Thursday, 10 September 2015 - I lowered the dinghy with the davits and took it for a short spin today just to refresh my memories on usage and to make sure that everything's working properly. There's plenty to remember: put the drain plug in!, life jacket (which I forgot), fuel tank, open the vent on the tank, let the air out of the tubes so you can install the seat, pump the tubes back up, bring the backup oars, pump the priming bulb, etc. It started right up. Yahoo! All went well and I returned and raised it on the davits and secured it again.

Friday, 11 September 2015 - I think this makes fourteen years since the Twin Towers tragedy. My thoughts still go out to the relatives and few survivors. My phone signal booster arrived from T-Mobile today, but, on opening it, I discovered that it wouldn't help at all, so I'll have to send it back. They also offered me a WiFi booster, but, upon asking several questions, it became apparent that since I receive my wifi signal via the marina's wifi, not ethernet, as would be in a home, that device wouldn't do me any good either.
                I went this morning to the post office to see if my mail had arrived from my mail service. They mailed it Wednesday afternoon. I had hoped it would arrive today, but I'm not terribly surprised it didn't make it. I need one of the letters, one that has a renewal for my trailer's license plate. Wednesday was my last legal day for the temporary license I downloaded from the Utah Dept. of Transportation wed site, so if I get stopped by the cops for anything, I'm susceptible to ticketing again, and they might not be as forgiving a second time.
                Even though I'm not anywhere near sailing away, I thought I might be able to sail out into the bay this weekend and scrub the hull of my boat. I need a filters for my hookah set-up, which is a device for breathing through a scuba regulator via a compressor on the deck of my boat instead of a scuba tank, so I foolishly thought I'd just go to a dive shop and get it. They and no one else seems to know anything about them, including the manufacturer of the compressor. All they know is that you shouldn't use the compressor without the filters, but the dive shop would be delighted to sell me a hookah setup for a mere $2200. I guess I won't be doing that this weekend, but I could go out and scrub what I can using a snorkel. It's only 6 1/2' to the bottom of the boat, but that's a lot of 1 - 2 minute trips to get my bottom clean. Oops! My ships bottom.
                I spent the rest of the afternoon moving things around so that nothing would shift or fall if I get to sail tomorrow.

Saturday, 12 September - I'd thought I might get out sailing today, but it started raining shortly after I got up this morning and the weatherman is, of course, predicting rain all week in the 70% range each day. I probably should have taken the chance anyway. It's barely rained since this morning. I went to the post office to see if my mail had arrived. Still not there. They must have really slow mail trucks. That letter only had to go about 200 miles.
                Ooh! I did get lucky that it didn't rain very hard or very long. When I returned to the boat this morning I discovered that I had left two of my forward hatches wide open all night with a tool bucket and three tool boxes right under them. No real harm done, just some drying and wiping with oil to be done.
                I think I'll call a couple of my diving friends to see what they know (or don't) about hookah filters.
                Ooh! I just got an email offering me a deal on an apartment in one of the high rises in Dubai. Maybe I'll sail over there next weekend and take a look. ;-) The pictures look pretty...and I could park my boat right outside!

Sunday, 13 September - Spent time on the internet researching coalescing filters and other filters for breathing apparatus, then decided to get started on an inventory database for all the items onboard the boat and their locations. I've moved things numerous times and really can't find anything. I'm sure, given enough time, I'll know where everything is, but for now, I need a list. I've been putting this off because it will be a huge, very time consuming job, but my experience trying to find things for the mechanic on board was too embarrassing. I couldn't find anything he needed within a reasonable or useful time period, even though I knew it was onboard. I think, in the long run, the database will save time. The up front time, though, is significant. For instance, one of the fields in the database will be "location", so I had to create a list of all the locations on the boat. This isn't a very big boat, but I still came up with a list of over 150 locations that I could hide things from myself. I doubt that I got them all, but others can be added later as I discover or remember them. At least I got most of the database created. I'm still not ready to start filling it in with data, however, because I still have quite a bit to bring aboard, and that may cause me to have to move items in order to make room for others.

Monday, 14 September - Went to the post office first thing this morning. No letters. Please come back around 11:00, maybe then. Time to kill, so I went a day early to empty my holding tanks and get water for the motor home, then back to the post office. Finally! It only took five days to go the two hundred miles. No wonder the postal service has a bad reputation. I notice they've been running a lot of adds lately to try to get customers back. I don't think it's going to work when things like this occur.
                Next, I went to WW Grainger to see if they've got filters that will work for my Hookah system. You know, I'm just amazed how little the "experts" know about their own products and services. The fellow didn't have a clue. They have 144 filters, but he couldn't even figure out how to rig a filter onto my system at all, much less one that I could safely breathe through. He called their tech people. I took about 20 minutes to get through to them and when I spoke to the technician, he said, "We don't have any filters you can breathe through." I gave up, and went back to Parker, where I'd been on Friday to see about filters. Both of these suppliers are in Sarasota, and not but about 10 blocks from each other. This time, with the extra information I had about degree of filtration, air pressure, air volume needed, and by talking to an obviously more experienced sales person, I think we came up with a usable solution, and at about half of what I was expecting and willing to pay.
                Another thing that amazes me, why is it that when I go to these supply houses that supposedly carry hundreds of thousands of parts, the ones that I need always have to be ordered in special? The filters will be here in two weeks....maybe.
                As I drove back to Palmetto, I noticed the piece of metal stripping that I had loosened when I hit the post in the park last week showing in my rear view mirror. The wind started catching it as it got beyond the edge of the motorhome and loosening it more and more. I could see it getting worse and worse, but since I've moved so much off the motorhome, I didn't have anything to restrain it with. I did make it back to the park without losing it, went to the boat for tools, screws, a bolt and washers, clamps, a drill, etc., then returned to the trailer to do the repairs. At last, a repair that went fairly quickly and easily. Even the door retainer clip that was pretty mangled, was soon bent back into usable condition and remounted.
                I few of the small tools that I used had been setting just inside the door of the motorhome, and, even though that is a fairly dry location, they were really starting to rust up. In Utah, about the only tool that would rust up, were ones that got left outside. The humidity there is so low that I had tools that went years without wiping down with oil, and they were still virtually rust free. I'm really going to have to make a habit of wiping every tool down every time I use them here. I spent about 45 minutes wiping down all the screw driver tips in one holder.

Tuesday, 15 September - Most of today was spent cleaning up and wiping down tools, fishing gear and diving equipment brought over from the motorhome yesterday, then unpacking, rearranging and repacking the lazarettes to accommodate the new items. I really am running out of space and creating a situation that when I need to get to something, I will have to unload lots of equipment just to get at what I need, but I only know one solution, and I'm not ready to do that yet. I'm amazed that I keep finding or being able to make more space available. Where I'm really going to run into trouble is in the galley with pots, pans and non-canned foods. I have quite a bit of refrigerator space, but very little pantry space that I haven't already filled or is already filled with what the previous owners left, but that's not food. I guess I'll just have to catch fresh fish, conch and seaweed everyday.

Wednesday, 16 September - Well, quite a bit more rain predicted today, so I'm going through my email inbox and deleting old outdated emails that I no longer need and will post this. I hope I can get the photo program to work this time. After that I'm going to tackle getting into the compartments under the aft stateroom berth to see what little space might be available there; not much, methinks, but I take any I can find.