Friday, 28 August - I'd asked Allen Barry on S/V Mendocino Queen to fill in for me as net controller last week, but since I'm back, I ran the net this morning then started putting things on the boat away than I won't be needing while in port after last week's trip to the Everglades. I got most things put away and back emails and messages responded to by 5:30 and met Susie at the dinghy dock again.

Saturday, 29 August - Susie and I went to the marina and I picked up a couple of packages that were waiting for me, one of which was a couple of books from my brother, Mike, then we went on out to the boat to get Island Time's yankee sail that Tom Krueger had help me take down before going to Little Shark River. He and I hadn't been able to fold it properly and it ended up just a wadded mess so Susie and I took it to the city park in a dock cart, unbundled it, and folded it neatly into a bundle about half the size it started out, then slipped it into its sail bag and took it back to the boat.

Sunday, 30 August - Susie and I took the dinghy out from the boat to West Sister Rock, a small island just outside the harbor and did some snorkeling. On the way out, I saw a dolphin just as it dove under the dinghy and avoided a head-on collision, then at the island we saw a small barracuda, one very large stone crab, various other fishes, and, on the way back, egrets, pelicans, and herons, a pretty nice afternoon.

Monday, 31 August - During the weekend, which I didn't know about since I was at Susie's and out of touch with the harbor during the morning nets,, the M/V SamTam drug its anchor and was in either the grass flats or the mangroves, I'm not sure which. This morning there was a rescue mission to move the boat. I had too much that needed to be done, but I was able to contribute my 66 lb. Bruce anchor to the effort. I expected one dinghy to come get it, but three or four arrived. Everybody wants to help out. After that, the day went downhill from there. I was surprised to get a call from T-Mobile asking if their service was meeting my standards. I told them "No." My downloads are too slow, causing the few videos I watch to buffer as I watch and they said, "Ok, lets fix that." That sounds good, but after a couple of hours, they dumped me off to Apple techs because they couldn't resolve the problem. To make a long story short, I spent about eight hours on the phone with either T-Mobile or Apple and still hadn't found what might be wrong. In fact, when it was all over, although I could stream video on YouTube, get email, and use other apps that access the internet, my browser, Safari, wouldn't work at all and I had to idea what they had had me switch on and off over the day's time; too many things to keep track of or remember. I was back on the phone with both of them until about 11 o'clock that night.

Tuesday, 1 September - I was back on the phone for several hours and they were convinced that the only solution would be to do a clean install of the operating system on the phone. I don't know if you've ever done that, but it takes days or weeks to get your computer back to normal, and as you reload your backups, you can possibly reintroduce the problem again. I refused to do that. It's a truly last resort option. I like to think things like this over for quite awhile and discuss the problem with others, even though they may have no idea how to resolve the problem. Discussing things gives me ideas. Susie gave me an excuse to put off the clean install. She had found a dinghy for sale that she wanted me to accompany her to go see and give her advise. After a couple of trips to see it, and almost doing so, I realized that the VIN number wasn't visible on the boat, so she decided, with good reason, not to take it.

Wednesday, 2 September - While riding with Susie yesterday, my Safari started working again, but that evening, it was again non-functional. Totally baffling still, but it made me believe it had something to do with interference on the boat, so I went ashore and stood about 200 feet from the T-Mobile transmission tower, where I had excellent reception according to the bars on my phone, but still no Safari. While there, I came to the realization that, perhaps, I could simply work around Safari by uploading another browser, Firefox, onto my phone. I did that and thought all was well...however...although Firefox worked perfectly, some apps access the internet for information and they try to do that through Safari. Ugh! Ok, how do I make Firefox the default browser? According to T-Mobile and Apple, you can't do that on a phone, although in version 14 of the IOS, you will be able to. I can't load IOS 13 or 14 on my iPhone, it's too old. Ok, T-Mobile and Apple can't figure out how to fix this, so I'll contact one of the app developers that uses the default browser to load some of their information...BoatUS, with which I track storms. After about 2 hours on the phone with their tech guy, he finally figured out that someone had had me turn off a software switch in my iPhone settings while trying to diagnose the slowness problem and that turned off Safari. So simple, yet so hard to diagnose. I told him he was a genius and we called it a night about 9 pm. All's well!

Thursday, 3 September - The fellow whose boat had dragged its anchors let me know this morning that he didn't need it anymore and arranged for someone to help me extricate it from the bottom. The helper said he'd be available in about an hour and call me. Three hours later he called and we brought up my anchor and a boarding ladder with it. Just as I started to say that I'd take the boarding ladder, which was junk, to the dumpster, he tossed it back into the harbor where someone else will get it tangled in their anchor and drag it across the bay again. Dumb. Oh, well. My dinghy doesn't seem to be running as well as it should so yesterday I cleaned the spark plugs and re-gapped them .005" wider to .040". Maybe that will create a hotter spark. While doing that, I should have, but forgot to, clean the fuel filter in the engine, too, so I did that today. As I expected, since there are three other filters before the engine filter, it was pretty clean. I didn't get a chance to take the dinghy out of the harbor where I could do a speed and power test, so I don't know if my efforts were fruitful or not. Maybe tomorrow.

Friday, 4 September - Today, once again, I defrosted the freezer. Not too exciting, but necessary.

Saturday, 5 September - I spent the day with Susie and we made a quick trip to the hardware store to get her some paracord in order to tie things down with in case of a hurricane. Of course, being in a hardware store, I bought a few things, too, sacrificial zincs for the engine, a fabric water repellant for the apron at the back of the bimini top, and a strainer for the galley sink to keep small items from going down that drain. Anything that goes down that drain is instantly gone forever, it drops right out of the boat.

Sunday, 6 September - I've lost this day.

Monday, 7 September - Susie and I started off the day with a fresh lobster tail appetizer each before breakfast, then eggs and toast. Later, we went for a dinghy ride in my dinghy, during which time we met several friends of mine and ours, Kate and Allen Barry of S/V Mendocino Queen, my next mooring ball neighbors, Kendra and Bruce on S/V Southern Cross , and Odie O'Donaghue of S/V Cloud Walker over in Whisky Creek and chatted with each for awhile.

Tuesday, 8 September - Over the weekend, the weather forecast was for quite a bit of rain and I needed water onboard the boat, so I installed the water catchment system hoping to get at least a partial fill from that rain. Unfortunately, that rain barely happened, so my plan was to go to the marina with the boat and fill the tank. I've always taken my jerry jugs in the past, but since I was so low on water, at about 35 gallons in the 200 gallon tank, it would take me at least three trips filling 10 five gallon jugs that weigh 40 lb. each, so this time I was going to take the boat. Fortunately, it rained quite a bit today and I collected about 50 gallons, and more rain is predicted for the coming days, so I'll see how much more I can get. It might save me a trip to the dock.BR>                     I also started looking into a genoa sleeve for the large sail that Tom Krueger helped me take down before I left for Little Shark River last time. Even with his help we didn't get it flaked and folded into a small enough package to handle, so it made me realize that I'd certainly not be able to do it by myself in an emergency. A genoa sleeve would solve that problem to some degree. Rather than taking the sail off, I could merely slide a sleeve up over it and then snug the sleeve down with pull lines. The sleeve would keep high winds from getting in between the layers of the furled sail and opening it up, so I could leave the sail up safely. Not the perfect solution, but better than without it. I had considered simply wrapping extra halyards or lines around the sail, but that would still leave the edges exposed, allowing wind in between the layers. The sleeve would solve that problem.

Wednesday, 9 September - As I awakened this morning, the VHF was announcing that there was a sailboat aground on the grass flats by Dog Island here in the harbor, so I launched the dinghy and headed over there, expecting others to show up. None did. I tried to tow him off unsuccessfully, then realized that we'd probably made it worse by going the wrong direction. I circled the boat trying to figure out where the closest shallower water was, then had him hand me the lower end of one of his spare halyards. I attached a hundred foot line to that and headed out perpendicular to his boat. Once taking the slack out of the line, I applied full throttle to my dinghy, making his boat heel hard to starboard and he applied full throttle to his boat's engine. Within about 3 minutes we had him afloat again and I head back to Island Time for breakfast.

Thursday, 10 September - I went to Home Depot this morning and bought a soldering gun that showed a rope cutting blade on the box to make cutting nylon rope a clean, smooth cut that won't need whipping. However, I didn't trust the picture on the box, and with good reason. I cut the cable wrap sealing the box and sure enough, the cutter isn't included, but I figured I could make one myself. A couple of hours after I reached Island Time I cut my first line with it, the two hundred foot, 3/4" rope I got a few weeks ago. I now have two 100 foot lines with eyes spliced into one end each. I, also, bought a 100 foot fiberglass measuring tape to measure such things on the boat as stays, shrouds, and lots of lines.

Friday, 11 September - Today I tried to figure out how to send and receive encrypted, compressed files to and from my brother. I'm on a Mac and he's runs Unix on his computer so that certainly complicates the situation. Around noon, Susie texted me via phone that there is a storm, soon to be Tropical Storm 19 (Sally) just off the lower eastern coast of Florida and headed west at 10 mph. This one really snuck up on me. The last I saw of it, it was merely some rain clouds. Luckily, it started to form so close to us that it was merely a lot of rain as it passed just north of us.

Saturday, 12 September - It rained all day so we stayed in until about 5 pm. I decided I'd better go back to the marina to bail out my dinghy that I'd left at the dock. Being an inflatable, it can't sink, but there were some tools in the under-seat storage that I didn't want to get wet. I arrived at the dock and was surprised how little water was in it. I think some thoughtful person may have bailed some out for me. I bailed it out, removed the tools and we headed back to Susie's house.

Sunday, 13 September - I found out today the Marathon got about 7 inches of rain yesterday, a record for here, so I'm pretty sure that I was right about someone bailing out the dinghy before I got there. The storm has mostly passed us but it's still quite overcast, and with little rain. We feel sorry for the poor people in Louisiana or Alabama, wherever Sally is headed. There are still four more storms in the Atlantic, but two of them have already head further north and number 20, although it's pretty early to tell, is predicted to turn north, too. I still may need to worry about but number 21 which is already out there, although not named yet.

Monday, 14 September - Back at the boat this morning I confirmed that my 200 gallon water tank is, indeed, full, and that everything else onboard is just fine; not that I was worried much. On Friday I had 70 gallons in the tank. With 7 inches of rain on Saturday, I wonder how quickly it overflowed. When it does, it merely runs into the cockpit and drains down one of three 2 inch drains. On another note, with so many tropical storms this season, we've certainly been luck to have avoided them all so far.

Tuesday, 15 September - Rent for my mooring ball was due today so I went ashore to pay that, check to see if any of my friends had written me a letter, stuff some Cruiser's Bags, and waterproof the apron that covers the back of the cockpit with 303 Fabric Guard. I needed to hang it between two trees to spray it.

Wednesday, 16 September - This afternoon I waterproofed the two fabric funnel pockets that collect the water off the bimini top and send it to the prefilter before it goes into the water tank. I'd been waiting to do that since I got the other sewing done on the aft apron, water and gas jug covers, and the new cover for the life raft. It's been raining so much this last month that I couldn't get the fabrics dry in order to spray them.

Thursday, 17 September - We had light winds today so I reinstalled the awning on the foredeck.

Friday, 18 September - Now that the funnel pockets for the water catchment system have dried, I got out the chassis punch set and punched 3/4" holes in a plastic food container and made a couple of oblong washers for the bottoms of the pockets and then reassembled and remounted them. After that, I got out a plumber's snake and got down in the engine room and cleared out the drain pipes that are supposed to channel the little bits of salt water that come from the rear of the boat under the engine oil drip pan so it can drain into the bilge to be pumped out. I have no idea what could have plugged them up, but, at least, now the drains will do their jobs again. Next week I need to get down in the engine room again and vacuum salt water out of the engine oil drip pan that had overflowed into it.
                    Around six this afternoon, Susie will pick me up for the weekend. Several weeks ago she asked me to quit shaving because she likes the softness of my beard. It's longer than I've ever let it grow before, about 2" overall, but now she says it covers too much of my neck, so it's time to trim it back some and to expose these kissable lips again, too. Frankly, I've never understood why women would want men to shave. Within just hours a man's cheeks and chin feel like sandpaper, but when the whiskers get to about 1/2" long, they feel nice and soft.
                    With so many tropical storms and hurricanes this year, we've certainly been lucky to NOT have had any hit us. Sally didn't reach hurricane strength until it passed us and they've run out of human names and have just started on the Greek alphabetical names starting with "Alpha" and "Beta"; and we're just over halfway through the season. I certainly hope our good luck continues. Thank God so many are staying east of us. "Teddy" looks big - is big; a CAT 3 Hurricane. I hope it follows the predicted track northward.