Friday, 30 April 2021 - The mooring field is thinning out, but my morning Cruisers' Net still lasted about an hour. That's unusual for this time of year. Not only that, but I actually sold the 5 to 16 foot fishing outrigger that I found it the mangroves right after hurricane Irma in September of 2017 and have advertised for $100 almost every morning since then. Patience and persistence pays.

Saturday, 1 May - I repaired a hole in an expanding water hose of Susie's, then we added potting soil in the long planter trough at the front of Susie's house and planted cosmos, and some other seeds in it.

Sunday, 2 May - I finally talked Susie into kayaking the Boot Key mangroves this morning. We spent a little over four hours on the trip and I think she enjoyed it thoroughly, but I'll bet her arms are sore tomorrow.

Monday, 3 May - I was amazed; we actually had eight players show up for pickleball today. Most are very new at the game but at least it filled two courts and I can continue to get some exercise. This afternoon I finally took the first eleven of twenty books in the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian and the first seven of eighteen of the Ramages books by Dudley Pope over to the marina and donated them to the Cruiser's library there.

Tuesday, 4 May - Jessica, one of the girls at the marina office asked me to stuff Cruisers' bags, then defrosting the refrigerator/freezer occupied my afternoon today.

Wednesday, 5 May - Cinco de Mayo - A celebration day for the triumph of the Mexican Army over the French at the Battle of Puebla, Mexico in 1862, and my mother's birthday. Susie took me to the grocery store this morning and this afternoon I recharged the refrigeration system once again. I was treated to a nice early mani mani dinner with the folks on S/V Soleyah in gratitude for the help I gave them with their refrigeration last week, plus, just as I finished that, Susie called me and asked me to meet her at Dockside for a margarita in memory of my mom. A very good day, indeed.

Thursday, 6 May - My pickle ball paddle slips in my hand when I sweat so I removed the electricians tape that the previous owner had put on it and rewrapped the handle using hockey stick tape that I had onboard. Now you might ask why in the world would I have hockey stick tape onboard and this is the answer; to wrap the handle of something that I didn't want to slip in my hands. You never know what you will or will not need in the future.

Friday, 7 May - I managed the Cruisers' Net this morning, then headed to pickle ball in a light rain. By the time I got to the courts, the rain had stopped but the courts had puddles that we had to squeegee off. Only two others showed up so I suggested that we take turns serving ten balls across court and not keep score. That worked out well. I gave the other players tips on serving and both of them got noticeably better during the session. That will make it harder to beat them, but will make the overall play much better. I don't play as well playing against players that I am significantly better than, so the better they get, the better I will be, too.

Saturday, 8 May - Susie and I relaxed at her house most of the day then went to a birthday party for a friend of hers in the evening.

Sunday, 9 May - Susie and I hit the Boot Key mangrove trails again this morning for about 5 hours then quickly returned to her house to let the dog out and for us to clean up. We had just enough time to get to the boat on the other side of the island belonging to Gary Combs, one of the few pickle ball players still playing, for Happy Hour drinks at 5 o'clock. He has a 48 foot powerboat that he travels at 20 mph in and it's really spacious and beautiful. After that, we headed to Dockside but arrived so late that, since they quit a half hour early, we only got to hear a few songs and get in a couple of dances. A really great day altogether.

Monday, 10 May - Susie texted me about 3 o'clock this afternoon and asked me to meet her at Dockside because a friend of ours, Mike V, was playing a solo gig there. We sat with Mike's wife who is totally uninhibited and a real hoot and had a great time.

Tuesday, 11 May - Back to Dockside this evening for Country Western Jam Night. Scott and his wife, Rhonda, who we met at Gary and Nancy Combs' party on Saturday night were there, too.

Wednesday, 12 May - After pickle ball this afternoon, I returned to the boat, put on my bathing suit, and got in the water with a scraper and piece of stiff, course carpet and cleaned all the barnacles and most of the slime off the outboard motor on the dinghy. That took about two hours and I got a bit of a sunburn since I thought it would take about 45 minutes or an hour. Later, Susie and I went to Havana Jacks in Key Colony Beach, where Susie lives, to listen to the Lady A Band and have dinner.

Thursday, 13 May - This afternoon I heard something thumping the hull as I sat in the saloon so I went on deck to see what it was. Tom Crank of Dependable Divers had just pulled up behind the boat to clean my hull, so I thought he had made the noise, but as I came on deck he pointed to a dolphin that was chasing mullet around the hull of the boat. I don't know which was hitting the boat, the mullet or the dolphin, but the dolphin left to go to another boat, leaving me to listen to Tom scraping the hull for the next hour or so.

Friday, 14 May - Net Control at 9 am. All the days seem to blend together. I didn't record what I did this day and, now, can't remember. I'm sure it was something terribly important to the whole population of earth.

Saturday, 15 May - At Susie's, we hung a framed, white sea fan whose frame we repaired a few weeks ago. We did such a good job of repairing it that you'd have to look awfully close to know that it had ever been damaged. Since Susie's bum got sore kayaking last week I also made a cushioned seat cover for her kayak's seat today. Later, as we were about to start preparing dinner, Jay and Tami of the catamaran Avigna called and enticed us into going to El Molcajete Mexican restaurant again.

Sunday, 16 May - Susie and I were up early so we could get to the boat in time to launch our kayaks and make the announcement that I'd be leading the trip through the Boot Key mangroves today. We only had one person join us, Brian, from the catamaran Cocoanuts. We had a good trip and still made good time even though I stopped several times to do some trail maintenance. Lots of trees and limbs have fallen into the trails, probably trees that were damaged during hurricane Irma and are just now rotting enough to fall. There is still much work that needs to be done to open some of the trails. I don't think many others are making the effort to keep the trails open and if it isn't done, the trails will soon become blocked, overgrown, become impassable, and disappear altogether. That would be a terrible loss.
                    After kayaking, we cleaned up and went to Dockside Restaurant for dinner and to listen to the open mic night entertainment. They had several good entertainers show up this evening including the usual house band with Doug on guitar, Mike V on keyboards, Randy on guitar and fiddle, Moose on guitar, three different lady singers, Popeye on guitar, a fellow on sax, and several others whose names I don't know.

Monday, 17 May - Again, only three players showed up for pickle ball, so we decided to go from every weekday to only Monday, Wednesday, Friday sessions. With me having to show up every weekday, I'm really not getting enough done around the boat, especially since it gets so warm in the afternoons. Today we played one on one, and the ball was pretty hard to hit because of the wind. At one point, even though I hit the ball very hard, in barely made it to mid court on the other side and had vertical arc of about four feet and a horizontal arc of about twenty feet before it hit the ground well outside the court. That certainly makes it interesting. This coming week is predicted to be even windier, along with 30 to 50% chances of rain, so we may not get to play much at all.

Tuesday, 18 May - I've been trimming fallen limbs and tree trunks in the Boot Key mangrove trails with a set of long handle scissor pruners and a backsaw. The pruners are fine on green limbs up to two inches or dry limbs up to about one and a half inch, but the backsaw, although it will cut logs up to about 6 inches in diameter, is very slow, so today I went to Home Depot and bought an aggressive toothed pruning saw with an eighteen inch blade to speed up the process. I also went to the marina and stuffed 50 Cruisers' Bags to be handed out to new arrivals to the harbor or island.

Wednesday, 19 May - It was blowing about 20 to 30 miles per hour today with rain predicted, too, so I called off pickle ball. No rain came, but it sure was breezy.

Thursday, 20 May - On Sunday, when Susie and I came back to Island Time after kayaking, I discovered that, although the boat was pretty well closed up, hundreds of flying termites had swarmed, lost their wings and most had died or disappeared. The evidence was a few dead, a few living, and hundreds of wings on the floor. The survivors probably dropped into cracks in the flooring. Not Good! On the Net this morning I asked for suggestions to get rid of them. Several suggestions were made: have a professional tent and bomb the boat, spray with poison, bait with boric acid, close the boat up and run the portable generator until it runs out of fuel or air, etc. I researched online much of the day and, apparently, there really isn't a cheap, sure way to rid the boat of them. One of the problems is that I can't find any further evidence of their lair or damage. Since these particular termites are a dry wood species, baiting for them probably won't work because they don't go looking for food like ants do, Also, since they are inside the wood, there's no way to spray them directly. A young couple on S/V Sea Wolf came by at loaned me an ozone generator and I closed off sections of the boat and ran that for several hours. Again, since I can't see the termites, I don't know if it did any good whatsoever. In the process of making sure ozone reached everywhere in the boat, I emptied and defrosted the freezer and put the ozone generator right in the freezer to circulate throughout it, too.

Friday, 21 May - I was Net Controller at 9 and had to cancel pickle ball again. It was waaaaay too windy. I did go in and pick up mail that I'd had my mail service forward to me. There was one important piece, the EPIRB renewal for Island Time from NOAA. I also returned the borrowed ozone generator, took a check to Kindra Warnygora on S/V Southern Cross for doing my taxes for me, paid Tom Crank of Dependable Dive Services for cleaning the hull of my boat last week, and vacuumed the interior of the boat.