2025 December: Church Bazaar

 

Swimming behind our boat

3 December 2025

Every day the wildlife that takes ownership of the pool seems to change. Today a long, green iguana was hanging out on the tiled "beach".

I decided that I would go to St. Columba this afternoon to see what I could do to help them prepare for their Christmas bazaar happening this weekend. But first, I had a large pile of laundry to take care of as it has been piling up since before we left Pompano Beach. The woman dockmaster remembered that last season I did my laundry on Wednesdays (how she remembered that was a shock to me), and she was happy to get me back on that same schedule - thus the wait until today to tackle it.

I grabbed a quick lunch after laundry and then pulled out my bike to ride down to the church to lend a hand. Uh oh! The tire Clark worked on so diligently was flat! He offered two alternatives - borrow one of Marlin Bay's loner bikes or take his bike. I took his bike as it is near identical to mine that I am used to. 

My original plan, until Clark's autopilot analysis changed it, was to go to the church on Monday afternoon to help them pull the Christmas items destined for the bazaar out of storage. I missed that opportunity and wasn't sure what the state of the work would be when I arrived this afternoon - two days later. 

They had tables set up and items on display, but it was pure chaos. Most tables were a random assortment of items with no rhyme nor reason as to placement. 

The person in charge, Jodi, gave me an assignment to go around the tables and collect up coffee cups to place them together on a table that had room for more items. After I completed that job, she brought over a crate with the intent of having me empty the crate onto a table. The crate she picked had a dismantled fake Christmas tree inside. It was a tangled mess of Christmas lights wrapped around the various piece parts of the tree with decorations thrown in as well. 

Of all the tasks I could be asked to perform, this one was perfect for me. It took me well over an hour to go from "box of parts" to an assembled tree.

Each limb of the tree was labeled to get it into the right level of the tree - 5 levels of limbs on the base.

After I got the limbs separated from the tangle of lights and decorations, I started to put the base of the tree together. Jodi and I joked that even Charlie Brown would be depressed by the looks of this one.

Base of the tree being assembled
looks bedraggled!

At least the top of the tree came assembled. It was hard to know just how large this tree would be when fully built. 

Top of tree

The tree was taller than me when done - probably about 6 foot high or a bit more. The crate was full of silver-toned decorations including balls, ribbons, and streamers. I decided to reuse the silver balls and the ribbons. Everyone was happy with the end result. The pastor said, "This will sell quickly because it's very "Keyzie"."

People strolled in and out while we were busy setting up the bazaar. Some came to get a sneak preview of the goodies to be available; some came in a picked out items to buy; others came to help with setup. One woman helping with setup came up to me to ask where I was born. Turns out we were practically neighbors as she was from Elmira, New York - just over the border from my Pennsylvania hometown of Wellsboro. We shopped at the same mall! Small world!

Every year they set up a train set for the holiday. It was only partially set up today, but I noticed a nice boat that I don't remember seeing as part of the display last year.

When I got back to the boat, I worked with Clark to look into the flat tire on my bike yet again. Since we were eaten by gnats last night, Clark decided we should work on the bike inside the salon. He took the tube out of the tire and covered it with a soapy solution that revealed a pinhole in the tube. As the leak was near the valve, it had felt like the valve had a problem. Luckily, with it being a hole in the tube itself, Clark could patch it. 

The glue with the patch kit had dried up years ago by the looks of it, so Clark borrowed glue from the dinghy repair kit. He applied the patch. The tube already had one patch from years ago. He pumped it up, and it looked good so he installed it back on the bike.

Today's big news, however, was that a granddaughter in Idaho turned 9 today! We spent about an hour on a video chat with her. She explained that the "Elf on the Shelf" (in the photo below) took it upon herself (female elf) to put up the decorations that were intended for the birthday party planned for the weekend. Naughty or Nice elf??

4 December 2025

Thursday is the day our dock has our holding tanks pumped out by marina staff, so that was the start of our day today. After that Clark did more research on fittings for the hydraulic pump for the autopilot. Getting a replacement pump is all well and good, but if the hoses can't connect to it, it is a large paperweight. He continues to work through the details necessary to get the autopilot working again.

For fun this afternoon, I pulled out my art supplies and made some hand-crafted Christmas cards to send to my grandchildren. The birthday girl really likes foxes, so I did some research looking for a good fox picture to put in my card for her. I will attempt to draw the fox from the picture.

found via Google Image search

Clark said I should take my bike for a test ride to be sure that it worked well after last night's surgery. Before getting on the bike, I felt the tire and I could squeeze it with my fingers! Clark said, "I don't want to hear it!" 

He pulled out his bike pumps (two of them) to compare how the pressure compares between the two of them. One said 29 psi while the other said 40 - not very similar results.

He pumped up the tire to about 80 psi, did not feel any air escaping, and told me to take the bike for a spin around the marina. Fortunately, it seemed to be holding air, and everything worked as expected i.e. brakes, shifting, etc. Phew!

5 December 2025

This morning I had "Art in the Park" with a bunch of women that I met through art at the library. Today instead of meeting somewhere near me, the group decided to meet at Key Colony Beach. One of the women offered to drive me there if I met her at Marathon City Park (across Route 1 from our marina), and another woman offered to drive me back after the get together. Yay! KCB is just too far to bike to especially carrying art supplies. 

Everyone chats and does their own thing. I did a Christmas card in colored pencils . Someone else had a step-by-step instruction book on watercolor and painted a picture of a bird. Others did freehand watercolor pictures. 

After art I had lunch with Clark on the boat. Turns out he had spent at least part of the morning playing Christmas tunes on his guitar. I had no specific plans for the afternoon, and wondering what was happening with the Christmas bazaar, decided that now my bike is in working order I should take a ride down there to help. Tonight is the "early bird" event, so everything had to be ready. For a $5 entry fee, anyone who is interested could come tonight to get first look at the goodies available for sale. 

When I arrived, I asked Jodi how I could help. Knowing I enjoyed building the Christmas tree, she said she had another assembly job for me. Someone (or ones) had donated metal reindeer for the yard. They needed to be assembled to be put on display. There were six of them to put together.

This ...

Became this!

As I was working on the reindeer, Pastor Deb came by, pointed to a lump of greenery, and asked me to dig into it to see if there was a "tree in there". It was an absurd collection of bird's nests, feathers, and a variety of who knows what all tied up with strings of lights wrapped tightly around the outside! 

When I approached the tree to disassemble it, a woman from the church walked by and said, "What a beautiful tree!" She wasn't joking. At that, I talked to the pastor to verify I had heard correctly and I was supposed to tear it apart. She gave a very definitive yes to that! 

After I had all the paraphernalia pulled off of it and had fluffed up the limbs, it did not look half bad. Christmas trees sell well. People buy them for the holidays and then some return them to the church afterwards to be sold again the next year. 

I did the assembly and dis-assembly work outside. It was hot work with temps in the 80s and the humidity extremely high today. When I went to the restroom to clean off the perspiration, I got a shock looking in the mirror. I had green tree parts on my arms and on my face. I was wearing the Christmas tree! 

After my fight with the tree, I asked if they had other tasks for me. I helped for a while organizing a table but then decided it was time to head back to the boat. Before leaving I asked the pastor what had happened to the white tree I built the other day. I looked in all the rooms and could not find it anywhere. She said, "We sold it!" Wow! That was fast. She said it would go in a hurry, and she was spot on!

Organized and ready for the sale to begin!

Between walking to the park for art this morning and biking to and from the church for the bazaar, I was tuckered out. I barely had energy to make dinner. Thankfully I had a full meal's worth of leftovers in the fridge making it the least-effort meal possible. 

I dozed off for a bit late this afternoon. Clark said I missed the sunset. I went out for a look and saw some interesting cloud colors leftover from the sunset.

2025 December: Bike repair and more

 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!

North Pole Express Mail

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.

Paint on white watercolor paper

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.

Wrapping paper cover over 
canvas picture frame

Tissue liner on inside of canvas

Two weeks ago I had never heard of "Mod podge". Recently someone mentioned using it for crafts, and today I was handed a plate full of the stuff and told to use it to glue together the project. Once the frame was covered, a Christmas card picture was inserted into the frame that had been cut to reveal the photo.

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. 

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.

2025 November: Getting into the swing of things fast

 30 November 2025

We started the day with a stroll up to the marina office. As we walked past the pool, I felt I was being watched and turned to see a reptilian gaze focused on me. A few steps down I found another one with his eyes on us. Neither one was disturbed enough by our proximity to scurry away. Yesterday it was ibis; today the curly-tailed lizards had their turn!

Today, being Sunday, we went to the contemporary service at St. Columba. We arrived in Marathon too late for Clark to attend band practice, so for today he sat in the pews with me. Next week I expect to see him up front with his guitar. 

We found the church in full swing of event planning for the holiday season. The first thing I saw as we pulled up on our bicycles was the sign advertising the Christmas Bizarre scheduled for next weekend.

Having attended services all last season, we were warmly greeted back to the church. As soon as I saw the sign for the bizarre, I knew help would be needed for this major undertaking and decided before being asked that I would be spending time at the church this week helping with the bizarre setup. 

After church services, members of the congregation meet in the adjoining room for a complementary lunch and light chitchat. Pastor Deb has apparently been anxious for our arrival. She approached me with a request to help out with a new initiative - setting up a crafting group to meet weekly. My friend, Nancy, offered me up as a likely person to tap for this activity. 

Pastor Deb took me on a mini tour to show me the various stacks of crates full of crafting supplies. Her office was part of that tour. It looked more like a storeroom with all the items she had tucked away in there! So, we have lots of supplies and just need ideas to go with them. I will have to get busy on the ideas part of this!

We ride our bicycles for transportation in Marathon. As we biked back to Marlin Bay, Clark suddenly stopped and asked if I wanted to stop into the Banana Bay marina to say hello to Paul and Michele. Paul is the one that haled us as we came in on Wednesday, and thus the first person to welcome us back! 

Clark and Paul got into a detailed discussion on boat repair of our autopilot and an analysis of the issue Paul worked on with Clark previously related to the wiring in his boat along with a new electrical issue. I finally had to tell Clark we were done and had to get going!

When we were at church, we found out that they planned a fund-raising dinner at a local restaurant for tonight at 5:00. Clark asked me if I wanted an evening where I did not have to cook. I was not going to turn that down. We got back to our boat from Paul's at 4:15 and left at 4:45 to bike to the restaurant. 

Dinner started at 5:00 and we knew we would be biking back in the dark, so we had to set up our bikes with clip-on headlights and taillights. Fortunately, Clark had already worked on our lights to make sure they were in working order. 

We have never been to Herbie's before. With a large, neon sign out front that says "SMOKE HOUSE", Clark wasn't sure he was going to like dinner.

Fortunately, the rain had rained itself out as the event was held outside behind the restaurant. Had it been last night, it would have been a washout as it poured buckets! Today the weather was perfect for dining al fresco.

The event called "Kilts in the Keys" was a church fundraiser to support several of the churches activities including the annual Celtic Festival and the Hammock House which offers free daycare for children of workforce parents in Marathon. Pastor Deb explained that it was held tonight as it is St. Andrew's saints day. He was from Scotland. It is also the first Sunday of Advent. 

The event had a all-you-can-eat buffet dinner including sliders (chicken, tuna, and pulled pork), black beans and rice, mac and cheese, and coleslaw. While we filled ourselves with delicious food, we enjoyed a variety of entertainment. 

Someone came through playing bagpipes.

"Adrian Z" played a nice collection of songs and took requests.

"Adrian Z"

We enjoyed the evening reconnecting with friends and meeting new folks. Finally, it was time to head back to our boat. Having gone earlier, Clark could advise me on where to find the restrooms before we left. He said look for the door that says "Inboards". The men's room is labeled "Outboards".  I have often seen "Buoys" and "Gulls", but that is a new one for me!

Women's Restroom

As planned we biked back in the dark and got "home" just after 7:00 in time to relax, watch TV, and write up a blog entry.

The picture I took of the restaurant sign at 5:00 contains tonight's "sunset" picture. It's as close as we got to seeing it.