Tuesday, 8 January 2019 - I loaned both of my kayaks out again today and when they were returned, for the second time in a row, I found things in them that the people I loaned them to say aren't theirs. Weird!

Wednesday, 9 January - This evening I got an invitation from Fred and Ingrid on the S/V Solaris from South Africa to have dinner with them on their boat. Ingrid and her sister are the ones that borrowed both of the kayaks on Monday. I had a great dinner, but they had to turn in early because they had to put Ingrid's sister on a plane early tomorrow morning. Afterward, I headed over to the Hurricane Bar and Grill for some music.

Thursday, 10 January - I went to listen to a speaker talking about the history of the Overseas Highway today. That is the road that links the mainland with all the Keys out to Key West. It replaced the Overseas Railroad and for most of the bridges, it literally is built right on top of the old tracks, although the roadway needed to be widened. I also dropped off my mast boot to have it duplicated. The old one has many holes in it. I actually have two mast boots. One is made of neoprene and is intended to seal the joint where the mast passes through the deck to keep out water. It isn't resistant to the UV rays of the sun and would deteriorate quickly if it weren't for its cover. I'm having the new cover made of Sunbrella fabric, which should outlast the old vinyl cover significantly.

Friday, 11 January - I went over and picked up the mast boot that I was having fabricated today. When I returned to the boat to install it, it didn't quite fit. It's just about an inch too small in one of the measurements, so I'll have to take it back for modification. Mid-day, I defrosted the refrigerator again. It was really full of frost this time and the edges were an inch to two inches of solid ice. I also replaced the inline filter on the outboard motor. It's a cheap little thing and the case is pretty thin, so it cracked and was leaking fuel into the boat every time I shut the engine off. Not much each time, but it was a nuisance.

Saturday, 12 January - Bod Dahmer, his girlfriend Ellie, and I boarded the bus this morning and rode to the Big Pine Key Nautical Flea Market. Actually, we made it to two flea markets today, the nautical flea market, which is annual, and the weekly flea market which happened to be within walking distance of each other. I believe both of us bought more at the weekly market than we did at the annual, and highly hyped, sale. Regardless, we spent most of the day there, then went to the Lazy Days Restaurant to watch the sunset over the ocean and have some beer and appetizers during Happy Hour, then on over to the Sunset Grill to listen to some music.

Sunday, 13 January - Last night at the Sunset Grill, Bob mentioned that the wind for today was expected to be almost nil, so we decided that since that would be perfect for some snorkeling and that we should head out to Sombrero Key Lighthouse today. It was an absolutely beautiful day, calm seas and clear water. In fact, it was the clearest water I've seen there since I've been here. We could see the bottom clear as a bell in 15 feet of water and there were lots of fish. Absolutely beautiful. We dove and snorkeled and relaxed for a couple of hours, had some great quesadillas prepared by Ellie, then headed Island Time back to the harbor just in time for sunset and finished the day off with a couple of Margaritas. Hard to beat that!

Monday, 14 January - I was the net controller for the Boot Key Harbor Cruiser's Net this morning, standing in for Jim Delane on Double Trouble, then, the rest of the morning was spent rinsing dive gear from yesterday's snorkeling at Sombrero Key and putting things out to dry.
                    This afternoon was spent taking measurements of my old snubber for the anchor chain and trying to determine how long a replacement should be. Depending on the source, it needs to be anywhere from about 12 feet to 60 feet long for my 45 foot boat. I'm sure 12 feet is too short and 60 seems excessive. Which should I believe? While ashore to get some advise or other opinions about the snubber, Roland and Lita from the S/V KoKoMo invited me to join them for pizza and beer at the Hurricane and, of course, I couldn't turn them down. At 82, Rowland is the oldest sailor in the harbor and they are both interesting to talk to. They've been sailing a long time and have stories to match.

Tuesday, 15 January - KoKoMo - Mast Boot - FileMaker - I went over and visited Roland and Leta on KoKoMo today to see the snubber that they use is made. Their's couldn't be simpler. It is a chain hook on a line about 15 feet long. Their boat is about 10,000 lb. lighter than mine, so I know I couldn't get by with the same diameter line as they are using. Also, there is an advantage in mine in that it uses a Y-shaped bridle to align the line that comes through the bow roller and to split the force of the pull between two cleats, but what I don't know is if I really need to do that. Will one cleat on my boat hold the strain? Under normal circumstances, absolutely, but under sever conditions, I just don't know.
                    After I visited KoKoMo, I took the new mast boot back to the fellow that made it for alteration, then a quick visit to the grocery store, since the trip to the scuba shop where the sewing was done is so close to Publix.
                    Here's some good news, I discovered, via a Google search, that I could recover the installation key for FileMaker from within the old version since it will still run, but not open the data base. Now I need to figure out how to run the two versions of the MacOS at the same time and use the old version of FileMaker to run the database again.
                    And on a different note, there were manatees sleeping in the marina channel today; a cow and her calf.

Wednesday, 16 January - Wow! I feel like I hardly accomplished anything today. I spent most of the day updating apps on the computer, so nothing physical occurred there. After that, I went over and picked up the mast boot again, after having it modified. The slight modification, adding, I thought, about one inch to its length, cost me half as much as the whole thing cost. Then, when I got back to the boat, I discovered he'd added about 6 inches to it and it is way too big now. Arrrgh! I can't imagine why he added so much. So, tomorrow, it's back over there again.
                    I went to the movie at the library this evening, then had dinner at the Hurricane along with some good music.

Thursday, 17 January - I took the mast boot back today. We'll see how it turns out this time. This evening, the harbor had a pot luck appetizer meet and greet. Lots of new people are in the mooring field and anxious to meet up with old friends or meet new ones.

Friday, 18 January - I retrieved the mast boot today and it still doesn't fit right. Much of the day was spent checking and adding fluid in the starter battery, running a load test on it, and refilling quart containers of 2 cycle oil for the dinghy from a gallon container that was buried under all the ropes, straps, etc. in the port lazarette. I, also, started trying to debug the depth sonar that is reading wrong, but I didn't get very far on that.

Saturday, 19 January - I was up early to go to a nautical flea market at one of the other marinas today, the Marathon Marina and Boatyard. I was doing okay there until time to pack up to go. I had sold more than I'd bought, but as we were packing up, I asked the fellow at the next table what his best price on a pair of triple blocks would be. They usually sell for about $185 to $250 each and he'd had them marked at $150 for one with a becket and cam cleat and $100 for a plain one. He said he'd take $100 for the pair and I took them. In reality, a pair of blocks like those were all I was really hoping to find. I've been looking for a good deal on a pair for about a year and a half. Today was my lucky day.
                    Upon returning to my boat I called Rick Garvin. He'd volunteered to help me get my database program running again. He came over and showed me how to set up file sharing between the two operating systems I have running on my laptop computer and the database opened up fine. After that, I installed the pair of blocks on the davits at the stern of the boat for lifting the dinghy, then returned to the computer to update the database with some changes and additions I've made since it quit running. When I tried to enter some data, it crashed again and I seem to be locked out of the ability to make changes in the file sharing now. It was a short fix. I guess I'll have to call Rick Garvin again tomorrow.
                   The weather was beautiful today with calm winds, but the wind is starting to pick up and it's supposed to be very windy all week. I'll probably be onboard the boat all day tomorrow and it will be a good time to try to resolve the database issue again. I do hope we get to see the total lunar eclipse tomorrow night.

Sunday, 20 January - Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! After another reboot of MacOS High Sierra, my secondary operating system, my database is up and running again. Who knows what went wrong.
                    We awakened to strong winds and heavy rain this morning, but now at 1 pm, the skies have cleared, although the wind is still in the upper 20s. The weatherman is predicting off and on strong breezes and rain for all this week. It's 75°F. right now, but mid-day temperatures tomorrow are predicted to only be in the mid to high 50s.
                    After breakfast I entered some of the things that have come aboard since the database quit working into the database, then mounted a new 12V LED overhead light on the ceiling of the saloon. I had a hard time finding one that I thought might be bright enough to replace the 22 Watt circular fluorescent light that has been there. I won't know if it's bright enough until this evening when it's dark outside, but I do have my hopes up. This LED light has 48 LEDs in it. That's the most I could find in one fixture.