Sunday, 30 May 2021 - This evening Susie and I spent at Dockside again. This seems to be becoming a habit, but that will soon end since she will be going north to Ohio next week for about 4 months to fulfill both work and family obligations.

Monday, 31 May - Memorial Day - I spent this morning replacing the sacrificial zinc on the engine and another zinc on the refrigeration cooling pump. I, also, checked the oil level and transmission level while down in the engine room and noticed that the two belts on the 130 amp alternator were a little loose. I tried to tighten them up, but the alternator is already backed off as far as it can go. I need shorter V-belts. Since the duo, Fiddle Rock, was to play at Dockside at 3 o'clock till 6, I hurried to get cleaned up and meet Susie there again.

Tuesday, 1 June - I was getting pretty low on fresh water on the boat so I made two trips to the dock and brought 50 gallons each time and pumped them aboard with my battery powered Ryobi pump. I was pleasantly surprised to see that one new 4 amp hour battery would pump the whole 100 gallons. We had one last chance to hear Steve and Randy play together. Tonight was Country night at Dockside. Again, nothing that they played was recognizable as country music. Mostly, they simply played music by the Doors, Bob Seger, Led Zeppelin, Santana and Pink Floyd and others with a country beat, but we still enjoyed ourselves.

Wednesday, 2 June - Walt, who had played pickle ball with us a few times invited me to come play ping-pong with him on his table that he keeps at the marina. I'd seen the table there frequently and never saw it in use, but had no idea that it was a personal possession. He said that he hadn't played on it since hurricane Irma. He asked if I'd ever played before and I told him, "Yes." I added that I had probably played 4 or 5 games about 60 years ago so he'd better be good. He was and, surprisingly, actually invited me to play again each Monday and Wednesday so he can continue giving me drubbings...I mean lessons.

Thursday, 3 June - I had a 9 am dental appointment this morning to get my teeth cleaned. It's only about a mile and a half to their office, so I rode my bike.

Friday, 4 June - My Cruisers' Net was short this morning, and after that I tried finding more about the volume of CO2 containers and how much I would need if I used gas instead of dry ice. I didn't know what if CO2 tanks had a valve on them or if they attached to hoses that have the valve on them, so I called Dockside and asked to see their tanks. Simone, the owner, couldn't hear me over the phone, so I told her I'd get back to her in the morning. Susie picked me up this evening and we had dinner at her house, then back to Dockside for dancing.

Saturday, 5 June - I had to get back to the harbor early to announce and remind boaters on the net about the marine swap meet and then go to Dockside to meet Simone about the CO2 tanks at 9 AM. We went to Dockside and I could see that they would work. Simone said she was more than glad to help me out and sell me the CO2 at her cost but I still had no idea how much I would need. She was so willing to part with two 20 lb. tanks so I decided to take two then and bring them back unused if I decided they wouldn't work. Susie came to the boat with me and, while we were there, she found the information online that let me figure out how much CO2 I needed. The swap meet didn't last long and Susie talked me into fumigating the boat this afternoon. She helped move things out of the way and open up all the cabinets, drawers, and floor compartments, and lazarettes for several hours, and I secured the two CO2 tanks. I opened the valves on the two tanks then we sealed up the companionways while she waited in the dinghy beside the boat. I could have never gotten it done by myself. We finished just in time to get cleaned up and head to Mark and Pat Becker's boat for snacks, margaritas, and a very enjoyable evening on their new Mainship 430 Trawler at Marlin Bay Marina on the other side of the island. What a big, beautiful boat.

Sunday, 6 June - We returned to the boat this morning and, since Susie, again, helped me, we put everything back in its place in just a couple of hours, then we took the CO2 tanks back to Simone at Dockside. The CO2 seemed to work as planned and hoped for, but I still have no way of knowing if it killed all the termites or not.

Monday, 7 June - I had a first dental appointment this morning to get crowns replaced on two of my teeth. I don't let the dentist give me Novocain shots because the shots hurt more than the drilling and grinding usually does, but I will admit, that was a lot of grinding. Susie had dropped me off and picked me up, then took me to the marina. All they did today was the grinding and putting on temporary caps. They'll make up the permanent crowns and install them in about two weeks. At three o'clock I played ping-pong with Walt on S/V The Gloaming at the marina. It's going to be a long time before I'm any competition for him, but he says it's better than not playing at all.

Tuesday, 8 June - This morning as I was brushing my teeth, another crown fell off one of my teeth and I don't think it was one of the temporaries that were just installed yesterday, so I called and got another appointment for tomorrow morning at 8 am to get it glued back on. Since I had had to defrost the refrigerator onboard to gas the boat with CO2, I started it up yesterday, but it didn't get the temperature down as low as I thought it should so I recharged the compressor again this afternoon. I still can't find the leak. I get lots of false indications with the new "sniffer" I got recently, but can't nail it down.

Wednesday, 9 June - Susie and I got up early this morning so she could have me at the dentist's office by 8 AM to replace the temporary crown that fell out yesterday. Actually, I wasn't sure that it was one of the temporaries. I thought it might be an adjacent crown that fell off. Luckily, it was, indeed one of the temporaries. The assistant had it cleaned up and re-glued within about 20 minutes an Susie returned, picked me up and we went to her house again so I could help her prepare for her to leave for the summer. We needed to move plants around outside, move her kayak indoors, repair and close the hurricane shutters, and move quite a few items to higher storage spaces in case of flooding. After that, she returned me to the dinghy dock and I returned to the boat to put a few items in the refrigerator that she couldn't keep, then I went to play ping-pong with Walt for an hour and a half at the marina.

Thursday, 10 June - Not a good day for me. I hope yours was better. Susie left for Ohio this morning, not to come back until the end of October. Income Taxes again, too.

Friday, 11 June - It was my morning to host the Net and while it was on one of the boaters in the area said he was selling his boat and had several items he needed to get rid of. My Net ended just before 10 o'clock, when he said he'd be at the tiki hut. I rushed over and arrived just as he did. I got some swim fins, full length dive skins that should fit Susie, a Bad Elf GPS, a wire connector crimper, and a nice set of neoprene sox. Diesel Don on Lady Triana had also mentioned that he had a countertop ice maker this morning and I got that on the way back from shore. I had been contemplating getting one of those, so the timing was right. Actually, my boat stays pretty warm, so I had wondered how well a countertop ice maker would work. That's why I hadn't bought one myself recently. This will give me the opportunity to find out. This evening at four o'clock I went to a pool noodle party over at M/V Conchy Tonkin. Several people simply converge on a boat with some kind of floatation device, whether it be a life vest, inner tube, pool noodle, or "other" and float in the water while imbibing their choice of beverage and "party on." I think this is one of the few Fridays in the past year and a half that I haven't gone to Susie's for the weekend and I miss that...and her.

Saturday, 12 June - I spent much of today doing a closer examination of the items I bought yesterday, especially the Bad Elf GPS. I know that it is supposed to work with my iPhone, although I don't need that since it already has a GPS in it, but I also thought it would work with my laptop, which has no GPS. Unfortunately, even though both devices recognized the Elf, neither will link with it via Bluetooth as they should. I think I'm also going to find that it was never intended to work with the laptop; only iPhones and iPads. When I first looked at these when they first came out, they were selling for about $50, now...$199. I paid and think I wasted $5 on this one, but I'm not giving up on it, yet. I tried out the ice maker today, too. It worked way better than I expected.

Sunday, 13 June - I intended to leave the boat around 10:30 this morning, but another boater, Tony from S/V Auntie Mame came by in need of a little help and I didn't get away until 11:45. I headed out with my pruners and pruning saw into the mangroves in Boot Key and worked doing trail maintenance on two branches of one trail for about four and a half hours. In the main branch, I stopped at the same spot that I had cut open about two or three years ago and I think that is as far as is practical to go, beyond that point, it's totally overgrown. While I was there, and almost at the end of the trail, I found a short, inflatable surf board of sorts. I'm amazed that it had made its way that far into the island. In the other branch of the trail I was stopped by a fallen tree that is either going to take considerable time and effort or an electric saw to cut in two places to unblock the trail at both high and low tide, but I'm not giving up on opening up that trail again. Each of those branches of the trail is shallow and I don't dare stay too long as the tide goes out or I could get stuck and I don't think the bottom of either channel is firm enough to carry the kayak out even a short distance.

Monday, 14 June - I cleaned up the found surf board and acquired a Briggs & Stratton 6 gallon pancake air compressor and two 5 gallon Scepter water containers. The air compressor I have has seen its better days and, although this one is significantly larger and more powerful than I need, the price was right since S/V Tapestry really wanted it off their boat. Later, I played ping-pong for about an hour with Walt on S/V The Gloaming at the marina community building.

Tuesday, 15 June - Ha! I got the Bad Elf GPS to work on my laptop! I just had to switch some settings within the Open CPN chart program. I didn't waste that $5 after all. I also switched out one female 1/4" air hose coupling on the Briggs & Stratton air compressor because it had a rusted, broken spring, with one that came on a particle air filter that was with the compressor and ordered two more of the couplings from Home Depot to be delivered next week.

Wednesday, 16 June - It was predicted to rain all day today, so I got about halfway through book #12 of 20 of the Patrick O'Brian series of the Aubrey/Maturing books before I went to play ping-pong at three o'clock at the marina. I received a new Discover Card today and had to spend about 3 hours online and on the phone in order to change the card information on just four different sites that a have autopay enabled on. Very frustrating. It finally started raining about 7:30 this evening.

Thursday, 17 June - More predicted rain today so I finished O'Brian's book, "The Letter of Marque".

Friday, 18 June - I called Tami Shelton & Jay Klassen on S/V Avigna to invite them to join me for dinner at the local Tai restaurant for dinner. They picked me up on their way into the marina and we had a slow dinner there. They have a small dining area and their food is good, but they seem to be overwhelmed by takeout orders, so their dining room service is extremely slow.

Saturday, 19 June - Today I went back to the mangrove trail in my kayak determined to cut the fallen tree that stopped me last Sunday. To my surprise the water level was even lower today than last week so most of the stubs of the roots that I cut were protruding through the surface of the water and I had to re-cut them all at lower levels. That took about an hour and a half before I could even get to the fallen tree. I had to cut the tree twice with the pruning saw and at uncomfortable angles. Most of the time I'm in the mangroves I'm in the shade, but this particular spot is one of the few that the sun shines into and there is no wind in there, so it was extremely hot. Because of the odd angle I was cutting at and the heat I tired quickly so about every twenty strokes I would rest and stick my hands down into the 83° water that felt sooooo cool.

Sunday, 20 June - Today was an interesting day. I decided to go on the mangrove trails trip that Ward on S/V Bella Dawn was to lead, then drop out of the trip near the end so I could do more maintenance on one of the trails. He and I were the only ones to show up and that was a good thing. The tide and the water in the trails was so low that we had to push our way over the mud in part of the Burdine's trail and when we arrived at Silver Lake it was so low that we had to forcefully pull our way across the lake, moving about 4 to 6 inches at a time over the vegetation, jellyfish and mud. That done, I suggested that since there were only the two of us, I'd go straight to the trail I wanted to work on and Ward said he'd join me. We arrived and the water was still so low that I couldn't get much done and Ward headed home. I stayed to check out a couple of other trails, then headed back myself. I stopped in Whisky Creek to talk to Odie O'Donoghue, who is permanently anchored there, then again, headed back, but again, got side tracked by the possibility that there might be a way to connect the trail that I had to cut the tree twice with the harbor, so I checked out a couple of possibilities from the harbor end. One actually looks promising and I spent about two hours in there lengthening that channel but almost got stuck in there. When I decided to quit at a place I thought I could turn around, I couldn't, and backing up is almost impossible for any distance because I can't see what I'm running into backward, so I had to spend another 45 minutes widening the spot so I could make the turn. I'm going to Dockside this evening because I didn't have lunch in the mangroves and I'm not only very thirsty, but hungry, too. I take water with me but frequently forget to drink it while I'm working.

Monday, 21 June - I had lunch with Mark and Pat Becker today at the Overseas Restaurant and wished them well on their way as they head back north tomorrow in their Mainship Trawler. We dined and talked from noon to 2:45, then I headed back to meet Walt for ping-pong. I got lucky and actually beat him one game today, but I still aware that he's not playing at his own capabilities or as aggressively as he could. I don't think he "let me win," but he's still not playing very aggressively.

Tuesday, 22 June - I opened up a hatch wind scoop today that Tami Shelton and Jay Klassen had left on my boat recently to figure out how to assemble and install it. It was certainly not like any I have ever seen before. Most simply install over an open hatch and redirect larger amounts of air than the hatch lid can as the wind blows from the bow to the stern. That works great as long as you are at anchor or on a mooring ball, but not so well if you are at a dock because the boat can't turn into the wind as the wind direction changes. This scoop is designed to redirect the wind downward into the boat from any direction. Nice. Unfortunately, my hatches only open to about 45 degrees. That in itself redirects the wind downward when the boat is facing into the wind, but, since they don't open all the way back, I can't install this type of wind scoop, so I'll have to return it with my thanks. I also replaced the pneumatic couplings that came in yesterday on the air compressor that I recently acquired. This compressor is in great shape now, but about twice the size of the compressor that I've been using. That's a problem I'll have to deal with and I may not keep the new one.

Wednesday, 23 June - This morning I oiled the sewing machine. I'm sure that hadn't been done in years. At 3 o'clock I met Walt for ping-pong.

Thursday, 24 June - I had intended to defrost the freezer and shop for groceries today, but it is cool, rainy, and devoid of breeze. The reason the breeze is a factor is that since it is rainy, the solar panels won't generate enough electricity to recharge the batteries and the wind isn't turning the wind generator. Once I defrost the freezer, the refrigeration will run all night and might run the batteries to too low a level since the batteries may not top up today...Later...Well, the sun did come out enough to top up the batteries, but too late in the day to defrost the freezer and get groceries. Maybe mañana.