Sunday, 1 July 2018 - A day of rest and to just enjoy being here.

Monday, 2 July - Since the library will be closed on Wednesday for the holiday, I went there to return some movie DVDs and get some more. I had also intended to go to the Hurricane Bar for their pizza/beer special and to listen to Fiddle Rock, but just as I was headed over there, Dave from S/V Barefoot Gal told me that because of an illness in the family, they wouldn't be playing this evening, so I went right across the street from the marina to the Overseas Pub for dinner, instead. Their chimichanga was pretty good, as was the margarita. I've got to quit getting those margaritas, they double the price of the dinner...Sure are good though.

Tuesday, 3 July - I got the boat readied to motor out, then tried to weigh the anchor. Raising the anchor took a considerable amount of time longer than it should. The chain was hung up on something, as was the anchor itself. When I got about 45 of the 90 feet of anchor chain out of the water, the anchor chain dropped right off the bow as if the anchor was directly below it. I had to put a strain on the chain with the winch over and over until something broke. Luckily, it wasn't my windlass, chain, or anchor. I don't know what gave way, and never will, but with the anchor itself, I had to do the same thing and it had a broken rope and a broken pipe hanging off of it when it cleared the surface of the water. Who knows what all is on the bottom of this harbor after several hundred years in use as a safe harbor for sailing and power vessels alike. I'm sure there's a lot of history down there on the bottom.
                    Since I still had the awning mounted, although bundled up, I had decided to motor around to Sombrero Beach to watch the fireworks tomorrow, plus most of the trip would be into the wind and I couldn't use the sails much anyway.
                    Although the bay in front of the beach is fairly large and you might assume that it is fairly deep, it is not. I had to anchor about a third of a mile off shore to be in 9 feet of water, leaving about two and a half feet under my keel. It was nice to have clear water under me in which I could actually see the bottom and the night was very nice with a mild breeze and one and a half foot waves and a little swell coming in from the southeast.

Wednesday, the Fourth of July 2018 - I got up, had breakfast, listened to the Cruiser's Net, which I can still receive across the island, then headed to shore via dinghy to watch the parade that started at the high school and ended at the beach. I had read it was supposed to start at 11 o'clock, but it was either awfully short, or it started at 10, not 11. At any rate, I got there just as it ended. I walked the beach and saw absolutely no one that I know, had a hot dog around noon while listening to one of the bands, then headed back to the boat for a few hours. I went back to shore around 5 o'clock to listen to some music again, the back to the boat to see the fireworks over the water. They started later than I would have thought, about 10 o'clock, but this island puts of a pretty good fireworks show, synchronized to music. I think it lasted about 39 minutes. A perfect day and evening.

Thursday, 5 July - I awoke to a beautiful day and since the water off Sombrero Beach is so clear I decided to scrape the barnacles off the hull of the boat. I think this may have been the clearest water I've cleaned the hull in and the timing was perfect. Any other place I've cleaned the boat hull I might not have noticed something extremely important. There were a few clouds in the distance, so I checked the radar and weather report. It indicated that a squall or two might pass near around three o'clock, so I decided to hurry. After a couple of hours getting ready by setting up the Hookah breathing system, Honda generator, and assembling and donning my dive and cleaning gear, I jumped in and cleaned the propellor first, then the starboard side of the rudder and hull. I moved to the port side and made one pass, stern to bow, cleaning from the bottom of the keel up to about 3 feet from the surface, then started toward the aft cleaning the shallower portion. While still at the bow, the boat really started bouncing violently, indicating the waters were getting rough. Real rough. I use a suction cup to hold me in place on the hull while I'm scraping and it felt like it was going to yank my arm off as the bow rose and dove again. I was getting tired, but really wanted to finish, so I scraped even faster. About at the mid-section of the boat however, I looked down and realized, here it the, thankfully clear water, the boat was actually moving through the water, and at a rather fast pace. That could only mean one thing: the anchor had broken loose from the bottom and the boat was being blown toward shallow water. I had to move fast! At least as fast as a guy can move with all his diving gear on. My old swim fins were really hard to get off, but they mysteriously disappeared and I recently replaced them with fins with two buckles on each side of each fin; one to facilitate ease of adjustment, and the other to simply release the foot strap so the fin can just slide off. That came in very handy today. Of course, I still had to get myself and all the equipment out of the water and onto the deck, get the weight belt and buoyancy compensator off, shut down the compressor and generator, etc., all in a panic! By the time I got all this done and checked my depth, I had gone from 9 feet of water to about 7. That leaves about 6 inches before hitting bottom, and the bottom isn't absolutely flat.
                    I took a quick look and lined up a tree and a radio tower on shore and realized that while I was getting out of my gear...lo and behold, my anchor had reset itself. Thank God. I slowed my heartbeat and decided to observe the shore and the weather for the next thirty minutes to see if the storm was still picking up and if I was still dragging the anchor. Luckily, the squall died off and the anchor held. Shallow water was still too close for comfort, but I decided to finish the hull before moving so I got back in my gear and into the water and quickly finished, then I got back out, took off all the gear and put it in the cockpit where it couldn't go overboard, then hauled the anchor up and set out to go back to the harbor and its protected waters.

Friday, 6 July - Much of today was spent rinsing, drying, and putting away the diving gear and the compressor from having cleaned the hull yesterday. A beautiful, sunny day with a nice breeze to keep it from feeling too hot.

Saturday, 7 July - Off to the grocery store today, then after putting away the food, I went and rescued another virtually new 5 gallon water jug worth about $30 from the mangroves. It's clean, but missing a part of one cap, but I think I have a spare. I really can't understand why people don't put their names on their belongings.