I decided to take a break from painting and pulled out my sewing machine to make some quarantine masks for when I have to make a trip out into public. I searched Google and found a pattern that I liked. After the first, it took about 30 minutes per mask. I had the necessary materials on hand, so I did not have to buy anything.
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| First one I did |
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| Masks for Quarantine |
8 April 2020
I decided to try the Publix Instacart to have an order delivered to the marina instead of braving the supermarket in person. On the surface it seemed like a great idea and the website seemed easy to use. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with my first experience.
As I understand the way it is supposed to work, the shopper is supposed to contact me and let me know if they cannot purchase what I requested and allow me to approve / disapprove substitutions. Instead of letting me know, the shopper made unilateral decisions on my behalf. Her choices left much to be desired.
For example, I asked for grapes; she brought me pears. I asked for boneless chicken thighs; she brought me bone-in turkey thighs. The list goes on and on. With Instacart, I have no printed receipt and it appears that Publix treats Instacart as a "separate company", so I cannot even return or exchange items. The phone number Publix gave me goes to a message that basically says "use the website".
Most of the items she brought can be used. I do not, however, like to pay for things I would never buy myself. Pears and turkey thighs definitely fall into that category. The worst however was the tomatoes she brought me. She could at least have looked at them!
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| Tomatoes "fresh" from Publix |
I concluded from my experience with this particular shopper that she was interested in speed not quality. The sooner she got my order done, the faster she could get back in queue for the next person. I know these are difficult times, but this has left a bad taste in my mouth.
The shopper dropped off the bags at the curb at the marina. Clark and I collected them and brought them onto the stern of the boat. I brought in one bag at a time and used Clorox wipes on everything before I stored it.
9 April 2020
Maintenance Run on Sunset Delight
After Clark replaced the zincs last week and had to dive repeatedly looking for his lost tools, he ended up with a pain that radiated from his ear to his jaw. He talked to a former nurse who is a boater here in the marina and she gave him some guidance on treating it with ibuprofen. He also mixed 50-50 white vinegar and rubbing alcohol to make ear drops to dry out any excess water in the ear.
The remedy worked and he started feeling better on Tuesday. We decided to wait until today to go out on the boat to, yet again, have him diving under the boat to work on replacing zincs. When he replaced the ones last week, he discovered that the ones on the rudders were gone. He had to order the replacements before he could install them.
Clark said we could stay overnight on the anchor. I thought the plan was to go to the Bahia Honda anchorage. However, when we got out there, he informed me that he wanted to anchor near Faro Blanco. I found that disappointing, but he had valid reasons for making that decision. We made our maintenance run and dropped anchor just outside the marina.
He did his dives and managed to replace both rudder zincs without losing any tools today. Since he had to dive under the boat holding a heavy zinc in each hand, he decided that he should probably have some kind of flotation to make sure he didn't sink. After looking at the options, we decided that his weight belt should be sufficient to give him the additional buoyancy he needed. That worked. Fortunately, he got the zincs on both rudders changed relatively quickly.
We found a lot of current where we dropped anchor. Clark was able to swim against it. The boat, however, had difficulties with the wind versus current conditions. Normally at anchor, the anchor line goes straight out off the bow. Today's conditions gave us a positioning where the anchor line was at a 90 degree angle to the boat.
As I sat and read my latest historical novel, Clark fretted about the anchorage. Looking out the window, he said to me, "That sailboat is dragging their anchor!" The sailboat chose a new position. Meanwhile another sailboat dropped anchor way too close to us. Apparently they did not see that our anchor line was at a sharp angle to our boat. Clark pointed out to me that when the current shifted, we would hit them.
He announced that after sunset, we were leaving and going back into the marina for the night. I gave him a pout face to show my disappointment. First, no Bahia Honda anchorage, and then no overnight. "Don't worry," he said, "you'll have plenty of overnight anchorages on the way back to Jersey!"
The bright red sun gave us an interesting sunset tonight. Pictures don't do it justice!
10 April 2020
Since I was in the marina this morning, instead of out on the "hook", I decided I might as well do the laundry. In addition to our clothes, I stripped the covers off the sofa in the salon and washed it as well. While the covers were stripped off, I used a brush and lint roller to clean up the seat cushions themselves. By the time I was done, I was dripping with sweat. The weather here is very hot and very humid right now - unusually warm for this time of year.
After lunch, I changed and jumped into the pool at the marina. Before I walked up, I asked Clark to come with me. He begged off. I went on my own and found that only one other person was in the pool. At 2:00 in the afternoon, I expected it to have more folks trying to cool down. I called Clark and convinced him that the pool was pretty much empty and I had found a shady spot. Given those factors, he decided to come join me at the pool.
As the afternoon wore on, more people came to enjoy the pool. We have 6-feet and no-more-than-10 people in the pool rules. Around 3:30 Clark and I left to make room for the later arrivals. Before he joined me at the pool, Clark turned on the air conditioning on the boat, so when we returned to the boat after our swim, we found a very comfortable temperature on board for the evening.
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| Egret at Faro Blanco - on hotel property |
11 April 2020
Sandy returned yesterday from being on anchor for the past 10 days or so. She asked me if I wanted to go with her to the farmer's market this morning. Given the condition of the tomatoes I got from the Instacart experience, I wanted tomatoes if nothing else, so I said yes!
We both donned our masks before we got in the car and did not take them off until we were back at our boats. Initially they were fine, but at near 90 temps and high humidity, I found the mask hot to wear outside of air conditioned environments. Still it felt good to have some protection.
I had a rough night last night for lack of sleep. Iwent to bed around midnight. Clark came to bed at 2:30 after watching the 4.5-hour movie - "Titanic". I woke when he came to bed but managed to go back to sleep quickly. Then, at 5:15 this morning, we heard "beep, beep, beep", "beep, beep, beep" coming from somewhere in our stateroom.
Clark and I both woke up trying to figure out what was sounding an alarm. It was a soft, high-pitched sound. I checked my watch to see if my alarm had accidentally been set. Not that. Then I wondered if it was some smoke / CO detector battery warning. Wrong again. Clark decided it must be the theft alarm on the radio in the stateroom. It looks like a car radio. He opened the cover which is supposed to turn off the alarm and climbed back into bed.
I spent an hour trying to get back to sleep. I kept expecting the alarm to go off any minute. I finally fell asleep about an hour later. No sooner did I get to sleep than I heard "beep, beep, beep", "beep, beep, beep". Once again I had a hard time getting back to sleep. Then at 8:00 my phone decided to go "BLING!" with a calendar reminder. Since I had set my alarm for 8:15, I gave up and got out of bed. I could take no more sleep deprivation torture!
As a result of last night's beeping, Clark spent the majority of the day trying to decipher the puzzle that is the radio in our master stateroom. During the night, he thought it might be related to the compressor running on the air conditioner. Granted, we do not use our air conditioning often, but we have had the boat since January 2017, and the radio has never acted strangely before.
Clark read the installation and user manuals for the radio and played with the unit to see what he could figure out. First he tried to determine which circuit the radio is on. Even with the breaker off, the unit still sounded the alarm. Some additional yellow wire went off to some TBD spot and must be a backup power source for the unit.
If Clark is puzzled, it has to be something really weird. He still had residual questions when he quit working on it, but he did figure out how to disable the alarm, so we should have no beeps in the night tonight! I can only hope I get a good night's sleep tonight.
As the end of April approaches, Clark and I are starting to talk about when we will leave the marina and venture north. He told me before I went out shopping today that I could start stocking the boat in preparation for leaving. We are paid through the end of the month. If we go into May, we have to pay for the month.
Besides worrying about coronavirus, we have the issue of hurricane season approaching. We are starting to feel the squeeze between the two. Other folks have decided they will be leaving towards the end of this month. It looks like come May there will be quite a few less boats at the already very empty marina.
We had a good sunset tonight - again with the red sun / sky.
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