Florida: Tarpon Springs 2

Day 161
No Travel

What a shock to wake up to a breezy 45 degrees after the sticky, humid 80 degrees yesterday. I understand the warm weather is coming back so no worries! For some unknown reason I did not feel like doing much today. Other than getting to the store for some fresh vegetables, I cannot truly say I accomplished much of anything.

When we took our morning stroll up to the head, we stopped by the marina office and picked up a package that contained our paper mail forwarded from home. That kept Clark occupied most of the morning sorting through bills and reviewing finances as a result of bills. He spent time this afternoon working with John on Nuclear Fishin' to diagnose some battery-related questions that John had. I did not really pay attention to the details, so I am not exactly sure what they were working on.

Earlier in the day, Susan from Nuclear Fishin' suggested that a bunch of us go out for dinner tonight to Mama's Greek restaurant that has a belly dancer and Greek music for the night's entertainment. We decided that we would come along with the group.  What the heck - it sounded like fun!  Eight of us walked the short walk up from the docks to the restaurant including ourselves, Nuclear Fishin', Panda Bear, and the folks from the sailboat docked next to us. After we had been there a while, Herb, who is the AGLCA harbor host for this area, joined us there.

Belly Dancer at Greek Restaurant - Mama's
Those are tips sticking out of her costume.

Greek Musician at Mama's
His tips were scattered on the floor of the restaurant near his feet.

I did not realize that when I said yes to dinner tonight that I would be dining with Santa Claus, but he sat right next to me at the table! With his white hair and beard and his red sweater, John from Nuclear Fishin' makes a habit of being Santa Claus. He always carries candy canes in his pocket and gives one to anyone who recognizes him as Santa.

A number of young Greek school children walked through the restaurant with their teacher singing and carrying a collection box looking for donations for a school program of some sort. Two children noticed Santa sitting next to me, and they got their candy canes and a deep, from-the-belly "HO-HO-HO" to go with them! Even the belly dancer got a candy cane as well as a tip from Santa who stood up and danced along with her for a spell.

I have not been exposed to too much Greek food in my life. I found many things on this menu had feta cheese added to them which I, unfortunately, cannot eat due to food allergies. I thought about requesting one of those dishes made sans feta but decided to go with the straight beef kabob instead. Clark selected the Greek Grouper. Both dishes proved to be good choices. I was also tempted by the Moussaka; however, I thought it might be a bit too rich for my system.

Including the appetizers, meal, and entertainment, dinner took almost three hours from the time we arrived until we left. As we strolled back to the boat, Santa agreed to don his merry cap for a photo for us and posed by his boat at the docks.

Note Santa's boat has Christmas lights!

No sooner did I get on board our boat than I realized that I must have lost my hat back at the restaurant, and no, mine is not a Santa hat. Clark and I walked back to the restaurant, and lo and behold, the waitress had found it and put it to one side! Phew! I like that tam very much. It's a tricky one though as that is the second time that I have lost that hat. The last time I had to drive 30 minutes to retrieve it and found it lying in a parking lot! At least this was a short walk in nice weather.

Having done next to nothing all day, I decided that it might be a good idea to pull out my new sewing machine and see if a) it had all its parts and b) I could figure out how to use it. Fortunately Clark found a critical piece of the sewing machine (a piece of clear plastic meant to be removable) in the bottom of the box before the box was thrown in the trash, or I would have been in trouble! Upon inspection I found no other pieces were missing from the machine!

The sewing machine is unbelievably tiny and the carrying case looks like it should be made to carry Barbie dolls or something equally as small.  I was convinced I had ordered the wrong case, but the machine and it's accessories fit inside nicely.

Here's my new sewing machine

It is hard to tell from the photo how small this machine is.
The ruler measures it out to be 10.5" wide.
Made almost entirely of plastic, it is extremely light weight.

The instructions were a bit hard to follow, and with everything being miniature sized, it was hard to thread the machine. My eyesight is not what it used to be especially in poor light! Besides the extra needle and two bobbins that came with the machine, I think a jeweler's screwdriver and a set of needle-nosed pliers should be part of the package. I felt like I was all thumbs as I struggled to insert the needle into the machine.

A needle threader did come as part of the package and helped tremendously to get the needle threaded. Unfortunately I misread the instructions and made several bad attempts at sewing a straight seam with the needle threaded back-to-front before finally realizing it needed to be threaded front-to-back. Once I corrected my machine-threading error, it sewed like a dream - both straight and zigzag stitch.

As I fought with the machine in the poorly-lit salon of the boat I remembered that one of the negatives from the online reviews was that it desperately needed a light. I agree. I believe this is a daytime only, in-full-sun sewing machine. I believe it will do the jobs that I purchased it for which is mostly repairs on clothing. A boating friend told me about a totally different sewing machine made to work on tough canvas, but at nearly $1000.00 I decided it was more than my budget could handle and my current problem set needed.

We experienced a chill in the air all day today. Once again I noticed that the reading on the thermometer only tells part of the story. The sun here is hot, and it definitely feels hotter than the measured temperature as a result. I think that is why I lost my hat. I did not remember that I had worn it to the restaurant because I was indecisive about whether I needed it or not.

The weather is supposed to improve throughout the next few days climbing slowly back up to 80 degrees or so. Clark has suggested we pull out the kayaks tomorrow to go exploring before it gets hot again. I have not used my kayak since Canada, so my confidence is shaky that I can get myself in and out without taking a dunking! We shall see how this goes and if it goes tomorrow.