Wednesday Afternoon, 8 July 2015 - I spent most of the afternoon opening the 14 compartments under the sole (floor) of the main and forepeak cabins to see what is there, how much space is empty there and to try to figure out how much and what I have that I can store there.

Thursday, 9 July - More of the same, but different. Today I moved my two largest tool chests and three milk crates of food and spices from the motorhome and tried to figure out where to put them. Progress is slow. Most available spaces are small and very odd shaped. I put the largest tool chest where I had planned on putting most of my dry and canned goods. I'm trying to figure out how to not only put things away, but also have it so I don't have to dig through lots of stuff I don't need to get to an item that I do every time...or to have similar items scattered in seven different spaces.

Friday, 10 July - More of the same, working in the galley and saloon compartments, some in the cockpit lazarettes. It's a good thing I brought ropes. The only ropes they left me fill one lazaretto, a space about 3 feet by 3 feet by 5 feet. Oh, and they also left me two anchor rodes that are 3/4' x 100' each that are in my trailer.

Saturday, 20 July - Rearranging food, etc., then received call from Chuck Richardson, he and Qita Woolley, both of whom are longtime friends from skiing at Alta, are taking the direct route from Virginia back to Utah, via Florida in a rented car, seeing a few friends and the sites along the way. They will arrive tomorrow. Decided I'd better do something about the water aboard that is tasting and smelling horribly like sulphur. Got into the engine room to see if there was a filter ahead of the water tank. There was not. I contacted the previous owner about which of three different filter cartridges to use on the filter that processes water coming out of the tank and he reminded me to be sure to lubricate the filter body with the proper lubricant. Searched for the lube for two hours. Emailed him about its location. He knew right where it was and I finished about an hour after he responded. The water's aroma and flavor are much improved. I don't know what was in that filter, but it sure was potent.

Sunday, 12 July - I was surprised to wake up to thunder, but it didn't rain on me 'til I got to the boat. I arrived at the boat, opened all the hatches, port lights and windows and started putting things away and cleaning up some. Then it started to rain. I asked the boat owner next to me if it was really going to rain for a while, or just rain hard enough to force me to close all the hatches, etc. He said the latter, and he was right, but if I hadn't closed up, things would have gotten pretty wet. With the rain, it was a nice cool morning. Chuck and Qita arrived at 2:00pm, took a quick tour of the boat, then, since they were pretty tired from the traveling, they started figuring out where to stay for the evening. I returned to the boat and put things back in boxes and milk crates so we can go sailing tomorrow. It's going to take a long time to get things in their proper hiding places, but this is an emergency, we need to go sailing!

Monday, 13 July - It's going to be an exciting day. I'll meet Qita and Chuck at their hotel for breakfast. It's about a mile and a half over the bridge from Palmetto to Bradenton. Then, it's back to the boat for my first time out as captain and skipper of Island Time...

                        Wow! What a great day! We finally headed out of the marina around noonish and headed out of the river west. I had turned on the chart plotter and was following a track input by Rick George as they had come into the river and marina initially. He had said this would be a safe track, and we had followed it out and back when we took the boat to be surveyed and again when Rick and Gay familiarized me with the boat and systems. We made it about 1/4 mile before we grounded in soft mud. We were still well within the river and headed into the wind, so I just immediately put the transmission in neutral, hoping that the wind would blow us back out of the mud. Chuck never realized we were aground until several hours later, when I told them we'd been aground, and Qita thought we were simply turning to raise sail. After the wind turned us, I put it back in gear, turned completely around, and headed back out. No Problem.

                        We zig-zagged out the river, avoiding the shallows, and when we reached the outer limits of Tampa Bay, we set sail, heading north. As we approached the Tampa Bay shipping channel, we tacked and headed right back where we'd come from. The breeze was nice and sailing was great. Pictures were taken. Chuck took the helm off and on, we saw two or three porpoises, ospreys on some of the channel markers, and just had a great time in general. We sailed, tacking a couple more times, then as we passed through the shipping lanes one more time, we realized that it was about 4:45pm and that we'd better head back. One more tack and home we headed, looking for the channel markers on the river again. We saw the first two red channel markers first and knew that we wanted them on our starboard side returning up the river. Next, the first green marker was spotted, and I headed the boat downwind a bit, planning on passing about 75 feet inside the marker, with it on our left. Aground again. We furled the genoa as quickly as we could. To furl the sail, we should have headed upwind, but, hey!, we're aground. The genoa got wrapped onto itself, but we got that straightened out quickly. As we had turned downwind a bit, I had decided to furl the jib, so that wasn't up now, so next came the mainsail. When it got about halfway furled, the tension on the furling line got very tight and hard to pull in, so I put the winch handle on and cranked it in a ways. Something's wrong. Way too hard. Qita was in a position to see the sail and mast better and noticed that the sail had gotten jammed between the spreader and a piece of tubing that had been installed to protect the sail from the front edge of the spreader itself. The mainsail was furled, but I was sure hoping that we hadn't torn or otherwise damaged it.

                        Time to worry about that later. We're aground headed downwind and need to get off before we are driven further forward by the wind and waves! I started the engine and put it in reverse. Revved it. Not moving. I had Chuck and Qita move as forward on the bow as they could get in order to lower the bow and raise the stern. Just as I started revving the engine in reverse again, the wake from some distant vessel reached us, bounced us up and down a bit, and back we came. We had been in 5.5 ft of water, but after moving back only about 5 - 10 ft. we were in 7 ft., then 12 again. Thank goodness. We really didn't want to spend the night in that channel. Besides, Chuck was getting hungry. (Just kidding!)

                        We decided, after motoring a ways, that some sail might speed our progress, so out came the genoa again. Chuck took the helm for awhile again and home we went. As we approached the marina, and knowing that there was plenty of shallow water around it, I decided to call the marina on the radio for directions into the marina, since we were also in the process of changing slips and would be entering from a different fairway. We got lucky again. It was 7pm, and I knew they usually leave for the evening at 6 o'clock. They answered the radio, gave us directions, and in we went...'til we got stuck in the mud as I tried to turn us into the slip. "Qita, Chuck, to the bow!" I put her in reverse, and back we came...but we can't stay right in the middle of the fairway 'til midnight when the tide comes in, other boats with shallower draft might need to come in. Okay, this baby has lots of power, let's see how much. I finished the turn and ran aground again, just out of the slip. All ahead full and we eased slowly in. No worry about running into the dock. As soon as I backed off the throttle, we stopped instantly. PERFECT ENDING TO A PERFECT DAY!

                        Time to break out the bottle of wine! We had a leisurely bottle of wine, met several of my new neighbors, buttoned up the ship and headed over to Bradenton for a great meal. Fabulous!

                        It was fantastic to be able to share my first day out as the captain on Island Time with my longtime friends, Chuck and Qita!

Tuesday, 14 July - Chuck and Qita returned this morning around 10:30 and Qita volunteered to go up the mast in a boatswain's chair and try to get the mainsail out of it's jam. I hauled on the winch, Chuck tailed the line, and up she went. She says that when she was sailing 30 years ago, she was always the one that "was volunteered" to go up the mast, since she was the lightest. Same thing today, except she truly volunteered this time. I think she'd missed the excitement.                         Moments after arriving at the jam, she had it freed up and it was picture taking time. Nothing like a little altitude to change the viewpoint.
                        Down she came, we lounged around in the cockpit and reminisced a bit, then they departed to Cape Canaveral to watch the launch of a GPS satellite tomorrow at 11am. It sure was great seeing them.
                        The rest of the afternoon, I spent putting lines and the boatswain's chair away, moving stuff out of my old dock box and into the new one, and getting the forward stereo speakers to work it the saloon. I got the speakers working, but can't get my iPhone or iPod to play through the stereo. Maybe tomorrow. It's dark. I think I'll call my day on the boat a done day. Another great day!

Wednesday, 15 July - I was out of water on the mobile home and needed to empty the holding tanks, so I did that first thing this morning, then headed to the boat. I knew that there is an old air conditioner onboard, so I thought this would be a good day to get it out and see if it works. I started digging in the port lazarette and found it in the second level down, then realized that there might be a third level down there. The bottom of the second level didn't look screwed down, just wedged in. A very tight fit, but I finally found just the right tool and, sure enough, it popped right up. There's another, 30 gallon fuel tank stuffed in there, along with a fluid trapped by a liner below the tank. I was afraid it might be diesel, but after about another 45 minutes, I was able to pump some of it out, and discovered it was only water. Maybe condensation, maybe a small leak somewhere. Luckily, there wasn't much, but I am curious where it came from. The liner appears to be a red rubber or silicone sheet and the tank appears to have a gasket made of the same stuff. It also looks like it has softened and squeezed out of it's place as a seal for the tank. Not good, I need to find out what's going on there. If the fluid I spotted below the tank had been diesel, I'd really have a problem. I remember Rick George mentioning that tank. I think he said it's not legal to use it in the USA because the filler tube for it isn't a straight drop from the filler cap to the tank, so you can't drop a stick down it to measure its contents. One option would be to remove it and use the space as storage, but I'm not sure that would be worth doing. The space would be so hard to access, buried under two other levels of storage, that I'd put things in there and never see them again. The top opening that I'd have to crawl down through is only 12" wide and it's really hard to turn around in there. I think I was in and out of there about 20 - 30 times today.
                  I still don't know if the air conditioner works. I needed to stop to get this written and just as I got things all put away, a squall blew through and I had to batten down the hatches - quickly! Now I need to see if I can get some pictures posted to go with this episode.