Friday, 5 October 2018 - The halyard for my roller furled mainsail was available at the rigger's today so I went over and picked it up. Unfortunately, the breeze here is blowing at an almost constant 20 kt., so that's just hard enough to make it rather difficult to haul the sail and furling rig up the mast and assemble it, so I'll wait for the breeze to back off a bit before attempting to do so.

Saturday, 6 October - Today I received a package from my brother that he mailed from California on Thursday and he said to expect Tuesday or Wednesday of this coming week. That's a total surprise...early. I've had more than one package that never showed up at all. About every 3 months I get an email saying they, the US Postal Service is rigorously looking for and trying to find my package. Yea, right.
                    The battery I got from Home Depot, although it was advertised as being large enough to start a 350 HP engine, barely turned over my 91 diesel Perkins engine, which usually starts easily, so I returned it today and bought one with about 30% more cranking power at NAPA with about a 75% rise in price. Better safe than sorry. I was pretty surprised and happy to find out that NAPA would deliver it for free. That saved me about a 10 mile bike ride with 20 mph headwind getting there and 56 lb. of lead in front of the handlebars on the way back.

Sunday, 7 October - Mike Barber gave me a referral today about the dinghy as I was having a sandwich for lunch, so I gobbled down the sandwich, dropped everything and headed to the marina to show the fellow the dinghy. He immediately said it was too big. His boat is only 33 feet long and my dinghy wouldn't fit on his davits, Oh, well. Since I was ashore, I checked out a bike and rode the mile and a half to the grocery store and got a pineapple to serve as an appetizer or fruit for the pot luck at the "Blowhard Regatta" tomorrow.
                    After checking out several weather reports about the winds related to tropical storm Mike and realizing there were probably going to be winds over 30 mph tonight and maybe as high as 45, at the last minute, just at dusk, I decided I'd sleep a lot better tonight if I redeploy my second anchor. Something kept going wrong. As I moved forward to set the second anchor off to the port side of the first, and way before I thought I should be reaching the end of the chain I already had out, I hit the end of the chain and the bow got pulled back to starboard. I suspect the chain was getting caught on something on the bottom as I pulled forward and to the side, stopping my forward movement. By now darkness had descended upon the harbor, so I had to drop the second anchor using the deck lights to see. I cut the engine and drifted backward, pushed by the 15 mph wind, but not as far as I thought I should. I let out the rode on the second anchor until the boat tightened up on the primary line, then snubbed it off on a cleat. I readjusted a couple of times to get them equally tight, but still didn't think the set was proper. Nothing I could do now, however, so I went below for dinner and to watch an Alfred Hitchcock movie on the DVD player. I checked my position and the anchor lines before I went to bed again, and everything seemed to be holding. I new I'd sleep much better after having put the effort forth to have a second anchor out...and much better to do it under stable conditions rather than in the dark with strong winds and rain.

Monday, 8 October - I awoke about 5:15 to strong winds and pouring rain. Thank goodness I put that other anchor out last night. I got up to check for movement and couldn't see past the front of the boat it was raining so hard. I could, however, see just well enough to know that I wasn't anywhere near the two boats behind me, so I went back to bed and slept like a baby till about 7:30. Again, thank God for the second anchor. I bet I would have drug anchor if I hadn't put the second one out. It was blowing well over 30 mph and I really don't trust the Bruce anchor in this mud bottom.
                    Today was "Blowhard Regatta" day. To get there on time, I had to dinghy in in a driving rain...then they postponed it for an hour and a half to wait for stragglers. The boats had to be homemade, not over 6 inches long, powered by the Captain blowing through a straw down a channel 10 feet long. There was plenty of variety of design because with ten competitors, none came even close to looking alike. There were catamarans, monohulls, trimarans, fore and aft sails, square riggers, snow cone sails, wood, styrofoam, tin cans, cork hulls, etc., etc., etc. Unfortunately, my entry, made of styrofoam hull, straws for masts, and a plastic sail made from an ice bag, didn't track very straight, and didn't do well, but it was still a lot of fun; and the food and camaraderie were great, too. A fun time for all, win or lose. I'll do better next time.
                    About 5:30, I checked the lines on the boat and realized that whatever the chain was caught on had broken or released and the boat was now being held totally by the secondary anchor, so I let out about 30 more feet of line and evened up the pull on the two anchors again. This ought to be even better, and it's a good thing. I think the strongest winds and heaviest rains are expected tonight. One good thing about the rain is that I'm filling the water tanks off the bimini top without having to haul the water from shore.
                    Thank goodness the, now Hurricane, Michael, hasn't turned east as it could have. It developed so close to us that I hadn't even heard anything about is until Saturday, and that would have been awfully late to make a run for it and get tucked in somewhere. Winds here have been pretty strong for a week and I don't have a mainsail back up yet. Scary!

Tuesday, 9 October - It was still too windy to work on the mainsail furler today. I ran out of propane in one of my tanks this evening so I changed the line over to the other tank. When I reinstalled the line, I checked it for leaks with soapy water and sure enough, it was leaking at both ends. That line is only about a year and a half old. I certainly thought they would last longer than that.

Wednesday, 10 October - All morning today was spent trying to find a replacement gas hose. Neither of the hardware stores on the island has them, nor do the companies that refill propane tanks. It appears that I'd have to go to Key West or Key Largo to see if they have them or not. It's forty miles either way on the bus. I was very surprised that the propane companies don't have the lines, especially since there is no natural gas on the island, just propane or electrical stoves, but, hey, I'm on an island. I spent the afternoon online trying to figure out what the connectors on my line are, I finally ordered one online from a company in Missouri and realize that it may take next to forever to be delivered since hurricane Michael is tearing up all the land and roads between here and there.

Thursday, 11 October - When I had the rigging company make my new mainsail halyard for the furler, I had them install the connectors on both ends figuring that since the cable came out of the luff, it ought to go back through when I install it. Wrong! At least not yet. I spent all day working on it. I finally forced the bottom connector through the top fitting so I could feed it through the sleeve from that end, but I can't get it out at the bottom. Yet. The diameter of the connector should be small enough to fit through the hole, but I think the end of it is getting hung up on the edge of the sleeve/base joint about 6 inches inside the luff sleeve. I'll try again tomorrow.

Friday, 12 October - I couldn't reach the fellow I had hoped to get to help me today, so instead of raising the furler, I disassembled the refrigeration pump that I had assumed was a working backup, but wouldn't run. It hadn't had water in its motor compartment, but had lots of carbon in it, which I realized was powder from the brushes. They are really worn down and have worn a deep groove into the rotor where they make contact. I cleaned it all up, lubricated it a bit, reassembled and tested it. It now runs, but I made a note to myself to only install it as a temporary fix until I can get a new replacement for it. Actually, I now have two backups, this one and the new one that I just purchased. The one I cleaned up last week that had quit running is doing just fine, so I didn't install the one I just bought.
                    Since I needed to test this one today, I finally got around to creating a pair of 12V test leads that I can plug in near my usual work bench, the top of the refrigeration counter. I took a spare automobile type cigarette lighter male plug and wired it with two alligator clips on eight foot leads. That'll make testing things easier. Now when I need a hot circuit for testing, all I have to do is plug this into the socket I usually have my phone and laptop charger plugged into.

Saturday, 13 October - I still couldn't contact the fellow I am hoping go get to help me with the sail and furler, so I worked on the galley freshwater pump. After several days of having to turn the pump off at the Breaker Panel, I delved into the pump again. I attached several layers of electrician’s tape to the back side of the electrical switch, believing that the switch was somehow too low for the switch to be triggered. That didn’t seem to help. I did notice, however, that pushing the backside of the white button or barrier at the back of the Switch Assembly triggered the switch. That made me believe that the pump itself wasn’t creating enough pressure to open the switch. I reopened the Upper Housing and Valve Assembly and ran an icepick around all the rubber valves to break them loose. Upon installation, it was coming on and shutting down better and seemed to be producing better pressure, too. I hope that is the solution. I really couldn’t find anything wrong anywhere in the unit and the motor is running fine.