Friday, 2 February 2018 - I fully intended to go ashore and attend the Marathon Arts Festival today, but other things took precedence. Right after this morning's Cruiser's net on the VHF radio, someone responded to my ad to sell some boat fenders. They soon came to the boat and bought three from me. I think I still have three to sell, but was glad to get those off the boat. Since I had to wait for them a few minutes, I started to put the charts away that I had gotten out to go to the meeting yesterday, but decided to inventory them before putting them away so I can tell what charts I have and do not have without digging them out from under all the gear in the forepeak each time I get curious. Inventorying them and getting them put away ate up the rest of the day.

Saturday, 3 February - I intended to go to the art festival, but Robert Dahmer suggested it would be a beautiful day to go kayak through the natural channels in Boot Key, then go to the festival. We spent all morning in the kayaks exploring some of the channels and came out in Whiskey Creek, then Sister Creek, where I spent the first week or two anchored when I first got here. On our way back we kept a lookout for items in the mangroves worth salvaging. I found three more boat fenders but only brought two back to the boat. The third one has been there so long that a root of a mangrove tree has grown through the hole in one of the ends that you normally run a rope through. The root has grown to a diameter of about 1 1/2 inch, so I left it there. I also came back with a couple of 5 gallon water jugs, although one of them was damaged beyond use so I'll take it to the trash.
                    Robert and I planned on meeting at the art fair after cleaning up, but as I exited the showers on shore, I got a call from Patty Williamson asking me to go to the Sunset Grill for dinner and to watch the new band formed by some of the boaters here in the harbor. I called Bob to tell him "Sorry, I got a better offer." We had a good dinner and the band was good, but it was a bit cool sitting outside, so we decided to head to the Hurricane Bar & Grill to see what was going on. Randy, of the duo "Fiddle Rock" was playing with another newly formed group of locals, so we had a couple of drinks and danced to a few songs there before heading back to the marina. A great evening.

Sunday, 4 February - Since the Superbowl is today, the art festival ended yesterday and I missed it totally, but the harbor had a Sunday pot luck brunch this morning. Lots of great food and I ate too much and met more new boaters. Mid-day, I returned to the boat with 25 more gallons of water, then returned to watch the Superbowl on a big screen TV in marina common room. I had eaten so much at brunch I was sure I wouldn't eat anymore...then they brought out the pizza and chips and dips, and pies, and cake. Stuffed myself again. Great game, too. I took home 25 more gallons of water after the game, too.

Monday, 5 February - I sold one more of the boat fenders this morning for $20. That makes getting them out of the mangroves worthwhile and is a great price for the buyers, too. The ones I'm finding and selling sell for about $60 new. Now if I could just sell the mainsail and canoe I have! I still have two kayaks, too, but may keep one for me and the other for friends to use when they visit, although if I sail very far, I'll want at least one of them off the deck. I finally decided which chain to order and got that done this afternoon. It should be here within a few days. My old chain has lost all its galvanizing and has really rusted up. That causes it to flake rust off and thins the links down. All the links don't thin down, mostly the links that are near the surface of the water when I'm anchored, but since I usually have out about 80 to 100 feet of rode, that means the middle of the chain is what ruined first. That's a shame. If it were the ends going bad, I could merely shorten the chain a bit by cutting short sections away and still use it, but cutting out 20 feet in the middle makes two pieces, each of which are too short to use. You can't use a connector in the middle because the shackle wouldn't go through the anchor windlass. I use about 50 feet of chain and 250 feet of nylon rope on my other anchor, but it's in good shape because I don't leave it in the water much. Maybe I'll get lucky and find someone else that can use the good portions of my old chain. I hate to simply throw it away.

Tuesday, 6 February - I wanted to spray registration numbers on the dinghy today since I had to remove them to paint the boat, but it was too windy. Instead, I spent the day putting things away and cleaning up. During the winter, since it is cooler, I have the boat closed up more than in the summer, so mildew starts growing on the walls, ceilings, cabinets, etc., so removing it is an ongoing battle. It's not hard work, just time consuming.
                    Another thing I tried to do today, but failed at, was watching the launch of the SpaceX Heavy Rocket. I believe it would be possible to see from here, but unfortunately, a cloud bank formed to the north of us so we couldn't view the launch.

Wednesday, 7 February - I received a call from the motorcycle shop that I ordered the chain from this morning. The chain has arrived in a 300 lb. cardboard barrel with metal lid and bottom. The fellow that I ordered it from asked that I come over and remind the owner, who had told me that he'd deliver it to the marina for me, that he had, indeed told me that. I dinghied in and walked over to the shop. The owner balked at first, saying it was too heavy for them to load onto his truck. I told him I'd load it onto the truck if he'd deliver it and he looked at me like I was crazy. Certainly there was no way I could lift that barrel by myself. He suggested I go find help. Since I don't know enough people here to help me with it, I said I'd do it by myself. I rolled the barrel over beside his truck, then took the lid off and got in the bed of the truck with one end of the chain and proceeded to pull it into the bed of the truck about 3 feet at a time. I let them keep the barrel. He delivered it after he left the shop in the evening and I simply reversed the procedure into a wheelbarrow at the marina, rolled it down the ramp to the dock and pulled it out of the wheelbarrow. I measured off thirty feet on the dock and laid it out in six rows of thirty feet, plus the remaining twenty, then put one bright yellow tie-wrap marker at thirty feet, two at sixty, three at ninety, etc., until I had it all marked. I added two markers about five feet from the end to let me know when the end is about to come out of the chain locker, then, with the dinghy tied snugly to the dock, I loaded into the boat. Several boaters questioned whether the dinghy could handle that much weight, but I said it weighed no more than two more people in the boat and they were satisfied. It's a five man dinghy, so it could handle the weight with ease, especially since the weight was all in the bottom. Back at Island Time, I tied up to the bow, climbed aboard and raised the chain to the deck three feet at a time. No problem. Now I have to raise the old chain and remove it from the anchor, then replace it.

Thursday, 8 February - Although I had to miss the trivia section of the Cruiser's Net on the VHF this morning, I got a pleasant surprise. I heard the boat being hailed and went on deck. There was a man in his dinghy with a $100 bill in his hand wanting to trade it for the fiberglass canoe I found it the mangroves. Yes! I was beginning to think it wasn't going to sell. He handed me the bill, I threw the canoe off the deck into the water and away he went. Yahoo!
                    After he left, I checked the weather to see how much wind we'd be getting in the near future and realized that although I need to get the anchor chain replaced and it would be nice to have light winds for that, it would be more important to stencil the numbers on my dinghy before I get a ticket, since I had to remove the numbers when I patched and painted it. Since I'm going to stencil it on with spray paint, light winds are a must. I'd been using vinyl registration numbers, but they get damaged and need to be replaced way too often. I hope the painted ones do better. Both sides of the bow of the dinghy need to be numbered, so while the paint dried on the first side, allowing me to remove the stencils, I defrosted the freezer again. It sure seems like I just did this a few weeks ago. I've decided not to ever let the ice get 3 inches thick like it did before. Frost is a lot easier to melt than solid ice. It went pretty quickly today. I have a small fan that I inserted into the compartment to move warm air through the box and that really sped up the process. I have to run the inverter to power the fan, but the fan uses very little energy. I just wish I could stop the ice from forming in the first place.

            Until next time.

                        "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!" - Hunter S. Thompson

                                          Rick