Friday, 22 December 2017 - Wow! Yesterday was the winter solstice and today seemed several seconds longer already! It's nice to have the long days back.
                    Steve took off for Ft. Myers today to visit an ex, or not, girl friend. That means I won't be having to use my dinghy as much. Maybe I can get it dried out and repaired while he's gone. He'll be back the Wednesday after Christmas.
                    I thought I might get to sell my extra mainsail today, but now I'm starting to doubt it. The fellow on the boat next to me had shown interest in it even though he might have to shorten it a bit to fit on his new boat. I thought he wanted to possibly have a sailmaker inspect it this morning, but that didn't happen and I overheard another sailor, Holly on S/V Another Adventure, offering him a used sail that she has on her boat and wants to get rid of before she takes off for points south, so that may kill my deal with him for my new sail. You can't blame him. If her sail is in decent shape, it will be a lot cheaper. Oh well, I think all the boaters in the harbor would miss me advertising mine each morning on the VHF Cruiser's Net if I sold it. Everybody knows the guy with the sail for sale, whether they've met me or not.

Saturday, 23 December 2017 - I awoke at low tide this morning at 5:30 and discovered the boat was listing to starboard about 10 degrees, so later today, I pulled in about 10 feet of anchor chain to see if it will keep me off the bottom tonight. Two fuel jugs and a small dinghy fuel tank took up most of my day today. I cleaned the insides of them by putting lead shot from one of my diving weights in them along with soap and water to shake grungy accumulations loose and clean them out good. I also removed the 8 hp. Evinrude outboard motor from the railing and mounted it on the back of the small dinghy that Steve acquired recently. Tomorrow I'll hook it up and try to start it. It hasn't been started in over a year, so that may or may not be easy.

Sunday, 24 December, Christmas Eve - I decided it would be more fun to go see Star Wars: The Last Jedi than it would be to try to start the Evinrude. I saw that it 3D today, then went grocery shopping. On returning, I called S/V LOL, my French friends, Pierre and Jessy, on the VHF to see if they were onboard. They were so I took a bottle of good red wine over to their boat to share and the next thing I knew, they were inviting me to have dinner with them. It was wonderful: Stone crab claws, salmon, salmon caviar, wine...and for dessert, chocolate mousse with fresh strawberries a la bomba! Absolute wonderful! Good food, good wine, good friends.

Monday, 25 December, Christmas Day 2017 - They had a contest to see how many languages the cruisers in the harbor could say "Merry Christmas" in this morning on the Cruiser's Net on the VHF radio. They managed over 15 different languages. We obviously have a variety of nationalities represented and quite a few world travelers, too. Boot Key Harbor celebrated the day with a fantastic pot luck dinner. Cajun turkey, BBQ turkey, roast turkey, deep fried turkey, turkey cooked it pineapple juice, and a couple I've already forgotten, marvelous curry rice, yams, a fantastic cranberry sauce like I've never had before, baked beans, two or three different stuffings, cajun rice, many salads, three or four types of Christmas ham, and on and on. No shortage of great food and vocal and keyboard entertainment by a couple on one of the boats. I sat at a table with a French couple, Pierre and Jessy, and a couple from Great Britain.
                    Shortly after I got the boat and was moving things from the motor home to the boat, I met a young brother and sister on the boat next to me. The girl had bought the boat and they were living on it, a catamaran. I thought she might be inspired by a book I had, Maiden Voyage by Tania Aebi. Tania was a school dropout, bicycle messenger in NYC, and a barfly at night until her father gave her a challenge; a paid college education or a 26 foot sloop to sail around the world alone on. She took the boat. I offered the girl on the boat next to me the loan of the book with the understanding that I wanted it back within a week or two. Of course, I never got the book back. That wouldn't be too bad, IF I knew she eventually read it, but I wonder... This afternoon, after dinner I was standing in the marina common room where the dinner was held, a room that looks like it was probably originally a garage, but now has one wall pretty well covered by books of all sorts supplied as a lending library by the boaters themselves; probably a thousand books. I was thinking, "I wonder if a copy of "Maiden Voyage" is somewhere on that wall? Unfortunately, every time I've look at the books in the past, there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to their order, so I knew I would have to either look through all of them or just get VERY lucky. Fat chance of that, I thought. A walked to the left end, top shelf and...right there about seven books from the end was a copy of that exact book! I couldn't believe it! Well, it is Christmas.
                    I have 113 Christmas songs on my iPhone, so this evening I'm listening to a few. Most are old standards including novelty songs, orchestrations, carols, chorals, instrumentals, etc. I don't listen to the often, so a whole evening of them seems nice.
                    A very enjoyable Christmas for me. I hope yours was, too.

Tuesday, 26 December - The vibram soles of my Chacos sandals are coming off so I'm having to reattach them with Shoe Goo. It's worked pretty good for me in the past. I finished hooking up the gas container in Steve's dinghy, but since I didn't have gas mixed for it, I didn't start it up.

Wednesday, 27 December - Steve got back to Marathon about 1:30 this morning, so I took my dinghy in and got him at the dinghy dock.
                    This morning I went ashore and as I stepped ashore, the sole of the Teva sandals that I had to wear because my Chacos were still curing almost fell off. I felt like an idiot walking around with most of the sole flopping loudly with each step. I'm out of Shoe Goo so I had to use contact cement to re-adhere the sole when I returned to the boat.
                    Later, I took the dinghy to Burdines to get gasoline for the dinghy and the generator. I took eight containers with me and got 2 gallons of gas. The fellow there said he never knew a dinghy could use so much gas. Upon my return, I started the Evinrude outboard on Steve's dinghy and took it for a short spin close to Island Time at first, but eventually got further away as soon as I felt assured that it was going to run right.
                    Tonight was free movie at the library, so I went to see Ulee's Gold, but about ten minutes into the movie, the projectionist turned the volume down so low that I couldn't hear it. I had found the beginning of the movie slow too, to I got up and left. Steve had eaten and come to the library, but he must have been really tired. As I left the library and prepared to call him, I spotted his car in the parking lot and found him asleep in it. We returned to the boat and watched a movie called "Bright" on his iPad.