2020: Marathon during Quarantine

24 March 2020

The trip back from the anchorage resulted in a lot of salt washed up on the sides of the boat. Clark decided to pull out the hose and the "salt away" to clean off the hull. Unfortunately, no matter what he did, Clark could not get white specks to stop appearing on the hull as soon as it dried. While he fought with washing the boat, I took care of the laundry that had accumulated over the past week. Obviously, he worked a lot harder today than I did as my only other accomplishment for the day was relaxing with a book.

25 March 2020

Having had no success getting the white speckles off our flag-blue hull, Clark invited me out into the dinghy to have a look and offer an opinion as to what he might do to get the salt off. Next thing I know I am finagled into holding the dinghy in place while he scrubs the hull. Then I get "hose duty" to do the wet down and rinse cycles as he works. When I realized this would be a multi-hour as opposed to a short consultation, I told Clark I had to stop to cover myself with sunscreen. As soon as I was slathered in 50 spf, we were back out there working. We finally decided we were finished working on the hull about 4 hours after we started. The end result ... the boat looked shiny from a distance and still had spots up close!!

26 March 2020

Clark decided he was done with the dinghy as far as boat cleaning was concerned, so today he wrapped it up with the boat cover. As I sat in the dinghy yesterday working the hose and holding the dinghy near the hull, I noticed that the dinghy was grimy. When I had breaks from my two other jobs, I cleaned the helm area. In so doing, I discovered that one of the instrument covers had come unglued. I could see it blowing off the boat the next time we went out, so I mentioned it to Clark. Before he wrapped up the boat today, he glued the cover back on.

One of the other boaters here, Dan, had ordered parts for his alternators per instructions from Clark on what he needed. After installing the new parts, Dan still had issues. Clark offered that Dan could bring an alternator over, leave it on the dock next to our boat, and Clark would take a look at it.

After Dan dropped it off, I scrubbed it down with a Clorox wipe.  Clark was able to fix that one, so Dan came and collected it and brought over his second one for Clark to work on next. Clark got them both fixed and returned to Dan who installed them and said that they now work and charge the batteries as they should!

I spent several hours reading and finished yet another book (#5) in the nautical series I am currently reading -- The Alexander Clay Series by P K Allen. Having decided that I wanted to pull out my acrylic paints, I spent some time going through the pictures I have collected and deciding what to paint. Once I decided on a fellow boater's dog, I spent time figuring out how best to capture the image on canvas.

27 March 2020

Having spent yesterday sitting around reading, I decided I better get out for some sun and exercise. I pulled out my bike for a 3-mile ride out to the Seven Mile Bridge and back. Given the anticipated heat and humidity later in the day, I made sure to get out there for my ride immediately after breakfast. On my ride I passed first Yasmine and then Faith out for morning walks.

When I got back, I decided that I had somehow accumulated enough laundry to make it a worthwhile task to complete today. Meanwhile, Clark spent the majority of the day washing the boat. This time he concentrated on the white infrastructure of the boat. He had a lot of scrubbing to do to get it clean.

As planned yesterday, I pulled out my paints today.  I outlined the pup I planned to paint on the canvas and then set to work filling in the details. I worried the most about getting the nose to look reasonable. Working my way through the eyes, nose, ears, and mouth, I was actually amazed that the picture started to take shape.

Frenchton (Boston Terrier / French Bulldog Mix) named Callie

28 March 2020

Sandy returned yesterday from being anchored out for over a week. She said she planned to go shopping and graciously offered to take me. Both of us have been as careful as we can be. I needed a number of items from the store and accepted a ride.

When we arrived at the farmer's market, we found AC, Jim, Lynn, and Phil there before us. They had walked there from the marina. As it turned out, the farmer's market had decided to go "drive thru". When Sandy and I stepped out of her car, they yelled as us to get back in and drive over. We could not see the produce from the car, so after they gave us a rundown of the inventory, we each listed the items we wanted. They put the veggies in the trunk after we paid at the pay station.

From there we quickly ran into Walgreens and then Winn Dixie. Between the two of us, we filled up her trunk with bags of groceries. Normally I use reusable cloth bags, but having just watched a corona-virus video on what to do with groceries in our current environment, I decided to leave the cloth bags behind and take the plastic bags from the store. When I got back to the boat with my loot, I left everything in the cockpit and brought in one bag at a time to scrub down with Clorox wipes before putting items away.

While I was busy with shopping and stowing food, etc, Clark continued to wash the boat. Today's job was to scrub the railings on the boat to make them glisten.

29 March 2020

With Clark working so hard scrubbing the boat every day, I figure I should at least try to accomplish something. Today I committed to running the vacuum through the boat. After I got that job done, I noticed that the little fans we use on the boat were very dusty and grimy. I ended up taking them apart and cleaning them. Normally, I would not give it a second thought, today, however, I was dismayed to see how many paper towels and Clorox wipes it took to get the job done. Truly, it was not that many, but still I wondered if it was a good use of such a precious commodity!

I spent time today catching up with friends either by phone call or text -- checking on them to see how they are faring at this unusual time. Fortunately everyone I contacted is currently doing well.

30 March 2020

Today, Clark was still cleaning the boat. Today he worked on scrubbing the cockpit. As he sprayed the hose near the door to the salon, I got a wake up call as the water hit me, the chair I was sitting in, and my Kindle (yes, I was reading yet again.) Fortunately, it was just a splash and not a soaking.

After that I decided I should get up and accomplish "something". Today's agenda involved trimming and coloring my hair. My hair does not seem to like the water here. It had become as dry as straw. I decided to trim off the end bits and then color it with the herbal color I use that always revives it. After treatment, my hair felt better than it has in weeks.

I finished reading the next book in my nautical series. The sad news is that it is book 6 out of 7, so I am almost to the end and will have to do some digging to figure out what to read next.