We celebrated the Captains birthday last Sunday with a nice Prime Rib dinner cooked on board. I do love having propane to cook with as opposed to electric in the condo. We face timed with Jessica and her family while Scott opened their gifts they had sent. A new anchor and running lights for the dingy, now we can go out after dark! Not that we have anywhere to go, the current covid crisis has wreaked havoc with all our lives.

The marina has been filling up slowly over the two weeks we have been here. It's evident at the dingy dock with parking at a premium. There are 60 mooring balls in the field and all but 6 or so are occupied. Not all of the boats have folks aboard I'd say about 35 to 40 % have someone on board regularly.

It has been pleasant being on the boat. It's so nice to sit in the cockpit and have fresh air. Not listening to the roar of the air conditioner has been a welcome change. We're close enough to the docks to get a decent wifi signal and receive some protection from the winds. We didn't have that last year when we were further out. The weather has been good and we've been able to breakfast in the cockpit and enjoy our morning cup of joe.

The "regulars" that have been here the past two seasons seem to be missing. I'm not sure if that is because it's still early for folks to come south or a result of the virus. The marina isn't hosting any of its usual festivities, no movies, pot lucks, Christmas tree lighting or party. And since we aren't supposed to gather I suspect most are like us, hunkered down somewhere. I haven't been in the boaters lounge so I can't really say of the quilters or mahjong players are gathering, but I haven't seen any of the familiar faces.

We try to limit our time ashore and get in early for morning chores. The coffee bar draws a crowd most days which makes us uncomfortable. It is rare that any of them have face masks and the tables are definitely not 6 feet apart. We give them as wide a berth as is physically possible. We do need to go ashore to get mail, sign up for our weekly pump out and get rid of garbage and trash. We scurry in, get things done as fast as possible and scurry back to the boat.

As we don't plan on going anywhere this season our project list is rather short. I'm sure it will lengthen as the weeks go by. Right now I'm working on the starboard toe rail teak. Scott has some hatch issues to solve, that's in the mulling over phase. We do manage to fill our time, there is always something to clean or schlepping to do.

The picture is of Gracie our friend George’s boat in the mooring field. He pulled in last Saturday.