Monday, 1 September 2025 - I still haven't finished painting the woodwork, called brightwork on a vessel. Today I added another coat of Cetol Marine Light to the wooden parts of the hatch cover protective grid and to eight of the belaying pins. Tomorrow I want to put another coat on them, this time, Cetol Marine Gloss. It is supposed to have even better UV protection in it. I'd also like to put another coat of the gloss in all the other woodwork that I've just done. I was able to work under the bimini top and behind the dodger today even though it rained frequently throughout the day, but doing the deck woodwork necessitates dry wood and the weather forecast is for ten days of high likelihood of rain. I can't put the deck and rigging back in order without finishing the brightwork. If it continues to rain frequently I may have to call it finished but I hate to do that because that means I will have to remove hundreds of feet of masking tape. It can't be left on too long or it becomes very hard to remove. Taping itself takes hours. For that reason and because so many things on deck have to be moved out of the way to do the painting. I don't want to put everything back and then move it all again. Gas cans, water jugs, the kayak, and lots of halyards, fenders, sheets, and shrouds need to be moved. I don't think I'll be needing the Honda generator again any time soon so I did move it back to the foredeck. It had to be moved to keep its exhaust from asphyxiating me as it moved down the deck.

Tuesday, 2 September - When I awoke this morning everything had water on it that wasn't covered. I checked MyRadar to see where the storm was and things looked clear upwind of me so I use a chamois to wake all the standing water droplets off all the deck wood. That took about 45 minutes but still needed to dry out. I had a quick breakfast and decided to add a coat of Cetol to the hatch cover grids and belaying pins while the deck dried out. As I stepped into the dinghy to access the outer woodwork a green turtle came up for a breath and to check me out and a stingray leaped out of the water near, too. Wiping down the wood took about an hour and a half. Since painting the deck brightwork takes about four and a half hours I thought I'd better have a quick lunch. Before I could finish a weather warning came over the VHF radio from NOAA that a storm was headed this way. I checked MyRadar again and could see a fast moving band of rain showers headed this general direction. It was stretched in a line from northwest to southeast just west of us but moving eastward. Most of it will miss me but I can't count on staying dry darn it. It may be over in an hour or two but everything will be wet again. I hear thunder as I type. Well, it took two hours to start raining and, in fact, I had gone below decks and didn't realize it was raining the rain was so light, but it did get everything wet. The only reason I discovered it was raining was because I believed I might as well go do some painting since it hadn't rained. I got up to go out and saw water on the floor. Later, I tried to pay my next year's boat insurance online. I filled out all the information and just as I moved the cursor to finish I lost signal with T-Mobile and it stay off the rest of the night.

Wednesday, 3 September - This morning I paid for my boat's insurance and had to settle for adding another coat of Cetol to the wooden parts of the hatch cover grid and the belaying pins. Everything was wet on deck when I got up and stayed that way all day because of intermittent light showers. The skies were overcast all day due to the rain, which is rare here, so I had to run the generator for about 4 hours last evening to recharge the batteries again.

Thursday, 4 September - I've been putting off buying groceries because of work on the boat and because of the rain. It's hard to get groceries back to the boat dry in an open dinghy. This morning offered an unusual opportunity. One of the boaters that uses the Monroe County Bus, which picks you up and brings you back to and from anywhere on the island for free, mentioned that it wouldn't be available tomorrow but was operating today. I've never taken advantage of it for grocery shopping because they only allow an hour between drop off at the store and picking you back up. I haven't thought I could get all my groceries and check out within that time limit, but I decided to buy fewer groceries and shop more often, about every two weeks instead of monthly, so I decided to try it. I tried to buy fewer groceries but still spent over $300 and made it with time to spare. Apparently, shopping at 10:30 AM is quite a bit less crowded and the shelves are fuller than in the afternoons. I thought this is great, I'll do it more often, but on the return trip the driver notified us that after over 25 years of operation, this free bus service will be terminated at the end of this month. That won't hurt me but will really effect Bill, an older fellow that can barely walk and, I'm sure, has a very low income or savings. He usually makes two trips a week for groceries which he may have to take taxis to do. That's going to cost him around $36 a week. I was sad to see the condition he's in yesterday. Since I saw him last he's quit shaving and his finger and toenails are about a half inch long. He's moving mighty slow and it takes him about 5 minutes to get on and off his boat, especially at low tide, even though he's docked on the seawall right next to the office. I wish him well and hope he can find another service to get his groceries.
                    Back on my boat I had to defrost the refrigerator before putting away the groceries. I usually do that the day before grocery shopping but the last minute decision to shop didn't allow that. With the rain it's cooler today so that took almost two hours to melt the ice.

Friday, 5 September - More rain again today. It was clear early this morning but the deck was wet and I didn't think I could get it dry and any significant painting done before storms hit again. My water tank is overflowing so I took the opportunity to wash some clothes. It stopped raining around noon with the possibility to start again. I decided to mount the newly painted hatch cover grids. I knew it was going to be hard to align the screw holes and it was. Not only that but as I was mounting the first panel and then again on the second, the side on a wooden piece split out. I realized that a couple of the screw holes were in the wrong places, even though they had been installed before, so I glued them and will let them cure overnight. I also refilled the gas tank on the generator and then hung up the first batch of wash and put another batch in to soak overnight. I don't think I'll need to run the generator this evening. During the showers the wind blew to run the wind generator and this afternoon after the storms passed, the sun came out enough to top off the batteries.

Saturday, 6 September - Finally, a day with no rain, only threats of it. I got started early and cleaned up the wooden pieces that I glued yesterday, but found that the glue hadn't totally cured. I quickly applied a bit of Cetol to them then started to wipe down the rest of the woodwork to be painted. That wasn't necessary. The rain had left it all clean and it had dried overnight. I added the final coat of Cetol Gloss to everything, finishing around 3:30 PM. Next I pulled down the shirts that had dried overnight and rinsed the clothes that I had soaking overnight and hung them up. There's still a lot of work to do however. I need to remove the approximately 200 yards of blue masking tape, finish reinstalling the hatch cover grids, and put everything on deck back in order. That will probably take a couple more days.

Sunday, 7 September - I started removing the blue masking tape around 9:30 this morning and finished at about 3 o'clock. I think it took longer to remove than it did to install. That was because it kept tearing and I'd have to dig under an edge with a knife to get something to hold onto. While I was working around the perimeter of the boat in the dinghy to remove tape a beautiful spotted eagle ray swam past me just before I finished. The sun was out all afternoon and it got pretty hot out in the sun so I retired to the saloon until about 6:30 then spent two hours putting gas and diesel cans back in their places and securing them and replacing their covers. It got pretty dark before I finished but the big, beautiful, full, corn moon gave me just enough light to work by.

Monday, 8 September - I installed the belaying pins and reattached the halyards to them then finished reinstalling the protective grids on the saloon hatches then stuffed small portions of wooden match sticks into the holes of 9 different screw holes that had stripped out to make the screws tighten. I foolishly thought I was finally done with all the painting of the deck woodwork until I noticed that one of the wooden pieces had split out upon installation.

Tuesday 9 September - I glued the split-out piece on the hatch cover and left the clamp on it. I used cyanoacrlylate and baking soda to patch small leaks in two water jugs and seams in the handles of two gasoline jugs I secured the kayak on the deck so that I can open three of the four hatches on deck. I had to put it a bit askew so that those three can open even though it sticks out in the way a bit at its bow. The fourth hatch, over the forepeak births which I use as storage, has the generator stored on top of it so I rarely get to open it. This evening near sunset I replaced several 3/16" lines on the deck awning, the aft bimini awning and created a couple of new tiedowns for two of the 5 gallon water jugs.

Wednesday 10 September - Several things got done today. One of my flag halyard's line broke a couple of days ago and got tangled up. I untangled it and tied it back together. The line still needs to be replaced so I need to go through spare line that I have and see if I have about 60 feet of 1/8" cord. In trying to reach the ensign to untangle it I discovered that my boat hook has become able to pull apart into its three telescoping tubes. That was an easy fix. I took a nail set and a hammer to it, putting a dimple on each side of the two longer tubes so that the inner locking piece can't pass. I started to finally finish the hatch grids by reinstalling the screw that had split the wood, but couldn't find it. I thought I had left it in the hole but it wasn't there. If I left it there, it should have dropped to the floor below but it wasn't there so I assumed that I remembered wrong. I searched in all the likely places but to avail. I gave up looking for awhile and it started to rain so I needed to close the hatch...and there was the screw. It had fallen out of the hole but never reached the floor. It had fallen through a one inch gap of the mosquito netting that is folded at one edge of the hatch and was hanging there in plain sight. The clamp was still on the wood so I assumed that if I simply screwed the screw back in it would split out again so I enlarged the hole with a drill bit the size of the shaft of the screw before I replaced the screw. That worked fine so I put a coat of Cetol on the outside of the wood and another spot on one of the eyebrows of a porthole where the Cetol had peeled away when I removed the masking tape.

Thursday, 11 September - I was going to replace the cord on the ensign halyard but found that even though I have thousands of feet of rope and cord onboard, I rarely have the right size or length for the job I need. I headed to Home Depot this morning to get several items around noon. I got some small paint brushes so I'll have them the next time I paint, some Super Glue to replace what I used, some spare water filters to filter the water coming off the bimini top, two 5 gallon buckets to replace ones here that the sun has made brittle, and a 25 quart plastic container that, once I returned to the boat, turned out to be about a half inch too wide to fit where the old one that is cracking up was. I started put all the sanding and painting tools away and updated the database with the new items. I guess I'll have to use up some of the new Super Glue to try to repair the lid to the old container. It's ten o'clock at night here and although thunder clouds were all around us today, we got no rain, but a serious lightning storm just started. We get some doozies here. I closed up just before it started because I heard the wind pick up and the temperature dropped a couple of degrees. I bet it won't rain for more than about 10 minutes.

Friday, 12 September - Some days I seem to get a lot done and others, regardless of how hard I try, I accomplish very little. Today was one of the latter. I spent hours on the phone and online trying to find a part for my Yamaha outboard engine. After trying online to verify that what I was looking at on various sites, I finally called one to get help from the experts. I told him that I can't find my model and year of the engine, he asked for the serial number. Fine, except that didn't appear in his database and he said it is a European model. I already knew that and that many parts are interchangeable. He couldn't help me but said to go to Yamaha Europe. That turned out to be Yamaha Japan, but their site doesn't list it either. I think it came out of the Bermuda Triangle. I ordered the parts of a 2008 Yamaha 15 hp engine, which is what mine is, from Boats.net and I bet that they fit my engine.
                    I had the same kind of luck researching a storage container that I really only need a lid for. What I have is a Rubbermaid Latchables box which apparently is not made any more. However, there is another called the Rubbermaid Roughneck Clear box which appears to be the same thing, but is it? I called Rubbermaid to see but had to leave a message and they never returned my call. Even at that, it took forever to find an online store that would sell just one of them. Almost all the sites I found them on was selling 4, 6, or a dozen. All I need is a lid.
                    At midnight as I was about to go to bed I looked at the radar and could see that a pretty potent squall was headed this way so I went on deck and furled the deck awning so if there were high winds it wouldn't get torn up. I had everything closed up about 45 minutes later when the storm hit. I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Saturday, 13 September - Some of the screw holes in the hatch cover grids did drip a bit last night so I sealed those today with silicone caulk. After that I defrosted the freezer. I also sealed the end of the SSB, single sideband radio, antenna. With the help of Phil Vachon several years ago I had replaced all the wire ties that hold it near, but not touching, the backstay. The wire ties have all broken, destroyed by the sun, and the antenna is now laying on the deck again. It's difficult enough going up the mast, which has steps, by myself but going up the backstay, which is merely a 5/16" stainless steel cable and sits at about a 30 degree angle would be very difficult. Especially since I need to stop and reattach the antenna about every three feet. I need to be winched up and need to find a helper.

Sunday, 14 September - I took it easy today and went to Dockside for the evening. Like many of the local restaurants that take advantage of the slowness of summer for vacations and renovations, they were closed for the last two weeks.

Monday, 15 September - I'm still pondering what to do about the SSB antenna. I'd like to come up with a solution that would make this the last time I have to go up the backstay.

Tuesday, 16 September - I spent a couple of hours riding around the harbor today searching out other vessels that have SSB radios. It's easy to spot them because they have two insulators on their backstays, one high and one low so that the backstay can act as an antenna. The low one is, or at least should be, just high enough that a person can't reach the backstay above the insulator. That is supposed to keep from getting electrocuted by touching the wire while someone is broadcasting on the radio, which is powerful enough to do you some serious damage, but only while transmitting. I think only about a quarter of the boats here have an SSB and it appears that only about a quarter of those have usable antennas. Most are disconnected from lack of maintenance. After looking at a couple that were still serviceable I realized that mine has been rigged way beyond the way it needs to be. I called Russel Frazer on S/V Blue Highway to ask him some questions and verify my assumptions, which he did. Russel is the go to guy when it comes to SSB and shortwave radio. I should have thought of him earlier. That's going to make repairing this downed antenna much easier. In the past I've had someone winch me up the backstay because, since that's where the antenna was attached when I got the boat I thought that is the way it should be. I can merely attached it just above the lower insulator which is just about ten feet off the deck. All I'll need is a 4 or 5 foot step ladder or a stack of milk crates, no boatswain's chair, rigging, winch, and helper.
                    At 7 o'clock I met Susie at Dockside.

Wednesday, 17 September - Wow! Here's a link to a flyover reconstruction of Rome as it would have looked over two thousand years ago. It looks almost modern except for the number of amazing public spaces and the huge number of statues. Statues were everywhere! https://youtu.be/rf707e1FSPk?si=awx49eLm0_UL-g05 Enjoy, maybe you'll learn something, too.

Thursday, 18 September - It actually rained all morning here which is rare. I needed to go to Home Depot today and had to wait until after noon. I returned the plastic container that I bought the other day. It was too wide by a half inch. Although I retied the line for the flag halyard the other day, I can see that it won't last much longer so I bought some replacement cord for it today. I returned to the marina and checked my mail and picked up a package, a replacement for the plastic container that has the same exact dimensions as the original. In fact, I think all they did was change the name and the color of the lid. I also picked up a split-bolt wire connector to connect the steel backstay with the SSB antenna cable while I was at Home Depot.

Friday, 19 September - The SSB finally got reattached to the backstay today. Phil Vachon borrowed a 6 foot step ladder from the Marathon Community Theater where he and his wife, Carol, volunteer a lot and brought it to me so I could reach higher. I ended up using cable zip ties again but covered them with electrician's tape to protect them from the sun. In the process, I looked up and saw that the flag halyard is fraying again. It is rubbing on the old attachment point for the SSB antenna which, rather than having to be hauled up the backstay, I thought I'd just leave it there. Now I know I need to go up and remove it. I didn't use it again because after talking to Russel I realized it didn't need to be so long. In shortening the antenna I also found out that the cable, GTO, is not a shielded cable as I thought. It is insulated with PVC and an outer sheathing of some other plastic and the inner PVC was very hard to remove. I needed to remove about a foot of the insulation. There must be a special tool for that and I don't have it.
                    After getting that done I returned the ladder and put out more wood ant poison, sugar water with boric acid in it.

Saturday, 20 September - I returned the ladder to Phil Vachon this afternoon after shortening the SSB antenna and replacing the stand-offs, picked up new gaskets and a membrane for the fuel pump on the dinghy's carburetor at the marina, and stopped by a nearby boat that is being parted out to see if their radar or wind indicator could replace my faulty instruments. Unfortunately, they won't do. I think my radar cable is the problem and his has been cut, and his wind instrument is even older than mine and has fewer features.

Sunday, 21 September - Two projects were on my mind today, install the two gaskets and the membrane in the dinghy's fuel pump and go up the backstay to remove the split bolt that used to connect the SSB antenna. I started at about 10 AM and quit at about 5:30 PM on the dinghy outboard...and it was no better off than it was when I started. I can confirm, however, that the gasoline tank cap, the fuel pump gaskets and and membrane, a leaky fuel line weren't the problem and the fuel filter within the engine housing are not to blame for the problems I'm having with the engine. Somehow, the engine is using up the fuel in the carburetor float bowl after starting and then dying. Somehow the carburetor seems to be stopping the flow of the fuel. More on this tomorrow. I never got to the connector on the backstay.

Monday 22 September - Work on the Yamaha outboard continued today. I pulled the carburetor off and dismantled and inspected it again. I hooked up the air compressor and put an air nozzle on the hose and blew through every orifice it has, found nothing wrong, reassembled it and reinstalled it. I detected a drop of gasoline on the bottom of the carburetor at the fuel pump and tried to tighten the four screws that hold it on but could only access three of them. I had to take the carburetor off again to tighten that screw. All the screws seemed tight enough and I can barely believed it could be leaking because of them but I tightened them about another 1/4 turn each. I'd hate to strip the threads on the aluminum carburetor body. I put it back together and reinstalled it again and had no visible leak. After about 20 pulls on the starter cord it started and ran pretty good but I didn't run it more than about 5 minutes. I have an inline fuel filter on the fuel line right before the line goes connects to the engine and it always has lots of air and very little gasoline in it. I don't think that should be. It wasn't always that way. I think the engine's vacuum should suck the air out and fill the filter. Maybe I'm wrong. At about 3 pm I quit working on that and defrosted the refrigerator in hopes of buying groceries tomorrow.

Tuesday, 23 September - This is the first day this hurricane season that we've been aware of a storm that could develop into a threat for us here in the Keys. That's very unusual that it's this late in the season. We definitely need to keep an eye on this one for the next few days. After that it may be too late to move. I planned on buying groceries today but the bus didn't show up. I rescheduled for tomorrow but they didn't confirm the appointment by phone or email. I still don't dare not show up or they will consider me a "no show" if I don't show up.

Wednesday, 24 September - I tried calling the shuttle service again this morning but no one answered and no one returned my call so I called the driver directly. I'm lucky to have his number. He said he'd be there at 10:30. When he picked us up and I mentioned that I'd tried their dispatch number he said that since everybody there knows the job will end next Tuesday, everybody is taking their accrued vacation time or has quit. Luckily for us, he said he'll finish the job. After unloading my groceries and putting them away I, once again, attempted to seal the leaky screw holes in the hatch covers. It rained hard yesterday and five of the holes still leaked.

Thursday, 25 September - I talked to my brother Mike today and he is buying a tractor to use to work in his yard. He went to the dealer's today to get acquainted with the controls and is supposed to take possession of it tomorrow. Susie and I went to the Marathon Community Theater this evening and attended the play The Rocky Horror Show. We saw it last year, too, but it's still fun.

Friday, 26 September - I tested the wiring from the binnacle to the radar with jumpers and my multimeter today and it seemed fine. Later I went to RaceTrac and bought a pizza to share at the Friday evening happy hour at the tiki at the marina but when I got to the gathering it was very small and there was no one there that I know so I shared the pizza and left. Since I was away from the boat I decided to see what was going on at Dockside. It was pretty dead too so I had one cocktail and went back to my boat.
                    I hope I haven't let the weather prognosticators fool me. Hurricane Gabriel has raced eastward toward Portugal and Humberto is well off the U.S. coast but tropical storm number 9, soon to be Hurricane Imelda, is already to the southeastern tip of Cuba and hasn't turned more northerly as the weather man says it will. I hope it does soon because right now it is headed straight toward us here in the Keys.

Saturday, 27 September - The weather forecasters are still saying that tropical depression #9 is going to turn the north and it keeps coming northwest. I hope it turns soon. Yesterday at this time it looked as if we wouldn't get any wind from it; today we will. Not much but if it doesn't quit coming westerly we will get more, maybe a lot more. Right now its track is still headed right straight at us. It's traveling very slowly, about 5 miles per hour at the moment, but that just means it has more time to pick up more energy from the warm waters here and around Cuba.
                    I spent the morning testing the wiring from the connector in the binnacle to the back of the radar display and that was ok. I then tried to test the connections in the connector that joins the wire from the radar to the wire to the display. One end of the connector has eight terminals, four of which are used by the four wires and the other end has ten terminals with eight used, but they are not arranged as I expected, so I don't know if it is OK or not but I really don't know how anything could go wrong in there.
                    This afternoon the marina had their "boater's appreciation day." They didn't seem to appreciate us much. I would have thought that the manager would have had the employees mingle with the boaters and that he would get out in the crowd and greet everyone. Neither happened. All we got was burnt hotdogs, overcooked burgers, a couple of kinds of salad, a piece of cake each and some "no-name" colas in 2 liter bottles to pour for ourselves.

Sunday, 28 September - I've run out of ideas about how to diagnose or repair the radar and wind indicator so tomorrow I'll call Raymarine for advice. I'm pretty sure that their advice will be to send the units to them for repair at about $300 or $400 each regardless of what is wrong. Unfortunately, I don't know if each one's problem is with the sending unit or the display, so I could send a device in that is perfectly good and still get billed the full price.
                    At about 6 o'clock I heard thunder so I checked the radar on my phone. A serious squall was close. My awning is deployed and I'd hate to get in damaged by high winds so I headed on deck to furl it. If I'd gotten started about 5 minutes earlier I might have stayed dry. As it was, the wind hit about the time I got the awning about halfway furled and I almost got pushed overboard by the awning when the wind switched from one side of the boat to the other. Actually, it was caused by the boat yawing past the mooring ball, causing the wind to hit the opposite side of the awning, but either way, I had to hold on for dear life to keep from going overboard before I got the awning furled.
                    Susie is feeling a bit better so we met at Dockside for the evening. Unfortunately, since it was "open mic night", they let three guys from out of town take over the stage for way too long. They are good musicians but weren't playing music that fits the venue and audience. We barely got to dance at all. I think Randy, who runs the show, is afraid to hurt fellow musician's feelings and let them play way too long at the detriment of the audience...plus it was way too loud tonight. They were, according to my iPhone, averaging loudness levels at about 100 decibels. That's enough to damage hearing. I had in my usual earplugs but eventually had to don my over the head ear protectors, too. I'd like to be able to hear when I'm 80 and 90. That's not that far away.

Monday, 29 September - I defrosted the icebox again today so it won't be full of ice when I go buy groceries tomorrow. It was a nice day with wind at about 10 mph, so very nice. It kept the boat cool enough that I didn't unfurl the deck awning. Soon to be hurricane Imelda finally turned more northerly before coming past the northern edge of Cuba and heading toward Florida. Thank goodness it's headed up the east coast and then out into the Atlantic and what a relief. It was getting too close for comfort.

Tuesday, 30 September - Since I bought groceries just last week I didn't plan on buying much today but still ended up spending over $125. Today was the last day that the county shuttle ran and whereas the last two times I rode it, there were only three of us, today there were seven. This afternoon I remounted the navigation light that Jolly Holly sent me to demo and advertise for her. I had temporarily mounted it on a post about 2 feet long, I've decided I really like it better than my normal one so I mounted it on the old one's post about 5 feet off the water so it can be seen from 360 degrees. As I started to get into my dinghy to go to Dockside to meet Susie, I realized that a bright green iguana was about to board my boat via the painter or bow line on my dinghy. Since the painter dipped into the water between the dinghy and the boat that was the only thing he could grab hold of but could then climb right onto my swim platform from there. They are good swimmers on the surface or underwater and I've had one come aboard before. Since they are vegetarians there is nothing onboard for them to eat but might be very hard to remove if they got down into the cabin area with all its hiding spots. I shook the painter until he finally let go and swam away.