March 14th: It's always something

I turned right into the parking lot of Winn Dixie and suddenly the car stopped. Not good. At least I was off of the highway, but still partially blocking the entrance. I got out of the car and looked at the front tire leaning against the fender. Lower ball joint broke. Called AAA. Fortunately, a very good mechanic, Mark at Island 66, we had worked with before, was close by. He is always very booked up but worth waiting for. He agreed to accept our car so AAA towed it there. Meanwhile, Steven and Sharon on Stevedore loaned Linda their car so Linda could get to her physical therapy in Key West in 90 minutes. Boaters are the best!




On a more positive note, The Valentine's Day roses lasted an amazingly long time. Here is a picture of the strongest of them  February 29th!









It was getting pretty windy again so I put the plastic enclosure back up on the fly bridge. It has never quite fit correctly since Linda redid the canvas top. I decided it was time to fix it. Because Linda added a new layer of Sumbrella (canvas) on top of the old top, the plastic was too short to fit correctly. We don't really use the enclosure that often so I never got around to fixing it. But this year we have had a lot of cool North winds and the plastic really helps.





I added some little extension straps so I could make the plastic fit. It took the better part of a day but it really wasn't that hard to do. And now it works much better.

 We were able to sit on the fly bridge and enjoy the sunset..

Port side step inside the boat

The weather was pretty windy so I decided to refinish the step by the starboard side door. It has been sad since we bought the boat but the teak veneer is so thin I couldn't sand and refinish it so I left it alone.









Fortunately, there is a very good carpenter in town that fashions  teak and sells just about everything teak. I bought a new piece of teak veneer and refinished the front of the step. Happy with the way it turned out.






We have quite a few fun pets here at Banana Bay. I decided to put a few in the blog.

Schooner 

Schooner with owner Karen

Schooner is a Manx cat. He is quite large. We hear he weighs 20 lbs. He is a typically aloof cat, but basically friendly. He looked very regal sitting on this palm tree stump. He resides on No Agenda with Karen and Jerry.

Buster 

Buster is a Wire Haired Terrier. He's very active, friendly and his fur feels like a Brillo Pad. He lives on Rollin' Tide with Bruce and Mary.

Eli at our door seeking carrots

Eli is a poodle who likes to come and visit. Eli owns Sharon, my best teak refinishing friend. I think he likes to come and see us, but it might just be the carrots he gets. Eli could quite possibly be the most spoiled dog in the marina. Her husband Steven is the backup person. Eli also likes to nap with Linda. She says he is nice and warm!

Eli napping with Linda

Jeff and Lilly

Lilly

Lilly is a Maltese. She's quite small but feisty. Also friendly and knows how to dance.  It's entertaining to watch her chase a plastic water bottle with a rock in it. She "owns" Jeff and Carol on Indecision.

Diesel, the most senior dog

Sam

Diesel, a Chocolate Labrador is Scott the dockmaster's dog. Diesel is the oldest of all the dogs but he's hanging in there. He's big but very friendly.

Sam, a Scottish Terrier, lives with Lois and Dennis on Mystified. He's cute and friendly.

Mychael and Yvette's fun giraffe

Blue

One of the younger dog's is Blue, a Weimaraner. She loves to run and her long legs allow her to easily hop over the rocks and into the water which she loves. She is also a great Frisbee player. She belongs to Yvette and Mychael, the two youngest marina residents. They live on their boat and are still working. They are both very generous with their youth and energy when someone needs a hand. They were very helpful when I installed our new roof top air conditioner, as was Scott the dockmaster.

Steve and Harley

Paulie

And then there are the parrots. I am holding Harley, less than a year old. Her boat mate is Paulie . Yvette and Mychael (owners) tell me she is not so friendly, so I declined having her climb on my finger. She bites!

Charlie

Charlie is a Cochon Parrot, the smallest of the parrot species. He lives on Mystified with Dennis and Lois. Charlie is definitely Lois's bird. He is very defensive of her and often raises a ruckus if Dennis even comes close to Lois. Dennis keeps offering big bucks to anyone who finds a way to help Charlie fly south, or north, or just away! Charlie is sometimes noisy but a very pretty bird.

Schoolmaster Snappers

The weather finally cooperated for a day of fishing. My friend Bill and I went out in the dinghy and did very well. We caught around 25 Schoolmaster Snappers and 15 were big enough to keep. Any Snapper is very good to eat so it was a good day at sea. We shared our fish with other happy boaters.

A friend told me about a local farmer's market. I went to check it out and was glad I did. The sweet corn was excellent. The strawberries tasted like real wild strawberries, and everything I bought was great. I'll go back again next Saturday.





Our Teak has held up very well this year. Sharon and I spent a lot of time refinishing it last winter. I started using a clear Gloss coat that works really well so I decided to do a light sand and re-coat everything with the Gloss coat. This means I would not need to sand everything down to bare wood again. Fortunately, Linda is now able to help with the Gloss coat application. Her shoulder is doing great!

Mangrove Mike's Supreme Burrito

We went to Tavernier for a doctor appointment and decided to stop at Mangrove Mike's for lunch. I usually get a fish sandwich and Linda loves their mashed potatoes. I decided to do something different and ordered the Supreme Chicken Burrito. It was huge and also delicious. Our son-in-law Matt would love it!

February 22nd: 35th Anniversary and Thank you Tom

I copied part of this blog from 2015. It was written by Linda and Pat, one of her 4 brothers willing to give her a kidney.. It's hard to understand where the time goes. We continue to live a wonderful life thanks to Linda's brother Tom. Linda has now lived longer with Tom's kidney than with her own!

Sunday February 22: Happy Kidney Day!! (written 2/22/2015)

As it does every year, February 22nd has rolled around again. 30 times this day had rolled around since 1985.

30 times I have called my brother to see how his remaining kidney is doing :-)

30 times we have formally celebrated one more year of a successful transplant.

In year 10, we had a party. I was somewhat leery of having an actual celebration - you know - jinxing and all of that stuff.

So now we just continue to be grateful to my brother Tom for his gift. And we both continue to monitor the health of my other brothers. Just kidding - although they all seem to be holding in there quite well!

Tom retired recently. This is what my brother Pat posted on Facebook:

After 37 years as a surgeon on the Navajo reservation in northern Arizona, my brother, Tom, has retired.

What began as a two-year stint turned into a life of service to the Navajo and Hopi. A comment by a cohort to a photo post of Tom as a much younger man earlier last year presented a good summation of his work:

"Who would have guessed on that day that Tom would someday be a legendary surgeon, known among other surgeons as "The Master"? That he would work tirelessly for years, taking call every other night or every third night for years, and do so cheerfully and with humor? That he would follow two legendary surgeons, and surpass them? That he would have been a superstar in any venue, but he found his home on the Navajo (reservation)? That he would retire as a CAPT in the US Public Health Service? That he would recognize a hereditary bowel cancer in Navajos and call in the experts from the CDC, a significant scientific contribution? I have a dear friend, a Harvard-trained surgeon, double-boarded in Anesthesia and Surgery, who thinks Tom Drouhard WALKS ON WATER. . . and there are a whole lotta people who feel and think that way about him."

Just count Steve and me as two more who feel and think that way about him.....

I also included a few memorable and fun pictures. The first picture is Linda, her four brothers and parents. All four brothers were willing to give Linda a kidney, Tom and Pat were the acceptable matches.

Back left to right: Tom, Pat, Linda, Warren and Dick
Front: Warren and Leona

Tom with Wendy and Rebecca about the time of the transplant

Tom and Linda's Mom, Leona

Tom & and Leona during construction of Sagamore Hills house

Tom and Leona - our new home in Sagamore Hills

Linda's parents were the best in-laws ever. It was always fun to come to the farm. They obviously did a great job as parents having raised four sons willing to give Linda a kidney.

Tom, Leona and Warren at the farm

Tom with one of his many
rescue dogd

Leona and Tom enjoying our trawler
on Lake Erie

Wendy, Tom, Linda, Rebecca Steve and Matt - Oceanside CA

Tom's California T-shirt souvenir

Tom walking to the Oceanside train station after spending Thanksgiving with us.

Linda and Tom during our trip to Banff National Park

Linda and Tom at their favorite Perrysville Dairy

Thanks again Tom, not just for the kidney, but also for your sense of humor, generosity, enriching our lives and always being there when we need a medical opinion.

February 15th: Air conditioner success, floor project and snorkel trip

The new control panel for the air conditioner arrived. I connected everything and NOTHING! I again noticed that the new air conditioner had three more wires than the old one. Maybe they weren't for a wall thermometer and I really needed to hook them up. But two wires said 12 volt. There was no 12 volt power supplied to the old unit. Time to ask for help in the marina. I went to Jerry on No Agenda because we all know he knows a lot! He graciously came over to check it out. He determined that the new control panel operated on 12 volts, not 110. Too bad the person I talked to at tech services didn't know that. I ran a 12 volt power supply line and sure enough it worked! Great job Jerry.

So I needed to get a 12 volt supply line to the air conditioner. There is a ceiling light close by with access to the wires above the ceiling. Perfect. Except that power line was dead. So that's why the two ceiling lights on the port side didn't work. I found a cut supply wire, fixed it and added the new supply line to the air conditioner. Now everything works, the air conditioner and the two ceiling lights.

Well worn floor

Linda came down with a bad cold. Wasn't long before I also succumbed. We tried to stay away from everyone else and just hunkered down on the boat. I decided I might as well start working on refinishing the wood floors in the salon, (main section of the boat). I have been avoiding the project for a couple years because its a lot of work and difficult to do while living on the boat. But I was getting very tired of looking at a sad floor.



I got out the heat gun to see if it would work to remove the old finish. It worked even better than I had hoped. Other than crawling around on the floor it wasn't really labor intensive. After three days I had heat gunned and scraped everything.

Meanwhile, our colds were hanging on longer than expected. We kept thinking they would go away but so far the colds were winning.




I ordered a gallon of floor finish from Amazon Prime and the package arrived a few days later. Hmm, it was in a box that was in a plastic garbage bag. The bag was holding leaked floor finish! It was a mess. I couldn't believe they delivered it like that. The can had gotten crushed and the lid leaked. Fortunately there was still more than I would need still in the can.






I experimented on the main floor board that covers the engine compartment. I could take it on to the back deck to work on it. I wanted to see how it would go. After sanding and applying the floor finish I was very happy. I spent the next couple days sanding the whole floor and steps and then started applying the finish.








After 5 coats it looked great. Very happy with the final outcome.

Mystified at the dock

Our colds finally went away and we saw the weather forecast for Friday was wonderful. Very calm and sunny. I was thinking I'd go fishing but then Dennis and Lois on Mystified invited a group of us to go to Sombrero reef and snorkel. It's about 15 miles to the reef, a pretty lengthy ride for our trawler at 8 miles per hour.






Mystified is a very nice, 57 foot boat and cruises more than twice as fast as our trawler. As you look at the boat wake after we went under the 7 mile bridge, you can tell we were moving along nicely.


The boat has a great fly bridge, large enough for all aboard to ride on top.







We arrived at Sombrero Reef, the snorkel spot, and started looking for a mooring ball to tie up to. We knew it would be crowded and there were no empty mooring balls left that we could see. Dennis was maneuvering his 57 foot boat between moored boats and we were passing a small jet ski tied to a mooring ball. The owners waved and said they were just getting ready to leave! Very fortunate, and the mooring ball was even in one of the best spots. We tied up and were set for the afternoon.


We were in the water quickly and enjoyed a great snorkel day. The water was a little cloudy but lots of fish. After a lunch break we noticed the water cleared quite a bit. We went back in and had an even better snorkel.




We returned to the boat pretty worn out from a day at sea. It was Valentine's Day and I had planned a nice dinner, pork tenderloin. I also thought some Valentine's Day roses would be in order and they looked great with our newly finished floor. I pan fried the pork tenderloin in the cast iron skillet I got from Wendy and Matt for Christmas and it turned out great. I've used the skillet almost every day and really like it.

Speaking of Christmas gifts, Rebecca got me a very fun "Fish" that separates the yolk from an egg white. It's quite entertaining as you can see from the video!