All work and no play...

...makes for a very ho-hum sort of day.  I am not complaining, as we have had more than our fair share of play these last several months. It was time to get busy and get with it today; there was much we had to accomplish.  It was more or less divide and conquer.  Donnie got up and got pedal, pedal, pedaling on his clown bike all over Marathon.  He returned our library books that we had checked out for our sailing trip.  We both managed to read two books on our little vacation.  He went to West Marine to check into a polishing project, as we have yet to bring the topsides to a waxy sheen like we want.  He stopped at several boat yards to inquire about storing Marquesa up on the hard until we return next January. He also ran a few more errands that are not coming to mind at the moment!

While he was gone, I took advantage of having nobody tracking sand in my 'house', and I set about a deep cleaning frenzy.  I was in and out of hatches, scrubbing cushions, washing rugs, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, with bleach, spic-n-span, teak oil, and anything else I could get my hands on.  Willis was not pleased that I kept disturbing his cat napping as I continued to clean around him. 98.7 Conch Country kept me motivated throughout the day.

Later in the afternoon, Donnie tended to two major boat projects.  I think I lamented previously about the god-awful stench that comes from the air conditioning unit on the boat.  I was ready for him to purchase and replace all the hoses, because I ran out of ideas on the stupid thing.  Well, its not really stupid...in fact, this time of year an air conditioner is a necessity.  The humidity is on the climb, and the day time highs and over night lows vary about 10 degrees only.  During the day, it is now in the upper 80's and at night, it still hangs in the upper 70's.  Since the bleach was still out from my earlier cleaning frenzy, Donnie decided to flush the whole system with bleach and fresh water.  While it initially seemed to be working, the true test was to close up the boat, leave for awhile, and see if we got smacked in the face by the funk when we returned.  In the meantime, he attended to another important project...three of our cabin fans went kaput on our sailing trip to the Dry Tortugas.  Marquesa is really well outfitted for cruising with extra stowage for carrying water aboard, and having a fan over every sleeping berth.  Those simple creature comforts make all the difference in boat living.

The chart table became a workbench for the fan
project.  Good news- of the three broken fans, two
are now working.  The other one needs a little
more help.  I am so lucky to be married to Mr. FixIt :)

We both had "boat fever" and needed to get outside, so we opted to pedal, pedal, pedal our clown bikes to town.  Donnie lost a pair of flip flops, (he insists they were stolen :) and he's worn out his other pair. No, contrary to popular belief, he did not blow them out stepping on a pop top! The man seriously needed some more "shoes for fees" (a tribute to our grandson, Eli.) With that mission accomplished, and the nasty flip flops taking up permanent residence in the dinghy, we also tackled grocery shopping.  I have to admit, I was very pleased with my expert packing abilities in cramming all the groceries onto and into our bike baskets.  Donnie was impressed, too.  Nearly every item I picked up and put in the grocery cart, he would say, "We will never get all of this stuff home." HA!  People who know me well know I don't back down from a challenge :)

And wouldn't you know, when we got back to Marquesa and opened up the hatch with all of our loot, no funky smell to knock us over....Praise the Lord!!!  ...and it was nice and cool 'down in our basement' :)))

I set about stowing everything away while Donnie filled the water tanks, and then continued in our search for a vehicle.  We've been scoping out Craigslist and Ebay, and now were on to buying the local newspaper.  So far, no such luck.  Unfortunately, we are to be heading north in just 17 days...woah...that explains my ho-hum-ness today...only 17 days left in paradise.  Man, that sucks.  What's a person to do?

Pour ourselves a cold drink, throw some BBQ chicken on the grill,
watch the sun go down, and count our blessings...
...and after that?!  Watch Survivor, of course!!!