Sunday, 17 November 2019 - With anticipation of Marcus arriving this afternoon, I've been trying to get the boat put back together, but still have a ways to go. Today I finished pulling all the blue masking tape off the boat. I think that took about 4 hours. I also got all five five gallon diesel jugs, ten water jugs, and five gasoline jugs back in their places and tied in, and their covers remounted. I still need to get the scuba tanks moved and secured, the generator cover reinstalled, and lots of other minor items back to normal. Plus I still need to drill new holes for the screws in the toe and cap rails for the feet that were replaced. I'm getting there, but it sure eats up time.
                    Marcus and his crewman, Tom, arrived about 3 o'clock, but were sleep deprived from the trip, so they slept until almost six, then picked me up with their dinghy and we went to dinner.

Monday, 18 November - I started off the morning by acting as the Cruiser's Net controller, then finally finished drilling out the holes in the toe rail for the feet of the stern pulpit, then screwed them all down. Unfortunately, my drill bit hit something in the bottom of one of the holes and broke off down in there. I covered it with a short screw, but I'm pretty sure it will be fine. With three other wood screws and a 3/4" stainless steel stud and nut holding it, I believe a fourth screw is not totally necessary.
                    We had a net controllers' meeting last evening, then Marcus had me and two other guests over to his boat for a very good dinner of one of his one pot meals.

Tuesday, 19 November - I see on the weather report this morning that we're not out of the woods yet in respect to hurricanes. Tropical storm Sebastien has formed down near the Virgin Islands and will surely move north. Oops! I just got another notification about it, but they are predicting that it will soon make a right turn to the northeast and stay well away from land, at least on this side of the Atlantic.
                    On the brighter side, Marcus came to my boat this morning and helped me go up the mast three times to replace the printed circuit board in the wind indicator, replace a lamp at the top of the mast and to add reflective red and white tape to several locations on the mast so I'll be easier to see at night by other vessels that happen to be shining a light at me. I thought it would take about an hour...it took four.

Wednesday, 20 November - I was expecting the sailmaker to show up with my new Yankee and Staysail this morning. About noon I got a call from a local rigger who said he was expecting to receive the two sails via UPS or FedEx about 2 pm and would then bring them to Island Time to help install them. In the meantime, I tested the voltage on the batteries. The Xantrex Link Pro battery indicator shows that my starter battery in getting charged up to over 15 Volts, which is way too high. My ExTech and Fluke both say that while it's being charged it's only at about 14 Volts, which is Okay. I guess that if something has to be wrong, it's better to have the indicator wrong than the charger controller, but it's going to be more of a nuisance to monitor with the Link Pro on the fritz. The Link Pro reads the house batteries just fine. Go figure.
                    Well, surprise, surprise. I had set the whole day aside since I didn't know when the rigger would be here with my sails and Marcus had errands he needed to run that would take all day, but it didn't matter, the rigger with my sails never showed up, so basically, one of the days that I could have spent sailing or showing Marcus around is wasted because I'll now have to use another day to wait for the sails. Arrrgh!

Thursday, 21 November - I see tropical storm Sebastien is headed out to sea. That's fine with me (and everybody else in the Caribbean and the east coast, I'm sure).
                    I got to repay Marcus in a small way this morning. He needed help removing a rope clutch on his starboard quarter. Although he had to endure some pretty uncomfortable crouching and knuckle and elbow banging below decks, the clutch came out pretty easy. It was just one of those jobs where you needed one person on deck and the other below. I returned to my boat and changed the fresh water carbon filter below the galley sink, then, just after I had contacted the sailmaker in Stuart, Florida, his local rigger showed up with my new foresail and installed it. The mainsail still hasn't arrived. Hopefully, tomorrow for the mainsail.

Friday, 22 November - I was the net controller on the Cruiser's Net this morning. After that, I started catching up with about three months of mail that I had my mail service forward to me, Tom Krueger stopped by the boat and I was lamenting the fact that my sail still hadn't arrived, when the phone rang. It was the rigger saying that the sail had been delivered and that he'd be to Island Time in about 15 minutes. Forty five minutes later he arrived and installed the mainsail. Now that the new sails are installed I realized that I need to install spreader boots on the spreader tips. These are rubber covers on the ends of the spars that extend horizontally about halfway up the mast to hold the shrouds out away from the mast. They keep the ends of the spreaders from abrading the genoa or yankee sails as the sails rub against them in the wind. My old sail was barely long enough to reach as far back on the boat as the spreaders, so hitting the spreaders wasn't a problem. I had them make the new sail a little larger to make the foresails balance with the mainsail better when all the sails are run all the way out. Previously, the mainsail overpowered the foresails, creating weather helm. Weather helm makes the boat turn into the wind unless you compensate with the rudder, A little bit of weather helm is good, but using too much rudder slows the boat down. I was having to constantly apply about 10 degrees of rudder, where five should be sufficient. Anyway, I went to West Marine to get the spreader boots, then returned and started installing my staysail, a small triangular sail that sets between the mainsail and the genoa. Before I finished, Marcus Libkind came by and offered to help. I could have installed it by myself, but the help made it go much easier and quicker. Later, after I got most of the sheets and furling lines coiled and put away, Marcus and I went over to the Dockside Bar and Grill and I had dinner and we listened to a musical duo play Trop Rock, the Keys version of island and beach music.

Saturday, 23 November - Marcus came to my boat today and tailed my line as I climbed the mast to the spreaders and installed spreader boots on the spreaders. Spreader boots are merely rubber covers for the ends of the spreaders, which are horizontal spars extending outward sideways from the mast to hold the shrouds at a wider angle in relation to the mast. I wanted to install the boots at the ends of the spreaders to keep the ends of the spreaders from abrading or ripping my new yankee sail as it rubs against the spreaders while close-hauled. We got that done in a couple of hours, then I went to Marcus's boat to crank him up his mast to secure a broken wire at the top of the mast and to tighten some of the bolts in the lugs in his mast track.

Sunday, 24 November - I took Marcus out sailing on Island Time today so I could test out the new sails. I'm happy to say that they certainly met my expectations and then some. We set new speed records on Island Time today. In only about 15 knots of breeze we hit seven knots through the water. I think I had hit about 7.1 knots during hurricane Irma in very high winds. Other than having to dodge all the lobster pot floats, we had a very nice and productive sail in sunshine, 84 °s, and very blue waters.

Monday, 25 November - I got the sheets coiled and stowed, a couple of lines whipped, removed and stowed the jacklines, and visited with Tom Krueger for a couple of hours this afternoon. This morning as I ran the Cruiser's Net on the VHF radio, boaters on White Bird said they had 115 feet of 9/16" double braid rope for sale for $50. It's used, but still appears to be in pretty good condition, so I purchased it. They also gave me two 67 foot pieces of line they had been using as sheets for free. Now all I have to do is find a space for it all.
                    Marcus Libkind leaves tomorrow, so I went to dinner with him and his two crew members at the local Thai restaurant. We ordered four different dishes and shared everything for the variety. MMMMmmmm, good!

Tuesday, 26 November - I heard a new and ominous sound while sailing on Sunday with Marcus that I believe was the auto helm. I checked the fluid today and it was, indeed, low. I've been thinking that it overflowed while in use from pressure, but today I inspected it closer. The reservoir for it is merely a plastic bottle with the bottom cut off and the top slipped over the metal base of the reservoir, so I believe that the fluid is simply leaking at that joint. I took the plastic bottle off, cleaned everything up, applied a silicone gasket, and reinstalled it. I'll let the silicone cure overnight.

Wednesday, 27 November - I finished up the auto helm reservoir, filled it and bled the air out of the hydraulics system. The one hour job turned into about three when the bleeder screws that I had to back out, backed out further under pressure and let all the hydraulic fluid that I'd just filled it with drain out all over the compartment. That happened more than once. Such is life on a boat!
                    This afternoon I'm going to the marina to check for mail and to the grocery store to fight the crowd and buy groceries for the pot luck dinner tomorrow at the marina. I think they're cooking eight turkeys and we should have a good turn out since the harbor is filling up with snowbirds from up north now.
                    Speaking of snowbirds, I think Snowbird and Alta in Utah are getting lots of snow today, but it's 82°F and sunny here in Marathon.

Thursday, 28 November - Thanksgiving Day - Wow! I slept in till 10 o'clock this morning because I was out with Candace and Chris partying until 3 am. Too much fun! Their friend, Welder Dave, was supplying the tequila shots and I'm glad it was tequila; anything else would have given me a headache this morning. The cruiser's had their huge potluck dinner this afternoon at 3 o'clock. I think about 100 people showed up. I thought I'd know at least half of the people here this year, but there are so many new arrivals to the harbor recently, I felt like I hardly knew anybody. Still, there were probably sixty or seventy dishes to choose from, plus smoked, fried, and baked turkey and wonderful ham, too. I'm pretty sure a good time was had by all.

            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