2020: Keeping busy in Marathon FL

17 April 2020

Today would have been my mother's 104th birthday had she not passed away in 1993. I often feel that she is still here with me as my guardian angel.

The winds picked up last night, and we had a wind from the north. It felt good to get a breeze for a change. We have had unusually hot weather in the Florida Keys. Even the weatherman said it was more like July weather than April.

As May approaches, it will only get hotter. Many boaters are preparing to leave by the end of this month. The first to depart, "Amelie", left today.

"Amelie" leaving Faro Blanco - going ...

Going ...

And gone! Until we meet again!

We took "Sunset Delight" out for our weekly maintenance run this morning.  Clark has been looking for an opportunity to start working on the wooden trim on the boat. He thought he might want to drop anchor and work on it out in the bay. He decided it was still too hot and humid, so instead it just turned into a maintenance run, and we came right back to our slip.

That turned out to be fortuitous as Sandy offered to take me out  shopping. We went to Publix, and I stocked up partially for current needs and mostly prepping for our long trip back to NJ. Both of us wore the masks that I had made the whole time we were out -- inside and out of the car.

I noticed that Sandy had modified hers to add a nose clip. Since I have problems with my glasses steaming up, I thought I might want to copy her modification. When I got back to the boat, and after I got my groceries sterilized and stowed, I spent time this afternoon modifying my mask to add the nose clip piece.

At 5:30 I did a video call with my granddaughter, Sierra, in Idaho. She enjoys the "Ivy & Bean" series of books. We spent the majority of the call with her reading to me and showing me pictures. I did get a begrudgingly brief hello from her sister, Violet, as she was happily working on her tablet and had no time for Nana.


18 April 2020

Being Saturday, Sandy and I went on our weekly trip to the drive through farmer's market. We arrived at 9:00 as per usual to find cars lined up through the parking lot. A Tesla was in line in front of us. Since I had never seen one, I found that moderately interesting. Not interesting enough, however, to keep me entertained for the 45 minutes we sat waiting for our turn. The company was appreciated, and as Sandy said, "We don't have anything we need to be in a hurry for!"

I discovered, much to my discomfort, that the nose-clip modification made my mask tighter. Unfortunately I did not notice that when I made the change. It only became apparent when, after wearing it for a couple of hours, I discovered my ears were aching from being pulled at an angle by the mask.

When I got back to the marina, I stripped off the mask and dove into figuring out a way to enlarge the size to give my poor ears a break. I chopped off the elastic I had put on there and replaced it with longer segments of elastic. Relief! Since I had the time and the supplies on hand, I modified a second mask for myself to add a nose clip and longer elastic.

Several weeks ago Clark ordered something to repair one of our chart plotters. The part he needed finally arrived -- it came all the way from China. He spent the afternoon working on the equipment.

Inside one of our chart plotters.
The blue material is the part that he needed.

19 April 2020

I decided to spend part of today with my acrylic paints. Because I don't like to stop once I get started, I generally wait until after lunch to pull everything out and take over the salon table. I spent time in the morning on the phone with first my sister in PA and then my friend, Janet, in NJ. Of course, we compared news on Coronavirus. Fortunately, that is not all we talked about as too much of that is depressing.

As planned, I pulled out my paints after lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon painting. I had seen a picture posted on Facebook that caught my eye, and I decided to take a shot at copying it in acrylic.

Photo posted on Facebook

We heard that other boaters at the marina planned to watch the movie "Captain Ron" at 8:00. For a multitude of reasons, Clark and I decided to pass on this opportunity.  On Sundays Clark and I normally watch "60 Minutes" followed by "God Friended Me".  We decided to stick to our norm, and I got dinner on the table in time for us to sit and enjoy both shows.

Being curious about the movie setup, we poked our noses out around 8:20 to spy on the goings on. We saw no one anywhere near where we thought they planned to set up. Just then Jim, "Third Degree", walked by carrying a small speaker and said, "the Bluetooth isn't working!" as he walked by. We went back to our show.

At 9:00, with our television shows completed, we decided to go spy again. This time we headed over towards the pool area where Jim said they were set up. As we neared the area, we passed Eric and Jen also passing on the movie and also out for a stroll.

We could see the movie displayed on the screen that had been set up by the steps into the restaurant. On the opposite side of the pool, we could see many people sitting, watching the show, so many in fact, I wondered where they all came from. With it being so dark, I could only see shapes and not distinguish who sat watching the movie.

Since Clark had asked about "Captain Ron" a couple of times in the past and was curious as to the content, we pulled it up on Netflix and watched it in the comfort of our own salon. I had seen it years ago but did not remember much of the movie. The only thing I remembered was that I thought it not worth watching. I thought that perhaps now that I had been boating longer, I might enjoy it more. Clark and I both thought it was only "okay".

20 April 2020

When I stepped out the back of the boat this morning, I could not believe the lovely cool breeze that greeted me. I quick ran to tell Clark that we had a good day for a change. He decided to start his work on varnishing the wood trim aka the "eyebrow". Before he could begin the work, he had to tape over the fiberglass gel coat to protect it.

Small sample of taped area to be varnished

To take advantage of the nice weather, I decided to go for a walk down Route 1. I brought my mask and hand sanitizer with me. Very few people were out walking around. I did pass a few people. When I did, I swerved off the path into a parking lot or such to be far out of the way. All told I walked just under 3 miles.

When I got back to the boat, I rewarded myself by sitting down with my latest novel. Sadly, I finished the series of 7. The author is still adding to the series, so maybe I will read another episode of the heroes adventures some time in the future.

We got a delightful request from our boating friends on "Namaste" to do a Facetime docktails. We met at 5:00 and talked for an hour that felt like 10 minutes. Jim pointed out that we all needed to eat, so that ended the call. It was great to catch up and get to see them at the same time!

Clark decided that he could get in more varnishing time before the sun went down, so he went back to work. While he was busy, he stopped long enough to get a sunset picture.

Sunset at Faro Blanco Resort

With no other interesting options on television, we once again turned to Netflix and decided to watch the movie "Outbreak". We found it riveting given the current pandemic environment.


21 April 2020

Now that Clark started the varnishing project, he tackles another coat of varnish each day. He went out early to start sanding. While he did that, I walked through the boat and made a list of projects to do once we arrive back home in New Jersey. In a relatively short period of time I had a rather long to do list.

It has not rained here in the Marathon for weeks. Of course, because Clark was working on the varnishing, it rained today. He popped into the boat and said, "It's dribbling out there." By the time I looked, about 30 seconds later, I replied, "That's not dribbles! That's rain!"

Later, Sandy told him that she saw a waterspout. Then, we saw a post on Facebook from Debbie who works from the marina showing a picture she took of it. Luckily, it was short-lived and did no damage.

Waterspout near Faro Blanco Marina

Around 8:00, Clark and I decided to go for a walk around the marina to enjoy the cooler weather. We made our way as far as "Mystic Gem" and got no further. We ended up standing there for an hour talking long distance (over 6 feet away) talking to Jeff and Jim ("Third Degree").


22 April 2020

We had a major change in wind direction during the night. When we stepped out side, we had a wonderful north breeze. Clark was on the bow with his varnishing supplies in hand when I came out. He greeted me with a big grin and "Open the hatches! Turn off the A/C! It's a north wind!" Aye, Aye Captain! I went back in and did as he requested.

What I noticed besides the cooler air was the sea grass that came in overnight. I could not believe my eyes! So much in so short a period of time!

Sea Grass the length of the boat

Sandy and Bill took their boat out today to try their hand at fishing. They were gone before I poked my head out for the first time today. Because they were gone, we got a view of their slip and the one next to it - both full of sea grass.

The two slips next to our dock are packed with sea grass.

Looking at my laundry basket, full to the top, I decided that today would be laundry day. It is amazing to me how quickly it fills up. Fortunately, no one else was vying for the machines.

After lunch I pulled out my paints to continue with my current project. I managed to work on it until I could declare it done.

My acrylic version of the Facebook photo
I used as my subject

Always on the watch for an opportunity, Clark managed to capture tonight's sunset for the blog. Both pictures were taken at the marina but from different viewpoints.

23 April 2020

Jim on "Third Degree" was busy this morning. When I read my Facebook updates this morning, I found a post from him showing two of the boats here surrounded in "Police Tape".

It turned out to be a prank perpetrated by Jim himself. I saw Terry in the ladies room, and she explained that it was a "game on" situation as her husband considers his options for retaliation.

We decided to take the boat out today for our weekly maintenance run, but first Clark had to put yet another coat of varnish on the brow. While he did that, I did general cleaning on the boat like running the vacuum, etc.

The seal on our port side porthole came unglued. Clark and I applied a form of glue yesterday. We wanted black, but unfortunately, the only small size tube of adhesive came in white. When it dried, we could see that some of the adhesive had gotten on the glass. I got the dubious honor of scraping it off. That kept me busy for a good long time.

As we worked on our various projects, Jeff from "Mystic Gem" stopped by to ask Clark for help with his windlass. Clark told him to bring over the windless switch for him to look at. After Clark saw what Jeff brought over, he said, "Where's the rest of it?" Jeff went back to look and found the rest of the parts had fallen into the rope locker when he removed the switch. With Clark's input Jeff was able to find the parts and get the windlass switch back together properly.

We left at 2:30 for our maintenance run. With the nice weather, we decided to drop anchor and hang out for a while. As we turned to head back to the place where we planned to anchor, we saw that the wind gauge was showing around 31 knots. Subtracting out our speed that meant the wind was around 26 mph. Clark said it would "settle down" as we got closer to the marina, and it did.

While out there, we did some cleaning. Those nasty pigeons love to sit and poop on our boat. The hard top gives them a great spot to sit. When we went up to the upper helm, we found bird "doo" splattered on our full enclosure and lots of it on the pilot house roof. Nasty! Clark climbed out the window with a bucket of soapy water to get the worst off.

Clark offered two options - stay out until after dinner or return before we ate. I told him to decide. It seems to me that whenever I offer my preference, we end up doing the opposite of what I chose. That has happened so many times that I have decided that I should either not choose and just tell him to decide or say the opposite of what I want to do so I can get to do what I wanted to begin with.

He decided that he liked the breeze, so we hung out until after dinner. Then we decided to hang out until after the news, so we came back in just after 7:00. When we got to the slip, Jim ("Hour Plan") was waiting to help us with our lines. He must have seen us pull up anchor and head in, so he was there to greet us! Thanks Jim for the help with the lines!

Clark and I fought with the lines to get the boat properly positioned. That wind was pushing us off the dock with force, so we had to work the lines to pull us in where I could comfortably get on and off the boat.

When Clark went out to spray the salt off the boat, he found a surprise - a manatee right behind our boat munching on the sea grass.

After dinner Clark went to talk to Jeff about his windlass. I sat down to update the blog. He finally returned two hours later. I was still working on the blog when he got back.