Friday, 19 February 2016 - I waited too long to write this day up, so it's all a blur. I have no idea what I did on Friday.

Saturday, 20 February - My house batteries were getting a little low again, so I waited until a reasonable hour, then hooked up my generator to charge them. While it was running, I also vacuumed the boat with the little Black & Decker vacuum that I bought awhile back. I was in need of groceries too, so I dinghied over to the dock, walked a block and took the bus over to Walmart on the mainland. I got all the groceries that I thought I could carry in four fabric shopping bags and returned to the boat. I didn't get everything, so I'll need to make another trip soon. The bicycle wasn't necessary today because they stop right in the Walmart parking lot. I returned just as Stephen called to say he needed some help with his anchor winch, which had quit working. Unfortunately, this time I wasn't much help. An internal switch doesn't seem to be working.

Sunday, 21 February - I got up early in order to get Stephen Luta off his boat, then go, via the dinghy over to a monthly nautical flea market. We arrived just after it opened at 7am hoping to still find a few things we need. I was looking for some snatch blacks for chain and some better oars for the dinghy. I found neither, but did buy a couple of small fenders to drape over the sides of the dinghy at some docks to keep the boat from rubbing against barnacles and oysters on the pilings and seawalls. Seven dollars for the pair. Not bad. It would have been nice to find a coil for the Yamaha outboard motor, too, but it didn't surprise me that I didn't. At a flea market, you never know what you'll find though, so it doesn't hurt to look.
                    Stephen had invited me and three other friends to go out sailing on his 40' Pearson today, so we met them at the flea market and I ferried everyone back to his boat in my dinghy and we headed out for some sailing. It was a beautiful day to sail with lots of other sailboats and powerboats, too. Great conversation, a little wine...and very little wind. It didn't matter. We all had a great time anyway, then headed over to Bonita Bill's Bar for drinks and dancing. After about an hour there, we walked across the parking lot and had a great lunch at another restaurant/bar. Great, fresh seafood. I had broiled grouper. Both restaurants had very good live musical entertainment. In fact, almost all the bars and restaurants here seem to have musicians playing great music most of the time; rock, blues, country, a little of everything. It's great!
                    Tonight is a clear, warm, windless, gorgeous, bright, full-moonlit night. Quiet and peaceful.

Monday, 22 February - I went over to meet with the fellow that is going to do the work on the stanchion. He had what he thought was a money-saving solution to my problem using an existing, standard stanchion, but it was about 6" too short and I didn't want a shorter safety line up on the foredeck. My life might depend on it someday and the higher, the better. Before and after we met, I worked on rebedding the starboard chainplates. I got all three of them done and now need to do the remaining two on the port side. I had done one a couple of months ago when I had the leak into the food pantry over the stove. The remaining two aren't leaking, but I might as well service them all about the same time.
                    About 6:30pm, Stephen and I went over to Bonita Bill's Bar and Restaurant for amateur night. All you folks that appreciate good live music would love the music scene here. I'm especially thinking of John Caswell, Jan Johnson, and Charlie Broom. This bar has a band that plays on Mondays, but they invite others to join or take the place of one of the band members for a few songs. They call it amateur night, but many of "amateurs" either play in other bands or have played with groups in the past. This has been going on so long that many people that play out of state come here on their winter, snowbird migrations to play. Most of the crowd is around my age, so most of the music that is played is from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, but since the crowd is a real mix so is the music; rock, blues, country, jazz, a little of everything. I thought last night's highlights were two different drummers that stood in, one with a guitarist playing "Born To Be Wild" and a couple of other Steppenwolf songs, and the other drummer took over for the house drummer during several other player's performances. A third standout was a blues singer that took over the mic and the rest of the band just backed him up. He was, I'm sure a professional singer somewhere, and even had the forethought to give each of the band members a short solo during his songs. There was a lot of great guitar pickin going on, too. All this was happening just a few hundred yards from the boat and about 10 feet from the dinghy. Not a private club and no cover charge. Just join the crowd and have a drink, dinner...or dance. As you might have guessed, I really enjoyed the evening.

Tuesday, 23 February - My stanchion was ready about 10am, so I went and got it. I was afraid that he hadn't listened to what I was saying about a modification I wanted on the stanchion, but he got that right. His implementation wasn't the best, however. He welded a plate onto it a little crooked, which meant I needed to countersink one edge twice as deep into the wood as the other, and the bolt he put on was about an inch and a half too long. I couldn't get a deep 1 5/16" socket on it, so I had to cut an inch and a half off manually with a hack saw. That in itself took over 40 minutes of sawing. My arm will probably be sore tomorrow or the next day. Overall, however, I'm pleased with the modification and convinced that I won't have trouble with that stanchion leaking for a long, long time; at least until the next rainfall. Resealing it will be very easy next time because from now on, that stanchion won't have to be unbolted from within the boat to seal it. All I'll have to do is remove a cap plate with 4 screws in it, put sealer on it, and screw the plate back down. Yes! I wish they were all like that. It cost me a hundred dollars to get it fixed and modified, so I won't be making them all like that. Only as needed. It also took the better part of two days to remove and replace it, not counting the welder's time. There are 22 other stanchion bases.
                    The weather for tomorrow is predicted to get interesting again. I may have to weigh anchor and move tomorrow, but I think I've found a location much closer than the anchorage in Glover Bight. My charts say the water is only 5 - 6 feet deep, but I went exploring the other day in the dinghy, asked a guy on a boat near here how deep the water was, and he said 12 ft.

Wednesday, 24 February - This afternoon Steve and I got invited over to one of the nice, big (well pretty big), catamarans for a tour and drinks. The boat is 42', but they are very spacious...and very expensive. We'd been there about a half hour when it started to rain, so we jumped back in my dinghy, I delivered Steve back to his boat, then came on home. Winds got pretty strong for awhile, but have now died off to almost nothing. I thought the winds were supposed to continue after the front went through, but maybe not. I guess I'd better send this off.