1 December 2025
Today started out as planned. My friend, Nancy, offered to take me grocery shopping in her car, and I know never to refuse an offer like that. She picked me up around 10:00 this morning. Clark had debated going with me and taking care of a trip to the UPS Store and the post office while I shopped. Ultimately, he decided that he did not want to be tied to my schedule and rode off on his bicycle. Later, as Nancy and I approached Publix, I saw Clark on the opposite side of the road already pedaling his way home with his errands already completed.
While I waited for Nancy to pick me up, I got a chance to meet two new additions to Marlin Bay. They were outside at the entrance where I sat waiting for my ride. Marley & Reef!
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| North Pole Express Mail |
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| To: Marlin Bay From: Santa |
My plan for the afternoon was to ride my bicycle to the church after lunch to help out with the Christmas Bazaar. Unfortunately, Clark had other ideas. After spending two hours talking about the autopilot yesterday with friends at Banana Bay Marina, he said he wanted to try bleeding the air out of the unit yet again. He had a revelation during that talk that, because of the way the pump is plumbed, any air in the system would potentially circulate forever through the reservoir and back into the pump.
We agreed that he would do the "bleeding" right after lunch, and I could head out afterwards. The enterprise took too long. It got too late, and while I waited for me to be on-call as needed, I got involved with on-line Christmas shopping. By the time I was excused from autopilot duty, I was wrapped up (no pun intended) in Christmas present hunting. I got some great deals and spent a bunch of money. Clark should have let me go help out at the church!
While we were working on the boat, someone knocked on the side of the boat. It was the dockmaster, Kiya, with a Marlin Bay gift bag and a nice one at that! It is a heavy duty, zippered bag.
Inside were a few goodies including two Turkish towels, a key chain, hand sanitizer, lip gloss, and a waterproof bag for the small accessories -- all advertising Marlin Bay of course.
At least with today's "bleeding-the-system" exercise, I did not have to turn the upper and lower helm wheels. I just had to operate the autopilot unit. The outcome of this exercise? Once again - fail! We continue to get "Drive Stopped Error" appearing a short while after the unit stops trying to push the rudder.
Sunset comes early these days, so I took a break from Christmas shopping, and the boat, to wander the docks and took some pictures as the sun disappeared from the sky.
2 December 2025
Today was another busy day. I had plans to be at the library for arts and crafts. Clark's morning agenda included a trip to "town" to mail the Christmas cards we assembled yesterday with a stop at the nearby Walgreen's for a prescription.
It is a good thing I planned to be at the library a little earlier than 9:30 when the art class starts. When I got ready to get on my bike to ride to the library, I found the back tire so flat that the rubber was falling off the rim! I left Clark with the bike to put back on the boat and took off on foot for the walk to the library.
The bike was fine when I rode it home from the restaurant Sunday night. It sat on the boat untouched until this morning. I figured I must have ridden over something sharp when we rode home in the dark. Clark said he would look at it later.
Art class today consisted of making holiday cards with watercolor paints. Samples of the instructor's work / suggestions are shown below.
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| Paint on white watercolor paper |
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| Trees done white on black paper |
I toyed with the assignment for a while, but my heart was not in it. My tree was very "sad". Watercolor is not really my "thing". Knowing that, I brought my acrylics with me and switched over to my own project pretty quickly. I did not complete the picture I worked on, so I will probably continue working on it next week. The best part of the art class is the people who attend. Most of the attendees were folks I know from last year.
Art class ended at 11:30. Crafts at the library would not start until 1:00. My friend, Pat, did not attend art class today. If she is there, we normally spend time together between the two sessions. Given I was on my own, I walked back to the boat for lunch with Clark. Once there, he reminded me that he had guitar practice for church at 2:00, so he would not be around when I got back from craft class.
Clark had to give me a shove out the door to make the 1:00 class on time. Today's NYT Wordle was a real stumper. When I got it on my 5th try, Clark said, "What is that word?" It was definitely a hard one to guess today. Anyway, I lost track of time and had to hustle to get to class on time.
Today's project was "paper bursts". I had no idea what that could possibly be. When I got to class (just a little late), folks were already sorting through Christmas wrapping paper and tissue paper. The instructor was talking fast, and I had trouble catching up. Eventually, I got the hang of what she was telling us to do.
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| Wrapping paper cover over canvas picture frame |
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| Tissue liner on inside of canvas |
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| My finished project |
Only a handful of folks attended the craft session. Here are a couple of other pictures.
I did not feel like doing a Grinch picture so chose the puppy on the pickup instead.
Knowing Clark wouldn't be "home" when I got back from the library, I went straight to the pool area. The bartender, Heidi, had told me that she was having a jewelry making session at the bar today at 2:00. I figured I'd be late but I could still come to observe. When I got to the bar, no one was there doing jewelry. The person who had requested the session did not bother to show up. Rude!
I spent time talking to Heidi and then wandered over to talk with boaters at the pool. Another one of our boating neighbors, who returns year after year, came in today. They were at the pool, and since today had record, or near-record high temperatures, the pool was popular with others as well.
Eventually I found my way back to our boat. Clark had not yet returned from guitar practice, so I sat down where I could feel a cool breeze to read my current novel. Shortly after Clark returned to the boat, he pulled out my bike to take a look at the flat tire. His inspection pointed to a damaged valve, so apparently I did not ride over a nail on the way home Sunday night.
Besides being flat with a bad valve, the tire itself looked in shoddy condition. After all that tire has hundreds of miles on it. They can't possibly last forever. As he poked and prodded the tire, I reminded him that there was a bike tire in the lazarette. At first he didn't believe me, then he remembered it. I always complains that he keeps spare parts "just in case", but sometimes those spare parts come in handy.
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| Upside down bike being repaired |
Clark swapped out the damaged tube and the tire with the spare tube and tire from the lazarette. He has been fixing flat tires on bikes since it was his only means of transportation as a teenager. As I watched him work on my bike, I knew that I could never do what he was doing. Whatever would I do without him?!
By the time we were done with the bike (of course he had me helping him), the sun had gone down and we were finishing up in total darkness. Working with a flashlight wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't have gnats chewing on us while doing it. When the bike was back together, I went in to make dinner ("doctored" frozen pizza where "doctored" means leftovers as toppings) while he put away all the tools and such. He said we will test drive it tomorrow!
During a brief break from the bike work, Clark took a picture of the "clouds with a silver lining" - his words!
I also managed to slip away a couple of times to check out the sky as the sun set.
