Saturday, 25 April 2020 - Susie and I enjoyed the day at her house today.

Sunday, 26 April - We woke up to the sound of thunder this morning and soon we were surrounded by lots of lightning and thunder. We watched from the relative safety of Susie's back porch as we listened to the Sunday morning Boot Key Harbor Cruiser's Net on Facebook on my phone. It rained rather hard but the storm was traveling fast so it didn't last long.

Monday, 27 April - An interesting day. I discovered weevils in my spaghetti stash of about 5 lb. Luckily, the plastic container seals well so they couldn't get out and contaminate other foods. I have about 4 1/2 lb. of the pasta so I really didn't want to throw it all out. I decided to move it all into another container that didn't have metal on it and could be microwaved. I did so and set the timer for 1 minute. That didn't kill the remaining weevils so I turned it on for 2 minutes. There were still survivors. At three minutes, I was convinced I'd done the job. I was surprised to see that there was enough moisture in the "dry" noodles that some of them actually curled and cooked. All the spaghetti hadn't fit in the container at once, so I still had some left, about a quarter pound. I put in and set the time for 3 minutes. At about 2 minutes it started smelling warm. I looked and it was turning brown and starting to smoke. Obviously, quantity makes a significant difference!

Tuesday, 28 April - There wasn't too much going on here today. The holding tank got pumped out, as it does most Tuesdays. Another block of time today was spent online trying to find a good way to keep crab and lobster pot lines off my propeller. My boat seems to be a magnet for them. It snags them whether the engine is running or not, but if the prop is spinning, it could cause real problems. There are cutters for the prop shaft of several varieties, cages that fit around the propeller, and other devices, but all have their shortfalls. The pots are a minimal problem right now because, since most of the lobsters caught here in the Keys are sold to China and that market went away with the Corona Virus, most of the lobster pots have been pulled out of the water, but they'll be back, and the crab pots are still here.

Wednesday, 29 April - I put together a pretty extensive and specific grocery shopping list today and gave it to one of the other boaters to fill tomorrow.

Thursday, 30 April - I received and put away the groceries I ordered yesterday. Phong Long from the S/V Petracore, a young man in his thirties, went to the store for me, spent an hour to an hour and a half shopping for me, then delivered them to my boat and wouldn't even accept a tip for his efforts. The people in this harbor are truly amazing. He and Bev on S/V No Tan Lines put themselves in danger for about 6 to eight other boaters every Tuesday and Thursday by shopping individually for each one at the grocery store. Truly selfless.

Friday, 1 May - It was my day to host the Cruiser's Net. Since I had weevils in the pasta, I decided I'd check the rice. There's something in there, too, but it's not weevils. I have a new bag of rice to put in that container, but I'll wait until I have time to clean it first. I understand that one way to kill grain pests is to freeze the packages for about two days, which kills the mature, young, and the eggs, but since I just filled the freezer, there's no room to put a five pound bag of rice in there. It will have to wait, but I will definitely be doing that in the future. Having the pests or their eggs already in the packaging is the only way they could get into the containers I have. Both the pasta and the rice containers are heavy plastic and seal well.

Saturday, 2 May - Susie had to have her car jumpstarted this morning so she called me. I have a battery charger, so she came and got me. We returned to her house and put the charger on the battery for the rest of the evening. Unfortunately, the next morning the battery, again, wouldn't start the car. We put the charger back on and got the car started, then went to Advanced Auto. Their fancy battery tester said the battery was good, so we returned home and continued to charge the battery throughout the evening.

Sunday, 3 May - After sitting for the night, the car still won't start. I've cleaned the battery terminals well and can't see anything that would be running the battery down. Unfortunately, the car is so low to the ground that I can't get under it to check out the terminals on the starter solenoid, so we opted to go to NAPA and see if they have a load tester for the battery. Luckily, they did and, sure enough, the battery was bad. I can't figure out why the tester at Advanced Auto indicated it was good and the battery is only two years old, but replacing it definitely cured the starting problem.

Monday, 4 May - I picked up my mail this morning at the marina. Half of it was to Richard I. McClain in Illinois. Evidently the post office can't find him, so they sent it to me. I think I'll let him pay his own bills so I sent it all back.

Tuesday, 5 May - Today was the anniversary of Mother's birthday, but we couldn't go to the Mexican restaurant to celebrate it, so I joined Susie at her house and we had a couple of margaritas and some chips and salsa in celebration.

Wednesday, 6 May - Going back to my boat this morning, as I shifted the outboard motor on the dinghy into gear, the shift lever broke, again. I had used a putty-like epoxy on it when it previously broke and it held for a couple of years, but its time was up today. I also got a notification written in German, that an item I ordered from China on March 3rd is now in Spokane, Washington and headed my way via the USPS.

Thursday, 7 May - Wow, I feel like I accomplished almost nothing today. I spent almost all day trying to figure out the part number for the shift lever that recently broke on the dinghy's outboard motor. It's a Yamaha 15 horsepower engine, but I don't know what year it was produced. There was, at one time, a stick-on label with the date of manufacture on it, but that disappeared before I got the engine. I, as usual, get several conflicting authoritative sources online telling me that it was created in 1996, 1998, 2006, or 2008. Even Yamaha, USA was of no help since it was not manufactured for use in the United States. All they know from the serial number is that, since its model and serial numbers aren't in their database, it must be for a foreign market. They gave me the URL for Yamaha Global, but that site doesn't have any usable information, nor do any of the dealer's websites listed there. All they show is new products with absolutely no parts listings. I finally ordered one online, right or wrong, late this evening.

Friday, 8 May - Right after the Cruiser's Net this morning a lady called me on the VHF radio and begged me to take her on a loop through the mangroves to search for her cat that apparently fell off her boat last Saturday. She's searched all around the harbor and advertised on the local radio stations, Facebook, the sheriff's office, etc. and this was a last ditch effort. I knew the chances were extremely slim that we'd find it, and I didn't want to go but I couldn't turn her down. We made a slow, four hour loop calling for the cat very frequently, but no luck.
                    The handle I ordered for the Yamaha outboard motor should be here next week, but I thought I might as well re-epoxy the old one back on in the meantime. I applied some 5 minute epoxy to hold it in place until I can apply a thicker layer oven the top of this one next week.

Saturday, 9 May and Sunday, 10 May - I spent the weekend at Susie's. We passed most of the time watching a few episodes of "Madam Secretary" on TV, listening to music, and, since we can'd go to the Hurricane or Dockside for live music, dancing.

Monday, 11 May - When I returned to my dinghy from Susie's on the way back to my boat, I had about 6 inches of fresh water in the dinghy. It must have really rained hard at the harbor on Sunday morning. I decided to finish epoxying the handle on the Yamaha this afternoon. I mixed up a batch of old SuperMend epoxy and applied it. It's supposed to set up within about 15 minutes, but after an hour of holding the handle in place the epoxy was still slowly drooping and I could tell if I left it alone, the handle would fall off and stick to the floor of the dinghy, so I wrapped a handkerchief around it and pulled the whole blob off and threw it in the trash. I was under the impression that since the two part epoxy had never been mixed it should still be good. I guess I was wrong.

Tuesday, 12 May - Today was blustery with winds in the 20+ mph range and tomorrow is predicted to be the same. I'm sure I'll be on the boat all day.

Wednesday, 13 May - I picked up two packages received through the mail today. One of the packages took 3 1/2 months to get here. That was the variable reading glasses that I ordered. They are totally useless. The ad sounded good, but the workmanship is terrible. The nosepiece fell off as I took them out of the package and the adjusting screws are so tight that I can't rotate the one for the left eye. As best I can tell, the only part of the lenses I would be able to focus is in the very center, but the lenses in them produce double and triple images of everything. A total waste. I hope you haven't gotten suckered into ordering Canmake Wonderglasses. They aren't Wonderglasses, they are worthless glasses. Well, maybe they are Wonderglasses; once you get them you wonder why you ordered them.

Thursday, 14 May - I really didn't expect to accomplish much today. The prediction was for strong winds and rain. It was right. However, it turned into a perfect day to collect water off the top of the bimini top and to find leaks in the boat. It rained hard last night and I think my water system caught about 50 gallons and it rained almost all day today and I think I got about a hundred more. A side benefit is that water dripping out of the starboard settee drawers, indicating a leak. Of course I had to dig out the contents of several storage compartments to determine where the leaks was, then go out in the rain and wind and reseal the leaking stanchions and chainplates. After I got that done, I decided I'd better check out the port side compartments, too. Sure enough, one of them had a significant amount of water in it too, so I repeated the process for that side.

Friday, 15 May - My hosting of the Cruiser's net this morning lasted for about an hour which is about average. Sometimes they'll last an hour and a half or even two hours and sometimes as little as 15 minutes. The shorter ones are usually in the summer which we are quickly approaching and the harbor is emptying of boats as people head north. During the net this morning I heard a strange sound then realized it was my water tank vent making a whooshing sound, meaning the rain has topped off my water tank. I think I took on about 170 gallons in the last two days. After the net I checked my storage spaces to make sure they were still dry, then oiled to my saws and put things away. More rain is in the forecast and I think I'll leave my water catchment system installed and see what happens. The excess water should pour out through the vent into my cockpit, didn't drain back into the ocean from there. I'm sure those cockpit drains could use flushing out. It sounds like the weatherman believe that the storm that just pass by here and is sitting just south east of us may turn into the first big storm of the season as it moves north-eastward. I am glad we got more rain out of this then wind. Since it was rainy and overcast may solar panels barely produced any energy so I turned on the wind generator. Unfortunately, it wasn't producing electricity as well as I thought it should either. Perhaps that was because I haven't been running it at all in the last few months. My batteries weren't losing ground with the wind generator running, but they weren't gaining much either. At least this afternoon we've gotten some sunshine so the solar panels can kick back in and top my batteries up again.

            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