one tiny screw each. After removing those, it appears that it should simply screw apart, and indeed, after searching YouTube for videos of its disassembly, it is supposed to. It has four holes molded into it that look like it might accept some kind of four tonged spanner wrench, if need, but it the videos, they simply unscrew it as if it is only finger tight. Not mine! I have a spanner wrench and both Steve and I have tried to get it open, singly and together. All I can imagine is that someone sealed it with some sort of glue. I even tried whacking it with a rubber mallet to break it loose without success. I looks like the internal electronics would be easy to replace...IF I could get it open without destroying it.

Friday, 10 November - Today's highlight was another harbor cleanup. This time it was out on the water getting things out of the mangroves. Working by myself I got a trash can lid and a rather large A-frame type signboard that looked virtually new and belonged to the local country club, promoting their dining experience out from about 10 feet into the mangroves by climbing in after them and using my boat hook to reach further. Next, I decided to get a Sunfish sailboat that was about 30 feet back into the mangroves. I can't imagine that it washed in that far. I had to take it out by turning it on edge, braking lots of limbs, grunting, pushing and pulling, etc. I wonder if it got there by being blown over the top. Luckily, it didn't have too many barnacles or mussels attached and after getting it out, I got it up over the front of the dinghy far enough to take it to a larger boat so they could take it to shore. While I was at the larger boat, another dinghy came to transfer their collection and I recruited them to help me with an even bigger project and one that others had eschewed because it looked too difficult, a section of wooden dock about 4 feet by 10 feet that was in the mangroves. The Sunfish was much further into the mangroves, but at least, once I got most of the water out of it, it was light. The dock was another story. It was all I could do to lift just one corner of it while balancing precariously on the mangrove roots. Again, I volunteered to climb back into the jungle and attached a line to it, then passed the line to the other couple, Jay and Barb. Their dinghy was small, with a small engine and had a blade missing on its propeller, so Jay got in my dinghy, which has a 15hp Yamaha on it and pulled when I told him to. After about 20 minutes and ten tries, out it came. Much easier than the sailboat had been. I then towed it over to the larger boat that couldn't come into the shallows. Most of the others were collecting small trash, but I did see a refrigerator, several large hatch covers, several dinghies, and an outboard motor come ashore, plus a small jet boat that Steve and I had seen on the other side of the harbor when we went to Sombrero Beach a couple of weeks ago and was brought ashore today by Steve and Tami Klassen of S/V Avigna.
                  When everybody finished, we had another dinner with fried chicken, potato salad, raw carrots, beer, wine, etc. I'm sure that we saved the city many hundreds of dollars cleaning up what we did today, but we barely touched the surface. We'll do it again next Thursday.
                  By the way, as bad as it is here, the destruction isn't nearly as horrific as the photos of some of the islands down it the Caribbean that got a one-two punch with one hurricane following another. I saw one photo of over a hundred boats piled against and onto of each other in one harbor.

Saturday, 11 November - Most of today was spent fooling with the dinghy, whipping the ends of several ropes onboard, and trying to open the Raymarine Wind Instrument one last time. I guess I'm destined to buy a new one for $300.

Sunday, 12 November - It sprinkled a bit this morning and the coupling for the wind vane / anemometer at the top of the mast is exposed. The weatherman had said no rain. I decided I'd better cover that connector so I called Jay Klassen and ask him to control my safety line while I climbed the mast again. He an Tami came right over and I went to the top of the mast and made one more feeble attempt to see if the sensor might work. It did not, so I removed it again and covered the connector with a plastic bag and put a rubber band on it. When I got down, the said they were headed to the city park for lunch at a "Taste of Marathon" celebration which had about 20 food concessions, some art booths and live entertainment all afternoon. I joined them, had some BBQ ribs, tacos, a cheese hot dog, and heard a couple of bands play. The fellow that used to play at the Dockside Cafe before Irma hit, and is turning one hundred years old was celebrating today. He told some of his jokes, all of which I have heard him tell several times, and played a number or two on the trumpet with one of the bands. He's terrible, but he's one hundred. We forgive him. We stayed about 2 or 3 hours and headed back to the marina.

Monday, 13 November - Upon returning from dropping Steve off for work this morning, I just couldn't resist trying to open the "egg" on the anemometer transducer one more time. I got out the rubber mallet, sprayed the egg with WD-40, whacked it about a hundred times, and....finally got it open. The printed circuit board inside pops right out and will be extremely easy to replace, if I can get one ordered. It should cost about $100 instead of the $300 for the whole unit. Yahoo!!!
                  After doing that, I walked to the UPS store to return a seat for the dinghy that turned out to be too short. An expensive mistake. The seat cost $50, but cost $30 to return.

Tuesday, 14 November - I got back down into the engine room again today and measured the run for a replacement cable from the port alternator to the shunt. I need to get Jay Klassen to order that 14.5 foot 2/0 copper wire, the lugs for the ends, a new circuit board for the wind instrument, a new voltage regulator that will handle both alternators, a couple of gallons of oil for an oil change on the diesel, and a few other items with the discount at West Marine that his wife Tami has through a canvas repair company she worked for. Steve says he won't get off work until about 8 or 9pm this evening, so I'll have leftover pizza for dinner from last night's visit to the Hurricane.
                  I've been watching one of the crane barges of and on all day, trying to extricate the largest catamaran from the side channel near me today. They tried early, but couldn't raise it, so the released their hook, then swung around with the crane and lifted a large water pump on the other end of the barge and moved it close to the beat so they could get more of the water out. I guess it was so low in the water that the 8 inch hose couldn't get ahead of the water coming in, so they eventually sent divers down to attach airbags underneath it to raise it higher. They tried several time to lift it today, but quitting time arrived and it's still in the water blocking the whole channel. I'm sure the people whose house it is in front of will be glad to see it go. That won't clean up their waterfront, however, because there is a large powerboat behind the catamaran and another, two masted sailboat sunken so deep that only the masts are visible sunken there, too.

Wednesday, 15 November - I went to Avighna, Jay and Tami's catamaran today and we looked up the order numbers for the parts I need. They'll go to West Marine tomorrow and order them. They, also, showed me a cheaper price on the voltage regulator that I need, so I came back and ordered that over the internet.
                  As I took Steve in this morning, I suggested that, surely, they'll get the big, sunken catamaran out of the channel today and he said, "Or tomorrow." Neither of us may be right. When they tried to lift it, that million dollar cat just broke into pieces and they're having to pull it out one piece at a time. The largest piece I've seen them pull out was the bimini top. I went right into a cargo container "trash can" on the deck of the barge, as will the rest, I guess.
                  We're off to watch "Star Trek" at the library this evening, so I'm getting this out a week late, but an hour or two early.

Thursday, 16 November - Well, getting this out, as you can see, didn't happen. My laptop absolutely refused to upload the images for this episode to iCloud yesterday evening so I'll have to try again. Today was a busy day. I participated in another harbor cleanup today for a couple of hours. Kevin Vallee happened by my boat on his way to the cleanup, so I joined him on his dinghy and we headed to the south end of the "bridge to nowhere", an old, unused bridge that used to link Boot Key to Vaca Key here in Marathon. THey've removed the old drawbridge section so boats can pass through unobstructed now that the bridge is unused. There was a huge amount of trash there and Kevin and I only made a small dent in it, but we did haul out a couple of dinghy loads and towed out an old paddle boat. After unloading that trash and helping with others, we had lunch at the Tike Hut at the marina. There were about 25 people on the cleanup project and at the lunch.
                  Later, since Steve didn't feel like going out, I went ashore, met Jay and Tami, and we walked over to the Hurricane to have dinner and listen to Fiddle Rock, who were playing in town for two nights only. There was a large crowd and Fiddle Rock, which is a duo, were accompanied by an additional drummer, a bass guitarist, and the guitarist's wife singing a couple of songs, and they sounded better than ever. Since Steve, the guitarist of the duo, lost his boat, they're not playing in Marathon regularly anymore and they are sorely missed by their followers, me included.