Faro Blanco - Girl Time

Wednesday 2/7/2018
No Boat Travel.

I love puzzles - word puzzles, sudoku, etc. Here at the Faro Blanco Marina, the USA Today paper is delivered each weekday. When it arrives, I grab the puzzle section out and get to work. Sometimes Clark tries to get to that section before me, so he can read the stories before I take control of that page.

This morning I was busy working on the crossword when Ann from Morning Star II asked if I wanted to go to Publix because she planned on driving there in their recently-acquired rental car. Initially I said no because I could make do with my current provisions. After I thought about it for a few minutes, I decided that, although I did not need a trip to Publix, I did need to get away from the boat and solar panel wiring. I found Ann and begged a ride.

Ann gave three of us boating wives at Faro Blanco (Tanya, Kevin, Evelyn) a ride to, not just Publix, but a number of places in Marathon. It made a nice outing and some nice "girl time". Our first stop was to the Municipal Marina in Marathon to inquire about, and hopefully take possession of, the free welcome bags for boaters. The four of us went up to the desk and told the man there what we wanted.

He needed verification we were on four separate boats and needed a bag each. One-by-one he pointed to each of us and we said our  boat names - Sweet Tea, Lone Star, Morning Star II, and Sunset Delight. We were delighted with the turquoise color of the bags this year. I got a gold-colored bag in 2016 but forgot to go after one last year. The insulated and zippered bag contained literature on local things to do and a number of coupons.

From there we headed to the post office and then on to the Dollar Tree store. I quickly walked through Dollar Tree to see what they had on hand for future reference. Then I left and went to the bagel shop a couple of doors down in the same shopping plaza. A few days ago Faith told me about the bagel shop and gave me one of her bagels. I bought myself a couple today and got one for Faith as well.

While we were at the Dollar Tree plaza, Ann got a call from Cynthia on Dan Cyn saying that she had wanted to go shopping at Publix as well. A bit of an earlier miscommunication meant Cynthia accidentally got left behind. Ann drove back to Faro Blanco to get Cynthia and then the five of us went to Publix.

I must say that having "girl time" is important. The conversation was great and we had a few good laughs. Constant talk of batteries and boat parts gets extremely tedious after a while. For me it was a much-needed reprieve from solar panel wiring.

Clark's morning activities included a repair of the parallel solenoid. When we visited Napa Auto Parts recently he purchased a push-button switch, which he later put into the electrical panel. Today he did the hard part in the engine room to replace the damaged solenoid and connect it to the new switch arrangement.

After lunch I continued working on my USA Today puzzles. Around 3:30 Clark surprised me by saying he wanted to go for a dip in the pool before docktails. We decided we had time to relax and cool off in the pool before docktails at 5:00. The water felt lovely and we found others in the pool. We quickly separated - Clark joined the guys and I joined the gals.

We did get to docktails but late. Sandy from L'Attitude Adjustment was there before me talking to Kay and Harold from Idgara. I had not met them before. Their daughter runs the Hurricane restaurant near Blackfin Marina. Other than Clark, who appeared later, no one else joined us for docktails.

When I got back to the boat, I decided that the recycle bucket was overflowing, so I took the short trip to the end of the dock to dispose of it. On my way I found a small docktails going on down there. Three couples had gotten no further than the dock behind their boats. I joined them for about 30 minutes of conversation before heading back to my boat to prepare dinner.

All told it was a very pleasant day in which I did no boat work other than cooking and dishes. Yay! Clark even got sunset pictures today!

Thursday 2/8/2018
No Boat Travel.

I started my day in my usual way with my breakfast on one side and either my puzzle page from the newspaper or my Kindle novel on the other. As I enjoyed a leisurely start to my day, Clark got on the phone with a representative from MasterVolt to talk about how to use my computer to program the voltages on the charger. He spent at least an hour on the phone but was well-pleased with the result. He got the Master Volt controller programmed to his liking and learned a bunch of technical battery "stuff" in the process.

Just as he finished his phone call, we got a visit from Sandy and Kevin from Koastal Karma. We met them initially in 2014 at the Spring AGLCA Rendezvous. At that time they had just acquired their Mainship 350 - very similar to our prior boat Sea Moss. They do not have a boat here in Florida this season. Instead they took a lovely rental unit (I saw the pictures) at BlackFin Marina. We found out that they plan to start the loop this year and travel for 13 months on their boat.

Clark and I both had plans for the afternoon. I made arrangements with Faith from Third Degree for some "girl time" at the pool. The folks at SALT told Clark they would arrive today to start the installation of the solar panels. I definitely wanted to be away from the boat. I told Clark that if he really needed me, he could easily find me at the pool. Deep down, I hoped he would not find any need of me for the afternoon.

Faith and I had a great time. When we arrived at the pool at 1:00, the sun felt hot and we both decided that we needed to go in the pool first to cool down before sitting out on the lounge chairs. We stayed in the cool water until we started to "prune up". Then we moved to the chairs to stretch out and continue our conversation. After time in the sun, we decided to go back in the pool to cool off again. A few times as Faith and I enjoyed ourselves in / by the pool, I looked over to see our boat (easily seen from the pool) and check for progress on the solar panel install.

Around 3:30 Faith and I decided we had had enough sun and pool for one day. After taking my shower I headed back to my boat. When I got to Sunset Delight, I found Clark sitting in the salon playing his guitar. The guys from SALT never showed up and never called. Clark tried calling them to get status to no avail.

Disgusted that we had made no progress on the solar panels, I left at 5:00 to go to docktails. Once again Sandy was the only one there. Eventually Yasmine joined us. Even though it was only the three of us, we had a lovely chat. At some point I was sure I had seen Clark walking over to docktails but then he disappeared and became a no show.

I later learned that Erik from SALT stopped at the marina to talk to Clark just as Clark was on his way to docktails. Erik told him that they are still acquiring parts for the install, and he did not call because "their phones were out all afternoon". In the era of cell phones, I have trouble swallowing this excuse for lack of communication. At the end of their conversation, Erik promised to call at 8:30 tomorrow to let us know what time they would come. They expect to come some time in the afternoon.

As a result of talking to Erik, Clark got some additional input on the wiring job that we (Clark and I) had done in preparation for the solar panel install. Given that information, Clark decided that tonight would be the perfect time to tie off the wires we had run through the boat. The first step in doing this, however, involved pushing about two-foot of excess wire that we had run to the bilge back through the boat up to the hard top. I asked myself, "Will this wiring project never end?"

As we moved the excess wire through each segment / chamber, Clark climbed in to pull / push the wire while I pushed / pulled from the other end. Once he got the wire positioned where he wanted it, he secured it with wire ties, and we moved on to the next section. When he worked in the tight quarters behind the salon sofa and the galley stove, I got the added fun of reaching into the opening and holding a fan over him to give him some much-needed air circulation while he worked.

Working our way up from the bottom of the boat to the top, we put the boat back together as we finished each section. The most complicated part of that process was putting the propane tanks back in place and making sure they provided fuel to the galley for cooking. We have two gauges - one for each tank. One of them refused to register any psi. We did not know if this meant we had an empty tank, a bad connection, or a broken gauge. Playing around with it for a while, Clark finally whacked the guage with a wrench and the needle jumped up. Moral of that story ... when it doubt, hit it!

We finished around 10:00. Even though it was late, I decided I needed to do something enjoyable, so I grabbed my laptop and found fox.com to watch "Lethal Weapon" followed by cbs.com to watch the latest episode of "Scorpion". For once Clark went to bed before me. I had about 15 more minutes of "Scorpion" to watch when he waved as he headed off to our stateroom. I finally climbed into bed about 1:00 a.m.


Friday 2/9/2018
No Boat Travel.

Based on their track record so far, we found it disappointing, but not unexpected, that the representative from SALT never called at 8:30 (or any other time) as he said he would. Since Clark understood that they would appear in the afternoon, he decided to take care of some off-the-boat chores. After breakfast, we headed into the wind on our bicycles for a ride to the post office among other places.

Since we passed SALT on the way to our other stops, Clark stopped in to talk to them. Erik happened to be out, so Clark still had no status information. At least it was a quick stop. We continued on our way to take care of other business. An hour or so later, after completing our other tasks, we stopped back at SALT.

Clark disappeared inside and left me with the bikes while he ran in to see if Erik had returned. I waited and waited and waited for Clark to come back out of the store. The longer I waited the more impatient I became. It was well past lunch time. There is little to no shade in front of the shop. I needed a restroom break. Needless to say I was not a happy camper! I kept thinking that any minute he would return, most likely immediately after I locked up the bikes.

After 30 minutes of standing in the sun trying to keep the bikes from falling over from the gusty wind, I moved the bikes to a place where I could lock them to a railing and went in to see what had happened to Clark. I found him with Erik and stayed just long enough to tell him I was annoyed and that I planned to walk to the shopping plaza next door to look around. He could come find me when he was done.

We finally returned to the boat around 1:30 or 2:00. I quick 'hit the head' and then threw together sandwiches. After that I felt so much better, but I continued to grumble at Clark for a good long time about him leaving me standing in the sun for so long.

The puzzles in the USA Today newspaper get progressively harder as the days of the week progress, so Monday is a one-star puzzle and Friday is a five-star puzzle. I have no problem with any level of the word puzzles although sometimes I cheat by asking Google for help. The Sudoku is another story. I decided that I needed to have additional techniques for solving the hard one that appears in Fridays' paper. I read "how to solve hard Sudoku" on Google while I tried to solve today's puzzle.

While I entertained myself with puzzle solving, Clark went out on his bike to do more errands. When he stopped at SALT earlier, Erik gave him two breakers to be installed. When we got back to the boat, Clark measured the amount of wire required to connect the breakers to the controllers. Clark's planned trip out on his bike this afternoon included picking up the wire from SALT and cable organizing tubing. When I heard he planned to stop back at SALT, I decided I wanted no part of his bike ride plans.

Clark stopped by SALT and got the wire then he went to Home Depot to buy cable organizing tubing. The wire is contained within the tubing making for a neater installation. The casing sold at Home Depot measured 1/2". When he tried to fit the two wires in the tubing, it would not fit. He knew that Specialty Hardware had tubing, but they only sold 1/2" as well. He called Napa, and the person there said they had 3/4" tubing.

The bike trip to Napa which is at the far end of Marathon, over the bridge and near the visitor's welcome center proved to be a difficult ride into the wind. Clark said that in first gear he fought the wind to make forward progress. He had a good workout by the time he reached the Napa store.

He found 3/4" tubing but only 3 packages of 3' lengths in each package. He needed 20', so this was disappointing but better than nothing. When he went to check out, the woman said, "Are you the one that called?" Clark said, "Yes." With that she said, "I have spools of the tubing in the back. How much did you say you need?" A happy Clark returned to the boat with a 20' length of tubing.

At 5:00 Sandy asked if I planned to attend docktails, and I told her I would meet her up there. I had no idea when Clark would return from his errands but figured he would know where to find me. Sometime later, he did manage to find his way to docktails as well.

At docktails today we had a reasonable turnout with folks arriving at staggered times and each bringing food. Mel brought the boiled peanuts I have been hearing about for a while. Mitch and Jen showed up with home-cut french fries hot from the fryer. Danna from Pharm Life brought fresh-popped popcorn. Besides that we had pistachio nuts and other goodies to munch on.

When I got back to the boat, I felt like I had already had dinner, so my plans for food quickly changed. Even though I did not bother cooking anything for myself, I still made dinner for Clark. Since he had french fries at docktails, I only made him meat, vegetables, and salad. After eating all the food I gave him, he said, "Is that it?" "Yes", I said, "That is it!" He will have his midnight snack like he always does.

While he ate, I pulled out my hard Sudoku to continue working on it. For the first time, I completed the 5-star successfully. I am so proud!

Unbelievably, this evening Clark did more work on the solar panel installation. Worse yet, he dragged me into it yet again. He mounted the breakers and ran the wire that will connect the controllers to the breakers. Granted he only asked me to pull two sets of wires up through the hole between the space under the sofa and the bilge compartment, but still I want done with this wiring project. Will it never end?

After I got permission to be excused from wiring (he was still down there working), I pulled out my laptop to update the blog. John Backus played at Faro Blanco again tonight, and we could hear him from the boat. We had a lovely serenade. At 9:00, Clark decided to head up to the pool area to get closer to listen to John play his guitar and sing for the last half hour of his performance. I stayed on the boat to finish my blog write-up.

Faro Blanco - Solar Panel Wiring

Sunday 2/4/2018 - Tuesday 2/6/2018
Solar Panel Prep Work

Sunday 2/4/2018 - Day 1

When the technician, Chris, from SALT came to get measurements to give us an estimate for the cost of solar panels, Clark and he scoped out a planned route through the boat for running the wires. To get the four wires from the very top of the boat, where the solar panels will sit, to the house battery bank in the bottom of the boat, requires a lengthy and circuitous route.

Knowing we would be paying by the hour for installation work, Clark decided we should get ready for the install by running line / rope through the path the wires must take in preparation for pulling wire through on Monday. I knew it would not be easy, but I was definitely all in for saving money.

The planned route started at the top of the boat, went through the pilot house to the galley, along the starboard side of the boat through to the salon, and then down into the battery compartment.

Start at the top and feed wires down a metal, hard-top-support pole;
(Clark checking out the starting point on top)

Pass through the upper helm console to the starboard side of the boat;
(Clark with his head inside the upper helm console)

Drop down into the pilot house
(Clark with hand in behind the wall feeling for wire space.)

Wires to pass through wall behind galley cabinet 

to behind the drawers where Clark is standing.

Then along the starboard side of the boat from the galley to the stern.
(Clark checking out the access space behind the sofa in the salon.)

Final destination - compartment under salon floor.
(Clark looking to see where wires will come through to connect to batteries.)

Laying out and feeding the line / rope through the boat took about 3.5 hours. We segmented the lines so the wires could be passed from one spot to the next in stages. Because four wires will be passed together and will take up quite a bit of space, we had to be careful selecting the path to be sure the wires will be able to pass through the sometimes very limited available space.

Monday 2/5/2018 - Day 2

Chris from SALT said he would come on Monday at 10:00 a.m., and I was pleased to see that he appeared promptly at 10:00 today as he said he would. Having crawled all over the boat yesterday to prepare for the wire pulling, I was happy to see him and hoped that I could disappear from the scene while he and Clark did whatever needed to be done.

As I listened to Clark and Chris talk, however, my smile turned upside down as I began to see that the day would not go as I had foreseen. Very quickly Chris made it clear that he had no intention of staying. He spent about a half hour talking to Clark about the work to be done. Then he handed Clark a large spool of wire and said, "I'm sure you are more than capable of taking care of what needs to be done here. Call me if you have any questions."

Little did I know that with those words today would be the beginning of two days of utter misery. The weather could not be more perfect for playing outdoors with warm temperatures, no rain in sight, and cool breezes. To make matters worse, as we prepared to spend the day crawling into every nook and cranny on the boat, I saw other boaters going out for dinghy rides, taking a trip to Key West to explore the area, and getting together to enjoy lunch at a local restaurant. I pouted! I wanted to go out and play! I did not want to be trapped on board the boat all day!

Knowing that doing this work would save us lots of by-the-hour installation dollars, I sucked it up and went to work helping Clark run the wires. To begin, we took a long piece of string, and starting at the top, ran it along the designated route to see how much wire we would need for each of the four wires to be cut. We marked the line at the anticipated length and set that to one side to begin the hard work. Clark wisely decided not to cut any wire until we had the path ready to go.

Clark started today's endeavors by drilling the hole in the top of the boat where the wires would drop down from the solar panel connections.

Clark drilling a hole in the top of the boat.

Clark started drilling at 11:00 or so. He finally broke through the stainless steel plate at the top of the metal tube to be used as a conduit into the boat three hours later. Although I was not out there drilling, I was held captive as I had to be available to assist - get this, do that, etc.

Finally, we moved to the next step of feeding the fish tape into the post to pull a line through to the area behind the upper helm console. Clark pushed the fish tape into the hole and had me with my head in the console area looking for the end.

Wire needs to go down the tube on the right to the upper helm area.

Sadly, it did not appear at my end. With the inability to find the end of the fish tape, the light bulb lit, and Clark realized that the wire traveled down the wrong tube. Instead of going down the tube into the console, it went straight down to the port side. Useless!

The two tubes are welded together to form a V. We found no way to gain access to drill a hole in the angled tube without turning the supports for the hard top into "Swiss cheese". Three hours drilling to a dead end! Time for Plan B!

When Jim from Third Degree visited our boat and Clark outlined our plan to him, Jim suggested that it might be better to put the line down the stern post instead of the forward post. Consequently, Clark explored that option and thought it too hard to access for drilling. With our new revelation, suddenly Jim's suggestion became our only option.

Plan B - drill up into the metal post in the stern
as well as down from the top of the boat.

We pulled out everything from the area under the bench seat on the upper helm in preparation for Clark crawl into that space to drill. I cannot think of a less favorable place to drill a hole through stainless steel. He had to climb into a space only someone as thin as he could get into, lie on his back, and drill a hole pushing hard against the metal with his arms straight up in the air. The first time he climbed in I had stepped away, and he had a moment of panic as he realized he could not figure out how to get out of the hole.

Clark climbing into the storage space under the bench seats on the upper helm.

Taking a ruler to mark the spot that needs to be drilled.

Because Clark would be drilling through who-only-know-what (wood, fiberglass, stainless steel) in a compact chamber, we had to come up with some protection for his health. First, we put a fan in the chamber to circulate air and relieve some of the heat in there. Then we added a running vacuum cleaner to suck up particles floating in the air from the drilling. Finally, since he had no shop glasses, he wore his swim goggles to protect his eyes (that was my suggestion).

Clark removing his watch, putting on gloves, and
wearing swim goggles in prep to drill.

Clark spent the remainder of the daylight hours on his back in that chamber drilling with a heavy drill over his head. When he finally called quits around 7:00 p.m., he had hardly made any progress toward the ultimate goal of having a hole large enough for 4 wires to pass through.

We pulled things together in a makeshift cleanup effort and went to see what we could figure out for dinner. Fortunately I found a variety of leftovers in the fridge, and that became our meal. As we ate, we discussed our "next steps". We thought we would be done with the wiring hours ago, and in reality we were still at square one with hardly any progress made.

We made the decision over dinner to walk to the Home Depot and buy more drill bits. As Clark struggled to break through the steel, he found that he could make slow progress using very small increments in drill bit size. Any attempt to jump in size by more than the smallest increments resulted in abject failure.

Because it was late and dark, we walked the 1.5 miles to Home Depot and the 1.5 miles back. The store closed at 9:00, and we got there a little after 8:00. We bought a Ryobi all-purpose drill bit set with bits in increments of 1/32nd and a Milwaukee "hard metal" drill bit set with increments in 1/8" sizes. Because Clark's shoulders and hand were bothering him from the stress they received through the day, I carried our "treasures" home.

Tuesday 2/6/2018 - Day 3

After a quick breakfast it was back into the "torture chamber" for Clark. We laid out our drill bits in incremental sizes, so that I could give them to Clark in the proper order. Lying in the chamber, Clark passed the drill out into the open where I removed the used drill bit and replaced it with the next size up. Since he could not see the drill while I changed the bits, each time we did it, he felt around with his hands to use the key to verify the tightness of the bit to make sure it was secure.

Stainless steel hardens when heated. With too much friction the steel could become so hard that it could not be drilled. To avoid overheating, Clark drilled slowly and oiled each bit as he used it. Consequently, when I took the used one off, I had to clean off the oil and metal particles before I could return it to its case.

Through experimentation and struggling, we found that the Ryobi drill bits far surpassed the Milwaukee bits in their ability to cut through the steel even though the Milwaukee said they were for "hard metal". That being the case we went through all the Ryobi drill bits starting at 1/8" and progressing to 1/2" in 1/32nd inch increments.

As he labored to make a hole for the wires, Clark decided that even with all the drill bits we purchased last night, he still needed more. The ones we purchased ended at 1/2", and the next size up he had after that was 5/8". He took a break from drilling and hitched a ride with Jim Paddock to the Specialty Hardware Store at the other end of Marathon to buy additional drill bits at the sizes between 1/2" and 5/8".

In record time Clark returned from the store with three more drill bits and immediately climbed back into the uncomfortable space to recommence drilling. When he finally finished drilling and had a 5/8" hole, he was not convinced that four wires would fit through the space. He cut four lengths of wire to test and found that, sure enough, only three would go through. He needed more drilling. He needed more drill bits.

Jim from Evermore had offered to take Clark to Specialty Hardware earlier, so Clark contacted him and begged a ride to the store. On the first trip, this morning, Clark bought 3 drill bits and paid just over $60. The second trip, he came back with three more drill bits and a receipt of over $90. With the $125 we paid for drill bits at Home Depot, this was rapidly becoming a bit expensive, but still less money than paying by-the-hour for the professionals to do it! With the additional drill bits and a whole lot of patience, we got the hole up to a size of 3/4" and the wires fit.

Great! At this point, it is afternoon on the second day, and we have one hole drilled and no wires run. Time to start drilling the second hole -- this time from the top into the same steel tube. At least now Clark knows what works, has all the sizes he needs, and gets to be standing up outside.

Clark took out the 1/8" drill bit and started drilling. I heard clunk, tinkle tinkle tinkle, and "Oh no!" The drill bit broke! He worried he would have to drill through the drill bit. He was clearly relieved when I told him I heard it drop down. After that issue, however, drilling went well and reasonably fast as we progressed 1/32" at a time to make the hole bigger and bigger in manageable increments until the hole measured 3/4".

Having now cut three holes in the boat with only two usable, we decided to remeasure the length of wire needed using our long piece of string and to cut the wire. Fortunately we had a long dock to run the wire down. It's amazing how many feet of wire it takes to go to a spot about 10 feet below when the wire has to run back and forth through the boat to get there.

Since Chris from SALT had only given us a partial spool of wire, we doubted we would have sufficient length to complete the job. When we laid it out on the dock, however, it was like he knew in advance exactly how much we would need. We had nothing to spare, but we had enough by our measurements to do the job.

Although we were both exhausted and sick to death of this project, I knew that Clark would not want to stop working until we had the job done. As I watched Clark cut the wires, I knew that we would potentially have a late night tonight pushing and pulling wires through the walls of the boat. With no plans or time for dinner, I started to think about what we could find to eat while we pulled wires.

To start feeding the wire, Clark taped the four wires to a line that he had dropped down through the drilled holes. He lined up the wires to be offset from each other so the width built incrementally. If I were doing it, I would forget and have a big lump that would not pass through the tight spaces.

As Clark pushed and I pulled the wire through the two drilled holes, I felt like we were finally making real progress on our wire-pulling assignment. Quickly we fed the lines through the next chamber along the starboard wall towards the bow of the boat. Once again Clark found himself in tight quarters as he crawled into a barely big enough storage area containing the propane tank holder.

As the wire passed to me standing in the pilot house, I suddenly heard, "Oh no!" The wire was being fed on the wrong side of the propane tank holder and had to be pulled back up to start again. Grrrr! One step forward, one step back! Clark rerouted the wire and tried again.

We decided that we could bypass coming out into the pilot house and feeding the wire back in towards the galley. That way, instead of having to pass around corners, we could drop it straight down. I stood in the galley and pulled the wire out of the cabinet over my head as Clark pushed the wire down from the top. Real progress! We made it into the cabin!

Looking at our options, Clark decided to pass the wire through a PVC pipe in the wall that already contained some wires. This option appeared to have more space for the wires than trying to go down the wall next to the pipe. With this plan, we got from the cabinet to the space behind the kitchen drawers next to the stove.  As Clark fed the wires, I pulled them out onto the galley floor ready to be fed back in for the next segment of the run.

Things were moving right along. Clark attached the next piece of line to the wires and climbed into the space behind the stove to collect the wires as I fed them back to him. To get behind the stove, he had to remove the seat cushions from the sofa in the salon and climb into the access space allowing him to shimmy forward along the starboard side of the boat.

Clark climbing into yet another tight spot on the boat.

Fully inside.

With only his feet showing.

As I reached the end of the length of wires to be passed to Clark, I was the one to yell, "Oh no!" Once again we had a logistical error. The wires came out the opening for the top drawer and in the opening for the bottom drawer. Short of tearing out the wood separator, we had no option but to backtrack yet again. I hear, "Okay, pull 'em back." and out they came to pool at my feet once again.

Clark took off the tape holding the wires to the next line, changed the positioning of the line, and reapplied the tape. Okay, start again. On the second try, we got the wire fed correctly.

Clark had to drill a couple of holes for the wire to pass through along the starboard wall. To get the wire fed properly through these holes, I had to climb into the hole in the wall with him. Fortunately, I did not have to crawl in too far. With just my head and shoulders in the hole, I found myself perspiring like crazy. How Clark could stand to be all the way inside for as long as he was in there, I will never know.

As I pulled the wire through, I had to pass the wire out into the salon ready for the next segment so when Clark tried to climb out of the hole he would not get tangled up in the wire. When we finished this bit, Clark climbed out and then climbed right back in facing the other direction to take the wire to the stern-facing wall of the salon.

Wire out and to one side as Clark positions himself for the next segment.

To get to the final resting spot for this length of wire, Clark had to drill two more holes in the boat. These would allow the wire to pass into the chamber under the sofa where the controls will reside.

Before doing the drilling, however, we decided to eat. While all the pushing, pulling, and taping was happening, I was grabbing any minute I could find to make dinner. We stopped at some point in our work to eat the meal I prepared and then went back to wire pulling.

Final space (under sofa) to receive the
four wires for the solar panels.

When we finally declared ourselves done running wire, the boat was a mess from top to bottom. Yesterday, we worked from 11:00 to 7:00 (if you don't count the walk to the Home Depot last night) and today from 9:00 to 11:00 on this job. Even so, Clark did not stop. He immediately set to putting the boat back together. I was happy to see my galley cabinet regain a shelf and walls and my kitchen drawers return to their designated spaces.

When we finally crawled into bed, we both ached all over. Clark showed me his back where he had a huge red circle on each shoulder blade about 5" in diameter where lying on his back to drill had irritated his skin. I knew how miserable I felt. I could only imagine how much worse it was for him.

Desperately wanting to escape this awful project, I felt like I was a hostage for the past three days. At one point I took a short walk to the recycle garbage can at the end of the dock followed by a quick trip to the building to use the toilet aka head. When I got back, Clark said, "Where were you?" Maybe he thought I had escaped!?

The installer plans to come back on Thursday with the solar panels. Hopefully this time I can escape any hard labor. I certainly hope it is not a repeat of Monday where he appears with the materials, says "I'm sure you are more than capable of taking care of what needs to be done", and leaves us to take care of the install.

Marathon - Super Bowl Sunday

Sunday 2/4/2018
No Boat Travel

Today started out as another routine day. Clark put another coat of varnish on the outdoor wood trim. Then he helped Mel on Morning Star II with his impeller replacement project.

After that I worked with Clark to assist in fixing the remote control for our bow and stern thrusters. This is an item that has never worked on the boat since we took possession. We had to open up the lower helm console to get to the box. The fix turned out to be quite simple as the remote and the box had lost communications. We just had to sync them up once again, test to be sure the remote worked, and then screw the console back in place.

Tomorrow the solar panel reps from SALT are coming to begin work for installation of panels on our boat. In preparation of that, we decided to run 1/4" - 3/8" line / rope through the passages on the boat where the wires will need to pass. The wires will start on the top of the hard-top "roof", run forward to the lower helm / galley area, and then towards the stern to terminate at the battery bank under the salon. This is somewhat comparable to running wires in a house from the attic to the basement. Not fun and not easy!

We started this not-so-fun project at 12:30. Because today was Super Bowl Sunday and we did not want to miss the game, we gave ourselves until 3:45 to finish running the rope through the boat. We planned to join Faith and Jim on Third Degree for the festivities at the Marathon Grill and Ale House. The pub offered BOGO dinner entrees, free buffet at half time, and happy hour prices on selected drinks throughout the game.

We managed to meet our time goal and be ready to grab a cab with Faith and Jim at 4:30 as planned. Upon arriving at the pub, we found it mostly empty and had our choice of seats. We attended last year's event here and the place was packed, so we wanted to beat the crowd and we succeeded. Faith selected a high-top table so we had a good view of the game.

Clark's ability to put away, i.e. eat, food never ceases to amaze me. For such a thin guy, if food is free or looks like it might go to waste, he is happy to consume it. We ordered dinner from the bogo menu. Clark got lamb chops, and because of the bogo deal, I got free crab cakes. I could only eat one of the 3+" diameter crab cakes, so Clark ate what I could not. Two hours later, at half time, I was still pretty full, but Clark went out to partake of the free buffet food and came back with a full plate including a hot dog and baked ziti. I could only manage to eat a few chips with cheese sauce, and I should not have eaten even that.

Clark, Jim, Faith, and Evelyn
at Marathon Grill and Ale House

The game kept our interest throughout as the second string quarterback from the Philadelphia Eagles seriously challenged Tom Brady from the Patriots.  The Eagles had the lead in the first half, and I fully expected Brady to take control in the second half to win the game. The final score of 38 Eagles to 33 Patriots had the folks in the pub going wild with joy. Multiple times during the game the noise from the crowd was deafening as 95% of the patrons wanted Philly to win. The majority of us went home exceedingly happy with the outcome of the game.

It took a while but we managed to snag a taxi for the trip back to the marina. The taxi driver said he lives on a boat and then told us about being a Marathon resident during Hurricane Irma. Clearly locals here had a very hard time and are still struggling to recover.

Faro Blanco - Champagne Brunch

Saturday 2/3/2018
Maintenance run on boat to 7-mile bridge

Some days the whole day goes by and nothing of interest happened. Other days, like today, so much happens that it is hard to believe it all occurred in the same day. Because we had a number of things planned for today, we set our alarm for 8:00 a.m. to get up early. As it turned out, we were both awake and up before the alarm even sounded.

Our first agenda item for today was a trip by bicycle to the farmer's market near Publix. I told Clark I really did not need to go as I had vegetables in the fridge from our last trip to Publix, but he pretty much insisted that we go and see what they had today. When we left the farmer's market, we had $23 worth of fresh produce in Clark's backpack. I still contend I did not need anything. It just looked so fresh and delicious I could not resist. I got a big bag of green beans, asparagus, large red tomatoes, baby zucchini, fresh sweet corn, a huge green pepper, and a box of blueberries.

Since the wind had picked up again overnight, I worried that the bike ride would be like the last windy day, and I would be exhausted by the time we covered the 1.8 miles to get there. Happily, the wind was not gusting to 30 mph and did not slow us down. In fact it felt good to have a cool breeze in our faces. Still, the wind did help us on the way back, and we returned faster than we went. We were back on our boat by 9:15.

AC on Hour Plan planned a pot luck Champagne Brunch at the Faro Blanco lighthouse for today at 10:00 a.m.  Everyone attending brought a covered dish except us. We brought our griddle and pancake mix, and Clark made fresh, hot pancakes at the dock to order.

Clark cooked pancakes in two flavors - blueberry and plain
(note the smiley face and heart-shaped pancakes)

We had a good turnout for the event and a nice selection of food including baked french toast, baked hash browns, pastries and cake, assorted fruit, and scrambled eggs with bacon.

Faro Blanco boaters at Champagne Brunch on the docks
including CRAIC, Shell Belle, True North, Third Degree,
Ramble On, Morning Star II, Fat-n-Sassy, L'Attitude Adjustment,
Sunset Delight, Hour Plan, and more

Scrambled Eggs with Bacon, Hash Browns, and
Maple Walnut French Toast

Two days ago, on February 1st, Mel Cosgrove from Morning Star II turned 71. Clark and I brought a cake to today's event and folks sang Happy Birthday to Mel. We picked it up at Publix. I liked the island theme with a sandy beach, palm trees, and ocean wave icing.

Mel Getting Ready to Cut Cake

Happy 71st Birthday Mel!

Brunch lasted until noon when folks dispersed to go their separate ways. Several people said they planned to visit the Pigeon Keys Art Festival just down the road at the Municipal Park. Having been prior years, Clark had no real interest in going this year. Instead he had a number of jobs on our boat that he wanted to address.

Upon returning to our boat from the brunch, Clark received a package including the bow thruster part he had ordered. Repairing the intermittent bow thruster quickly became our next highest priority. Other than the fact that Clark had to empty enough space under our master stateroom bed for him to climb in there to take apart the thruster, this job was quick and went smoothly.

Clark had me run the thruster with him under the bed so he could watch the unit. A bow thrust to the right and then one to the left, and Clark declared the project done and a success. Yay! He could actually cross something off his punch list.

I still thought maybe I could get to see a bit of the Art Festival, but then Clark suggested we take the boat out for a maintenance run to take advantage of the beautiful weather. By 1:30 we had thrown off the lines and were on our way to take a look at the 7-mile bridge - mostly just to have a destination.

Approaching 7-mile bridge in the Florida Keys

Clark had me drive so he could take pictures

This sailboat was almost too tall for the bridge.
From this perspective, it looks like the boat should not be able to go under the bridge.

I piloted the boat through the bridge and into the Atlantic Ocean.

Old bridge on left - new bridge on right
(Every time I see the old bridge I think of the movie "True Lies")

Passing between the two bridges

Now on the Atlantic Ocean side of the bridge

Shortly after reaching the ocean side of the bridge, we made a slow circle to turn around and head back to the marina. We had to be careful as we traveled to avoid numerous crab traps. Clark learned last night that shallow-depth traps are not catching anything, so the traps are all being moved to deeper waters. We certainly noticed this trend on today's run.

Heading back to Faro Blanco Resort & Yacht Club

Because we did have some wind while we cruised the bay, we got some salt spray on the boat. When we finished securing our lines, Clark pulled out the hose to wash the salt off. As often happens, we both ended up with buckets of soapy water cleaning off the dirt we found as he hosed off the salt. Cleaning the boat took the rest of the afternoon.

We had a slight mishap towards the end of our cleaning spree. I was on the bow of the boat cleaning the rails, and Clark was at the upper helm when we heard crash, boom, bang and splash. What the heck!!?? I ran to the port side to look just as Clark yelled, "Oh, the ladder!" I watched in dismay as our aluminum ladder, that had been knocked off the boat by a gust of wind, rapidly sank off our port side.

The ladder went down so fast there was no time to even think of grabbing it. I did the "Man over board" thing and stood staring at the place where it went over the side until Clark appeared with a boat hook to attempt a rescue. He found nothing with the boat hook, presumably due to the depth of the water, and went and found a long line with a hook on the end (I have never seen this item on board before). He tried to dredge up the ladder using this method and failed again.

Next he thought about pulling out a kayak and using that to get closer for another try with the boat hook. Then, considering his options, he went and got the thermometer to measure the water temperature contemplating a quick jump in to rescue the ladder. It read 71 degrees -- not bad. While he was doing all this, I continued to stare at the water. As I did, I thought I saw the ladder, but then again, maybe that was just wishful thinking or a reflection of something on land. It was hard to tell.

However, as I continued to stare, and the water cleared as sediment settled from his efforts, more of the ladder became visible to my eyes. The ladder is two-tone - green plastic on top and aluminum elsewhere. As I watched the spot, I could clearly see the green top and a bit of the aluminum. I took the boat hook, reached into the water, and snagged the ladder.

Unbelievably, the ladder had landed in the water standing up! By the time Clark came back to see what I was doing, I was already pulling the ladder to safety. As I got it close to the edge of the boat, he reached over and pulled it over the side. To prevent corrosion, Clark then washed the saltwater off both the ladder and the boat hook and stood them to one side to dry.

At 5:00 we called a stop to our boat-cleaning work to take part in docktails. Docktails, however, did not occur today. The reason for this is probably two-fold - first we had a docktails-type event this morning and second a big storm appeared on the horizon coming our way.

Storms a-coming!
Clouds darkening to the north and bright sun shining in the south.

Dark skies over the Faro Blanco Lighthouse;
Sunny day on the docks!

With the combination of dark clouds and bright sunshine, we saw an almost full rainbow with just the very middle being a little obscured.

One half of rainbow over hotel

Other end of the rainbow over the boats

A wedding was held at Faro Blanco today. I felt sorry for the folks attending the wedding. All the tables for the reception were set up outdoors. First, the clouds brought light rain and the staff folded the chairs over to keep them dry. Then we got a downpour. The tables and all their trimmings magically disappeared. After the storm passed all that was left outside were the chairs that had been left there by the staff in their hurry to get the tables inside.

The rain did not stop Clark from working on the boat. It just changed his venue. He moved from cleaning the outside to repairing the inside. The next project he tackled, again with a little help from me, entailed swapping the upper and lower-helm autopilot units. The control knob on the upper unit is hard to adjust. We turn it expecting to increase by one or two degrees, and it jumps up by ten. Clark tried the one at the lower helm, and it does not have this sensitivity issue. Since we pilot the boat from the upper helm 95+% of the time, it makes sense to have the better unit located there.

With all the activity, I decided that I would wait until Clark finished his projects to start dinner. The only problem with this plan was it kept getting later and later and later with no signs of him calling quits for the day. After swapping the two autopilot units, he decided to go on to looking into a new problem found today. Our anemometer stopped providing wind speed data to the helm.

To work on this piece of equipment, Clark climbs onto the top of the hard top on the boat about 17 feet in the air. He does this using the, now infamous, step ladder (the one that went for a swim earlier). Unfortunately the ladder is about one rung short of making it a good height for getting up there, so it is rather dangerous to say the least.

By now, the clock read after 7:00 p.m. and the sun had set a while ago. Given all that, imagine my angst at having his climbing up there at night on a windy day. When I expressed my concern, he blew me off saying, "There's still plenty of light to see by."

Knowing that a strong, or maybe not so strong, gust of wind could send the ladder into the deep blue sea once again, I was hesitant to leave the ladder while he was up top. Being after hours at the marina, I wondered how I would get him down from there if the ladder blew overboard a second time today. I seriously doubted I could find it under water in the dark. I wanted to stand and hold the ladder in place, but he kept sending me below to get tools and contact cleaning sprays and to turn off and on equipment to check the anemometer and see if it had started displaying wind speeds.

Each time he sent me away, I prayed the ladder would still be in place when I returned. Ultimately this project had a successful conclusion. The ladder did not take another dip off the side of the boat. The anemometer once again displays the wind speed and direction. Best of all, Clark made it down to the lower deck safely. With that project completed, I decided that I could start dinner while he put away tools, cleaners, and the ladder.

Later, after dinner, as I washed the dishes, we heard a knock on the side of the boat. Clark dashed out to see who had arrived while I dried my hands and followed him outside a short while later. What a surprise I had to see two boaters we met here at Faro Blanco in 2016 standing outside our boat - Debbie and Brent from Haley's Comet. They now have a new-to-them boat - a Kadey Krogan named Change of Pace.

Brent said he looked in the window as they walked by, and he recognized me standing there doing the dishes. We talked and shared boat stories and agreed that we would make an effort to get together while they are here in Marathon. They are only here for a week and then they are heading to the Bahamas for two-or-three months.

Afterward, as I sat updating my blog entry, I noticed that Clark fell asleep on the couch. I guess the day finally caught up with him. It's now time for me to call it a day too and send him to bed.

Marathon - Dinner at Porky's

Friday 2/2/2018
No boat travel.

Had I been in New Jersey today, I know I would have rushed this morning to hear what Punxsutawny Phil had to say about the remainder of the winter. Here in Marathon I seem to have lost interest in his predictions. I wonder why? I did check while writing today's blog entry. He did see his shadow so his prediction is 6 more weeks of winter.

I expected to see the sun today, and for the most part, I was disappointed. Then again I really do not like to be very hot, so for me today's weather was pretty much ideal being overcast with a light breeze in the 70s. That sunscreen I put on to start the day turned out to be a total waste however..

Having gone to bed early (for us), we got up early (for us) this morning. Clark planned to jump on the varnishing project first thing but got slightly delayed by talking to Mel about his FM radio. Conditions seemed to be perfect for varnishing, or so we thought until Clark completed the sections he planned to work on, and it started to drip some light rain. Fortunately a light mist is all we saw, and the varnishing job was not impacted.

Mitch said Clark could borrow his van again today, so we took advantage for a quick run to the Home Depot, the post office, and Publix. We wanted to buy something that we could not carry on a bicycle, or else Clark would never even have asked for the keys.

When we got back from our short outing, I walked over to see Faith and Jim to tell them we would like to join them for dinner at Porky's. They had invited us earlier, and we did not give a definite yes at that time. We wanted to check the menu first before committing.

On the way to Faith's boat I noticed a para-sail out in the bay and snapped a picture of the smiley face parachute.

Para-sail is barely visible,
but it has a cute smiley face on the parachute.

While I went to visit Faith, Clark went to return the car keys to Mitch. As it turns out, Mitch and Jen were not at their boat. They were out enjoying the smiley face para-sail. Little did I know when I took the picture that I actually knew the folks enjoying the ride!

To partake of the early-bird special at Porky's we left the marina to get there for 5 o'clock. The restaurant is only about 1/2 mile from the marina and on our side of Route 1. It was an easy 10-minute walk. We met Faith and Jim from Third Degree there along with John and Susan from Nuclear Fishin.

John and Susan ordered mojito cocktails that looked fancy and refreshing. Made with rum, lime, mint, and cane sugar, they looked delicious.

John with a fancy Mojito at Porky's
the tall tan object in the drink is actual sugar cane

Jim, Susan, and Faith at Porky's Restaurant

With a name like Porky's, Clark and I feared they would not have anything on their menu for him to eat since he is allergic to pork. Their online menu proved we had nothing to worry about; however, as Porky's serves ribs and seafood and a whole lot of other foods as well. I ordered the ribs and Clark ordered the seafood. My ribs were cooked to perfection, tasty, and served in a reasonable quantity so as not to be overwhelming.

The guys sat together at one end of the table with the girls at the other end. That worked out well. They talked about boat parts and such, while we talked about grandchildren. Perfect!

When we left the restaurant, we noticed a couple of humorous signs we had not seen on the way in.

Porky's Bayside Restaurant

Porky's advertisement

John and Susan headed to the Municipal Park to the Arts Festival to listen to the musician playing there. The rest of us walked back to Faro Blanco and were pleasantly surprised when we arrived there to find live music by the pool. John, the musician playing tonight, is the one that Clark enjoys listening to so much.

Clark talking to John at Faro Blanco
(Picture compliments of Jim from Third Degree)

At break time, we all left to return to our boats, but when the music started up again, Clark disappeared to go listen. Since I could hear the music from our salon, I listened remotely while updating the blog.

Florida Keys - Irma Clean up day

Thursday 2/1/2018
No boat travel.

Today certainly started out normal enough for a day in the Florida Keys. Clark planned to get out early to work on varnishing the boat trim to get it done before the sun hit the port side of the boat. While he was out in the cockpit pulling his gear together, Jim from Hour Plan stopped by to ask if Clark wanted to attend the Keys Clean-up Event happening this afternoon. They knew about the event from the AGLCA Forum. He told Jim he would think about it.

As he added another coat of varnish to the trim, he decided he would participate in the clean up activity. I hurried him along telling him that if he planned to get then he had better get ready to go. The only problem being that my watch had the wrong time on it for some reason. It said the hour was approaching 2:00 when he was supposed to leave when, in fact, it was an hour earlier. Consequently, he was ready to leave an hour early. Now there's a first!

I decided not to take part in the action. With all sorts of allergies, I was not sure my body would appreciate me digging through the mangroves. Besides, I already had plans which involved swimming in and lying by the pool. I missed the opportunity on Monday and had promised myself I would be in the pool on the next nice day. With low wind and temperatures in the 70s, today was that day.

Clark took his camera with him and got some pictures of the clean-up crew. A looper named Becky on True North drove and took Clark and Jim from Hour Plan to the clean-up site. That site being around mile marker 6.5 and therefore almost in Key West. When they arrived there, they joined other participants including Wendy Wilson and some of her children, another family with two girls, and Leland McClellan of Leland Oil in McClellanville, South Carolina (we stayed there when we traveled the Great Loop).

The volunteers have been cleaning up the debris-staging areas. Heavy equipment had been brought in previously to pick up the big items. However, smaller items fell through the claws of the equipment and were left behind. This included things like water bottles, beer and soda cans, roofing materials, mirrors and other glass. Some items had blown into the mangroves and had to be extracted using boat hooks. All told the volunteers collected around 35 big, black bags of garbage during the two hours that they worked at the site.

Picture taken after cleanup

As the team of volunteers worked on the site, people passing by on the highway let the workers know they appreciated their efforts. Cars honked their horns. Bicyclists shouted out thank yous. One person even stopped his car, got out, and blew on a conch shell, which in Keys language is a "great big thank you"!

Clark left at 2:00. Cleanup took from 3:00 to 5:00. It took another hour for Clark to get back to Marathon. At 5:00 I headed over to docktails because of the beautiful weather. I was surprised by the lack of participation in today's gathering. Only Mel and Anne from Morning Star II  and Sandy from L'Attitude Adjustment joined me at the lighthouse.

Jen from Fat-n-Sassy passed by on her way to dinner and stopped briefly - just long enough for me to ask the fate of the man taken away in the ambulance yesterday. I heard that he suffered a broken nose, a cut on his chin, and a head injury requiring a number of stitches. He is back on his boat again, but no one seems to know what caused his falling episodes. One of the dock hands here is walking his dog for him while he recovers.

Mel, Anne, and I were just planning to return to our boats when Anne spied Clark running across the dock to join docktails. He told us a little about the Keys clean up, and then Mel asked him about a problem with his FM radio. Since our boats are docked next to each other, I suggested we start walking back and they could talk on the way. They did not attempt to fix it tonight thankfully. Maybe tomorrow.