Thursday Afternoon, Thanksgiving Day, 2015 - I had a very nice day and a great turkey dinner served by the couple across the pier from me on a large powerboat from Boston...plus they gave a plateful for tomorrow, too! After that I returned to the boat and continued to straighten things out on the boat. I also had several phone calls from or to long-time friends. Notice I didn't say "old" friends. I don't have any "old" friends; although some of them are at least as mature as I am.

Friday, 27 November 2015 - I went to the post office and picked up the last month's mail that my mail service had forwarded to me. I got a birthday package with some tools from my brother, Mike, and was also very glad to finally get the US Coast Guard registration for the boat that I paid for and filed last June. I was truly beginning to worry that I might not get its before heading south. It cost me $92, and a day of my time, after refusing to pay a third party $495 to do it for me. The day was spent verifying what exactly needed to be sent in. I'm sure that the third party could have done the whole thing in about 20 minutes, but I just wasn't willing to part with the money. Besides that, they tried to convince me that I "had" to have them do it. I'm not very good at being told I "have" to do something.

Saturday, 28 November 2015 - Today I arrived at the boat about 8am and reinstalled the staysail on the boat. I needed to get here before the wind picked up and it went pretty well, but it was too windy to do another sail. Two to go. After that I got things ready to install the mainsail tomorrow morning.

Sunday, 29 November - Back at the boat early this morning to put the mainsail up with the help of a new neighbor that has a 1980 Endeavor ketch just across the dock. The winds were from the port quarter, and ideally, should be coming from the bow, but light. We got it up, but it wouldn't furl properly even with the light breeze from aft, so we left it up, then waited until almost dusk when the wind died off more, then re-furled. Mid-day, I recharged the DC refrigerator again. It wasn't cooling at all after coming back from the boat yard. Now it's cooling again, but not well. It runs constantly, but only get down to about 38°F. I thing I may have put too much refrigerant into it, but I'm having a hard time finding out how much should be in it. No definitive answers, even on the internet. Later, I started cleaning the transom so I can put the lettering on to change the hailing port to Salt Lake City.

Monday, 30 November - This morning I, once again, stopped off at the thrift store to donate things from the motorhome that I won't need or can't get on the boat on the way to the marina. That included two Epson Photographic printers. I thought I might be able to use the larger one, but, if not, I could use the smaller one instead. I don't have room for either one. Other things I got rid of were a large, waterproof box, jack stands, lanterns, paper and plastic plates, and lots of other miscellaneous items.
                  I returned to the boat and discovered that I am having hotspot problems with the phone again and spent an hour or so trying to troubleshoot that with Apple. They had me move to the Boater's Lounge, back up all the information and apps on my phone to the cloud, then delete everything on my phone as if it were new. It's still not working right. I can get to the internet of my phone, but it doesn't get to the computer as it should. They'll call back this evening to verify the status and we'll try again.
                  Early afternoon I put the new hailing port "Salt Lake City - Utah - USA" on the transom of the boat, then about 4:30 I started getting ready to try to reinstall my genoa, the foremost and largest sail on the boat. I got ready, then went across the dock to see if Dan could help me out. He had gone to the grocery store. Okay, the wind is pretty light, I'll try to do the whole thing by myself. Just as I was finishing, Danny on the boat next to me and Dan across the way showed up to help. Too late! Finished. It went real smoothly.
                Now, I'm on the phone with Apple again. I got a senior technician that says they are going to replace my phone, but, he says, he's not convinced that it will cure my woes. He believes my problem is really with T-Mobile. I'm willing to do anything as long as I get this thing working...so I get a new phone Wednesday.

Tuesday, 1 December - I moved couple of carts full of things from the motorhome to the boat today, but still have quite a bit to go.

Wednesday, 2 December - I worked hard all day long again moving three carts of things off the motorhome and to the boat, then headed down to the Apple Store in Sarasota for my 8:15 appointment to get a new phone. I couldn't believe the size of the mall that Apple is in. Huge! Many times the size of any mall I'd ever been in before...and across the boulevard that runs on the west and the major thoroughfare on its north were many more stores of the same types. Very upscale and fancy. The Apple Store closes at 9pm, but I didn't leave until 10:30 to drive back to Palmetto...a long day.

Thursday, 3 December - First thing this morning, I tried to get a 10 lb. fire extinguisher filled. I thought I had seen a place to do it just down the road from Walmart, but somebody moved it this last week. It wasn't anywhere to be found, so I went to a fire station to see if they could either charge it for me, or, if not, tell me where I could get it done. They suggested a place, but I decided I'd spent enough time on that project for the day. Getting the motorhome listed for sale is much more urgent, so I headed over to the parking area to move things around inside so I could take photos of the interior for online ads. That took up the rest of the day, but I did get it listed on a couple of web sites. The local paper here doesn't look very effective and it looked like it would be pretty time consuming because I would need to open all the images in a third program and reduce the size of the images, so I put that off. I listed it at these two sites:

Craig's List      and
Classified Ads

I sure hope it sells quickly.

It's 7:15, dark and raining here now and I haven't even been to the boat today. I wasn't expecting rain, so I need to go to the boat to make sure that I have it closed up well.

Friday, 4 December - I still couldn't find the fire extinguisher business, so I think I'll recharge my extinguisher with my own compressor. That won't renew the tag, but it will make it capable of putting out a fire, and that's the important thing. I'm on the motorhome to finish this, but will spend the afternoon putting away the things on the boat.

See you next week!

                                          Rick