Friday, 31 August 2018 - Today, all day, was spent making the final two eyes with thimbles in the aft lifting cables of the new dinghy. At two hours, I thought the first one would be the one that took the longest because I initially bent the cable off by a few degrees and had a tough time correcting it. However, the second one took about five hours. I've learned a lesson. While at West Marine making up the four original eyes, I cut all the cables to the exact length needed, thinking that it would be easier to do while I had their work bench, vise, and crimper. I knew these would be tougher and that's why I put making these off for a couple of days. What went wrong was that the end became frayed and caused the individual wires to dig into the interior of the sleeve and the other part of the cable, so I couldn't push it in all the way. Now I realize I should have made them at least a couple of inches too long. That would have given me a tail that I could have inserted through the sleeves. The tail would have given me something to pull on instead of having to push the cable into the sleeves. Too late now. I have two more to go, the ones for the front of the dinghy.

Saturday, 1 September 2018 - Wow! How time flies. My dad warned me about this...the older you get the more time accelerates, and it's true. When you're a kid, a summer seems like forever and when you're a "senior citizen", you blink your eyes a couple of times and it's over. Is summer over? I do believe it's started to cool down here already...and I don't think it rained as much last summer as this year. Actually, it hasn't rained a lot, just frequently. Sometimes just long enough to either get everything wet or make me close the boat up, then it stops. Last night about 4am, I actually had to pull a sheet over me. That's the first time in several months. Right now a squall is passing through. It started sprinkling, so I closed the boat up and since the water temperature is 85°F, the interior of the boat warms up real fast when it is closed up. Now the wind is blowing at up to 25 mph and raining a little harder, but radar shows it won't last but about 10 minutes. Sometimes it will rain three or four times in a day with a total of about 10 or 15 minutes sometimes hard, most of the time just a sprinkle.
                    Today I finished installing the cables for the dinghy lifting system except shrinking the heat shrink tubing on the eye splices. I have one more splice to do which is on the 20 foot cable that allows me to lock the dinghy to a dock. I needed a rubber washer to go in the hole through the deck plate to protect the cable sheathing from getting scraped off as I pull it out and push it back into the locker. I went to West Marine, but they didn't have any, so I got in the dinghy, went to the marina and checked out a bicycle, then went to Home Depot. They had packages with two of the right size and eight of the wrong size, but as I looked at them, I realized that the rubber was so soft that it would ware out very fast, and, once it wears out, there's no way to replace it without cutting the eye-splice and thimble off the cable and replacing them. I need something much more durable. I found it in the electrical section and it's called a 1/2" terminal connector. It's actually a two piece hard plastic through-hole connector for, apparently, electrical conduit. Since it is designed to fit over the outside of conduit, I'll saw that part off each piece and have exactly what I need, hard, durable protection for my cable sheathing. It cost less than a dollar for the two pieces, a lot better than the $17 at West Marine for a through-hull connector.
                    I see tropical storm Florence is accelerating and heading west. It's moving up to 14mph now with 52 mph winds, but, at least for now, is expected to pass well to the east of us. I'll keep an eye on it.

Sunday, 2 September - Shortly after breakfast this morning, about 11 o'clock, I got started on my one and a half hour project for the day, drilling a hole in the deck of the dinghy's bow locker and installing the security cable and making one eye splice. I finished about six o'clock after realizing that the thimble and swaging sleeve I had were the wrong size and having to dinghy to West Marine once again. Still, most of the day was spent actually making the eye; it is definitely a multi-handed job - three, if not four, unless you have a rigger's tools, which I do not.
                    High winds are predicted for tonight, anywhere from 25 to 45 mph, so I decided I'd sleep a lot better tonight if I had a second anchor out. It's been almost a year, 357 days, I believe since hurricane Irma, and I've used only one anchor all that time, but if we get 45 mph winds, I don't think one will hold Island Time in this mud. I started the engine to pull forward and drop a second anchor, then looked east up the harbor. Holy Mackerel! There was a wall of wind and rain bearing down on me that I couldn't see through. I decided to put off dropping the anchor, knowing I might need the engine just to hold me in place. Luckily, it didn't last long. Ten minutes and it was over, then I dropped the second anchor. Not only will I sleep better, I may actually sleep. I would have hated to be the guy whose boat broke away and rammed another, or, just as bad, ran under the "Bridge to Nowhere" and lost my mast in the winds overnight. I really didn't want to deploy a second anchor because the first time I did, my two anchor lines got so twisted up that it took all day to disentangle them. The second time I did, the tide changed directions and the stern of the boat caught the current and my aft anchor line was stretched so tight that I was afraid the chock the line ran through might break and let the line rip the radar arch and davits off. Luckily, that time my friend Steve "Aground" Luta showed me a solution to my problem and everything turned out alright. Still, I'd rather not have two anchors out if I don't have to.

Monday, 3 September - Because I finally deployed another anchor, the winds we were to get last night never arrived. It's morning and we have virtually no wind at all and the boat has rotated so that the anchor lines already have their first twist in them. The storm, however, has increased in wind velocity at 47 mph and is just east of us and it has acquired a name, Gordon. A near miss, it's already north of us. I think I'll leave the second anchor out a little longer, we may get part of it, yet. Besides, the anchor lines aren't twisted up enough, yet.

Tuesday, 4 September - In the afternoon, I made a quick run to the library and Home Depot today, then, upon return to the marina, I met a fellow sailor, Bob on S/V Windago, on the dock that asked me about the dinghy. We stood talking in the sun for so long that I finally suggested that rather than standing there in the sun, perhaps the conversation could be continued at the Overseas Pub, seated, with a beer in our hands. He agreed and we had dinner there, too.

Wednesday, 5 September - Yesterday's run to Home Depot was for butane to refill a small torch with. Today I put the torch to use shrinking the heat-shrink tubing on the eye splices on the new dinghy. After that, I returned a call from a Canadian sailing friend, Clive Sharp, that I had met in Palmetto, where I bought my boat. After that, a call to my brother who says he's the proud new owner of a house in Jacksonville, Texas, and will be moving there as soon as he can, although that may take awhile because he has lots of books to move, plus a lot of tools and machinery, including a table saw, large press, and a very heavy lathe, plus all the other usual and unusual stuff.

            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