Friday, 29 November - Even though we had a high temperature of 81° today, it is considered winter so neither Home Depot nor Kmart has any pool noodles. I need one to act as padding on the strapping for the dinghy when it is on the davits to keep the strap from abrading the hypalon on the dinghy's tubes while sailing. I spent some time trying to locate one of those today and also caught up on some reading.

Saturday, 30 November - I recently purchased 110 feet of used 5/8" double braid rope for $50 from a couple in one of the commercial marinas. It's a little too large to use as a sheet (control line for a sail), but it will certainly come in handy if I ever need to tie off in the mangroves for a storm. I got me thinking about all the line I have onboard. I have many hundreds of feet, but I really don't know exactly what I have. Today I spent putting tags on all the large line I have in the port lazarette, then taking it to the dock where I could stretch each section out to measure it and record its length on the tags, then re-coil it all neatly. I measured out 975 feet today in sizes from 1/4" to 11/16" and started entering it into my database so in the future I won't have to dig everything out to see what I have and don't have. There's lots more to go tomorrow.

Sunday & Monday, 1 & 2 December 2019 - Holy mackerel, what's happened to the year? I think time is accelerating. Dad warned me about this. Most of each of these days was spent taking rope to shore and uncoiling it to measure it, then recoiling it again; and I still have a ways to go. I'm reorganizing the port lazarette to hold more of the line that I had stored elsewhere but it's not all going to fit in there. I'm also trying to store all the large twisted rope in one spot and all the braided rope all together in another space.

Tuesday, 3 December - Monday night I woke up hot under one sheet and a thin blanket. This morning it's about 10 degrees cooler so the blanket felt just fine. This evening it's so cold I actually had to put on a sweat suit to stay warm. 66 degrees. Brrrrr!
                    I got all the large braided line inventoried, coiled and put back into the port lazarette, then went through the webbing I have. I pulled out some webbing and some of the rope that is in poorer condition or is just excess and will offer it to Tom Krueger. If he doesn't want it, I'll take it to the marina. I'm sure someone will want most, if not all of it. I did keep two lengths of polypropylene rope, 1/4" and 1/2", even though I hate the stuff. It is weak, stretches, and is quickly ruined by the sun and becomes brittle. Its only redeeming virtue is that it floats, so it can't sink and get caught in a propellor.
                    I'm putting another blanket on the bed tonight.

Wednesday, 4 December - Adam on S/V Tapestry is back in Marathon after having worked all summer at a nuclear plant. He needed help moving his boat from the Gulf side of the island to Boot Key Harbor so I went to help him. I figured it would take about 3 hours. I was to arrive at 11, but he called about 10:30 and said meet him at the Stuffed Pig cafe. He was just getting served breakfast when I got there. To make a long story short, we finished moving his boat about 5 o'clock and he poured himself a good stiff bourbon. Didn't even offer me one. I had him take me to my dinghy, then headed over to the Hurricane for dinner since I didn't get lunch. Luckily, I ran into Rowland and Leta of S/V KoKoMo and others and had a very pleasant evening.

Thursday, 5 December - I use a pillow as a backrest in the saloon and another to sleep on. Today I made a cover for each out of towels to keep them from getting dirty. I also sewed up the pocket of a pair of shorts that I've been losing money from and sewed the velcro back on pockets of another pair of shorts. Being the extremely efficient tailor that I am, that used up most of the day. As I finished up and was going to have lunch around 4:30, Bob Dahmer and his girlfriend Ellie Bohms called to let me know they had arrived in the harbor on S/V Christi and were headed to Dockside for happy hour. Instead of having a sandwich onboard, I joined them and had Dockside's chicken pot pie for lunch/supper and listened to some music by their steel drum and ukulele entertainer this evening.

Friday, 6 December - Bob Dahmer and Ellie Bohms invited me out on his boat, Christi, to sail out to Sombrero Reef and go snorkeling. It was a beautiful day for a sail and the water was pretty clear. Nice diving, too. I saw moray eel about six feet long and a couple of grouper that probably weighed about 30 or 40 lb. each among many others. I still amazed that there are no urchins on the reef. When I was here in 1970 there were thousands of black spiny urchins.

Saturday, 7 December - Pearl Harbor Day - I was surprised that no one mentioned that on the Cruiser's Net this morning. I guess that day of infamy is fading into the history books.
                    This morning I rinsed off all the diving gear that I used yesterday and set or hung it out to dry.

Sunday, 8 December - The cruiser's in the harbor had a Sunday brunch today and, as usual, I supplied my 16 outlet power strip to plug in electric skillets, waffle irons, coffee pots, crockpots, etc., so I helped set up and clean up afterwards. I love the Sunday brunches. Cruisers here are from all over the country and some from foreign nations so we get a lot of dishes that I've never had before. Out of the 40 or more choices, today's highlight, and the one that tickled my tastebuds best, was the Cajun Shrimp Grits. Outstanding!
                    Around 7pm I wandered, or rather dinghied over to the Dockside Bar for the Sunday open mic night entertainment. I must say, the house band sounded great, as usual, but the guest singers were some of the worst I've ever heard. Oh well, the entertainment was free and you get what you pay for. I still got in a bit of dancing and had a good time.

Monday, 9 December - There's a lady in the harbor that makes fancy bags out of used sail material so I thought I might trade her my two retired sails for some sewing, but, unfortunately, she said the sail material on my mainsail and yankee are too heavy a fabric for her to use. Darn. Now I have to figure another way to get rid of them. I did get most of my Christmas shopping done today, however.

Tuesday, 10 December - I ordered some one inch stainless steel rings online today to use on various items onboard. Rings held on with webbing are much less likely to rip out of canvas or Sunbrella than grommets. I also sewed a strap on one of the bags that I store small rope in.

Wednesday, 11 December - I finally got around to setting up my old age required distribution in my IRA account today. The penalty for not doing so might have been bigger than my distribution so I thought I'd better get it done.

Thursday, 12 December - This evening there was a "Meet & Greet" at the Tiki hut at the marina; a good chance to meet some of the new people that have arrived in the harbor lately. After that, about 15 or 20 of us went over to the Dockside Restaurant to listen to Tye Thurman play guitar and sing. Tye worked at the marina when I got here but decided he could actually make it as a full-time singer, song writer and seems to be doing quite well.

Friday, the 13th - Today was Rowland's 83rd birthday. He and Leta live on KoKoMo here in the harbor. He sprang for a two man band for two hours at the Hurricane and arranged it so that along with the music we could buy a large pizza and a pitcher of beer for $15. I think about 50 or 60 people showed up to help him celebrate. Actually, Bob and I started there, then Rowland and Leta took us to Dockside for a few songs, then back to the Hurricane to finish the evening off. The Hurricane had an excellent blues band in from St. Louis for their late night session, so it was well worth the trip back to there.

Saturday, 14 December - We had a nautical flee market here at the marina today. Unfortunately, I was unable to sell even one item to raise the waterline on my boat. I did however, buy one small item, an 18" stainless steel rail guard to protect the edge of the woodwork around the cockpit, then, upon arriving back at the boat...I dropped in the ocean, never to be seen again. Such is life on a boat.

Sunday, 15 December - There were low winds this afternoon so I took the opportunity to drop the new yankee foresail down to the deck, retie the two bowlines in the sheets on the sails clew and whip the ends of the lines so they can't possibly come untied. The last time I took the boat out, one of the knots came very close to coming undone, which would have released the sail as the line dropped into the water. The line wouldn't have been lost, but sailing back to shore would have been a lot tougher. Later, I went to the Dockside bar for dinner and music.

Monday, 16 December - Bob Dahmer had suggested that he and a couple in the harbor were going to make an overnight sail to Newfound Harbor, which is about 17 miles away, and that I should tag along in my boat. The couple backed out, so Bob and I made the trip by ourselves. It's a good thing I retied the lines yesterday or I wouldn't have been able to go. On the way down to Newfound Harbor, I thought I saw a body in the water, but it turned out to be a very large sea turtle, thank goodness. It took about 5 hours from dropping the mooring lines to dropping our anchors. The trip was almost straight downwind all the way. Bob supposedly new the way into the anchorage, and I had been there before too, but, even though I was following right behind him, I still managed to run aground. Luckily, I managed to free the boat in about 10 minutes and we were anchored side by side and had the two boats tied together in about a half hour. I did have a very close call while anchoring. I came very close to losing two or three fingers. The shank of anchor usually hangs up on the bow pulpit seat and needs to be jiggled and pushed forward to get it to drop. It did so today so I grabbed the anchor chain to pull some slack into it. At the same time, I moved my right foot and stepped on the "Up" switch for the windlass. The chain moved backward and my fingers almost got caught in the windlass's gypsy, which is a wheel with pockets in it that each link of the chain fits snuggly into to raise or lower the chain. Thank goodness for quick reactions. If I had been even a half second slower I would have probably had all four fingers on my left hand crushed. All I ended up with was a little blood and some sore fingers, along with a lesson learned about not uncovering that "up" switch while trying to lower the anchor.
                    We finished off a great sail with a few margaritas and some of Bob's home made venison chili as we watched a very weak sun drop into the ocean.

Tuesday, 17 December - With very blustery weather, in fact, winds of 30 mph and more predicted for Wednesday and, for that matter all the way through the weekend, Bob and I thought we'd better head back to a better harbor. This harbor doesn't have very much room to anchor except right in the main channel. This is the same set of circumstances that made us head back the last time I was here when Scott Bushman was visiting me. We had about 10 to 15 knots of wind off our starboard bow with waves about 4 to 6 feet every 5 seconds, which made the ride a bit bumpy, but had blue skies and a great trip back. Bob and I were both surprised at how well our boats were matched for speed. My boat is 44 feet and 46,000 lb. and his, I think, about 36 feet and about half the weight, but once we got our sails set, we were able to stay right together the whole trip, going and coming. At one point, I caught two lobster traps on my keel, prop, or rudder, but just as I was about to get into the water to release them, they came off. We had been sailing into the sun and I couldn't see the floats above them until I was right on them. Luckily, we soon tacked about 90%deg: and after that I could see the floats just fine, but to be honest, there are so many of them, sometimes as close as every 50 to 75 yards apart, that they never let me let down my guard and relax. I had to stand at the helm most of the way and steer by hand through them rather than put the boat on auto helm. I like lobster, but I would gladly give up eating lobster for the rest of my life if they would remove all the lobster pots from the ocean. As we approached Boot Key Harbor, we saw another sailboat that probably felt the same way. They were sailing VERY slowly with all sails up and just after we sailed by them, the captain had to go in the water and cut three lobster pots off his boat.
                    By the way, I found out on this trip that the repair job I performed on the auto helm's hydraulic reservoir a few weeks ago was a complete success. I checked it when we arrived at Newfound Harbor and the surface under it was totally dry. Yea!

Wednesday, 18 December - While preparing to sail on Saturday morning, as I was putting the Evinrude 8 hp. engine on the ship's rail for the trip, I grabbed the control handle and the outer sleeve slipped off and four pieces of it fell into the water, so today I put the 15 hp. Yamaha back onto the dinghy. That engine hasn't been used in about a year and a half, but upon replacing the two spark plugs, it started right up. I had to add gasoline to the tank because the Yamaha only uses half as much oil in the mixture. The Yamaha isn't idling very well, but that may cure itself with a little use or with the addition of some Marvel Mystery Oil or carburetor cleaner to the fuel tank.
                    A cold front moved through this evening, so I'll need to wear a jacket when I go to the Hurricane. I'm going to catch a ride with Leta and Rowland Kok.

Thursday, 19 December - I met Bob Dahmer at the marina community room and he, I, and four other boaters assembled bicycles for needy kids in Marathon as Christmas presents. The money for the bikes was donated by the boaters in the mooring field and the bikes purchased through K-Mart in cooperation with the sheriff, who creates the list of recipients each year. On a good note, there wasn't as great a need for as many bikes as in the last two years; a result of the community recovering from hurricane Irma.
                    It was a rainy and cool day with winds in the mid twenties all day and the temperature near the mid sixties. Tomorrow is predicted to be even windier.

Friday, 20 December - A blustery day outside so I decided it would be a great day to, once again, defrost the freezer. It's been about a month since I did that, so it's well overdue. I also spent time on the internet and ordered parts for the Evinrude motor's control handle. Boy, I feel ripped off when I have to pay $10 each for a small metal roller that is about the size of a pencil's eraser...and I had to buy two of those and two other pieces that aren't much bigger at the same price. I think they'd make plenty of profit at fifty cents each. I know, I know, supply and demand...or is it the fact that I NEED it and they've got it. I guess it's the same thing.

Saturday, 21 December - Last night was the longest night of the year and today, the shortest day. Did you notice? It's 80°F here in Marathon today with a weak sun shining through thin clouds, but still quite breezy. I think I'll take the opportunity to walk to the hardware store for a light bulb I need, then to the grocery store, buy groceries, and take the taxi back. I'll be traveling with the wind as I come back to the boat so I think I can keep the groceries dry.

Sunday, 22 December - Wow! There's so much going on around here this season that it's hard to keep track of it all. There are birthday parties to attend, pot luck turkey dinner Christmas parties, a chili cook-off, a "Polar Plunge" on New Year's Day (as if the 75.2°F water here was cold), Christmas boat-light parades, Christmas dinghy-light parades, fireworks displays, a music fest with 45 bands from the Keys, and all kinds of other happenings. Plus, my favorite, local musical duo is getting back together for the New Year's Eve party at Dockside. Yea! Too much fun!

I hope you have a great holiday season yourself. Merry Christmas wishes and I hope your upcoming year is the best ever.