Friday, 18 May 2018 - This boat is over 40 years old. In all that time, as far as I can tell, the stovetop has been in darkness. I can't believe no one ever installed a light over it, so I did today. I don't cook much but it was hard to see if a pot was boiling on the stove it was so dark there.
                    Several people on the Cruisers' net have recently given rave reviews to a comedy play at the Marathon Community Theater called "Escanaba In Da Moonlight", so I decided to attend this evening. It was humorous, but not hilarious. Maybe I've lost my sense of humor.

Saturday, 19 May - It was raining or threatening to rain most of the day, so I inventoried spare parts for the diesel engine that are in a tool box in the starboard lazarette. They items are mainly hoses, gaskets, bolts, etc. Unfortunately, many of them are not identified and, even though I have a parts book for the engine, it's pretty useless. Even on the exploded views of the engine, they only identify about one part in twenty. A page might have 50 parts numbered but they only identify three or four of them. The few parts that are identified are merely identified as a screw (really a bolt), a gasket, a washer, etc. No sizes are given, nor does the book tell what they fit on. Very frustrating. I also finished stabilizing the wiring for the galley stove light I installed yesterday.

Sunday, 20 May - Another rainy day, so I spent most of the day reading but also took the compass off its mount to see if I could tell why the night light within it won't come on. I had thought I'd find a small, burnt out 12V automotive lamp in it, but that was not the case; it's just an LED. I'll have to look elsewhere for the problem. Maybe there's a loose connection on the white wire that goes to it or on the ground wire.

Monday, 21 May - By watching the weather radar on my phone, (That sounds weird, doesn't it?) I managed to scoot to shore, check for mail, pay for another month of dinghy dockage, and visit the library between storm cells and stay dry. This is the most rain we've had, in fact perhaps as much as we've had since I got here, total. Of course, I don't know what they got in the way of rain during hurricane Irma, but I do know that I've collected about 60 or 70 gallons of water off the top of the bimini top in the last few days and my 200 gallon water tank is almost full.

Tuesday, 22 May - I thought I'd simply walk over to the Home Depot and buy some plastic sheeting to wrap some of my paper charts in, but I couldn't find anything that would work in any department other than their receiving department, and it wasn't for sale. That option depleted, I decided to try Office Depot. They, too, had nothing. The closest they could come was their laminating sheets, which they won't sell; you have to laminate something, and that would cost a fortune, plus it would make the charts rigid and un-rollable. Not what I'm after. Upon walking as far as Office Depot, I decided I might as well go to the grocery store, which is only a couple of blocks further. I didn't need much, just some bananas and bread.

Wednesday, 23 May - Rain predicted again today, but I did make it out to see a movie at the library this evening without getting wet.

Thursday, 24 May - After finally getting a day that, even though it was cloudy all day, no rain was predicted and a day that I didn't need to go to shore, I got a chance to try, once again to stop the leaks in the dinghy. I think I've finally found the right product, 3M 4200 adhesive. It is tacky enough to hold the patches in place without clamping or compression, which I can't do because the dinghy has the metal hull which keeps me from being able to flatten it. I had thought that the contact cement would be the best solution, but, since the only way to get the tube stiff enough to roll the contact cement on hard is to inflate the tubes, air seems to be injected into the space between the layers if I do that. I'll know if this works well tomorrow. In the meantime, I got another surprise. The leaks that I had this time didn't seem big enough to lose as much air as was occurring, so I, once again, squirted soapy water into the valve to make sure it wasn't leaking air. I believe I've done that every time I patched the boat. This time it blew bubbles. Aaarg!! Replacing a valve would involve cutting it out and gluing a large patch that has another one in its place, or cutting a hole big enough to reach into and unscrew the existing valve plate off the valve from the inside of the tube. Not something I really want to do since I've had so much trouble patching the existing holes already. Big winds and lots of rain predicted for the coming weekend.