Sunday, 1 September - After breakfast this morning I went over to M/V Sonic Seadog, belonging to Kevin Smith. He's out of town and asked me to keep an eye on his boat by making sure it's not taking on water, that the batteries are being charged by the solar panels, and putting about ten gallons of seawater into his blackwater tank to be pumped out on pumpout day. This took me three trips, one to go over and realize that I'd forgotten his key, one to check on the boat, and a third trip to go back and get my hat and sunglasses that I had taken off when I went into his cabin. Everything is fine.
                    After lunch I scraped the starboard side of the hull on the dinghy.

Monday, 2 September - Labor Day Holiday - Don Shuler and Brandon Bunch came to the boat about 9:30 am and worked reinstalling the high pressure fuel injection pump and everything that had to be removed to access it including the secondary fuel filter and all its lines, the water pump and water reservoir, etc. Once installed we tested everything, discovered a couple of wires that got broken and repaired those and...thank God for miracles...the pump no longer leaks. Finally. This repair project started on July 26th, five weeks ago. I've been super lucky that no big storms have come our way during this time.

Tuesday, 3 September - It rained early this morning and the pickleball courts were quite wet so we, Phil Vachon, Letty Irwin, and I, had to squeegee the water off. We started playing and played one point and it started to sprinkle. We could see that it was going to get worse so we hightailed it to the pavilion to stay dry. It's a good thing we did. It really poured for about 30 minutes. When it quit, and it was simply one little potent cloud, we squeegeed again and played till about 11 o'clock. I returned to the boat and defrosted the freezer, then later, took the dinghy out Sister Creek to Whisky Creek to see how much difference cleaning its hull made. The difference was quite significant. The dinghy came right up on a plane and topped out at about 30 miles per hour. I'm sure it did the engine some good to get the rpm's up, too. Simply running around the harbor at 3 or 4 mph tends to let carbon build up in the engine. Running at high speed blows some of that out.

Wednesday, 4 September - Karen Butler rejoined us at pickleball today. She and her husband Ron have been world travelers lately having flown to Europe to see children and grand kids. They returned and although they've been trying to sell their boat for several months, it just sold so they'll be leaving to live in the house they just bought in a very active, senior development in norther Florida called The Villages. I played one game then went to fitness class just a hundred feet away. Unfortunately, when I quit it left just three players so Karen left, then ten minutes later, a lightning warning alarm in the park went off even though we saw no lightning flashes nor heard any thunder, so the class instantly cancelled...liability problems, I assume. I went back to pickleball and played two against one for about an hour and as half with no rain or thunder and lightning at all. I don't know what triggered that alarm.

Thursday, 5 September - Tonya Bishop, the lady that had said she'd start working on the sewing on my dodger hadn't gotten back with me to confirm or to tell me when to bring it to the marina so I played pickleball this morning. She finally called me about 8:30 pm and said she'd be ready tomorrow. It's been raining off and on, more off than on, for the last several days and may tonight. The dodger keeps rain out of the cockpit so I don't want to remove it until the last minute and then hope to get it back on before it rains again. I'll probably get up in the morning, miss pickleball and fitness class while I remove the dodger, then deliver it to her around 10 o'clock.

Friday, 6 September - Well, I woke up at about 5:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep so I got up at 6:15 and removed the dodger as the sun rose. I figured it would take about an hour to an hour and a half to remove but managed it in just 50 minutes, ate breakfast, took the dodger to the marina and made it to pickleball just in time to play one game before the fitness class started. I returned to the marina to talk with Tonya and make sure she understood all the work that needed to be done. While I was there she actually finished a piece that covers my on-deck Honda generator. The stitching on the zipper on it had failed from sun exposure and it was a very simple repair. I brought it back to the boat and reinstalled it. I've been detecting a strange aroma each time I enter the saloon on the boat and finally decided to find the source. It smelled slightly like a spice, of which I have many left over from Mom's cooking habits, so I started sniffing around the cabinet they are kept in. It took awhile to figure out what it was. I had a large container of garlic powder and two smaller containers of garlic salt. All were moldy. I wasn't convinced that that was all that had gone bad so I opened virtually all the spick containers to make sure, wiped everything clean, and discovered that I have a small leak into that cabinet. A scupper on deck has a hose that runs about 8 inches through one corner of the cabinet and it was plugged up so I unplugged it from the outside of the hull. There's also an unused water fill hose with a filter in that same corner. The filter had water in it, which was a surprise. I emptied that and will re-check it occasionally. I have never used that deck fill but maybe water has backed up into it from the water tank when either I or rainwater overfills the tank.
                    I needed to meet Susie at 5 o'clock at the Florida Keys Steak and Lobster restaurant but also realized at four o'clock that I still hadn't rinsed the clothes I had on this morning when I fell into tho ocean while exiting my dinghy at the dock.
                    After hurricane Irma they installed a horizontal railing all along the docks to tie your painter to. Everybody I've talked to hates them. You have to either step on or over the rail to get off and on the dock and it really complicates tying up. With the rail, if you idle in out of gear, you have to quickly get to the front of the dinghy, reach out an grab the rail or run a line under it and back to the boat, move back to the engine and shut it off, exit the boat and tie up, and if you're out of gear and bump the dock, your dinghy bounces back and you have to put the boat in gear and make another approach. To hold the dinghy against the dock you can leave it in gear, but you still have to crawl over anything in the bow of the dinghy and run a loop under the rail, then move back to the engine, shut it off, and then exit the boat and tie up.If they had cleats to tie to, all you have to do is kill you engine and coast in, toss a loop of your painter onto the dock beyond the cleat and then pull your dinghy tight against the dock to step off and tie up. Any way. this is the second time I've been tripped up by the rail. The first time, I stepped on and slipped off of the rail and landed flat on my face on the dock. Luckily I'm strong and quick enough to catch myself and not break my nose, but one of these days someone is going to get seriously hurt because of those rails.
                    I quickly put the clothes into the sink to soak then showered and met Susie right on time for happy hour.

Saturday, 7 September - I paid my next year's boat insurance this morning. At 1:15 Tonya messaged me and said that all she needed to do to finish my dodger was to install a couple of snaps and she'd be through. The repairs will be $623. A short time later she texted to say that she couldn't find any snaps with a long post locally and asked what I wanted her to do. I dug through my snaps and found several long posts and took them to her. She finished up, I paid her, and came back to the boat to reinstall the dodger. Working by myself it took two and a half hours and I thought it went pretty quickly. It's a pretty complex installation and getting the bottoms of the windows to slide into the retainers is not easy. Sometimes they can only be moved a couple of inches at a time and I have to go back and forth from one end of the 8 foot retainers to the other, many, many times. There are four slots, two in the forward piece and one on each side. Luckily, the two side panels are straight so they mount easily, but the front panel has two that run in opposite directions from the center. They are curved, causing a lot of friction. They are hard even though I lubricate them well with silicone spray.
                    At least now I don't have to worry as much about the rain...assuming I remember to close up the dodger windows.

Sunday, 8 September - I pumped the dinghy up to go over to Kevin Smith's boat to check on it. The dinghy has many spots where air is simply coming through the fibers of the fabric due to sun exposure and abrasion. After checking on Kevin's boat I took some diesel fuel that was spilled and wasted during the fuel pump removal and replacement to the marina to get rid of it. T-Mobil's service has been down all night and was predicted to be down until about four in the afternoon. That means I had no way to communicate with Susie. Since it's such a beautiful day, I thought we might go snorkeling or just for a dinghy ride. Since I couldn't contact her I thought I might take the dinghy over to her house. It's about 6 or 7 miles. Luckily, just as I was about to head her way, the phone service came back on so I called her, but was only able to leave a message. She didn't return the call so the call saved me a disappointing trip.

Monday, 9 September - We had six for pickleball this morning but when I quit after 30 minutes to go to the fitness class so did two others and the remainder played a couple of games and then waited for us to return. The heat and high humidity really take a toll. We didn't play much longer. I went to the marina, had a Dr Pepper, then decided that since I was so soaked with perspiration I'd just take a shower with my clothes on to rinse them out. Besides that, as I returned to the boat in the dinghy, the sensation of breeze caused by the movement of the boat cooled me on the return to Island Time.

Tuesday, 10 September - Only three showed up for pickleball today.

Wednesday, 11 September - Four showed up for pickleball around 8:30 today but, again, when I left for fitness class, Bill Greene and Letty Irwin joined me leaving Karen Butler by herself. She and Ron are trying to get things off the boat since they've sold it so she headed back to their boat to continue packing. The three of us returned to pickleball after an hour and played two against one for about an hour and a half.

Thursday, 12 September - Only Karen Butler, Bill Greene and I showed up to play today and we quit around 10 o'clock because of the heat and because today is Karen's last day before she an Ron head north to the Villages now that they have sold the boat and dinghy. I returned to the boat and attempted to test each of my house batteries with a load tester but I screwed up the procedure and will use today as a trial run and do it again tomorrow. Doing the test once draws the batteries down to low to do run the test again in one day because the solar panels don't have enough time to recharge them before dark. As I go to bed this evening the temperature is 88°F. and feels like 100 because the humidity is 76% and there's no wind.

Friday, 13 September - I was tho only player to show up at 8:30 this morning but just as I was about to leave a couple of middle aged Mormon missionaries showed up to play. I let them know that I would be back in an hour after I finished the fitness class. They played together until just before my class was over but said they'd be back next week. This afternoon I retested the four house batteries and found them to all be performing about the same. I had thought that perhaps one of the four was bad and dragging the others down. At 5:20 Susie picked me up and we went to Porky's Bayside Restaurant to join Mike & Bev of S/V Queequeg along with Karen Diehl to listen to Ty Thurman sing.

Saturday, 14 September - I decided to, once again, delve into trying to figure out why the wind indicator panel won't display the wind speed after having replaced the printed circuit board (PCB) at the mast top awhile back. I checked out the wiring at the mast base and could see nothing wrong. Next, I opened up the navigation instrument pod at the binnacle and disconnected, lubricated each connector with silicone lubricant, and reconnected everything. After that I removed the back panel of the cockpit instruments that is in the galley and disconnected, lubricated, and reinstalled the SeaTalk connectors associated with the wind instrument in there, too. I did find one problem spot. That was a disconnected wire at the SeaTalk power fuse. I desoldered that and had high hopes that I had solved the problem. No such luck. Since the power circuit fuse was broken I don't understand how any of the SeaTalk instruments could work, but they did. Simply put, I haven't found anything wrong so I have given up again until I have another idea about where the problem can be. Perhaps it's in the mast top anemometer. I replaced the PCB and the bearing in it. Maybe I didn't get it back together right. I guess I'll have to go up the mast a couple more times.

Sunday, 15 September - I made a run the Kevin Smith's boat Sonic Sea Dog again this morning to make suer it's not sinking while he's away. Looks good. As soon as I finished there I headed to the cash machine via bicycle to get money to pay Diesel Don for removing and reinstalling my high pressure fuel pump. He wants cash, no credit card or check. No problem. A short, one mile ride to the ATM for the cash. I needed about $2400 to pay him and his assistant, Brandon. I decided to get $3000 from the machine so I would have some spending cash, too. I thought it would give me 30 one hundred dollar bills but instead it spewed out a hundred and fifty $20 bills. That's a real wad of cash. The cash machine is right across the street from Publix so I stopped in there and bought a very few groceries; bananas, V8 that they were out of when I bought groceries last, and lunch meat that I forgot last time. Later, I met Susie at Dockside for some dancing.

Monday, 16 September - After pickleball, fitness class and lunch today I finally got together with Diesel Don and paid him for the removal and replacement of the high pressure fuel pump that had been such a fiasco through no fault of Don's. I got really lucky in a way. Don felt so bad about having to send the pump to Everglades Diesel that he only charged me for one of the three eight hour removal/replacement sessions, $1600 plus he got Everglades to return $800 of my expense for the rebuild price, $1600. I used the $800 to pay his assistant, Brandon Bunch for his work. He's really the one that did all the work down in my hot, cramped engine room.

Tuesday, 17 September - Only Jess, a girl from Jamaica, and I showed up for pickleball today. She's played with us about 4 or 5 days so far and is getting better fast. It was cloudy much of the afternoon and there was almost no wind so my house batteries didn't get anywhere near fully charged today so around 4 pm I thought I'd better uncover the Honda 2000i generator, start in up and charge the batteries for about an hour and a half to top them up before going tho meet Susie ad Dockside. I hadn't started it is a long time but expected no problems since I always refill the gas tank to avoid getting condensation in the gasoline and it was running fine the last time I used it. It started on about the second or third pull of the starter cord, ran for about 10 seconds ...and died. After about twenty more attempts to start it, I opened up the side on it, removed the air filter housing and discovered that the foam air filter had turned to dust and probably got sucked into the engine, killing it. I gave up, put the generator in the cockpit, took a shower, and headed to Dockside.

Wednesday, 18 September - Since I knew the house batteries would be drawn down excessively this morning I slept in a little later to avoid having to turn on lights in the dark to cook breakfast. The batteries were drawn down to 11.87. That's not good for them. After waiting for the solar panels to charge the batteries back up to 12V, I ate, then gathered tools that I might need and the Honda generator and went to the project room at the marina to work on it. I had only been there long enough to check the spark plug when another boater that I see frequently but never met, Voy, came in and offered to help. He apparently has owned and worked on several and was quite knowledgeable about these Hondas saving me a lot of time. We removed the air filter housing and started removing lines and the carburetor when he reached down and unscrewed the oil filler/drain plug. Normally, when the unit is sitting level, nothing should overflow but oil and gasoline gushed out and made a real mess that we had to clean up immediately. Somehow, gasoline has gotten into the crankcase. That's a real problem. I spent several hours cleaning up the remains of the foam air filter that I could see. I checked fuel lines to make sure they were clear but needed replacement oil and carburetor cleaner that I hadn't brought with me so I returned to the boat and worked on it a bit more here. The carburetor is quite dirty and I'll deal with that back at the marina tomorrow. Voy has said he'll help again tomorrow. For the life of me I can't figure out how the gasoline got into the crankcase. I hope Voy has some ideas.
                  We had a couple of short rain showers but it was sunnier than yesterday. The batteries made it up to about a 93% charge but that's not enough, so they'll be below 12V again tomorrow unless the wind blows enough to let the wind charger boost them tonight. That's no predicted. Most of today the blades never turned, much less produced any power.

Thursday, 19 September - Another day without pickleball or exercise class but I did get the Honda generator running again. I wanted to do the work myself but I was too slow for Voy so he took over and did most of it. I don't learn much that way. One important thing I did learn was something he forgot yesterday. Behind the main carburetor jet is another tube with even tinier holes in it. He popped it out and luckily, I was watching closely so I believe I can do it again myself if needed. Of course, that will probably be far enough into the future that I'll forget about it. Anyway, I changed the oil twice, buttoned everything back up, pulled the start cord and I'm back is business. Now I just hope I don't really need it much. Ever since I accumulated 800Ws of solar on top of the wind generator, the Honda usually doesn't get used except on cloudy, windless days or to power the air compressor for the Hookah gear while I clean the hull of the boat. Only lately have the house batteries been running down so low at night that I needed to run the generator again. I believe the problem with the generator was created when I started the engine. When I did that I believe the foam air filter was sucked through the carburetor, plugging some of the orifices, which caused the float in the float bowl to malfunction in the open position which just pored gasoline into the cylinders and into the crankcase...but that's just a guess. Right now I don't have an air filter in the generator, which for a short time may not be too significant. Voy said, "Oh, you don't need one out on the water, there's no dust." I however, disagree. Perhaps that's one of the reasons he has so much experience working to the generators.
                    Oops! Gotta go. I'm meeting Susie at Dockside to dance to the singing of Candace Mo Ree Widgeon.

Friday, 20 September - Only three players showed up for pickleball this morning and I only had 30 minutes to play before going to the fitness class. I told the two ladies that I'd be back after an hour but by the time I returned they were ready to leave. Phil Vachon showed up when I did but wasn't interested in playing singles so I returned to the boat and defrosted the freezer then washed a few clothes.

Saturday, 21 September - I put away the fluids involved with the pump repair and the Honda generator that were buried under about 2000 feet of rope in the port lazarette and made cover caps for three gasoline jugs that are stored on deck. I also tried to order some clothing that I had spent hours picking out online but at the checkout an unexpected $20 annual fee was entered so I stopped before I confirmed the purchase. Luckily, I hadn't entered my credit card information at that point. Susie and I met Bev and Mike at Porky's again to listen to Ty one more time before he leaves permanently.

Sunday, 22 September - I solicited some help to tail my safety line to go up the mast on the Cruiser's Net this morning without success. I'll have to try again another day. I still need to go up to replace the PCB, printed circuit board, once again since I can't find anything wrong with the wind speed sensor anywhere else. Susie and I had a fun time dancing at Dockside this evening.

Monday, 23 September - Our fitness instructor was out of town today so Susie stayed home and I played pickleball for the full session this morning. In fact, one girl, Jess, and I were the only ones there for the first 30 minutes but then an out of town family of five showed up so we set up another net and played until 12:15. On the way back to Island Time I checked on Kevin Smith's motor vessel since he's out of town. Everything seemed okay there.

Tuesday, 24 September - At 8:30 this morning two ladies showed up for pickleball. We set up a net and played two against one for several games then I talked a fellow, Ray, that was watching through the fence into joining us. It turned out that he's a firefighter for Marathon and they've just gotten a pickleball court but don't know the rules. He had really come to work out at the fitness court when he saw us playing. He played about four games before heading to the fitness court. Just before he quit, Jess showed up and took his place during the next games but everybody else was ready to quit by 10:30. I just sent out my August update and Hurricane Helene is developing south of Cuba. They say it will travel northwest until it passed between Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula before turning slightly northeast. That should miss us by about 300 miles so I hope they are right. We are already getting breezes and short rain squalls from the outer bands of Helene this afternoon so I furled the deck awning but did not take it down.

Wednesday, 25 September - I was the only person to show up for pickleball this morning and just as I arrived at 8:30 I got a notification via email that the fitness class was prematurely and unnecessarily canceled so I just practice serving about 200 balls across the court by myself. Tropical storm Helene is supposed to arrive this evening but we had a nice day here. I stopped by the marina on my way back to the boat and found a package of books that my brother had sent me. The timing was perfect because I'm sure I'll have nothing to do on board tomorrow since we are expecting high winds then. I decided to take the deck awning all the way down. I had furled it but decided to err on the side of caution in case winds were stronger than expected. The front of the first wave of the storm arrived with a bang about 6 pm. The wind was driving rain at about 60 mph. I don't think I've seen it rain and blow that hard since I got here. It's a good thing I got the dodger repaired recently and good that I took the awning down. The wind was out of the south and I'm only about 250 yards from shore so waves weren't a problem but the boat really yawed and rolled a lot. That lasted about 30 or 40 minutes and the winds died back down.

Thursday, 26 September - About 5 am another band of wind hit. I got up to check things out but found no problems so I went back to sleep until 8 am. I was sure no one would show up for pickleball with 30 mile per hour winds so I spent the day reading one of my new books and checking on the boat every once in awhile. It blew about 30 to 40 mph all day but I had no problems. We were all lucky here in the harbor that the wind is out of the south. The harbor is only about 400 yards wide but two miles long. If the wind had been out of the east or west we would have had a lot more problems with, perhaps, 3 to 4 foot waves. As it was, I only had waves about one half to one foot high. I watched the seagulls a bit. When they got tired of flying they just land on the water and ride the waves like a little flotilla of tiny boats. I don't like to run the wind generator when the wind is above about 30 mph so I didn't run it today but we still had enough sunshine to charge the batteries up well. When the wind dies off tonight I'll turn it on again and have fully charged batteries in the morning. My KISS wind charger is pretty quiet until the wind gets to about 25 mph but Doug Boyle on the boat next to me has one that spins much faster and he never shuts it off. I don't know how he can put up with the noise. It's loud at 20 mph and really loud at 30. I'm surprised it doesn't self destruct at 50. It sounds like the propeller on a small plane...loud.

Friday, 27 September - All in all, I think six boats here in the harbor dragged anchor but I feel real sorry for the people further up the west coast of Florida. So many of them were just recovering from hurricane Ian and now they get hit hard again by Helene. I wasn't surprised that I was the only one to show up for pickleball this morning. The exercise group was notified by email that our instructor had personal problems and wouldn't be there but Mary Ackroyd and one other lady showed up. After practicing my pickleball serves for about 30 minutes I went over to see if they had gotten the message about the instructor. They had not but had started exercising anyway, so I joined them. We hadn't even completed our first round of exercise when three young people came by and I encouraged them to join us, which they did. When we finished, and knowing that Mary and the other lady wouldn't be interested, I said, "Okay, who's up for pickleball?" Much to my surprise the three all said they'd been hearing so much about it that they'd like to learn, so we went back to the court and set up a net and played until noon. I hope they'll return next week.

Saturday, 28 September - I talked Bill Greene into coming to my boat again to tail my safety line as I climbed the mast again to, once again, replace the printed circuit board in the anemometer at the top of the mast. I climbed it, removed the anemometer, defended, replaced the chip in the safety of the cabin, then headed back up to replace the instrument and came back down...it still doesn't work. I give up for awhile...again. This evening Susie and I joined Mike and Bev of S/V Queequeg at Porky's Bayside BBQ to eat and listen to Ty Thurman in his last performance here before he moves to Tennessee next Tuesday. He's been playing at Porky's for ten years and it was quite evident from the sendoff they gave him that the employees and many of his friends will miss him.

Sunday, 29 September - On the Cruiser's Net this morning I announced that I could use some cheap open-celled foam to make a new filter for the Honda generator. I occasionally get some as padding in a package but it is such poor foam that I throw it away. Well, now I need some. Owen, one of the fellows that works on outboards and other engines here in the harbor got on the VHF and said he's got a spare, used filter for a Honda at his shop and would bring it over. Fantastic! I still need a piece about one inch square by 4 inches long but I'm sure I can find one pretty soon in the trash where someone got it as packing and threw it away. I met Susie ad Dockside to dance and some of the people that had gone north for the winter but were displaced by Helene are already back. That was a pleasant surprise for us.

Monday, 30 September - I have to go to Key West for my annual physical checkup next Monday and went to have blood drawn for lab tests today. I had hoped to make it there in time and finish in time to beat the turnaround of the same bus that took me there. If I'd finished one minute sooner, I would have made it. I was running across the bridge to the bus stop and was running to beat the bus. I turned and waved to him, and I'm sure he saw me, but he kept on going and I had to kill two hours for the next bus. I walked down past the next bus stop by a Walgreen's and killed some time there and got a Dr Pepper for the ride home. I walked over to the bus stop about 10 minutes early and there on the bench sat Tom Crank, the fellow that I've been having scrape my hull monthly since my shoulder got damaged, headed back to Marathon after having flown north to see his wife and daughter for a week. He had taken a cab to the bus stop from the airport. Small world.