Last night after our posting two things happened that deserve mention.

First, after taking the dingy into the dock for a general scrub and clean I couldn't get Susie Suzuki started no matter how hard or how often I pulled, choked or non-choked. It was a long row back to Nelleke. You can imagine my thoughts. As I sat in the cockpit BBQ-ing and eating dinner I was contemplating everything from getting an outboard repair service to fix her up to buying a new motor and taking Susie home for repairs. Then last night while lying in the bunk fitfully trying to sleep I had a thought. Susie has always had a problem with a low idle, that is to say she won't slow her rpms enough for me to shift her into gear without a shock to the transmission so when I have to, I was using the choke to make the fuel mixture over rich and slow down the rpms, shift into forward, then disengage the choke. What if, thought I, doing this had gummed up the spark plug? Well, that be a nice easy fix. So, this morning I popped off the cover and removed the plug. Sure enough it was well covered in goo and carbon so I got busy with a piece of fine grade sandpaper and very carefully cleaned off the plug tip, the threads and anywhere else I could fine that had gunk on it, put it back in and reconnected the plug lead and sure enough she started on the first pull. Sorry, Susie. Bad Mike. I shouldn't have though bad thoughts.

The other thing last night was that we discovered that we have another stowaway aboard. I had evidence the night before last but I thought we had frightened him and he had jumped overboard, but last night after diner we were sitting in the cockpit with Barb doing her best to distract me from the problems with Susie and I felt this light touch on my inner thigh. My first thought was that this was one of Barb's distraction efforts, but, no, there she was on the other side of the cockpit, well out of reach. Then the touch jumped to the left side of my chest and then off and onto the asymmetrical spinnaker sail bag. Once there we were able to make out that the creature that was flirting with me was another little tree frog. That's him in the picture that goes with this post. He has incredible balance as we saw him jump from the sail bag to the life line and happily sit there swaying in the little bit of breeze and motion. Barb feels that he has been moving about at night testing out his boundaries and examining his new world. Any misjudgement in his hops could have him over the side and into the water. If he can swim he could always swim back to the boat and climb up the side. I think he boarded us in Indiantown and has been with us for the last three weeks at least. Barb and I have been worried about him getting any water so we put out a bowl with some in it for him. Since he eats bugs he is more than welcome to hang out as long as he likes. I don't believe that they are happy to swim so there isn't any easy easy for him to get ashore until we tie up at a dock somewhere. Right now we are worried about stepping on him while we clump around on the deck and cabin top.

We spent a slice of the morning waiting for the pump out boat to come by the remove the Turney nasties. After a while, and with the assurances from the marina that he would pump us out whether or not we were aboard we left a note on the lifelines to help him find the waste standpipe and came into the marina to do laundry. While waiting for him we were listening to several tour fishing boats off the coast talking to each other on the VHF. They are clearly well organized and cooperative with a drone flying overhead taking photos of their clients happily fishing and telling each other when, where, and what they are catching and advising each other as to what to do to improve their clients luck.

We went into the marina to do laundry and while we were there, before noon, the generator we ordered through Amazon arrived. That is really excellent service, we ordered it at noon on Sunday and here it is only 48 hours later and we are in possession. Not bad! The unit is bit heavier than the Yanmar so it will likely become the home unit if we can get the other one working again it will be on the boat.

We had planned to spend the hot hours of the day hiding in the breeze in the cabin, but instead, decided to set off for Publix at 1300 to provision up before leaving the marina tomorrow AM as soon as they open. Originally the thought was to go at sundown but from the experience of the last couple of days, around 1800 the breeze, whatever there is, dies down, and although the temperature might have dropped a couple of degrees, 29 degrees in dead air is worse, in my opinion, than 31 degrees in 12 knots of breeze. Today there is quite a blow on. Not bad, just enough to get the wind generator howling and charging the batteries in great form. I wonder how good the ground tackle is in the mooring field. It certainly looks solid enough but who really knows under water unless they send divers down or pull them up every year or so.

Meanwhile, we have been keeping our eyes out for the little frog but he is probably holed up in some shady spot waiting for dark when he can attack me again. I keep expecting him to rear up on his hind legs with a top hat, bow tie, and cane and start to sing, "Hello, my honey! Hello my baby! Hello, my ragtime gal!", just like the Looney Tunes character.

The Admiral says that I have been out in the sun too long.