Friday, 13 September 2019 - Much of today was spent trying to make contact with a sailmaker that did some minor sail repairs for me a couple of years ago. I was hoping to talk to him about making a new mainsail and genoa for the boat. I guess he's gone out of business so I talked to one of the trusted riggers here in Marathon. I figured he'd know all the sailmakers around. His recommendation was Doyle Sails in Miami. I couldn't contact them today, so I'll try again Monday. It's been blustery all day; lots of wind and just enough rain to make me close up the boat a couple of times. Luckily, it's a bit cooler than it has been lately.

Saturday, 14 September - I rebuilt a wooden knife sheath, burned the ends of some double braided lines, and caught up on a backlog of emails today.

Sunday, 15 September - My mooring ball rental fee is due today. Since I was gone for ten days, it seems like I just paid it the other day. We, the harbor cruiser's, had an ice cream social this evening, then I headed over to the Hurricane Bar and Grille for a bit of blues and southern rock music for the evening.

Monday and Tuesday, 16 - 17 September - Much of these days were spent trying to find out what questions I need to ask sailmakers in order to make sure I get well made and good fitting sails made from the sailmakers I ask for quotes from on my main and yankee sails. I contacted four different sailmakers for quotes. It looks like they're going to run me a bit over $6000 for the two sails.

Wednesday, 18 September - I committed today to have a sailmaker in northeastern Florida, Mack Sails, make me two new sails and put $3000 down on the service, about half the total cost.

Thursday, 19 September - I rode to Key West with Tom Krueger today and we visited old Fort Zachary Taylor and the Mel Fisher treasure museum.

Friday, 20 September - Very windy today so I took the opportunity to defrosted freezer. It's really forming a lot of frost and ice. One wooden spot that is horizontal and supports the lid stays wet and has rotted out. Now I can see in beyond it and see that there is absolutely no insulation behind that spot. I'm under the impression that the installation is original and over 40 years old, so it makes sense that with thousands of freeze-thaw cycles, the insulation would have broken down by now. I'm sure that's not the only problem spot.

Saturday, 21 September - Windy and rainy again today. Went to Tom's boat to borrow some Blu-Ray discs and the dinghy got away. I had tied it with two half hitches and wasn't aboard his boat for more than about 15 minutes. I'd like to see a picture of the disbelief on my face when I came on deck and realized the dinghy was gone. We could see the dinghy about 400 yards downwind, and getting to it wasn't too difficult in his 14 foot Carolina skiff, but coming back to our boats against the wind and waves, we both got pretty wet from salt spray.

Sunday, 22 September - Still quite windy. When I went to Tom's yesterday, I realized that I hadn't seen all the movies I had returned to him before running from Dorian, so I took them back and watched a couple today.

Monday, 23 September - It was still a bit breezy today, but I went and picked up Tom in my dinghy and went over to Whisky Creek, a possible hurricane hideout, to refresh my memory about the depths. It was much deeper than the charts indicate, but not as deep as my recollection from previous visits. It is about 5 to 9 feet deep in the deepest parts of the channel. One small spot was 12 feet at the intersection of two channels. I'd have to go in there on a high tide and find a deep spot to anchor in if I were hiding from a storm. It still wouldn't protect you much from a category 3 hurricane and not at all from a bigger storm, especially if there was much storm surge.

Tuesday, 24 September - Finally, a beautiful day with less wind. I spent most of the day chasing ghosts. I went to S.A.L.T., Sea-Air-Land Technologies, to ask them who they might suggest could remove, re-insulate, and rebuild my refrigeration cabinet, since they sell marine refrigeration. They suggested I ask the local wood supplier since they would be selling to the installers. I went there and their only suggestion was a retired fellow whose phone number has evidently changed. They also suggested I call SALT. Evidently, I had talked to the wrong person there and was given the number of an installer at Marathon Boat Yard where I'll have to have the boat hauled out to get the work done, plus pay them a premium to have him do the work. That may be the only sensible way to get it done.

Wednesday, 25 September - I arose early to catch the bus to Key West to have blood drawn for lab tests for my annual physical. I was in and out of there in about 10 minutes then headed to the other end of town to see the US Coast Guard Cutter Ingham and take the tour through it. This is about the third or fourth time I've gone to take the tour and haven't seen it yet. A sign on the access ramp said, "Closed for the month of September." Upon that disappointment, I walked about 15 blocks to the local, unofficial, Apple store to ask some questions, then back downtown for lunch at the only Mexican restaurant I've found in Key West. Good, but not great. I really miss El Chihuahua restaurant in Salt Lake City. Back on the bus to Marathon and when I arrived I could have gone directly to the library for a movie, but totally spaced it out. Darned! They were handing out free pizza this evening, too. Later, I headed to the Hurricane for a great night of music and adult libations.

Thursday, 26 September - I have to go back to Key West today for the physical at 3 o'clock. It takes about an hour and a half to get there on the bus and two hours to get back, but since I'm considered ancient, I mean senior, it only costs a buck each way. Hey! I can afford that.
                  I see hurricane Lorenzo is expected to turn north into the mid-Atlantic, but Karen, which is still only a tropical storm, can't make up its mind and neither can the Hurricane Center about where it is headed. Right now, it's headed west, toward us. Gotta keep an eye on it.
                  Well, the doctor says I couldn't be in much more perfect health.

Friday, 27 September - Diesel Don Shuler is not only an extremely knowledgeable diesel mechanic but has been a sailor for umpteen years and owned over forty boats. Not only that, but he's extremely generous with his time and knowledge. I asked him over to Island Time today to give me some advise about how to deal with the overabundance of frost in my refrigeration system. I had been contemplating having the whole cabinet that surrounds the three refrigerators that I have removed, insulated, and rebuilt. I'm sure that would cost me an arm and a leg. Both Don and Tom Krueger have suggested the same thing; cut out the rotted wood at the top of the refrigerator, vacuum out all the existing, crumbled insulation that I can and refill it with spray-can foam. I figured if that doesn't work, I can then have a pro rip it out and rebuild it. I started on it right after Don left the boat by cutting out the rotted wood. After vacuuming out the insulation, I figured that I needed to get the condensation in the area dried out, so I jury rigged my little shop vac with duct tape to blow its exhaust into the void. I let it dry for about two hours and in the waiting time, I contacted Dupont to find out which of their products would be best for filling a space 14 X 6 X 4 inches. Their answer was none of the canned products are meant to fill such large voids, but that they do have another that will. It will fill a space of about 1 cubic meter and costs over $100. No thanks. I shut off the vacuum and headed to Home Depot to get some canned insulation. I also discovered that I should spray the area with water to help the foam cure. Duh! Two hours wasted drying the void out.>
                  Upon returning to the boat, I intended to fill the void with the foam in layers, but the first application I made almost filled it completely by itself. I'll let it continue to expand and harden overnight.

Saturday, 28 September - I trimmed off surplus foam, leveled the surface, applied more foam to fill in small low spots, and let it harden for an hour, then re-trimmed and leveled the surface again, applied two layers of aluminum foil duct tape to the cabinet, then removed the lid and re-applied adhesive foam strips to the lid. It all looks pretty good, so I put all the groceries back in the fridge and started it up. While working on the box, I did discover that the void that I was filling was connected to other spaces behind the cabinet that have no insulation, so my work may have been in vain and I still may need to have the whole thing ripped out, but I'll see how much good this attempt at repair does before I make that decision. It has to be better than it was.

Sunday, 29 September - I had a lot to do today, but as it turned out, nothing that couldn't wait until tomorrow...or later. I got invited to Tomas's 53 foot boat, Sputnik, for a beer or several. He's from Russia, but has been in the States for several years. When he asked me what I used to do for a living, his eyes lit up. He's quite interested in photography and has a very nice six lens Canon camera setup. We had several beers over several hours then went to the Hurricane for dinner and their Sunday evening open mic night.

Monday, 30 September - I did some of the things today that I'd intended to do yesterday. I went to the library for a movie schedule for the upcoming month, then to the marina office to update my computer and phone software. That took several hours. I also wanted to pick up the printed circuit board for my wind indicator that I'd ordered about 3 weeks ago. It came from Spain and got hung up in customs in both the Netherlands and here in the States. I waited about an hour for the mailman to deliver, knowing that it was out for delivery, however, when he and it arrived, he simply left a note saying that he'd tried to deliver it and drove away. Since there was quite a pile of packages, I didn't know that he took it with him for about 15 minutes. At that point, I couldn't simply drop everything and chase him down; my computer was about halfway through loading the new OS. By the time that finished, he had about a 45 minute head start on me and I had no idea which way he'd gone on his route. When I got out on Highway 1, I had two choices; right or left. I chose right and got lucky. He soon made a turn on the highway to move over one block and I chased him down on my bicycle and got my package. If I hadn't caught him, I would have had to go to the post office to sign for it, or call and have them deliver it again tomorrow and hope to be there when they arrived. Lousy system, all he'd have had to do was call out my name and hand me my package....and the USPS wonders why they're losing business.

Tuesday, 1 October - I ran low on gas coming back to the boat in the dinghy last evening so this morning I switched out gas tanks. Later, I went to lunch, then to the grocery store for a few necessities; milk, eggs, and bread. We are still having quite a bit of wind and small rain showers roll through about every two hours, some with heavy rain, most not. Just enough to make me close up the boat, only to reopen it a few minutes later.

Wednesday 2 October - A barb on one of my water collection pockets on the bimini top broke today so I dug through the plumbing hardware in Sole Compartment 10 to find a new one. I did, but in the process I discovered that I hadn't inventoried those parts nearly well enough, so I spent quite a bit of time doing a better job of that today. I had merely entered items as "plumbing hardware", but should have been more specific by itemizing by their proper names. In doing so, I discovered some items I didn't know I had.
                    A boat, or rather, a house boat broke away from its anchors today in the breeze and someone notified the harbor residents via VHF, so I went to help get it under control. As usual, it was one of the vessels that has no one living onboard. There aren't supposed to be any unoccupied vessels in the harbor and lack of upkeep is why. One loose boat can do a lot of damage as it careens through the mooring field in high winds.

Thursday 4 October - Most of today was spent finishing inventorying my number ten sole (floor) compartment's contents. I realized that I've needlessly bought several items that I didn't know I already had stored in this compartment.

Friday, 5 October - I helped Tom Krueger move his boat to a new mooring ball. Some of the mooring balls in the harbor are owned by the city and others by the county. On some you can stay only six months and others, indefinitely. His six months was about up, so he had to move to a ball that allows more longevity. I, also, repaired the latch on my starboard safety line gate. It was getting very hard to open and close.

Saturday, 6 October - The Marathon City's Customer Appreciation Day BBQ was today. They served up great burgers and some fantastic hot dogs along with all the trimmings, potato salad, coleslaw, fresh fruit, beer, wine, soft drinks, etc. It was a good way to meet some of the newcomers to the harbor and renew old acquaintances. Later, we had an outdoor viewing of the movie "Captain Ron", a real favorite for boaters.

Sunday, 7 October - This morning I went to a car show with Mike and Bev of the sailboat Queequeg and met Tom Krueger there. There were about 30 cars there. About the only outstanding car there was a very nice Cobra, although I'm sure the owners of the much newer, super hot, 750 horsepower Mustangs and Corvettes would disagree. Still, it was fun to reminisce about the older cars.

            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