Thursday, 17 March 2016 - This morning arrived with very little wind and nice warm temperatures, so I decided that it was the day to take the wind generator off its post and lubricate it. In light breezes, it has quit turning into the wind. I got my tools ready and climbed the radar arch, unscrewed the retaining ring, lifted the generator off the post, greased it,...and couldn't get it back on all the way. It had come apart so easily. There were two loose screws that hold the inner cap in place, so I tightened them. Still wouldn't go back on. I got down and got out the manual. It says be sure to align the wire pin located inside the recess with the hole that should be located on the starboard side of the inner cap. The sunshine is too bright to see into the dark cavity with the light in front of me. I can't turn around on the radar arch. Grease covers the hole, but I eventually find it. Eventually, after about 30 minutes of trying to align it by feel (and I can't feel anything), the wind or current changes and turns the boat around so that I have the light coming over my shoulder and I can see into the cavity. The pin is not on the starboard side, it's at about 5 o'clock; put together wrong in the first place. I can't correct it, but at least I know where the pin is to align it. Another half hour passes and I still can't get the darned thing to go back together. I think maybe the wires inside the pole are keeping it from going down. I need to hold the unit up with one hand, then bend over and pull the wires out at the bottom, about 4 feet below. The generator weighs about 30 lb., so my arms are getting tired. I need help. My neighbor, Bear, is having problems of his own. He's screwed up the mixture on his fuel to oil ratio. I yell at him to see if he can come help me for a minute. No, he has relatives that are at this very minute crossing the bridge to the island to visit. Maybe this afternoon. Okay.
                  One more try at lifting, bending and pulling on the wires and ...it drops into place. Maybe it was the brief rest that my right arm got while talking to Bear. Regardless of the reason, finally, I can put it back together. It still won't rotate freely after all that! I then stick some sandpaper to the post so it will be inside the collar and rotate the collar many times. No good. Still doesn't turn freely. I give up. I'll conquer it another way. I need to find some corrugated plastic board like the politicians all use for the ads they stick up all over town so I can add a bigger tail to the generator. I noticed the generator is out of balance with more weight forward, so adding a little on the tail won't hurt at all, and the added surface area out back on the tail will overcome the friction on the pole. That's the plan and I'm sticking to it.
                  The rest of the afternoon was spent running the generator to recharge the batteries again and putting away the fenders and fender boards, coiling the bow and stern lines and spring lines that I used to dock for the repairs on the swim platform yesterday, and faking down the nylon anchor line to let it dry out before putting it away tomorrow. That and preparing dinner and typing this up. It's bedtime. Goodnight.

Friday, 18 March - Something in my boat has really started to stink, so I took vinegar and bleach to the forward head and cleaned it, then stuck my nose in my refrigeration compartments, the bilge sump, several underfloor compartments, etc. I really couldn't figure where this malodorous aroma was coming from. Then I opened the anchor locker in preparation to laying in the 200' of anchor line that I laid out to dry yesterday. Whew!!! That's where the aroma was originating. As the anchor chain was brought aboard, I had noticed that there was a section of about 20 feet that had a significant amount of sea grass and barnacles, etc. starting to grow on it, and that, along with the sea critters that must have been hiding in the growth was really starting to get ripe and smell horrible in that locker and the odor was wafting throughout the boat's cabin.
                  Around 7pm, Steve Luta and I went over to Times Square and listened to a pretty good band named "High Tide" until they quit at 10 o'clock.

Saturday, 19 March - Well, it rained on my dry nylon anchor line early this morning, so when the time came to put it away, I decided better moist than not at all. My new friend Bear, from the catamaran next to me came over and we had it put away within about 15 minutes. If I did this job by myself, which I'm sure will most assuredly happen in the future, it would have taken me several hours, since the line has to be hand laid into the anchor locker in neat order to all fit in. That would mean inserting about 5 to 10 feet of the line through a 3' hole in the deck, then going through the cockpit and salon and into the forepeak, then crawling into the front of the birth to reach up into the locker and laying the line in, then returning to the front of the deck to push another 5 to 10 feet through the hole. With over 200 feet of line, that's a lot of time involved. Thank goodness for helpful friends. As Bear went back to his boat, he said, "I've done my good deed for the day." and I said, "Remember, no good deed ever goes unpunished." Amazingly, within a very short time, I almost got to return the favor when I noticed that his catamaran had broken its hold on the bottom and was about to run aground. I yelled and yelled to get his attention, but he couldn't hear me. I was just about to get into my dinghy when he came above decks on his boat an realized the situation. He started the engine and moved the boat back into position in deeper water. Then, as he ran to the foredeck to drop his anchor and his wife took over helm, a line went overboard and fouled his propeller. They drifted right back to shallow water. I got into my dinghy and was about halfway over to them when he got the line out of the propeller and moved toward deeper water again. This time the anchor was reset successfully.
                  After laying the anchor line into its locker, I decided to clean up the anchor chain that smelled so bad. That took until about 1pm and only left about two hours till rain was due. I had hoped to go buy groceries, but that wouldn't be enough time. I charged batteries with the Honda generator again and, upon hearing thunder, let out another 20 feet of anchor rode. Around 3pm, a squall line moved through here and really move boats around again with a change in wind direction and a huge increase in velocity. Rain was coming down hard and everybody's boats were darting around in circles. I'm surprised that no one broke loose and drifted, although, at one time, I thought the fellow north of me had. It looked like his boat and his anchor buoy really took off, but I guess it was really just our relative, opposing motion that made it appear that way. I later invited him over for a beer after having talked to him about the squall and finding out, also, that he is a long-time Snowbird skier. I thought we might have mutual friends, but we didn't discover any. He actually has skied there for years, but only the 12th week of the season because that's the week he has a time share at the Iron Blossom Inn at the Bird. After a couple of beers, he headed back to his boat and I had just enough time to launch the dinghy, return two books that Steve Monaghan had loaned me, and run to the bank for some cash that I might need for the trip south that I hope to start again Monday in favorable north winds.
                  More rain predicted for later tonight.

Sunday, 20 March - It rained a tiny bit this morning before I got up at 6:20am, then, even though the predictions were for up to 70% most of the day, it never rained again all day. The 3rd Sunday marine swap meet started at 7am, and Bob Dahmer and I went over to see what was available, even though I had called Bonita Bill's to make sure that it was still on, with the rain predicted. They said yes, but there were only two vendors. What the heck, it's 7am, so you might as well get off the boat and go to a swap meet. I bought two flashlights, even though I have several on the boat. It doesn't seem to matter how many I have or how much was paid for each, I have very expensive ones and cheap ones, the one in my hand won't work, so I got more. I also bought a "diver down" flag for the boat and a manual bicycle pump to replace the two I gave away right before I headed south. This one's not better, just plastic, which is light weight and won't rust. It's also manual, which means it won't deplete the batteries when I use it. We then had breakfast at the restaurant hoping that more vendors would show up, since the weatherman was wrong and it wasn't raining. Two more showed up, but all they had was fishing rods, reels, and lures. Nothing we were interested in.
                  Upon returning to the boat, I headed over to catch the bus to go grocery shopping before it rained, which it never did. I came back on the bus with about 80 lb. of groceries. I really need to quit buying so many canned goods and buy more pasta. After that, I rinsed the anchor locker and put away the anchor chain that I had cleaned up yesterday. While I was doing that, I ran the generator to charge batteries again, since there was so little wind that the wind charger wouldn't operate.
                  Around 3pm I tried to find someone to join me in listening to "Two Hands" play music at Bonita Bill's, but others had their own things going, so I went by myself. Steve Luta had guests aboard and Bob Dahmer was over at the beach listening to reggae music. "Two Hands" had strep throat, so he couldn't sing, so he played great old instrumentals all afternoon, Santa and the Ventures, among others. I hadn't heard a Ventures tune in a long time. A nice change. When he finished, I still had a little beer left in the pitcher so I decided to finish it off while listening to the next performer, "Chucky from Kentucky". He was actually pretty good and, just as I was about to leave, Bob Dahmer joined me, so I ordered dinner and stayed till about 8:30. A pretty good afternoon of music.
                  The weather predictions for this coming week have changed and Tuesday looks to be a better day to move south than tomorrow, as I had planned, so maybe I get to take in one more Monday evening jam session at Bonita Bill's before I take off.

Monday, 21 March - I had hoped to head south today, but strong winds out of the northwest, which gives a very long fetch over which big seas can build. I think it was a good thing I didn't go, the winds were strong and against the tidal current here in Matanzas Pass that we had to contend with the boats running in circles again for most of the afternoon. At least this time it was during daylight hours. I noticed Bob Dahmer's boat just as it reached mid-channel and called him on the phone to warn him he had broken loose. He quickly got it re-anchored, but it shook him up enough he decided not to join Steve and I at Bonita Bill's for the evening jam session, which was really good again tonight.

Tuesday, 22 March - Up early this morning to head south. My anchor came up fairly easy and I headed out of the pass. I had only gone a few hundred yards when my electronic chart plotter shut down. I was just about to enter a congested corner of the channel when it went dark, so I decided to deal with it on the other end, out in the open bay. After about 4 or 5 times shutting the power off and back on, it finally re-booted and worked fine for the rest of the trip, but when it shut down I thought my day's trip might be over before it really got started.
                  Today turned out to be an almost perfect day for sailing the course I sailed. I had clear blue skies and I was on a beam reach sailing perpendicular to the wind almost all day and never had to tack or jibe even once. The wind did get strong enough that I struck the staysail for a little while, after I hit 6.8 knots, but that only lasted for a little while. I was really surprised to hit that speed since I haven't scraped the bottom of the boat in much too long. The boat's theoretical top speed is only 7.1 kt. I arrived at the entrance to my destination and was escorted into the mouth of the river at Marco Island by numerous bottlenose dolphins. There was one spot in the river that I was really worried about running aground, especially since I was coming in at only an hour before low tide, but the bottom never got shallower than 8 feet, plenty of room for my 6'6" draft, but that didn't ease the apprehension until it was over.
                  Upon anchoring at Marco Island, I went a short distance in my dinghy to another boat to make sure where I anchored was okay, and met a couple who have been here for three days without company and were glad to have a neighbor. They are headed where I just came from and vice versa, so it was good to trade some information with them. As we talked aboard their boat, the full moon rose as the sun set and the lights came on along the river. Very serene and beautiful with the light's and moon's reflections dancing on the water.

As always, if you don't know the definition of some term I've used, look it up at the link on my website below.