Saturday & Sunday, 16 & 17 May 2020 - Susie and I spent the weekend at her house. We watched some TV, went for a walk along Sadowski Causway there in Key Colony Beach, baked some cookies, and listened to some music. A very nice weekend.

Monday, 18 May - The shift lever for the Yamaha outboard motor arrive on Saturday so I picked it up this morning on the back to the boat. A simple repair; remove one bolt, remove and replace the handle, re-install the bolt, a ten minute job...or so I thought. Good ol' Murphy interceded using a little corrosion between the aluminum bracket and the steel bolt, probably caused by the exposure to saltwater. As I backed the bolt out, its shaft broke off up inside the bracket so I had to drill that out to replace it. I was lucky to have a metric bolt the right diameter and length to replace it with. I was going to drill and tap it, but tap handle wouldn't fit in the space, so I drilled it one size larger and used a nut on it instead. It only took about three hours. On a boat, that's typical for a ten minute job...if you have the right tools, longer if you don't.
                    A pretty good squall rolled through the harbor this evening. It made a pretty good display as viewed from the harbor.

Tuesday, 19 May - The mattress protector for my bed is in pretty poor shape so I started looking onboard for a replacement. I figured I'd just use a sheet, blanket, or something similar. Actually, I discovered, via my database, that I already have two mattress protectors onboard. I'm always surprised at things onboard that I hadn't discovered previously. Next to the mattress covers was a clothes steamer / iron. I gave away one iron early on on this trip and an ironing board, but hadn't discovered this steamer.

Wednesday, 20 May - I picked up some mail at the marina this morning and, upon return to the boat, I was hailed on the VHF and asked if I had noticed the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon on my deck. I had not. It came from the lady that I had accompanied into Boot Key's mangroves looking for her cat. Amazingly, they finally found the cat, Simba, last evening. Someone ashore had spotted him at the house of a lady that apparently feeds several neighborhood cats. They've put off sailing north for about two or three weeks in hopes of reuniting with their cat. Upon hearing that, one of the other harbor residents that lost their cat and their boat in hurricane Irma related that they have recently been reunited with their cat also, after 2 1/2 years! Their cat had a microchip implanted in its tail that made the reunion possible.

Thursday, 21 May - I cleaned the hull today. The ocean is already 85°F, which, although it made for comfortable hull cleaning, doesn't bode well for the coming hurricane season. I’m very disappointed in the paint job on the hull I got at Marathon Boatyard last October or November. The bronze on the Propeller is already showing through. Either the paint they used was wrong or they didn’t prep or prime it properly. I cleaned the bottom about 6 weeks ago and the barnacles and vegetation were already quite heavy. Most alarming was the discovery of a spot on the bottom of the keel where the fiberglass has splintered off as if some of the fiberglass they applied didn’t adhere well. My scraper got caught under it. For some reason, the vertical portions of the keel were fairly clean, but not the rounded portions or the vertical sides of the rudder. Another thing that they did wrong, and that I already knew about, was that they used cardboard against the hull and under the slings to keep the slings of the crane from marring the new paint job. They should have laid plastic sheeting in there instead because the cardboard stuck to the paint and left a bad spot when the cardboard came off.

Friday, 22 May - This morning, after hosting the VHF Cruiser's Net, I put away all the diving gear which been drying overnight, the compressor, and scrapers.

Saturday, 23 May - Memorial Day Weekend - I spent the whole weekend in Key Colony Beach with Susie and on Saturday we went tandem kayaking in Susie's single, sit-on kayak. (It's a really big, high volume boat.) We broke the back support on its seat, but, after looking at it closely, we realized that it had been assembled wrong and we were able to come up with a cheap fix for it. While we were out kayaking we came across three manatees and observed them for about 20 minutes, then headed back to the dock at her house. I don't know if one of the manatees followed us or not, but right after we got out of the kayak, one appeared right next to her dock, then stuck around for awhile. I got some pictures of Susie when the manatee came right up next to her kayak.

Sunday, 24 May - was pretty rainy, so we spent most of the day indoors or on her back porch watching the storms roll through. Later, we broiled marinated steaks on the BBQ.

Monday, 25 May - More rain was predicted so we went out kayaking again early. Susie baked some more cookies with batter left over from the last time, then we watched TV and cooked burgers on her grill later.

Tuesday, 26 May - When Susie dropped me off at the marina this morning, I came to realize how much rain we'd actually gotten. I had about ten inches of fresh water in the dinghy that I needed to bail out before I could motor out to the boat. That much water flooded the emergency tools I have stowed in the under-seat storage, so I spent the morning drying those out and removing the rust. Obviously, I need to find more waterproof storage containers to keep the tools in.

Wednesday, 27 May - The weather here has finally dried out. Now we get to complain about how hot it is, 88° and feels like 99. Actually, it was a beautiful day here, you just had to get the breeze to blow across you.

Thursday, 28 May - Vicky Barber called me this morning right after the Cruiser's Net and asked that I come to the marina and stuff some of the bags with information pamphlets that are given out to the new arrivals to the mooring field. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 threat no new arrivals were allowed, so I've had a two or three month vacation from that job. Since they are going to open the flood gates, so to speak, by reopening the Overseas Highway to the Keys on Monday, Vicky wants to have plenty of the bags prepared.
                    Starting about 11 AM, I defrosted the refrigerator/freezer again. It took about 2 hours.

Friday, 29 May - My Cruiser's Net lasted about 45 minutes this morning. After that I vacuumed and prepared a food shopping list to give to Phong Long on Monday so he can go to the grocery store for me on Tuesday. I really don't like doing my shopping like this. It takes me almost as long to prepare a list that I can have Susie print out for me as it would for me to actually go to the store and buy the food. It does, however, keep me out of one of the most dangerous buildings on the island, and the young man does it for free as his contribution to the harbor, so I shouldn't complain.

Saturday, 30 May - I picked up Susie at Dockside Bar and, margaritas in hand, we went to my boat to launch a kite for the harbor's kite day. Unfortunately, the two string kite that I have was just a little too difficult for me to launch successfully from the boat. I usually launch it onshore where I can lay the lines out and make sure they are untangled prior to launching. On the boat, I had to have Susie feed and untangle the lines from behind me as I tried to let the lines slowly slide through my hands a little bit at a time to get it airborne. Each time I even came close, the wind would die and let the kite hit the water, soaking it. It's made of rip-stop nylon so it didn't take long to dry out, but as long as it was wet, the upper and lower panels stuck together, not letting all the sections inflate. After about two hours of trying, we bagged the kite, threw the kayaks over the side and went in search of manatees. We didn't find any, but had a nice cruise around the grass flats anyway. After that, we headed back to Dockside for another well deserved margarita and a snack, then back to her house.

Sunday, 31 May - We both got a little sunburned yesterday so we stayed either inside in the air conditioning or on the back porch in the shade. Then, after dinner, we watched a couple of movies about global warming and it's effect on the coral around the world. Basically, the gist of each movie is that the coral reefs all over the world are succumbing to global warming and dying off, and if they do, mankind could be in real trouble because all the fish in the seas, rely on the reefs, either directly or indirectly, and man depends on the fish for food and the world's economy. The latter of the two movies was made in 2017 and the reefs have suffered even much worse warming in the last two years. Our oceans are in real trouble.

Monday, 1 June 2020 - They had planned on opening the Overseas Highway today to mainlanders and I assume they did. As Susie brought me back to the marina this morning the traffic did seem to be a bit heavier, but not terrible. Thank goodness the road wasn't opened on a Friday. I guess it will take about three to four weeks to see how many more daily cases of the Covid 19 virus the Keys gets. So far there have only been about 108 cases and four deaths so far, but I'm sure that will jump substantially soon.

Keep those masks on when you go out and wash your hands frequently. Stay healthy.