Sunday, 1 January 2017 - After actually getting back to the boat at a reasonable hour last night, I also managed to get up at a reasonable hour this New Year's morning, did a little work on the boat and made and received some phone calls to close friends today.

Monday, 2 January - I worked on the boat, then, as I was getting ready to head to Bonita Bill's for dinner and music, Robert Dahmer texted me to see if I was going. I picked him up and away we went. About 8 o'clock, Steve Monaghan and Judy joined us. This is funny, on Saturday night, during my conversation with Ghost over on the beach at the fireworks, he gave me a hint that all the trivia questions tonight would be about the Rolling Stones. I boned up a bit by looking them up on Wikipedia, but still didn't even come close to getting any of the answers. In a way, I was glad. I felt like I'd cheated. Actually, very few of the questions got answered, so he gave up and switched the questions to a broader field.

Tuesday, 3 January - Time was spent cleaning the bilge sump out today with Joy dishwashing detergent and Clorox Bleach. For the first time in quite a while I can actually see the bottom of it. There's been something black in it that totally obscured the bottom. It wasn't oil, but I don't know what it was. Now it's clean and bright.
                  I also called the Small Pump Store and left a message that since I never received the Shurflo switch and since they don't respond to my email, text messages or phone calls, I hereby cancel my order. I also was going to call Discover Card and tell them what had happened and ask that the charge for the item be refunded into my account. I was surprised to find that it had never been charged. The guy must have had a heart attack, been run over, or something else serious before he filled my order an billed the card. I'll get another switch as a backup later.
                  I got more water for the boat and was emptying the jerrycans into the boat when Captain Alex of the topsail schooner Lynx and another crewman stopped by Island Time in their dinghy to chat and he invited me to come sailing with them again this Friday, which I'm sure I'll enjoy.

Wednesday, 4 January - I’ve been feeling a bit of vibration in the wind generator recently, so I decided to redo the balance of the three blades again. Upon pulling the blades off, I realized that my timing was pretty good. One of the blades is showing some significant cracking near the inner end. Perhaps a bird has flown into it and cracked it. If it were to break at high speed, I’m sure it would do some serious damage to anything the blade hit, namely the solar panels, and the two remaining blades would be so out of balance that it might self destruct or, at least, damage the mount. I replaced all three blades with the set of spares, then spent the next two hours balancing them. When I went on deck to reinstall the propeller, I was surprised to see that I was surrounded by a fleet of about 20 small commercial fishing boats. They were all casting nets catching mullet. Later, Gene called and invited me to a dinner of fresh mullet that one of the fishermen had given him. He had way too many for the two of us to eat so I called Steve Monaghan and Leon Moyer to see if they wanted some.

Thursday, 5 January - Since I'm hoping to get to leave here soon, I decided today was the day to sail out and do a sea trial of the systems I've been working on. The auto pilot worked fine, although the winds were so light that no real strain was put on the system. The cooling system stayed below threshold and the indicator light never came on, which is as it should be. The same with the alternator/charging system. I had invited Gene Ramos out with me. He had never sailed on a sailboat, even though he had been looking for a sailboat to buy before he bought his trawler. He was extremely bored since the winds were only in the 5 to 7 knot range and our pace was so slow. I think he's lucky he didn't find a sailboat to purchase. He would have been very disappointed with one. Of course, his trawler's pace is not much better than my boat's, if I have good winds from the right direction, but he can go 6 to 7 knots in any direction regardless of wind direction. He was, however, very impressed with how "sea kindly" my boat is. That's a term for how smoothly a boat rides and handles on the water. We had only about 1 foot seas, but some power boats came buy throwing pretty large wakes, and he said his boat would have really been bobbing and rolling when the wakes hit it. With my weight and deep keel, my boat takes the pretty well. I do wish we'd had a bit more wind to test the systems today, especially the new halyard, but really, I have all the confidence in the world that the replacement and crimping of the cables that I did will last a long, long time.

Friday, 6 January - I loaded 22 gallons of water aboard this morning and since the winds were so light yesterday, I had to charge the batteries for about an hour, then I showered and headed over to the topsail schooner "Lynx" for an afternoon of sailing on that square rigger. I'm not sure why they're being so nice to me and repeatedly inviting me out for a free ride. The rest of their passengers are paying $50 each, but I won't complain. I really do enjoy it and learn a lot each time. The boat, their seamanship, and teamwork are all extremely impressive. I think the most impressive part is when they come back to the wharf and the Captain Alex has to make a u-turn right at the bridge, the back the ship into the wharf. He makes that maneuver look so easy. I can't back my boat worth a darn.
                  I got more water loaded into the dinghy and was just about to head back when Mark DesErmia called and said let's go for pizza. I waited for him at the dinghy dock and we walked up the street for pizza. After that, I took my water to the boat, got my dirty clothes and headed over to the marina to wash, watch some TV and have a few margaritas in celebration of Steve Monaghan's birthday. It's too bad Steve didn't show up. We had to call in a substitute drinker for him, Gene Ramos. Nice get together. Too bad you weren't there Steve.

Saturday, 7 January - My final day of preparation to leave has been interrupted by wind and rain. I had planned on going out and scraping the barnacles and scum off my hull today, getting rid of trash, and getting a bit more gasoline onboard. I definitely won't be scraping the hull; a cool front just came through and the rain may last awhile. Of course, I would have gotten wet anyway, but running the generator and compressor in the rain wouldn't be too good for them, plus the rain really ruins the visibility underwater and around here it's poor enough already.
                  Tomorrow is a little "iffy" for leaving. The wind warning and small craft warnings will be out tomorrow until about noon. Only time will tell.