Monday, 1 May 2023 - I had my sixth of fifteen occupational therapy sessions today.

Tuesday, 2 May - Susie worked online here at her house and I finished up a book I had been reading.

Wednesday, 3 May - I got up an 5 AM this morning to catch the VA shuttle to Miami for my hernia surgery followup. That went well although the surgeon still doesn't want me lifting more than 10 lb. for another month. I think we sot a new record for the shortest round trip to the VA and back today. There were only two passengers. I boarded the van at 6 AM and we arrived at the VA hospital at 9:30. My appointment was scheduled for 11 AM but I went to the sixth floor and checked in immediately. Within 15 minutes I was called in to have my vitals checked, then back to the waiting room. About 5 minutes late they called my name again and I was seen by the surgeon. I was finished by about 10:15. The other fellow, a gentleman of about 85 years also finished early and we were back and on the way home by about 11:15, then back home by 3 o'clock. It's usually a 12 hour round trip.
                    Susie has a close cousin in Ft. Lauderdale that had a 5 way heart bypass about two weeks ago and has now developed an infection of some sort. She just found out about the infection today and is going to leave tomorrow morning to drive to meet her sister who is flying down from Ohio. Susie will pick her up at the Ft. Lauderdale airport and they'll spend a few days visiting the cousin.

Thursday, 4 May - Susie left this morning at about 8:30 to pick her sister, Debbie, at the Ft. Lauderdale airport and to visit her cousin. At 9:15 I had my seventh of fifteen occupational therapy sessions today. The therapist has started increasing the weights that I lift and changing or adding other exercises into the repertoire. The exercise I'm doing particularly poor with is, while laying on my left side with my arm on top of my right side and having my arm bent at a right angle at the elbow, lifting a light weight, moving only my forearm, to vertical. The next most difficult is, again on my left side with the arm straight down my side, lifting the arm from horizontal to vertical. Both of those are significantly harder than the other ten or so exercises that I perform.
                    Susie has made arrangements to have the fence that runs the length of her property on the north painted this Saturday. She didn't realize she would be gone at the time. I spent several hours digging white coral gravel that is her walkway and has buried most of the bottoms of the vertical slats out from under them so the painters can paint all the way to the bottom and, of course, the bottoms, too. I also removed all the twine that we had put on the fence about a year and a half ago for the morning glory vines to spiral around to climb the fence.

Friday, Cinco de Mayo - Mother's birthday - I think I'll walk down to El Molcajete Restaurant this evening for enchiladas. Mother, in fact, our whole family loved Mexican food. Mother especially. I think that was why, although she was a great cook, she never cooked Mexican food. If she had, since we loved her cooking, she would never have gotten ho go out to dinner. When I was young I think about 90% of the time we went out, which was probably only about once a month, we went to El Chico's Mexican Restaurant. One thing that was great about Mexican restaurants in Texas was that instead of chips to go with their salsa, they served all the hot, soft corn tortillas you wanted to go along with dinner, about ten at a time layered between hot linen napkins and two warmed salad plates. Butter these up, salt them down, and dip them in salsa, and they were so much better than chips, I never wanted to leave the dinner table until the second order of the tortillas was gone. I like them so much that when I was in basic training in the Army, mom would send me "care packages' with several dozen tortillas, salt, and Paces Salsa every once in a while. They went all in one sitting because most of the other soldiers in my platoon were from Texas, too, and I always shared them.
                    Well, although the enchiladas and margarita were great, the experience wasn't. Although there are only seven booths in the room at the restaurant, it was terribly loud. I think 905 of Americans don't know that you should have an "outdoor" and an "indoor" voice. Everyone uses their "outdoor" voice all the time. I understand that Europeans say they can spot Americans all the way across a room because of that. Why the hell do people have to yell at each other when they are sitting right next to or just across the table from each other? It sure ruins a quiet dinner for everyone else.

Saturday, 6 May - Painters arrived right on time, unusual for these parts, and started covering the sides of both Susie's and her next door neighbor's houses with Visqueen prior to spraying. They did a pretty good job of painting the easy surfaces, but I had to point out to them near the end of the project that although they had done well on the vertical slats, they hadn't covered the horizontal rails well, especially the under sides and the tops of the posts. They begrudgingly went back and did those, adding about an hour to their work. I think everybody down here over charges for their services. Doctors and dentists may be the worst, but these guys aren't for behind. They bought 6 gallons of Behr Spar Urethane for this job and had at least a gallon left over. I priced that out at Heme Depot at $65/gal. and I bet the get a contractors discount. They were on the job from 8AM to 2PM and given an hour to pick up the urethane and Visqueen, then drive here, that's a total of 7 hours. There were two workers. the sprayer and an assistant, so that's 14 man hours. They charged Susie $2500 for the job. $2500 minus $390 for the paint is $2110. Divide that by the 14 hours and it comes out to $150/hour for each of them. That seems awfully high for painters. Am I wrong?
                    I finished another book today and was tired of reading so I had dinner and watched two movies on Susie's Prime account.

Sunday, 7 May - My brother, Mike, sent me about a dozen or so books right after I came to Susie's to recuperate. Most are about 300 pages long but one, The Great Gamble: Nelson At Copenhagen in about 500. I started the sixth one today. Good reading but I must admit I'm ready for this sitting around to be over with.

Monday, 8 May - Well, I got a very pleasant surprise this afternoon. I had my eighth occupational therapy session this morning, then Susie called about 12:30 and said that she'd be home soon. She was supposed to have an MRI performed tomorrow in Ft. Lauderdale as a followup for her breast surgery but the facility discovered that her insurance won't cover but one MRI within one year so she decided to come on home. Her cousin is still in pretty bad shape, but much better than he had been and her sister headed back to Ohio.

Tuesday, 9 May - Susie and I went to Home Depot to get some 2 X 4s, then back at home, Susie ordered groceries to be delivered including a ham to make 15 bean soup. When it arrived, she discovered that we got everything except the ham. I needed to check my mail at the marina so I headed there in Susie's car, then stopped back at Home Depot to get some twine for a trellis and to get a duplicate key made. On the way home I stopped at Publix for the ham. Susie put the beans in to soak overnight, then we went dancing at Dockside for the first time in about a month.

Wednesday, 10 May - As I arrived back to Susie's house after my ninth therapy session this morning I saw a three foot iguana on the back porch. They are vegetarians and sure enough he had broken two of the tops off of the hammerleaf frangipani she has and also eaten a significant amount of the morning glory that we recently planted. I scared him off the fence and he landed on the dock, then into the water. They are excellent swimmers, on the surface or diving deep. When escaping predators like me they dive deep and may not resurface for a hundred feet or so. Susie had a dental appointment in Islamorada this afternoon and when she arrived back we placed the 2 X 4s we bought the other day into the slats in her fence to help support and straighten it. Later, I replaced all the coral gravel that I had gotten out from underneath the fence so the painters could do their job. We also had to chase that iguana off the back porch twice again today. I'm really wishing I had the pump-up pellet pistol here that I have onboard the boat.

Thursday, 11 May - This morning I got Susie to finalize the placement of three of her large planter pots and I created new trellises on her newly painted wooden fence for the damaged morning glory vine to climb out of those pets. We're keeping an eye out for Mr. Iguana, too.

Friday, 12 May - I had my tenth of fifteen physical therapy sessions this morning and Susie worked online and on the phone at the house.

Saturday, 13 May - Susie and I walked to the Almost New Thrift Store near her home to see what they had that we couldn't do without. All we found was three teaspoons for a dollar. Susie says they seem to mysteriously disappear at her house. This evening we went to Havana Jacks for dinner and dancing to the Tye Thurman Band with Bob Jeager and Bongo Bob De La Torre. Its the first time we've seen them in a long time.,

Sunday, 14 May - Susie worked at Christine's Consignment Store from noon to four this afternoon.

Monday, 15 May - Susie had to take her car for body repairs this morning at 9 AM and I had a 9:45 therapy appointment. While she was out with the car I decided that I'm feeling well enough to go back to the boat today so I packed up things that I need to take back with me and when I got back from the therapy session I called a cab and headed back. I called Phil Vachon to see if he could give me a ride in his dinghy back to the boat from the marina's docks and said I'd call him as soon as I arrived back at the dock. As I was carrying my bags down, Camie Stoltenberg of S/V Majestic saw me and offered me a ride that would save Phil from making a trip in so I called him to cancel and took her up on her offer. Back on board there was lots to do. The first thing I decided to tackle was the support spring for the hatch that the boatyard broke while the boat was out of the water last fall. Of course I thought it would be an easy fix, but no. I got the old spring off but will need to finish another day.

Tuesday, 16 May - I staid aboard for the morning Cruiser's Net this morning and in the process, decided to see how playing pickleball would feel. I know I'm out of shape, but I've got to start again somewhere. The dinghy was out of gas so I had to fill the tank to get to shore. I was an hour late for pickleball but thought that might be a good thing for the first day, Although I played very poorly, missing my serves several times and misplacing other shots many times, I, and my partners, who changed each game, still won all but the last game. Physically, I felt pretty good, but I suspect I'll be a little sore tomorrow since I haven't been using any muscles except during the therapy for my right arm. I don't use those much during play since I'm left handed. Anyway, it feels good to be back. This afternoon I'm defrosting the freezer which is taking longer than expected because there's a short in the power cord for the little 10" fan that I insert into the space to circulate warm air to speed up the process. One project leads to another and I had to spend about 2 hours repairing that. I was amazed that I had a replacement bayonet connector for that but the data base saved the day again. Before I headed to Dockside to meet Susie I mounted the new bow navigation light on the bow of the dinghy. The new one has its own solar panel built in and the old one was going through AA batteries at hyper speed. Neither one was cheap, around $100 each, but at least this one I won't keep having to pay for with new batteries every other week.

Wednesday, 17 May - Shoulder therapy at 9:15. I had to take the taxi both ways so I returned just before 11 o'clock and had the taxi driver drop me off at the pickleball courts. To my surprise, everyone had already called it a day. I had hoped to get at least one or two games in before everyone quit. This afternoon Phil and Carol Vachon picked me up in their car and we met Susie at the Key Colony Inn for appetizers and a couple of drinks at the Inn's happy hour. I had a very good shrimp cocktail with 8 huge (oxymoron) Florida shrimp for five bucks.

Thursday, 18 May - At pickleball this morning I played most games fairly well but fell apart on the last game: we got Pickled, 11 to nothing. I guess my partner wasn't playing too well, either. Upon return to the marina I dropped off about eight books that my brother had sent me and I had read while recuperating at Susies and added them to the marina's library for others to enjoy. Back at the beat I had a quick lunch then, since the freezer still isn't freezing, I used up the last of my R134a refrigerant in the refrigeration system. After that I jumped back into hatch spring replacement. I though I could quickly finish the starboard hatch and maybe get to the port hatch, too. After about 5 hours I quit without getting started on the port hatch.<=P>

Friday, 19 May - We had 12 people for pickleball this morning, then I took a taxi to occupational therapy for my shoulder, After therapy I walked down to Cocoplum about a mile away to get the paper layout for the vinyl lettering for Island Time, I was lucky, I had asked the graphic artist to put a plastic bag around it so my sweaty hand wouldn't ruin it as I walked in the heat. As I was picking it up, it started to sprinkle. I walked a couple of blocks and it started to rain harder so I ducked under the portico at the Hampton Inn, then again at the Fairfield Inn. The rain clouds were going the same direction I was so when the rain slacked off, I continued my walk to Advance Auto Parts to pick up some R134a refrigerant. As I walked I came to the realization that, since I had replaced the broken spring on the boat's hatch yesterday, I had opened it earlier to hang the sweaty T-shirt that I played pickleball in this morning up to dry on that spring, Most rain showers here are short in duration and this morning the sky and the radar were as clear as a bell. This storm developed right over the island and barely moved. My tool bucket sets almost directly under that hatch and I expected to see all my tools soaking wet along with the settee. When I got back to the dock, my dinghy had about three an a half inches of water in it. I usually keep an old cutaway bleach or milk bottle in the dinghy to bail water with but the last one disintegrated and I forgot to replace it. I dinghied back to the boat and was amazed to see that the hatch was down. I opened the companionway and looked in. Sure enough, there was water on the floor. Someone must have seen the hatch open and come onboard and closed it for me. Great neighbors, I thought. After a closer inspection I realized that I had moved the T-shirt and closed the hatch myself out of habit; thank God. The tools were dry and the little bit of water on the floor came from one old 1/8th inch screw hole in the hatch that I hadn't sealed. I got lucky, my habit of closing hatches was good, my short time memory, bad.

Saturday, 20 May - I replaced the rectangular, rubber gasket on the top of the Yamaha outboard motor today. I've never knew the old gasket to leak until yesterday when I returned from therapy and Advance Auto, during which period it had rained so hard. The engine was a little hard to start; apparently, something in there got wet. However, about a month ago I had decided to replace the gasket and ordered one and it came while I was off the boat at Susie's. I'm glad I was thinking about preventative maintenance ahead of time. After that, I unrolled the paper layout for the lettering on the boat and checked it for fit. It's just right. Good, no changes to be made. Next up was to re-mark the hull at the lifting points for when the boat is lifted out of the water for repairs. It gets lifted by a huge marine crane with two lifting slings passing under the hull and when it's in the water, the keel, prop, and rudder aren't visible, thus the need for locating markers. When the boat got painted at the boatyard last November those marks got removed. I have an aft anchor locker that has a hatch on the deck. Water off the deck can run into that hatch and is supposed to drain right out but small detritus can also get in there and plug the drain holes. When this happens and the water gets high enough some of it leaks into the aft cabin and runs down the wall onto my bed's platform and then under the mattress. I remembered that today and ran a heavy wire into the drain holes from the back of the boat. Sure enough, about five gallons of rain water drained out so I checked my mattress. I now have it on edge with a fan blowing air on it to dry it out. That will probably take a couple of days. Luckily, the mattress is about 5 inches thick and doesn't soak all the way through.

Sunday, 21 May - This morning I spent time dealing with flashlights. For some reason AAA batteries have started leaking and ruining my flashlights. I cleaned up six of my flashlights that have quit working and managed to get five out of six to work again. I didn't always have this problem. Has the quality control at Duracell and Everyday really gone downhill that much or is it just my bad luck? When I finished that I loaded my snorkel gear into the dinghy and headed out to West Sister Rock to participate in the Sunday afternoon get-together there. Since I've been spending weekends with Susie I haven't been going out with the harbor folks on Sundays. I thought I'd find out what's happening there. The water is about 85°:, just perfect for jumping overboard and floating around smoking with the harbor folks. I returned to the boat and welcomed John of S/V Last Dance aboard. He had volunteered to help me track down the leak in my refrigeration system this morning. He convinced me that the best way to discover the leak is to use R134a with a dye in it, which I will try the next time the refrigerant runs low. I've avoided using that because the instructions with my unit say not to use refrigerant with any additives, but I'm tired of fooling with this and desperate to get it fixed. Later, I met Susie at Dockside for cocktails and dancing.

Monday, 22 May - Eight for pickleball this morning, then off to buy groceries.

Tuesday, 23 May - After pickleball I returned to the boat, cleaned up a bit, then took a taxi to my next to last occupational therapy session. After an hour of therapy I walked about a mile to the graphic artist's studio to pick up the vinyl lettering for the boat name. I got that then retraced my steps clear back to Advance Auto to pick up one can of R134a refrigerant with dye leak detector in it. It had rained while I was in therapy and the humidity when the sun came out made the walk really hot. I met Susie at Dockside in the evening to dance.

Wednesday, 24 May - As I got back to the dock from pickleball this morning I had a message on my phone from Kevin Smith who had kept an eye on my boat for me while I was at Susie's. He wanted me to help him move his new boat from mooring ball A-1 to K-10. All I really needed to do was stand on his bow and use his boat hook to bring the mooring pendant onboard when we approached the ball. He's got a nice trawler; very spacious. I had intended to apply the lettering to the boat today but it's a bit too windy. Trying to apply the lettering on the sides of the boat from a bobbing dinghy would be a real challenge. It's ten o'cock in the evening and it just started raining hard with lots of lightning followed by thunder about one second later. The rain is good. I unthinkingly poured too much Clorox into my water tank the other day and the added water that I'll catch off the bimini top will bring the ratio back into tolerance.

Thursday, 25 May - It was still a bit too breezy to deal with a bobbing dinghy to install the two bow name letterings, but since I could install the aft lettering by sitting on the swim platform, I did that. I had hoped that later in the day the wind might die down, and it did, but too late to get the bow lettering completed before dark.

Friday, 26 May - We managed to get enough players for two courts for pickleball this morning but we'll be losing one that is headed north for the summer this weekend. My final therapy session for my shoulder was this afternoon so I went after pickleball. I think the therapy helped but I still experience pain in that arm when I move in certain ways; especially when trying to sleep. The wind and water were pretty calm this afternoon so I got the boat's name added back onto each side of the bow today. The name on the stern is required for a boat that is registered with the Coast Guard. The bow lettering is not required but I like it up there, too.

Saturday, 27 May - Today I tried to find an open or short in the starboard 12V lighting system but didn't get far because neither of the fairly expensive multimeters that I have are giving me readings that make any sense. As I typed that last word out it made me realize how hard it must be for foreigners to learn English. They have too many choices in spelling a simple word like sense or since or cents or scents or cense. I finally gave up on the repair for the day.

Sunday, 28 May - I asked for help fixing the wiring on the Cruiser's Net this morning and Brandon Hyvolt of S/V Harmony volunteered to help me out. His multimeter verified that mine aren't working properly and he found the bad wiring within about 15 minutes. After that we spent a couple of hours with beers in our hands talking about 3D printing, solar systems, refrigeration, and sailboarding; mostly sailboarding, which I really miss. He has an old board onboard and has been trying to sell it because he doesn't know how to sail it. I plan on teaching him tomorrow. Maybe I'll get a ride or two, too.

Monday, 29 May - Memorial Day - Brandon Hyvolt and I headed out to West Sister Rock, an island about 75 feet wide and 200 feet long, just outside Boot Key Harbor this morning about 10AM. We rigged his sailboard there is shallow water with my dinghy anchored just off shore and I spent about 20 minutes instructing Brandon on the basics of sailing a sailboard. I had decided on that location because the inshore side of that island has a very large area of shallows about 3 feet deep with a grassy or sand bottom, perfect for a beginner. With the shallow water he could easily reposition the sail and board each time he fell rather than having to swim the board around in deep water. He had sailed the board once before without any instruction but made quite a bit of progress today. A little bit more wind would have helped today but he still did pretty well. His biggest problem today was not getting his feet planted on the center of the board when he stood on it, causing him to put too much weight on his heels and losing his balance. I got a couple of ten minute rides on the board today, too, which I thoroughly enjoyed, too, although I was disappointed in how rust my technique was after having not sailed a board in about six years. I do believe it would all come back to me quickly, but I probably won't get the opportunity. It was a fun day on the water.

Tuesday, 30 May - I was going to defrost the refrigerator/freezer today but the 10" fan that I use to expedite the thaw refused to work. Since my multimeters aren't working properly it took me quite a while to figure out that the transformer/power supply is the problem. I started to order another online but then it dawned on me that, since it is a 120 to 12V transformer, I don't need it. I just cut the connector off and hardwired it into a cigarette lighter plug connector and now can use it without having to run my boat's inverter. That will save me about 5 amps per hour on my batteries. I also wired it so that if I need a test line with alligator clips, I can do that, too. Much better. I finished just in time to be a little late to meet Susie at Dockside for the evening. It's summer here now so the place is only about half full and we had the dance floor to ourselves most of the night.

Wednesday, 31 May - I opened up the engine room from the main cabin, removed the plywood housing for the 12V refrigeration, and attached the gauges and manifold to the compressor. I was surprised to see that the pressure still sat at 10psi even though the evaporator is only freezing about half way up. That's not what I expected. I had assumed that the vacuum side would be down near zero. Since I wanted to introduce UV leak indicator into the system, I purged a little R134a from the system then refilled it with the leak detector. I let the unit run for a bit but could not find any leaks, even with an ultraviolet flashlight. I decided to leave the can of leak detector attached and check more thoroughly tomorrow.