Monday, 1 November - Contact made with Web Intellects, this time by "Chat". They promised me, again, that I'd receive a call from someone more knowledgeable by phone very soon about how to upload my blog. Walt and I both played very poor ping pong today, after having missed a week and a half while he visited friends and family up north, northern Florida, that is.

Tuesday, 2 November - I replaced the two sink drains in the galley. The plumber's putty and rubber gasket on one of them had failed and they were both looking pretty poor. I discovered upon replacing them with stainless steel drains that the old ones were chrome coated plastic drains, so the new ones should last a lot longer. I tried to renew my Coast Guard Documentation online, but couldn't tell if the transaction went through or not. I think something went wrong.

Wednesday, 3 November - I mounted the base station for the weather station that Mike sent me, but I still need to find a place and a way to mount the remote, outdoor sensor. For some reason the instructions require that it be mounted vertically, but for my situation, mounting it horizontally would be much better because it would be much better protected from the rain and splashes from the salty sea. It would have been much nicer if the sensor was water proof, but I assume they assume that most people will just mount the sensor on the back porch, under a roof. The back porch roof, underside of the solar panels, on Island Time is about 6 sq. feet and 6 feet above sea level, not much protection. I may try mounting it horizontally under there anyway and see how it works out.

Thursday, 4 November - I finally got around to working on the bilge pump again. I thought I was going to have to replace the pump and the switch, but determined that the real problem was that the switch wasn't turning off when the pump had run dry. It's a messy job but all I really had to do was make an adjustment on the float switch's float so that the float would drop a little lower, turning off the electricity. Susie texted me about 7 pm because Mike V was playing a solo gig at Dockside and Susie asked me to meet her there. Mike usually plays keyboards with various bands, but since he was playing solo his whole repertoire was different and he played a bunch of oldies for the small but appreciative Thursday night audience. Lots of old 60s and 70s songs we could not only dance to, but knew most of the words to, too.

Friday, 5 November - As usual, I was net controller for the Boot Key Harbor Cruiser's Net. We've been having several boats per day check in as new arrivals having come south for the winter, but not this morning.

Saturday, 6 November - Winter arrived this afternoon so Susie and I watched a movie on TV then went to Dockside for dinner and dancing to reggae music. Dockside is an open air bar and the temperature had dropped to 70°F and it was windy so everybody was all bundled up, shivering, or left early. I was luck enough to have thrown in a lightweight, nylon windbreaker and Susie had taken a jean jacket and scarf, but she still had to go to her car and get some Uggs to keep her feet warm.

Sunday, 7 November - It was cool again today, but sunny, so setting on the porch behind Susie's house felt pretty good. Dockside for dinner and dancing. We met Roland and Leta Kok there for the evening and Roland asked me to give him some help moving his sailboat, KoKoMo, from their summer quayside mooring to a mooring ball in the harbor tomorrow.

Monday, 8 November - An early call from Roland cancelled the need to help them move today. While they've been gone for the summer, their boat developed a hydraulic leak so they have no steering. That's why they needed help, but they've decided to do the repairs before returning to the ball in the harbor. Our first pickle ball game of the season was at the park today. I could sure tell it's been awhile since I played. Eight people showed up today and more should be coming south to play soon. Many on the returnees from up north have been playing for years and play all year long so I have a lot of catching up to do. I met Walt at 3 o'clock for ping pong, but will probably drop that sport when pickle ball gets into full swing. We'll see. Maybe not, ping pong on Monday and Wednesday, pickle ball on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Tuesday, 9 November - We played pickle ball again this morning with just six people. Not long after arriving back at the boat. Leta Kok called and, since they'd gotten the hydraulic steering on KoKoMo fixed, she asked if I could help them get the boat moved by being at their mooring ball to receive their mooring line, pass it through the eye of the mooring pennant, and then hand it back up to her on the deck when they got there. Of course, I was glad to oblige. I, once again, contacted Web Intellects via their "chat" program, but got no help. They said I'd be contacted soon by phone. I've already heard that twice.

Wednesday, 10 November - It rained about two inches early this morning and I had to stand in for one of the other Net Controllers on the Cruiser's Net. I got back from Susie's just in time to do so. A dinghy will collect rain from an area about twice the size as its floor due to the flare of its hull or tubes and one of the more experienced boaters, Diesel Don, had neglected to pull the drain plug when he raised his dinghy on its davits last night. During the night he thought a truck, or another boat, had hit his boat. Upon inspection, he found that the dinghy had collected so much water that one of the davits holding his dinghy had collapsed. Ouch!

Thursday, 11 November - Today being Veteran's Day, the park office at Marathon City Park was closed so we didn't have access to the pickle ball equipment but, luckily, one of the players had a net and some extra paddles, so we played from 10 o'clock till noon. I caught up on some reading in the afternoon.

Friday, 12 November - I had a good Cruiser's Net this morning, then went to the marina to help clean up all the items in the Cruiser's storage area, including the cooking gear that will be used to cook several turkeys for Thanksgiving. I was disappointed to see that an electric griddle we had has disappeared. Susie and I headed to Skipjack Condos for dinner expecting them to have live music on a Friday night. We had a nice quiet dinner there anyway then drove another block or two to Dockside to finish the night off. That didn't work either. It had rained this morning and all the parking spaces were still covered in water so we then finished the evening off with reggae music at Havana Jack's near her house in Key Colony Beach.

Saturday, 13 November - Susie took me to Home Depot to buy some replacement striker tips for my propane torch striker. I was totally surprised that they didn't have any. Next stop, Specialty Hardware, and they had exactly what I needed. I had had what I thought would be a lifetime supply of those flint strikers, but upon needing one to light the torch a couple of weeks ago, I discovered they'd all turned to dust.

Sunday, 14 November - Gardening at Susie's. We trimmed some plants, then removed old flowers and took the dried flowers off and replanted the seeds. At Dockside we were invited to sit with Roland and Leta Kok of KoKoMo, Ted Williams, and Ann of S/V Mehario and enjoyed a wonderful evening of music and dancing with Randy on fiddle and guitar, Doug on bass guitar, Mike Vee on keyboards, and John Sosser on drums.

Monday, 15 November - We played pickle ball this morning from ten o'clock till noon. Rent for my mooring ball was due again so I payed that while in the marina to play ping pong at 3 pm.

Tuesday, 16 November - We played pickle ball again this morning, then, this evening, Susie picked me up an the dock and we went to Dockside for dinner and dancing.

Wednesday, 17 November - I spent this morning making sense of the several back-up bilge pumps and switches, and fresh water and refrigeration cooling pumps that I have, along with other items I keep in the space they are stored in; adding notes into the descriptions I keep in my database. At three o'clock I played ping pong with Walt Avery and picked up a turkey lifter for the deep fryer we'll use for Thanksgiving Day. This evening was spent reading Patrick O'Brian's "The Nutmeg of Consolation", one of the Aubrey Maturin series of square riggers and their battles during the Napoleonic Wars.

Thursday ,18 November - This is the third windy, rainy day in a row. Susie picked me up at about 1:30 to drive to Key West to check in at a hotel so we could go see a concert by "1964", a Beatles tribute band. We got there, had lunch at Fogerty's, and still had plenty of time, to stroll through several of the many art showrooms on Duval Street. There's a lot of incredibly beautiful artwork here; much of it Keys or nautical in focus, but a little of everything, an art lover's heaven.
                    I was hired to photograph "1964" about 30 years ago in Salt Lake City and really enjoyed their performance and act. They are a real show band. No walking out on the stage and tuning guitars and warming up. They are ready the moment the lights come up, virtually no breaks between songs, and they each have the mannerisms, styles, and accents of their individual characters down pat. These guys really sound like the Beatles and put on a good show. I was a bit disappointed however, when I saw them 30 years ago they had done about 3 or 4 costume changes to fit the era of the music they were playing, mop haircuts, suits and ties for their early days, Stg. Peppers uniforms next, Abbey Road era, etc. That didn't happen this time but seating was at tables of four or six seats and the band had people dancing in the aisles and, I suspect, everybody was singing along to every song. How could you not? Saying we really enjoyed it would be an understatement indeed.
                    After the show, we hit the hot tub for a bit, one of the four pools, each a different temperature, at the "youth hostel" we stayed overnight in called NYAH, Not Your Average Hotel. Very nice and, for Key West, reasonably priced. It's only about four blocks from the theater where the show was and a block further to Duval Street.

Friday, 19 November - Susie and I returned from Key West around 11 o'clock and I spent the afternoon experimenting with several different FTP applications and finally found one that would work with the server on Web Intellects. I can't imagine what they've done to make their server incompatible with the FTP app I've been using for several years through all its updates.

Saturday, 20 November - All day today was spent splitting these last three episodes of my blog up and editing and uploading the photos to send out. As I mentioned in the last episode, Susie's iPhone takes much better photographs than mine, so I relied on her to take a lot of the photos...and she certainly did. I think we had to go through and edit out many of the over two hundred that she took to make the uploads reasonable. Not only that but she actually thinks to take pictures that I don't. You'd think a photographer would take pictures of everything but I rarely think of it anymore even though I have the phone/camera with me most of the time.
                    Dinner was at SkipJack Resort with Roland and Leta, Ann of S/V Maherio, Kim (another lady that lives ashore), and Donny and his wife. Donny is the leader of the band that was playing, Four Sheets to the Wind.

Sunday, 21 November - It's raining out again today so it's the perfect day to finish getting this final episode of the three that had piled up. I hope you're enjoying them.