Monday, 30 November 2020 - Very windy with threatening showers. I had anticipated going kayaking into Vanishing Lake, but the other kayakers backed out last night.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 - Very cool and windy, but sunny. Re-marking spare ropes onboard. While at Susie's this evening, she helped me cut some more strips of Sunbrella about 5/8" wide to attache to the spare ropes I have onboard with the lengths written on them. I had measured and tagged many of the ropes before with little hang tags, but those tear off too easily. These should stays on much better and I'm hoping that the ink from the "Permanent" markers won't fade too fast. Only time will tell. I very confident that the tags I wrapped around one of the three strands on the ropes I marked today will remain for a long time.

Wednesday, 2 December - I'm so spoiled now that I had to put a jacket on today because it got down to 59°F last night and was in the 60s or law 70s all day today. I re-marked more of the ropes today and almost finished but there are three that I'm going to have to remeasure since the previous tags had been ripped off during usage.

Thursday, 3 December - I went to the marina office and posted notes for a few items I have for sale and got my dinghy tags replaced after having moved to another ball. While ashore, I re-measured and re-tagged four more ropes with their lengths, then returned to Island Time and checked out and rinsed my scuba gear.

Friday, 4 December - Right after the I ran the Cruiser's Net on the VHF this morning Mary and Walt came by Island Time and we then paddled a few boats over to have Fred Rybczynski on S/V Otter II join us for a trip into the Boot Key mangroves to Disappearing Lake. That trail is always an adventure and this time was no exception. There are several entries into the main trail but there even more false entry points, too. We split up and both pairs of two found separate entrances, then rejoined about a hundred yards in, just as Fred, on the kayak that I just sold him tipped over and went for a swim. He was in a significant panic until I told him to simply stand up. The water was only about 3 feet deep. I collected his water bottle, paddle, and one shoe and returned them to him and all seemed well until just before we reached the lake and he discovered he'd lost his hat. Since we'd return by the same route, we went on with our journey of discovery. As we headed back out, we all searched the clear water, but, as I'd expected, didn't find the hat. There are just too many roots and limbs for it to get hung up on underwater and it obviously didn't float or we'd have seen it. Well, that's not quite true. He found it behind the seat of his kayak when he returned to his boat. We all had a good time.

Saturday, 5 December - I spent the day at Susie's social distancing because of Covid-19, but we did need to go to the hardware store for more Christmas lights for her house and we installed them on her fence at home. We tried to let the dog get some exercise chasing a tennis ball into the canal behind Susie's but on the very first try to return to the dock via the ramp we fixed for her, she failed to be able to get her hind legs onto the board because the tide was too low. We had been afraid that might happen, so we weren't surprised and simply lifter her out. Not an easy job since she weighs around 70 lb. We'll try earlier tomorrow.

Sunday, 6 December - We decided to add a bit more of the non-skid tape to the rungs of the ramp for Sangria, the dog, then, with the tide up a bit further than yesterday, she chased the ball for about 30 minutes successfully. Climbing that ramp is still pretty tough for her until she can get the weight on her hind legs, but other than starting over and making the ramp two feet longer and one board wider, I don't know how to solve that problem. Well, yes, I do. Keep throwing the ball. She'll get stronger. Other than chasing the ball in the canal, which only started a couple of weeks ago, she hardly gets any exercise at all.

Monday, 7 December - That day that "will forever live in infamy". Pearl Harbor Day - It started raining just as I arose this morning and rained hard for about half an hour, then it was over and the rest of the day was quite nice. Around two o'clock I lowered the dinghy and went to another vessel that has a scuba rig for sale. My buoyancy compensator has a tiny hole in it and I was hoping to get newer gear at a good price, then sell what I have now, making for only a small outlay of money on my part. That didn't happen. One of his secondary regulators wasn't working properly and his buoyancy compensator was leaking way worse than mine. He says he'll have them fixed and get back to me. We'll see. There was a night net this evening that was a trivia contest with "music" for a theme. It was fun and I'm always amazed how much knowledge this harbor has in it. As a group, we don't get stumped too often.

Tuesday, 8 December - A cold front has passed through and it will be about ten degrees cooler today than yesterday and considerably windier, too. I glued a plug back into my kayak paddle shaft that had come out when I pulled it apart last time and repaired a kayak handle, too.

Wednesday, 9 December - Brrr! A cold day here in Marathon. Temperatures in the 60s, breezy and humidity near 60%, too. I had to put on a sweat suit to stay warm. It'll be it the upper 50s tonight.

Thursday, 10 December - The 2 quart sauce pan that I bought back in about 1973 seems to be losing its non-stick finish and I realized that I might have a replacement in the storage space beneath the countertop right here in the galley. I only get in there about once every two years because it is so full of pots and pans, etc., that it has to be packed just right to get it all back in there. It's also one of the few spaces that I haven't inventoried. That's another reason I don't go in there; I don't know what's there. I decided that today was the day to find out and realized that if I'm ever going to know what's there, I need to inventory it for the future. I opened it up realizing that I'd better take pictures of what I saw so I could get it all back in there, then I realized that just a simple description in the inventory app wouldn't be enough to remember what things looked like, so I decided to photograph each piece, too. Needless to say, that's going to take time and I didn't start early enough in the day. Also, as I got about halfway down in there, the space is about 2'X 2'X 3', I realized that there has been water in there. Upon closer inspection, I discovered a very slow drip from the fresh water system that is in the compartment, too. It's not a lot, about 1 drip every two seconds, but, of course over time, that's started to ruin the plywood shelf it there and caused rust spots on some of the contents. The pizza pan is pretty rusty on one edge. It also appears that, at some point, things in there must have shifted and a big pot started collecting the water. It's had up to about 2" of water in it that has now dried up, but not before causing a stainless steel pan that was in the bottom of it to bond with the pot quite well. Thankfully, there are quite a few items that haven't been damaged. For instance a microwave egg boiler, a stove-top Tater Baker, a square griddle with bacon flatter, a cheese grater, a gravy separator, a pressure cooker, lots of Tupperware type containers, a 14 inch spatter screen, and lots of other pots and pans, large and small, but no 2 quart sauce pan. Darn! Discovering the leak stalled the inventory and photography. The water appeared to be coming from a hose clamp so I thought, Ok, easy, I'll just tighten that and move on. Wrong! The hose clamp broke. I immediately shut off the water pump that supplies pressure to the system and it's a good thing I did. I should have also opened a faucet to relieve the pressure. While I was up under the table trying to remove the floor panel to get a replacement hose clamp, the pressure blew the hose off and squirted a bit of water around the room. Thank goodness I had turned off the pump. If I hadn't I'd probably have knocked myself out trying to get out from under the table as the hole blasted water all over the place. I replaced four hose clamps but, of course, it still leaks. Apparently, one of the glued PVC joints has a tiny leak, meaning I'm going to have to replace about 2 feet of tubing with about 5 or 6 connectors and short pieced of pipe. That's going to be another day's work, I'm sure, but I don't want to repack the space with the cooking utensils before I repair it. I've got plans for tomorrow and I'll spend the weekend with Susie, so I think I'll turn the water pump on only "as needed" until next Monay.

Friday, 11 December - Right after I hosted the Cruiser's Net this morning I jumped into repairing the leak in the water line. I cleaned the adjoining pipe and connector with sandpaper and dried them off, then tightly applied Super Glue's EZ Bond Tape to the joint. By stretching it tightly it is supposed to seal anything and then bond to the piece and itself, making a permanent repair. While that bonded for a couple of hours, I took more photos of the cookware from the galley under-counter storage and inventoried it. After two hours I assumed that the bonding of the tape would be permanent, so I turned on the water pump to check. Nope. Didn't work. I took the tape off, dried the connection again and applied Aqua Mend Underwater Repair Epoxy Putty to the joint, then let it set up for an hour, as recommended. It's now 4 o'clock and I officially give up on repairing the leak until Monday. After turning on the water pump again, the connection leaked not at a rate of 1 drip per two minutes as before, but at about one drop every two seconds. Yikes! What a repairman I am.

Saturday, 12 December - This afternoon Susie and I went to the boat and installed two sets of solar Christmas lights that she gave me; one set on the boom topping lift and the other on the safety lines that run around the foredeck. After that we watched the Christmas boat parade pass by as we sat on Island Time having a margarita. It's amazing how much time and money some of the boaters are willing to spend on decorating their with thousands of lights...and beautiful, too. I've included a few photos at the link near the bottom of this page. As we left the boat to go back to Susie's for the night, it started misting on us and by the time we reached shore three hundred yards away, it was a regular downpour. Luckily, it's warm and we don't melt in the rain.

Sunday, 13 December - I did a little bit of fancy rope work on a crab pot type float that I found in the mangroves a few weeks ago so that Susie could hang it at her house, then she put another set of Christmas lights or a star pine she has. After that we went to Dockside for a short while to help Roland Kok celebrate his 84 birthday. It was nice to get out and see some friends for only the second time since the virus social distancing began. Too many people in too small an area for us, even though it was an open air event, so we didn't stay long; one margarita, a sandwich, and one dance, and we were gone.

Monday, 14 December - I spent almost all day repairing the leak in that pipe again, although some of what took so long was waiting for PVC glue to dry hard, going to the hardware store to get a new batch of epoxy putty, applying that and letting it set up for an hour, then applying a layer of the stretch, EZ Bond tape and letting it set-up. Actually, I decided to let it all bond / set-up over night before turning the water pump back on. This evening at 7pm, Diesel Don Shuler ran a "Night Net" on the VHF about all things diesel on a boat. He started off talking about "runaway engines", a situation where the engine can increase its rpm until it either burns up or flies apart, caused by too much fuel or, according to him, oil being sucked into the fuel system. Most of the diesel engines on sail boats and trawlers, which most of the people in the harbor live on, are designed to max out at about 3000 rpm, but a runaway can exceed 10,000 rpm. His biggest warning was to not try to cover up the air intake with your hand because the vacuum caused by the speed of the engine could possibly break your hand or worse. His suggestion was to literally rip the shirt off your back and throw it into the intake. That won't work on my boat. The air intake is too large. I'd need to throw a thick jacket in there, but it's certainly good to know and think of it in advance.

Tuesday, 15 December - It was an absolutely beautiful and perfect day to go kayaking and snorkeling today because it was warm, cloudless, windless, and the water was very clear in the harbor, which is unusual, but I really wanted to assure myself that the plumbing repair was truly fixed and get all the pots and pans inventoried and back into the storage area and get the galley back in order. That took all day again, but I'm convinced that the leak is repaired well this time. I applied PVC glue, fresh epoxy putty, and self bonding stretch tape on the joint. Any one of those might have worked, but I figured that overkill is better than a leaky or broken pipe and a flooded boat. It couldn't sink the boat because I only have 200 gallons of fresh water onboard, but it could make a mess if the bilge pump failed, too.

Wednesday, 16 December - I took the staysail, which I thought as I pulled it down that I'd seen a tear in it along one seam, over to the tennis courts at the park next to the marina and spread it out to inspect it. I didn't find any significant damage, but did put a couple of patches on small abrasion points, then added about six tell-tales, three on each side of the sail. Upon returning to the marina I picked up a little bit of mail and stuffed brochures into about 40 of the Cruiser's Bags to be handed out to new arrivals in the harbor.

Thursday, 17 December - I re-installed the staysail today. The staysail is the middle of the three sails on Island Time, one of the two foresails. In other words it is the aftermost of the two sails that are on the foredeck, in front of the mast. The foremost sail is my genoa or yankee.

Friday, 18 December - After I hosted the Cruiser's Net this morning I had to remove one set of the Christmas lights. Over the weekend the top two of three sections had quit working. Apparently, the wind had caused the very thin wiring to stretch so much that slack formed and then the wind twisted the wires up terribly so that one of the wires broke just high enough that I couldn't reach it. That left about 30 feet of lights hanging at the top of the mast, so I had to climb the mast to get the topping lift, which I had raised the lights with, back down to the deck. When I got to the top of the mast, I broke the wire again and released it. Of course, a gust of wind caught the wire and blew it into the wind generator's prop and, even though the generator was turned off, it still rotates a bit, and before I could climb back down the mast, it was pretty well tangled around the generator's propeller and shaft. Murphy lives! After I got that all untangled, I defrosted the freezer.

Saturday, 19 December - Susie and I started assembling a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle that she gave me for my birthday at about 4 pm at her house and, jigsaw puzzles being so addictive, we didn't get to bed until about 2 AM.

Sunday, 20 December - We started working on the puzzle again about 9:30 this morning and finally finished it about 4 pm with a short break for lunch.

Monday, 21 December - The winter solstice. Tomorrow we get to observe the days getting longer again. Yea! Today was grocery day. I must have been too hungry going in. I bought over $200 worth of food. Lots of boaters here in the harbor go grocery shopping about every other day, but I dislike it so much that I go as infrequently as possible. Unfortunately, I'm limited by how much storage space I have.

Tuesday, 22 December - Today, I had Fred Rybczynski, of the S/V Otter II, over to the boat to help me out with the formulas in my spreadsheet. I couldn't figure out how to make cells that relied on other cells for multiplication or summation to show "nothing" instead of "zero" if the relied on cell was empty, but Fred had it figured out within about 30 minutes. After he left, I started moving the formulas over from the practice file I had created to my work file.

Wednesday, 23 December - I entered some past data into my spreadsheet today and dinghied into the marina twice to check on packages that I was expecting. One was about 10 lb. of barbecued brisket that my brother, Mike, sent me from Angelo's BBQ in Fort Worth. Susie and I will get started devouring that this weekend. Yum!

Thursday, 24 December - Christmas Eve - Whew! It's 84°F here in my saloon. I hope you're safe, healthy, and warm...or out enjoying the snow. I made some more modifications and additions to my spreadsheet today.