Friday, 27 April 2018 - I joined Peter of the sailing vessel For Elise for lunch today at Burdines. He had owed me lunch for rescuing him and a family of passengers awhile back when his dinghy's outboard motor died about 11 o'clock one night and I towed them back to his boat. On the way back to Island Time I tried to outrun a heavy downpour, but lost the race. Luckily, as it started to pepper me with raindrops, I quickly pulled my raincoat from under the seat on the dinghy and donned it, so I stayed dry in spite of the heavy rain and brief winds.
                    Patty Williamson returned from her trip back to Iowa to spend time with relatives. She flew to Ft. Myers to pick up the engine for her sailboat that was being rebuilt and brought it back in a rental car. When she got back here, I picked her up at the dinghy dock and took her back to her sailboat, Ms. Moxie.

Saturday, 28 April - Somehow through a memory reset or through the mysterious forces of nature, the depth gauge on Island Time had lost its proper setting, so I reset that today to show my true depth at the waterline. The wind hasn't been blowing much and the last couple of days hadn't gotten much sun either, so I ran the auxiliary Honda generator for a couple of hours today to charge the batteries, too. Also, as I was about to do some small re-re-re-re-re-repatching on the dinghy, Mark and Pat Becker happened by in their dinghy and stopped for a short chat. It was good to see them again. I had met them at Regatta Pointe Marina while I was buying the boat and then had seen them again at Ft. Myers Beach and, again, here last year. We made plans to meet for pizza and a beer tomorrow at the Hurricane Bar & Grill.

Sunday, 29 April - During the Cruiser's Net this morning on the VHF radio, the net controller mentioned that the wind would be very light today. I knew that the moon would be full tonight, indicating that it would rise as the sun set, so I asked if there was any interest in a dinghy drift. That's basically just a party on a bunch of dinghies rafted together out on the water. An emphatic "yes" was answer, so about ten people agreed to meet in the main channel of the marina at about 7 pm to share a few snacks, beverages, and stories while we watched the full moon rise.
                    Upon doing so, I realized that I needed to go to the food store for something to share. I had looked at my bike recently and knew that its tires were low on air so I took my bicycle pump to shore, pumped up the tires and headed off to the store. I bought a couple of fresh pineapples and headed back, but only got about 50 yards before I realized I had a flat rear tire, so I walked back to the marina with the bike. This had eaten up more time than I had planned, so I had to rush a bit to get the pineapple cut up, then head over to Ms. Moxie to pick up Patty Williamson so we could meet Mark and Pat Becker at the Hurricane for pizza and drinks. The pizza was great and so was catching up with Mark and Pat.
                    At 7 o'clock Patty and I headed over to the harbor's main channel and met up with about 10 other dinghies to watch the moon rise, drifted among the sailboats and watched the harbor lights spring to life and snacked on popcorn, peanuts, and pineapple. The night was absolutely perfect for the dinghy drift, a very light breeze, calm waters, clear skies, and about 75 degrees. A near perfect day and evening.

Monday, 30 April - About the only thing I got done today was refilling the hydraulic fluid in the too-small reservoir on the Autohelm autopilot steering mechanism. About two o'clock I headed to the marina on the way to the library to listen to group of not quite ready for primetime musicians playing. They meet there at 1 through 3:30 pm each Monday and I decided to go listen in. Unfortunately, I got waylaid at the dinghy docks and "had" to talk sailing with a couple of other boaters for about an hour. I got to the music gathering as it was about to break up, but did get to listen to about three songs before they ceased playing. They choose a song from a list of about 350 in their computer, then project the chords and the words onto a wall so everyone can see it, play it and sing along. Although there had been other musicians, all the players left by the time I got there were playing guitars. One fellow and one lady were pretty good, and the other four that I heard have a long way to go, but I still enjoyed it.

Tuesday, 1 May - As I headed to bed last night about 1 am I saw observed a single light over in the mangroves and assumed it must be another runaway dinghy. That proved to be true this morning when one of the boaters announced that they were missing theirs. Someone else volunteered to go get it and I told them where it was "hidden" in the mangroves. After that I pulled some of the patches on my dinghy back to re-re-re-re-re-re-re-glue them since only two of the four re-patches that I did on Saturday were effective. Two's better than none! Try, try again.
                    Awhile back, while talking on the phone to my brother, Mike, he said, "You've really put in a huge amount of time trying to repair that dinghy, why don't you just buy a new one? You could afford it." "Yes," I said, "but it would cost over $4,000 to replace it and, in doing so, I would have to admit defeat." One would hurt my pocket book and the other would bruise my ego. I'll keep trying until I run out of ideas or improve my technique.
                    About 5 o'clock a new boater to the harbor said she needed a ride to shore because she had lost their dinghy on the trip down here from Ft. Myers Beach and needed to get her dog to shore. No one else responded so I said I'd come get her. Storms had caught her on the way down here and the dinghy, which she was towing because her boat is too small to have davits or get the dinghy onboard, had swamped. A large funnel cloud was headed right at her boat and even with a double reefed mainsail, the dinghy was causing so much drag she couldn't pull it in or get out of the way of the funnel cloud and thought it best to cut it loose.

Wednesday, 2 May - Something I recently ate didn't agree with my digestive system, so I didn't get much sleep last night. Today I'm taking it easy onboard and defrosting the 12V freezer compartment while the steady 15 kt. breeze and sunshine recharge my batteries at a rate of about 15 amps. Once I turn the refrigeration back on, it will run continuously for about 20 hours before its thermostat shuts it off again. This evening, if I'm feeling up to it, I'll probably head over to the library again to return some DVDs, watch their Wednesday night movie and eat their popcorn.

Thursday, 3 May 2018 - Another day in Key West, although this one wasn't quite as pleasant as most. I guess I shouldn't complain because getting my teeth cleaned this time was cheaper than the last. The last time, here in Marathon, it cost me $400 for the teeth cleaning and one small filling; a total of about one hour's work. This time, in Key West, I got away for only $356, but I almost didn't get them cleaned. They were going to make me come back for a second visit to actually get them cleaned and charge me $251 just to X-ray my teeth and look at the X-rays. I got "lucky" when one of the dentists overheard me telling the office manager that I would have never come at all if I had realized that I would have to make a second trip. When I explained that it was an all day affair just to get there and back, the dentist suggested that I come back after lunch to see if they might have a cancellation or no show. That did happen and the dentist cleaned my teeth herself. I had left my boat at 7:30 AM and returned at 7:30 PM.

Friday, 4 May - With all the different models of devices on the market today, I end up spending totally inordinate amounts of time simply researching which ones I have and which products will be compatible with them. Today it was the charger for my MacBook Air. The charger has started shorting out and tripping the circuit breaker, so I obviously need to get a back-up unit for it. A repair that I did today may last quite awhile or may not. Without that charger, made for a 12V system like an automobile, I will have to use a 120V system plugged into the boat and powered by the inverter. That uses a lot more energy. Using the internet, it took me about 3 hours to confirm which of the thousands of chargers out there has the right voltage and amperage, the right connectors, etc. for my specific unit, but I finally got one ordered.

Saturday, 5 May - Cinco De Mayo - I took the air conditioning unit over to S/V For Elise this morning to sell it. I could tell it was going to rain before I returned and it did, but the person I was selling it to offered me a beer to kill the short time that the rain would last and I, of course, took him up on it. That done, I went over to an abandoned power boat that is sitting in very shallow water near my boat and that has had a deflated dinghy wash up and get caught on its anchor line. Someone had previously cut some of the hypalon from the dinghy and I did the same, including a couple of valves that I'll use as spares.
                    Cinco de Mayo is my mother's birthday and she always liked Mexican food and margaritas, so I decided to celebrate the occasion by taking Patty Williamson out to dinner at the only Mexican restaurant in town, El Molcajete, where I had my usual, enchiladas and a margarita. Muy bueno. Since I tried to go there on el Cinco de Mayo last year and they had already closed at about 6:30 because they ran out of food, I called them and asked what time we should get there to avoid the crowds and assure that they would still be open. We got there about 5 o'clock and sure enough, they were still open. In fact, the place was practically empty. Go figure.

Sunday, 6 May - I rescued and cleaned up another boat fender and yet another 5 gallon gas can from the mangroves today and I made a water run. It takes about forty five minutes to get 40 gallons of water at the marina and about 40 minutes to then empty the eight containers into the ship's water tank.

Monday, 7 May - My plans for today had a monkey wrench thrown into them after I dinghied and walked to West Marine and discovered that they were out of 3M 4200 adhesive. Neither they or Home Depot have any and they are the only places within walking distance that I thought might have it. The outboard acted as if it was going to run out of gas on the way back so on arrival back at the boat I checked the fuel tank. It was indeed low, so I started to switch it out with another only to discover that the replacement had developed a crack and had already leaked about a gallon of fuel out. I siphoned what was left into the tank in situ. I guess it's a good thing I found a 5 gallon gas jug in the mangroves yesterday! It's not a fuel tank, but at least it holds 5 gallons and is in good shape. I also modified the cutting board that I used to store in my Coleman camping stove to fit over the two galley sinks. The dimensions were already just perfect, but the corners needed rounding by about a quarter inch each. Now the board will fit right over the sinks without a chance of it falling into them or food that I'm chopping up falling over the edges. Juices will merely run off the edges and into the sink.

Tuesday, 8 May - Much of today was consumed by adding an item or two into and reorganizing things in the port lazerette.

Wednesday, 9 May - Several hours was spent today adding, restating, or correcting some definitions in my sailing page, which I hadn't done in a long time. It's very time consuming, especially when cross-linking several definitions. It, also, doesn't seem to matter how many times I go through that page, I still find lots of mistakes, misspellings, and other typographical errors.

            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