Tuesday, 1 July 2025 - I haven't taken the boat out in quite awhile and I need to do so to make sure all the systems are functioning properly, including myself. By not taking the boat out, I've "settled in" and there are lots of things onboard that would get in the way while sailing or would fall onto the floor when the boat heels over. I thought I'd better beat the holiday crowd so I removed the genoa sleeve, unwrapped the spare halyard that stabilizes the furled mainsail, and lots of other things. I started straightening things up this afternoon then met Susie at Dockside this evening.

Wednesday, 2 July - I took the boat out for a while today, mostly just to make sure everything's working as it should. I did find a couple of minor things that need to be tended to. When I lengthened the sheet on the genoa awhile back by putting an Amsteel loop on it to accommodate the bulge made by the bowlines that attach the sheets to the sail and made the fit of the ATN genoa sleeve too tight, I didn't think to lengthen the furling line for the genoa. When I unfurled the sail today, it wouldn't come all the way out. I need to fix that. The second thing is that although the wind indicator is working, it needs to be recalibrated. It seems to be registering about 20 degrees to far to port. Recalibrating it has so many steps to it that it is a lot easier with two people, one to read off the steps from the manual and the other, me, to push the buttons on the device. I lose track looking back and forth between the manual and the wind control panel. Other than that, it was a nice day to sail, 10 to 12 knots of wind and almost smooth water...and I only saw one lobster pot all afternoon. During season sailing is like playing dodgem cars with the floats.

Thursday, 3 July - I caught the Monroe County Transit to Advanced Urgent Care and had an MRI taken of my back today but won't get the report until next week. In a way, I hope they find nothing wrong, but then I also really want to know what's causing me so much discomfort in my back on its right side.

Friday, 4 July - Independence Day - I thought I might talk Susie into going out for a sail today since the boat is ready, winds are light, and the water smooth. We planned on going but her family's company, Akron Rubber had the opportunity to have a consultant make a pitch to them. Susie thought the meeting would last about an hour but it dragged on much longer. We passed on sailing and I met her at Dockside for dinner, then we boarded my dinghy and motored out into the middle of the harbor to watch the fireworks displays that started around 9 PM in seven different locations around the harbor. The middle of the harbor on a windless night is the best place to watch the fireworks from. Another thing tat was nice was that we had the whole dance floor to ourselves and were the only couple that danced all night.

Saturday, 5 July - I spent the night as Susie's. We took her two kayaks out for a short spin, then replaced a gasket and the water controller in her toilet because it wasn't flushing properly. The gasket we replaced had softened and expanded significantly, so much so that it wouldn't stay in place. I think her water bill will be a bit high this month because of the constant leakage. By the time we finished it was time for dinner so we ordered Chinese food from the Panda House and watched the fifth Mission Impossible movie. Susie didn't want to take me back to the marina so late, so I was "forced" to spend another evening at her house.

Sunday, 6 July - Susie was going to take me home early this morning but mentioned that her clothes dryer isn't working. It apparently isn't draining the evaporated water out properly, senses that and shuts down. We spent about two or three hours removing the drain hose, making sure it wasn't clogged, and replacing it. Her washer/dryer is stacked, heavy and is a tight fit in the closet it is in so access was tough and I had to work with a flashlight and mirror. I finally squeezed through a 9 inch gap and removed the hose, cleared it, and then tried to stuff it back onto its nipple without success. I spent about 20 minutes trying to replace it but my big fingers didn't have enough clearance to get the job done. Susie said let me try and got it done in about 30 seconds. I don't know that we really accomplished a repair because we really didn't find anything wrong, but Susie ran a couple of small loads of clothes without any problems this afternoon. We met again at Dockside for dinner. The place was almost deserted tonight.

Monday, 7 July - The onboard hanging locker has proven insufficient so I've decided to put a horizontal clothes bar in the forward shower that I have never used for anything except a tool storage space. I have several tool boxes sitting on the floor there and the space above has been wasted in the past. A horizontal bar in there will more than double my hanging space. I believe I can install the bar with only two one inch screws and two circular blocks of one and a quarter inch thick teak that someone left in the trash in the workroom. Unfortunately, they drilled the two four inch blocks with a hand drill instead of the drill press that is there and they drilled them quite crooked. I spent a couple of hours straightening the holes and trying to square the edges by using the drill press as a vertical lathe and using wood rasps, a saw blade, and a sanding block to cut the edges down. It's not perfect but I don't think anyone is going to notice.

Tuesday, 8 July - My normal dentist here in Marathon retired because leaning over patients for years has caused him sever back problems. He had suggested a couple of dentists on neighboring islands so I went to Dr. Forsee's in Big Pine Key this morning. I was very impressed with the newest X-ray technology he uses to image teeth in 3-D and then show me a couple of small problem areas by scanning up, down, forward and back through the images a slice at a time just like an MRI can do, but in three different planes. He pointed out a minor problem with one of my front teeth but said I won't have to worry about it because I'll probably die before it needs attention. He also recommended one of my silver amalgam fillings be replaced because it has a small crack that will only get larger, possibly fracturing the tooth. He also pointed out a capped tooth that has a bit of infection at its base that needs to be attended to by doing a root canal. Because of the unique property of that tooth he recommends that I see specialist in Miami to have that done.
                    I met Susie at Dockside, which was very sparsely occupied, for dinner and dancing.

Wednesday, 9 July - I replaced the leaking primer bulb in the dinghy with one that I bought yesterday at the Ace hardware store in Big Pine before I caught the return bus which was over an hour late. I was surprised that even though Big Pine Key appears smaller from the road than Vaca Key, which Marathon is on, their NAPA and Ace Hardware stores are both much larger and have many more marine products than the store here. (I later looked on a map and Big Pine is larger but the highway cuts across it and runs the length of Vaca Key.

Thursday, 10 July - I took the circular teak blocks back to the workshop today and finished shaping them using chisels and a reciprocating multi-tool. The discs are each 1 1/4" thick and I had drilled a 1 1/4" hole 5/8" deep in each one Tuesday. That left a one inch core that needed to be removed and I needed to open a 1 1/4" slot from the center to the edge on one of the discs for the horizontal bar to be mounted. Using the few tools at hand, I was amazed to finish in about two and a half hours. That's the first time in years that I can remember completing something in less time that I had estimated. It usually takes me 4 to 5 times as long as I estimate. I came back to the boat and did a temporary mounting to make sure it all fits as planned and will complete the job after applying a coat or two of glossy finish Cetol. In the meantime, I had to remove a couple of hangers from the walls of the shower to keep clothes from being in contact with them. One is a plastic piece that had been chrome plated and the other is a double hanger made of either brass or bronze and possibly chrome plated, I can't tell. Both of them had turned totally black with corrosion. I cleaned them up with a wire brush and 30% vinegar and I'll need to do the same with the shower head, too. I have no idea why the brass, bronze, and chrome on the interior of my boat turns black. Copper, bronze, and brass usually get a green patina, but not on my boat. I've polished door knobs, hinges, and other items with Brasso in the past but within weeks they turn black.

Friday, 11 July - Today I applied the first coat of Cetol to the teak clothes hanging bar supports that I've made. I also made a couple of trips to Home Depot for a spray can of clear top coat Rustoleum to spray the brass piece that I cleaned up. Perhaps that will slow down the black corrosion. I had to make two trips to Home Depot because when I got there the first time I discovered that my money and credit cards weren't in the pants I had on.
                    This evening Susie picked me up at the city marina dock to go see the play at the Marathon Community Theater (Playhouse) whose cast is the local kids, however, when we got there we discovered that the play was sold out so we went next door and watched the newest Jurassic Park movie instead.

Saturday, 12 July - Susie's Birthday - I added a second coat of Cetol to the two hanger bar supports and sprayed several coats of Rustoleum Clear Coat to the small brass clothes hanger that had I cleaned up. This afternoon I defrosted the refrigeration. Susie and I had planned on attending a benefit for stray cats in Marathon at Sparky's Landing across the street from her house but I believe the threat of rain quenched it because by the time we got there it seemed to be over. We had a nice dinner at Sparky's anyway.

Sunday, 13 July - We got a pretty early start this morning loading Susie's car for her trip north to Ohio, closing all the hurricane shutters, moving things off the back porch into the house in case of a blow and got a start on repairing a set of window blinds in her bedroom that have ceased to raise properly. Really, about all we did with the blinds is figure out how to dismount them and figure out how they work. A thin cord on one end seems to be broken so we had to interrupt the repair in order to get to Dockside for some dancing before she leaves at 6 AM tomorrow. We'll deal with that when she returns.

Monday, 14 July - I got lazy this morning and in order to be able to finish coating the teak disks, install the hanging bar and get things put away, I decided to use the Rustoleum Clear Coat gloss enamel over the Cetol since it dries in about 40 minutes instead of Cetol's 24 hours. I just have to hope that isn't a mistake that shows up down the road. Time will tell.

Tuesday, 15 July - My database got a few new items logged into it today. I had ordered a couple of spark plugs, wire hose clamps for fuel lines, and metric o-rings that came in late yesterday. Later, I went to Dockside for dinner and joined Brandon Barber at his table for the evening.

Wednesday, 16 July - Larry Cox on the catamaran Windancer next to me had asked me last week to tow his dinghy back to his boat from the marina's docks since they had to go to Texas for about a week. I had done that and he texted me to bring it back to the dock today because he's returning. The dinghy has, once again, been unable to get up on a plane so this afternoon I opened up the Yamaha outboard and installed the two hotter spark plugs and then took it for a test drive. After leaning out the pilot fuel screw a tiny bit I was back on a plane again. I checked the plugs when I returned and these appeared to be pretty dry. My plugs have always been wet before. I really haven't gone far with the new plugs so it may be a false reading so I'll check them again in about a week.

Thursday, 17 July - Another day of threatening rain but none came. The morning was spent trying to get a refund on a purchase I had made. When I thought I was advancing to a page to finalize the purchase I found that I had just done so and it appeared that there was a hundred dollar/year subscription on top of the $20 purchase price so I realized that I didn't want it. The purchase had already been done. I've had several disputes about products in the last year. Being on an island with so few resources I have to order lots of things online. There are no clothing stores, only one marine hardware store and it is usually very high priced, I've been keeping very good records of my purchases because of problems with getting items that don't live up to their promises and hype. Discover Card protected me pretty well until lately. They denied my disputes on three purchases lately, one for almost $400 and the other for nearly $300. Ouch! The records I've been keeping are just in my Notes app on my laptop and it's getting hard to find things there so I decided today to go ahead and create a new database just for purchases. That will make finding items much easier. Entering past purchases will be time consuming but I'm sure it will pay off in the future.

Friday, 18 July - All day was spent entering data and modifying my new FileMaker database, Items Ordered. It now has 43 entries with more to come. This 43 only cover this year to date.

Saturday, 19 July - I, again, spent most of the day doing data entry and modifying my "Items Purchased" data base.

Sunday, 20 July - Holy mackerel, I can't believe how time has accelerated. Dad warned me about this. I defrosted the refrigeration today, organized photos in my Photos app, then posted my June version of this letter via email. I hope you enjoy it. Later, I was off to Dockside for the evening. Even that is pretty boring without Susie being there since she is in Ohio, but I need to get off the boat once in awhile.

Monday, 21 July - I spent some time today removing mold from the ceilings and walls of the boat. It's an ongoing battle on a boat with warm weather and high humidity.

Tuesday, 22 July - I fully intended to buy groceries today, so even though I defrosted the refrigerator just two days ago, I did so again this morning. The freezer already had an inch of frost and ice on it. For some reason my sinuses were really draining, however, so I didn't think I should go to the grocery store. Luckily, that stopped this evening and I assumed it was an allergic reaction to something so I went to Dockside, sat by myself and had a couple of drinks before heading back to the boat.

Wednesday, 23 July - Every time I have an appointment with a doctor I return and a week later drugs show up in my mail, most of which I don't take. Because of that I have lots of leftover drugs onboard, some of which I have no idea what they were supposed to treat. Most of them are to aleve pain. I have so many that I decided it is time to figure out what I have and organize them, thus, since I'm on a roll creating databases, I created another new one to track medications. I started at about 10 am and finished at 1 Thursday morning. I am sure, however, that I will find some more that I missed. At least now that I know whatI have and what they are for, I can find them. Some of the prescriptions tell me how to take them, but not what they are intended to treat and it this point, I have no clue. I guess I'm lucky. If I were in worse condition I'd know what all these drugs are for.

Thursday, 24 July - The last two days rain, or the threat of rain has kept me onboard, but today's prognosis was better so I defrosted the refrigeration yet again and headed to the marina to check mail before going to the grocery store. We had clear blue skies as I left the boat but as soon as I dropped my trash off at the dumpsters it began to rain. Luckily, it didn't last long. I stayed dry during my walk to the grocery store except for the sweat that accumulated on me because the humidity went to 200% when the sun came out and evaporated the fresh rain. I feel guilty shopping for groceries here. Although the store seems large, there are so many products that they can only afford one or two rows of each one so I end up taking all that are on the shelves. There are several, like Original V8, small cans of peaches, and fruit cocktail, that I keep telling them that they need to allot more space to and order more of, but it seem to go in one ear and out the other. Sometimes I will admit, I take more than I need immediately because next time there may be none. Than happens frequently with those three items, but others, too. I was searching for Pickapeppa Sauce today and a woman was searching for something next to me too. I know that Pickapeppa Sauce is not the store biggest seller but they are frequently out of it. They need to order more. I said to her that I hope she doesn't get as frustrated as I do looking for things because they constantly move things around. She said the we were probably looking for the same thing. Hoping that if we told each other what we were looking for we might find the items faster, I told her I was looking for Pickapeppa Sauce. She was amazed and said, "Me. too." Small world. After looking at 8 rows of sauces, each about 15 feet long, to recognize the sauce by appearance about 3 times, I started reading each label and finally found where Pickapepper Sauce should be. There were none showing so I tried to reach to the back of the shelf thinking that, just maybe, one or two had been pushed into the next row. As I pulled my arm out I knocked a bottle of the item in the next row off the shelf and it shattered, making a mess. I tracked down an employee and showed him the mess I'd made and he showed me their inventory online that said they had none, I knew that. Luckily, he forgave me for breaking the bottle. I hate grocery shopping. I think the managers must get bonuses for having the employees move things around on a weekly basis to frustrate and piss of the customers. That's why I only go about once a month. I managed to get back to the boat dry. After putting the food away I didn't feel like preparing any of it so I went to Dockside for dinner an to listen to Candace perform. Bill Greene joined me at my table and we talked about boats and boat projects.

Friday, 25 July - I cleaned up around the boat this morning then, around noon, headed back on my bicycle to Publix for an item that I forgot yesterday. On the way, I stopped at the Panda Chinese restaurant for their buffet. On the way back my bicycle's shifter ceased to work properly. The gears could be shifted upward but would not downshift. I went directly to the marina's workshop and oiled the heck out of the shifter and cables and got it shifting to all but the lowest of six gears. Since I had no tools, oiling was about all I could do.

Saturday, 26 July - Awhile back I had my ATN Genoa Sleeve cut down because it was too baggy. When I got it back it wasn't big enough to fit over the bowline knots that attach my sheets so I installed an Amsteel loop about 6 feet long onto the clew of the sail so that the knots would drop down to a thinner spot on the furled sail. It was still barely big enough but I left it on for quite some time since I did get it to slide over the knots and raised to the top of the sail. When I removed it to go sailing awhile back I realized that the tightening lines that are built into the sleeve had worn holes in the sleeve so I've decided to sell it if I can. I've left it off for a couple of months and noticed that the Amsteel line is faded. That means that the sun is deteriorating it much faster than I realized it would. I was planning on removing the loop today but the wind was just a bit too strong to be able to control the sail while it was partially deployed by myself. I'll try again tomorrow.

Sunday, 27 July - I had hoped that Bill Greene might come to the boat so we could take it out and adjust my wind indicator but he never called me back. The wind was still just a bit too strong again today to remove the Amsteel loop in the genoa clew. The wind died down after dark but I still decided to put it off again. I could have probably handled it but if anything went wrong in the dark, I might be in real trouble.

Monday, 28 July - There were light winds this morning so I got up early and removed the Amsteel loop from my genoa's clew and retied the sheets directly to the sail. Later, I decided to try to locate a file on an older backup disc and move it to my laptop but couldn't find a standard USB type B cable on any of the dozens of cables I have. I know there's at least one here. I have cables for USB type A-1, A-2, A-3, Micro B, Mini B, many C's, and lots of cables for Lightning, but no plane old type B's in sight. I have so many I made a list of the devices and the cable connectors that go with them for my future reference.

Tuesday, 29 July - Last night about 3 am I finally gave in and got up and took a strong acetaminophen tablet because my back was killing me. I couldn't find a comfortable sleeping position at all. Later, I replaced a broken handle on a 5 gallon bucket. It had had a plastic handle on it and I replaced it with a 1/8" cord and the handle that was originally on it by drilling through the handle and running the cord through the handle. This afternoon I discovered while perusing my drug database that I have two choices when it comes to relieving pain; NSAIDS that will give me heart attacks and Acetaminophin which will destroy my liver. Oh, one other choice, Oxycodone that is extremely addictive. Let's see, which one should I choose? At 3 am I chose acetaminophen. I'll probably die in a few years. Later, I went to the marina to pick up mail and then to Dockside to enjoy the music. One of the new entertainers was Patton James from Nashville, down here on vacation with his girlfriend, Gail. I talked to him after his performance and he said he was asked to come back on Thursday and play at 3 PM as a solo act.

Wednesday, 30 Ju/y - I awoke about 5 AM uncomfortable again this morning, then proceeded to toss and turn until 6 when I got up and took two Aleeve tablets that have 500 mg of acetaminophen and 25 mg of a sleep inducer. I was asleep again in about 10 minutes, then woke up at 8:30. At 10:30 I had to go back to bed for an hour but reawakened about noon feeling pretty good.

Thursday, 31 July - I spent several hours on the phone and online sorting out a couple of purchase disputes. This evening I went to Dockside to listen to Patton James. I only arrived in time to hear his last set and as I walked in he invited me to join Gail at their table until he finished singing. I really enjoyed his choice of music. I could sing along with every one although I spared them the horror. Melanie and Mike Streng joined us at the table while Candace Widgeon performed starting at 7:30 and although Patton, Gail, Mike and Melanie eventually left, I stayed until Candace finished. A very enjoyable evening.