Falcon's Log 5
December 20, 2008 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida (Cont.)

This is the new Centerboard Trunk during the building process. There are two pieces of plywood, six pieces of red oak, and
58 screws both holding it together and securing it into the hull. There will be 2 more screws once the temporary straps are
removed and the varnished seats are installed. The last two screws secure the trunk and the seat together to make a
stronger assembly.

After these pictures were taken, the piece was removed, ground and sanded into a virtual piece of art, disassembled
completely and reassembled with epoxy EVERYWHERE, finishing with a heavy coat of epoxy over the entire unit. Today, I'll
sand the outside smooth again and install the unit into the hull, then fiberglass it in and fiberglass the bottom area outside the
boat as well to cover the ten screws there. After that, it's paint and assemble the entire boat. It will be the same Ice Blue
inside as Falcon's deck, and Largo Blue outside as Falcon's hull. And named 'Kestrel'. A Kestrel is a small falcon.
I have to measure that mast because it is about a mile long. The little boom is right beside it, and the sail is in the blue bag
near the white chair. Everything is here for a complete boat, but the rig is BIG and I'm a little nervous about how this is going
to work. I have to think about installed flotation to keep this thing from sinking when I turn it over.

Okay, I just went out and measured it. The mast is 13' 8". Good grief. Well, we'll see. It will probably be a lot of fun. Or I'll row
it.
January 4, 2009 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

Still the big holiday week going on with crowds of people coming and going to and from the newly opened Seafood Shack.
Lots of traffic in the parking lot means I definitely can not jack up the truck and pull the front springs with my legs sticking out
in the right of way. I did, however, about empty and clean up the inside and bring a bunch of stuff to the boat to sort out and
either use, give away, or chuck into the dumpster.

The thing is, for years I would stow various kinds of equipment and supplies, like sails, rigging, blocks and sheaves,
turnbuckles, cleats and chocks, and on and on like you would not believe. I saved these things because sooner or later a day
would come when I would be at that bridge and would select what, if anything from these various collections, would be used.
When I came to Florida, I had a 15 foot by 15 foot storage garage with a ten foot ceiling, packed to the roof with TONS of
materials, and Falcon was already a powering boat with most of the sails on board. It was a nightmare. Now, I am down to the
Ford van, which is about 6 feet wide by 12 feet long in the storage area, and only about 2.5 feet deep in stuff. Most of the
stuff in the van is: the sails, a pretty good library, charts and chart books, fishing gear, the engine sound deadening material,
a water maker, a cooking stove and a cabin heat stove, all my good bedding and clothes, and a few buckets and boxes of still
useful gear. And golf clubs. Well, you never know.

While it does look like I've come down from 2250 cubic feet of crap to 180 cubic feet of less crappy crap, I DO still have two
dock boxes and some stuff on the boat. Eventually, it will all be either gone or stowed properly.
Some folks around here might be disappointed not to see me sail the little boat right off, but it still needs a few things to be
legal, as well as the flotation and some other essential equipment. Time to stow it on Falcon's cabin roof and move on to
other projects, today.
January 1, 2009 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

Here it is, a new year, and I'm still here. Still, it is a new year and I'll be out'a here just as soon as I can manage it. For sure,
there are those who would leave without as much completed on the boat as I want to have done, but I know where that road
leads and I don't want to go there. I know what can be managed at anchor with limited resources, and what can not. It's like
flying - anyone can jump off a tall building and claim they are flying, but those who are not will soon meet a hard surface at
high speed. You've got to be sure you can fly. My intention is to stop all non-essential boat work and spend full time on the
writing and publishing, and to do that, the boat has to be ready. My version of ready, not someone else's.

Meanwhile, the dinghy is just about ready to be put to bed. I have some ideas about how I want to add flotation, but I may put
that off for a while now and get to the truck, then the fuel tanks. Here are a couple of pictures. The rub rail at the rear corners
will need a bit of touching up, but not so much as to worry about it just now.
In the two shots above, the first one shows the seats installed,
and the 22 feet of new sanitation hose is lying on the dock
beneath it. This hose has a hard plastic coil embedded in a
softer plastic wall. It is extremely durable and extremely
difficult to work with. Espin came up with the idea to use it for
a rub rail on his dinghy, and spent most of the Bush
administrations rein slitting the hose with a small, sharp,
serrated knife. Age is sneaking up on me, so instead, I nailed
the length of hose to dock while stretching it out as much as I
could (new Ken nailed as I stretched), then cut the slit with a
Skill Saw with a plywood blade mounted backwards and only
showing about 3/8 of an inch. It took about ten minutes to cut.

Later, I marked it and cut a small slot for the bow forestay eye,
right in the center of the length, and THAT took Ken and I a
full 20 minutes to get started on the bow. Ken left me alone to
finish it up. Can't blame him. I took Espin's advice and
removed the other devices on the rails, making it MUCH
easier to force the still tubing over the rail. Once I had it on all
the way to the transom, I installed the rail hardware (shroud
eyes and oarlocks) and mounted the mast with the new,
high-tech dinghy line.

That's when I got scared. Look at the size of the mast! Man, if
I EVER saw a boat ready to tip over and toss me in the drink,
it's this one! I have GOT to get enough flotation in this boat to
keep it from flat sinking out of sight the first time I flip it. Once I
get used to it, I'm thinking it should be fine. Maybe even fast. If
I like it enough, I might shorten the stick, add a bowsprit, and
make it a little gaff rig with a jib.
December 31, 2008 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

It's been a rough couple of days for me with a headache, not quite debilitating, but bad enough to get heavily in the way of
making much progress. My headaches are not migraines, but are sinus/allergy type headaches that definitely impair me to a
degree. Still, I've been able to make some progress on the dinghy.
December 28, 2008 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

Next thing you know, I taped off the bottom, scuffed up the fresh paint and applied a coat of bottom paint. As soon as it dried,
(overnight, actually) I made a little temporary cradle and flipped the dinghy over, then started grinding out and prepping the
interior for work. I ground over all the seat cleats and applied another layer of fiberglass to them. Then put a fillet of sawdust
thickened epoxy with colloidal silica to the base of the centerboard trunk and fiberglassed that in as well. There were also two
additional layers of glass laid up over the bow eye gusset.

The next day, I sanded everything off, cleaned out the hull with a good hosing and wiped down, and applied three coats of
Awlgrip Ice Blue. I will try to add a touch more of the paint today, possibly with a bit of non-skid in it to minimize the silly falls in
front of others. Just a thought.
The paint goes on fairly well with a simple roll and tip and I don't waste
money on expensive brushes for this sort of thing any more because
they don't seem to make much of a difference. Of course, if you're
trying to do some showplace finish for some reason, there's no reason
not to use a badger hair or equivalent brush, but at $25 a shot (at
least) and the knowledge that you will NEVER get all the blue paint
out of it, I think it's better to use a $12 item from Home Depot and
chuck it when the job is done.

The reflected light really shows how this boat was made by a drunken
Corvette repairman and every surface has more waves than a bus full
of kids at Disney. Still, it's mostly on the bottom and I'm not convinced
it will affect performance. It just looks homemade. Which it probably is.

Now I have to scuff up the bottom and apply bottom paint over the
blue, and I might even add a little white boot stripe. Then I'll make a
small temporary cradle so I can turn it over and work on the inside
without ruining the bottom work.

Tonights sunset was kind'a pretty and I included a shot of it as well. I
hear the north country is getting blasted with one winter storm after
another, making the Christmas holiday a hazardous driving situation.
Hope all is well with everyone up north.

Merry Christmas all.
Today I sanded down everything again, then wiped the surface down with solvent and applied two coats of Interlux
Brightsides Largo Blue. It's the same color I'm going to do Falcon with next time she comes out of the water.
Yesterday I sanded the entire dinghy outside and applied a coat of thickened epoxy to everything that needed fairing. It
looked pretty good in the sunset, so I took a couple of shots. Then I turned around and took a shot of Falcon, in desperate
need of new paint and a bottom job, but looking low, squat and sweet.
December 24, 2008 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

Today is Christmas Eve, actually, tonight, which is what this is already. It's almost 6 PM and I've had sort of a long day. I
woke up at 2 AM and got up and did some computer stuff until after 4 AM, then got up again at 7 AM and have been up and
at it since. I'll sleep well tonight.
Above is Paul, who's boat I made the cushions for. He is also from Massachusetts, as am I, and he is the Harbor Master of
the Seafood Shack Marina and has been for the past 16 or 17 years. He just moved off his boat and into a home and the
boat is now on the market.

The other shot is tonights sunset, tried at full mechanical zoom while holding the camera steady against a piling at the end of
the dock.

Okay, enough beating around the bush. RJ's boat was sinking and Paul and I got aboard and pumped it out. I called RJ and
he promised to come down in a days or so. Whatever. He did come down and brought a replacement bilge pump and we
talked and he went away again, giving me a $100 bill to get things started on the boat, as far as fixing the bilge pump
problem. Shortly after he left, I thought of the bill in my pocket and thought it would be safer in my wallet, so I took it out of my
pocket and the wind snatched it away and dropped it about 15 feet away - in the water. I ran to Mark and Kim's boat and
jumped aboard, crossing to the outside and leaning WAY over the side, but couldn't reach it. I ran back to the dock and
retrieved an 8 foot 1 x 2 piece of red oak and went back to the bill, floating away. Very carefully, I slipped the stick under the
bill and tried to gently lift it out of the water, but it slipped off and began to sink rather quickly.

I will omit my next statement, but rest assured, in another three seconds I was in the water, snatching the bill and stuffing it
into my jeans.

I will omit my next several statements as I swam under the dock, completely clothed in heavy sweater and shoes and
everything but my (Thank God!) cell phone, diagonally across and beneath both the finger dock and the main dock to the
swim platform of a neighbors 33 foot Trojan Convertible Flybridge Cruiser. I will now omit the last few disjointed oaths I
muttered as I climbed out of the water and onto the dock.

I left a long trail of wet footprints as I went down the dock to where Geoff and Espin were talking. They did have a good time
with it. Geoff said he would have gone in after a $20, never mind a $100, and Espin said did DID have to jump after the
painter to his dinghy once in the Bahamas. It was either that or raise the anchor to 'Ajax', his 31' Southern Cross (a hard job in
a rush) and chase the windblown dinghy down.

I went straight into a shower with everything still on to try to get most of the saltwater out of the clothes. The water is very
cold down here right now - well, about as cold as it gets - but that was surprisingly not bothersome at all. It was the impending
heart attack that bothered me as I swam for my life in all the heavy clothing. Still, it was only a swim of about 50 or 60 feet,
and that's nothing. That night, it felt like I'd pulled every muscle in my body. I slept well, and in the morning felt nothing at all.

Then this morning - things come in two's - I'm heading up to the laundry room with clothes, soap, bleach, magazines, and
coffee, and found a way to cause the hatch to drop onto me forehead. I'm not saying it hit me hard, but I now have a sweet
lump, complete with the weave-print of my hat hammered into the top of it, and yes, there was blood, but very little. It would
have been mildly tragic if it wasn't so funny. I mean, I pushed open the hatch, stuck my head out, the hatch slammed down,
and I disappeared back into the boat. I even forgot to say 'ouch'.
December 22, 2008 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

I got the outside areas of the dinghy fiberglassed, including substantially thickening seven areas of the rail to reinforce A: the
two oarlocks, B: the three mast shroud eyes and, C: the two aft mainsheet traveler ends. I MIGHT be done with those areas,
or I might add just a bit more glass on the top of the rails to be sure. If I do, the fiberglass in those spots will end up being
about 3/8 of an inch thick, way more than enough. Still, it won't be adding any significant weight and will assure there will be
no failure of those critical spots.
Once ALL the fiberglass and upgrading is completed on the entire hull, everything will be ground and sanded smooth, then
primed with Awlgrip 545 and painted with Awlgrip paints. It should look and work well.
December 21, 2008 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

I sanded and smoothed the centerboard trunk and attached it to the hull yesterday. I also had to address the one seat
attachment cleat that was a bit loose. Today, I'll fiberglass the trunk into the floor as well as give a bit more support to all the
inside hardware attachment points. That'll mean sanding everything and fiberglassing bits and pieces everywhere. Once
that's set up, I'll turn the hull over again and fiberglass over the centerboard trunk attachment point, as well as building up
some serious thickness under the oarlock seats and the three shroud attachment points. I think I just set a record for the use
of 'attachment' in a non-government form.
It's 7:30 AM and I have already spent the better part of an hour outside cleaning up the dock. What a mess it becomes while
I'm involved in a big project like this. I've got to get this wrapped up quickly and get to the truck job. Speaking of the truck, I
still can't find the dinghy's tiller handle, which Donny and I am SURE is in the truck somewhere . . . . soommewhheere.
January 2, 2009 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

Today is the 2nd and it still seems like everyone is on vacation. I stowed the dinghy and the big panels on the cabin roof for
now and got to work cleaning up and organizing. There are a dozen projects in motion and I have to get ready to address the
next. Right now, I don't know if that is to do the truck work or organize the tools so I can do the truck work. Either way, it's all
in motion. Below are some pictures for proof.
I've cleaned out the disastrous cockpit once more and found several cans had begun seeping paint and catalyst through the
rotten bottoms, so I had to transfer the contents to new gallon paint cans. These empties now cost almost $5 each at Home
Depot. It's a little shocking, considering you're buying an empty can. I am also in the process of tossing out a bunch of old
paints and thinners. They have to go into the waste oil tank. Falcon REALLY needs a new coat of paint. It's coming up, I
swear. It is already after 4 PM and I have had a long day, starting at about 4 AM. I need to eat and relax for a while.
I can see I'm going to have to read the manual that came with the camera, or some other extreme measure, so I can do a little
better at posting these cobby sunset shots. The sky was spectacular tonight. New Ken and Sandy were catching fish as fast
as they could toss the bait in, and Mark and Kim came back to their Endeavor on the other side of me. All at sunset. A great
evening.
January 6, 2009 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

Well, yesterday I went straight at that big job on the truck. It was a bit of a pain, but went along kind of consistently, grinding it
out until it was done. Okay, almost done. I found out one of the front shocks was broken off at the top, so I had to put the
truck back together without shocks, which I picked up today at Pep Boys, where Angie (of Richard and Angie fame, four boats
down the dock) got me a set of plain vanilla basic shocks. Until I know whether or not I'm going to keep the truck, (leaning
toward selling it as soon as I can do without it) I don't feel the need to put 'the best' of everything into it. Below are some shots
of the front end explosion that is 'trailing arm bushing' surgery. I'm glad that's over with. Now I'm getting a little concerned
about the thermostat and installing the new shocks. Both jobs look a little 'ugh' if you know what I mean. When do I get back
to 'Falcon' work?
I sort of have to admit the job was tough and tiring, but not too awful bad. I started at about 10 AM and was all done at 3:40
PM, so that was worth doing. The shop wanted $1000 to do the job and the parts only cost about $30 - the rest was labor.

Today I spent most of my time helping Espin get AT&T wireless Internet and installing it on his Vista crippled laptop. It's all up
and running.
January 11, 2009 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

Good grief! It's been five days since I've been here. What's happened? Well, I did another round of wrestling with the truck
and got a pair of shocks installed. The shocks I bought FOR THE TRUCK did not fit, so I had to pull the sleeves out of the
bottom shock eyes and bore out the rubber a little, then soap then up to force them on. It worked, and the truck drives fine.
Another careful gander at the thermostat situation and I have decided to let that wait a little longer while I get back to progress
on the boat.

Also, I did spend some time helping Espin with his computer (he got a sort of 'marketing' virus) and it took a bit of time to
straighten it out. AND, I went food (and 'food storage solutions') shopping at Walmart, and I'll be shopping more there from
now on, thank you very much. Great prices. I am SO Walmart - and Home Depot - it's AMAZING I don't have an old Camaro
sitting on blocks somewhere.

I've started the grueling 'crawl under the fuel tanks and support them' job that needs doing. It'll work. I can do it. Hopefully, I'll
be back to this post later today with words of progress and pictures. One friend also told me that I should include more shots
of hot girls. I will seriously work on that. I will.
January 14, 2009 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

No matter how much I dreaded the impending sortie into the fuel tank underworld and the obligatory list of things I forgot and
items that got caught up underneath me as I worked, the actual job stunk, but I only got one cut on my head and it came out
pretty good. The first tank. Still one to go, and then a few special 'anti-sway' restraints to restrict sideways movements in
heavy seas.
The far end of the tank is just an inch or two off the hull, which is sloped
pretty good right there, trying to slide me under the tank. The support
cleats I screwed and glued into the cockpit side are just barely visible at
this end, and reach to the aft end of the support plate. I cut my head on
one of the threaded rods holding the tank up. I also made up and
installed the fiberglass angle bracket just visible on the underside of this
end of the tank. It has 24 screws in it. What a pain. Better safe than
sorry, though. There is no excuse for ruptured fuel tanks - just when
you might need them most. I'm satisfied with this solution. It has been
hard, but it's worth it. The shot below is of a present day resort on the
island of Mactan, in the Philippines, where I served for part of the Viet
Nam War, before I went in country, Viet Nam. It's a nice island.
January 19, 2009 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

The weather here has been cold and blustery for the past few days. I've been continuing the work on the fuel tanks and have
them ready to be refilled with the fuel on the dock. I'll do this at dead low tide to help with the siphoning action. Fortunately, I
have two 50 gallon tanks and two fifty gallon barrels of fuel, so I can get one going and leave it - all it can do is empty - not
overflow. The last thing I'll be doing in the tiny holds is to install the fuel tank breathers. It's kind of another minor pain, but so
close to the finish line that I don't mind. The very last thing will be the running of the electric cables for the fuel level sensors,
and connecting the fuel line to the manifold, filter, and finally, the engine.

Okay, with that done, I'm going to need to get back to work removing excess ballast lead from beneath the engine, way down
deep in the bilge. Also, it just so happens that I found a small bit of rot in a lower corner of the fuel tank hold on the starboard
side. Just enough to make me have to dig it out, fill in the wood, and epoxy over it a few coats - maybe even lay in a bit of
glass - we'll see.

While I'm at the 'chisel out lead' action, I've decided to chisel out a small sump in the forward head area to accommodate the
shower sump pump. It's easy to get to and will make the shower sump work better, in my mind - easier to clean and less likely
to become odorous. Also, I can put in a much bigger pump, capable of helping save the boat if need be.

Well, that's all for now. At last I'm making headway and getting closer to moving out of here, Espin and Geoff took off
yesterday for parts south for a week or two of random cruising. That time is coming for me. I swear it is.
January 20, 2009 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

We had a wild front stampede through last night at midnight. Wind gusts up to 60 knots and coold cooooold air behind it. This
morning, I got a call from Paul, who said he'd gotten a call from a customer who reported the long 'G' Dock was breaking up.
This was a concern for her because her boat was tenuously tied to it. Paul asked me to see what, if anything, I could do. I
took a look at it, returned to Falcon and retrieved some spare lines, then lashed two sets of piling to each other, and then
lashed in a stretcher between those lashings. All better - for now. I'll repair the dock when these two blustery cold fronts
retreat back north. A tie bar the supports the main dock between the two end pilings broke and allowed one end of the dock
to sag a bit. You can see the broken end of the tie bar trying to float northward. No big deal. Guaranteed to be all fixed up
soon. When it's warmer. I have to get a float over there and get under the dock.
January 21, 2009 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

Another cold night last night. The Great Florida Ice Shelf is extending farther out into the Gulf and we expect Polar Bears at
any time. We already have Penguins, but only when they play the Tamps Bay Lightning. I am not much of a 'work out in the
cold wind' kind'a guy, if I don't HAVE to be. I did a lifetime's worth of that while living in Boston for fifty years, and that'll be my
full quota. My hands hurt when they get real cold now and my first job outside is getting the 100 gallons of diesel fuel back
into the boat. I REALLY want to be in a day warmer than the thirties. I mean, here in Florida, we come to expect days a little
warmer than this.

In an email from a reader, I was asked about Falcon's size, and it got me thinking that I might eliminate one or more of the
other sections and instead, insert a Falcon's Specs page of some sort. This site is still a work in progress and I no longer
worry about breaking it up and shifting it around. At least, not yet. Once I start selling the books, I may feel differently.
January 22, 2009 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

The great freeze is still sitting firmly over us and there is some concern that many Floridians will be moving south to Cuba and
renaming it 'New South Florida', thereby completely fooling Washington into believing we are not in violation of some absurd
'Cuba is the enemy of the world' policy. At least, we might try it if it doesn't warm up soon. Wouldn't it be awesome if Cuba
was opened up to Americans (it already is to the rest of the world) and we could go cruising there? Jimmy Buffet might write a
new song or something.

It's pretty cool here in the boat, and I don't mean in that, 'It is so cool to live on a boat!' way. I mean in that, 'I can see my
breath.' way. I have plenty of warm clothes and bedding and sleeping is actually damn good. I'm quite warm in bed. But, it
would be so nice to be able to get out of the boat and get some work done. I go out a few times a day and walk around and
talk to others, but it doesn't take long to throw in the towel and come in out of the wind and the cold. Can't really complain
though, because we've had such good weather for most of the winter, and I was talking to my son in New Hampshire
yesterday, where their temperatures have been hitting the minus 15 degree mark. Thank you, no. I can just see my nose
snapping right off.

In an amazing event brought about by the Internet, I received a long email from a reader who actually bought an identical hull
to Falcon from the same guy in Rhode Island, at about the same time, for the same price! And guess what?! His was screwed
up, too! That Hale Pauley! What a guy!

Anyway, he also built a boat, but he followed the original designers ideas much more closely than I, and I wrote back and am
hoping to hear more and perhaps even see pictures!

My goodness. Who'd'a thunk? A gathering of Old Hans Otto Horne's hulls.

Anyway, it got me back to work on editing the "Building Falcon" section and I have just completed going over the first two
pages, adding 'year tags' as I go. Some people have mentioned that they'd like to know what years I was working on each
area. So, I've come up with a sort of semi-accurate procedure and have started putting them in as well. The thing is, I sort of
'grouped' certain tasks and that makes some of the dating inaccurate, but it should be close enough to give some idea of the
time line.
January 25, 2009 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

Yesterday I began the first of three jobs for the Marina - repairing the end of 'G' Dock, the one I shot pics of after it tried to
jump in and swim away. This began by dragging the overweight 8 foot by 8 foot floating dock tender (a raft) over 12 to 15 feet
of sand and seaweed to get it into the water. New Ken helped me get it most of the way there, then I got a 2 by 4 to use as a
lever and pried one corner at a time until I got the thing floating. I used my one canoe paddle to paddle the float all the way
across the marina, under the main dock and G dock, and out to the damaged end of the dock. Then came a solid hour of
gathering materials to the work site, including the two 10 foot 8 by 10's I picked up for the job the day before. Like I've done
many times before, I used chains around the pilings and Kevlar line one the dock, connected with two come-alongs to raise
the dock back into its proper location. Then I get on the raft and replace the broken beam. Today, all that's left is to include
one more beam - where there wasn't one - on the outside of the end pilings.

In what is becoming a bit more constant, I just barely avoided a dunking when the raft ran away from me under the dock. As it
was, I escaped with only one foot wet to the ankle, so no big deal.

The other two jobs I have to do after this one is, a cross member beneath the last little finger pier, and the repair of the
dumpster lot wall. Both are easier than the big dock repair. My compensation for this is taken off the rent I pay, so all things
will be completed before January rolls into February. In fact, nothing else happens until this work is done.

Of course, after this, Donny and Barb want my help in finishing 'Dulcinea's' outfitting so they can move aboard and begin
cruising. Yeah, I know. Helping others get going while I wait, left behind. My time is coming. Meanwhile, we had a great
sunset last night.
I've also included a picture of Don and
Barb's new cabin sole. It is 1/4 inch
teak/holly laminate plywood, coated with
several coats of hard floor Polyurethane. To
tell the truth, I hadn't thought of using Home
Depot (Minwax) Poly, but the guy who
installed the floor recommended it, and it
looks good, so we'll see how it holds up.
Honestly, I don't see why it wouldn't work
great.

It makes a huge difference in the
appearance of the cabin. I like it, and may
consider a like treatment for Falcon come
by and by.

You just don't get to say 'come by and by'
often enough any more. I'd put something
else here yesterday, but this morning it
looked like it was less than as polite as I like
to be. Maybe even a bit juvenile. Fun, but
juvenile.
January 25, 2009 - Seafood Shack Marina - Cortez, Florida

I got both docks finished yesterday. I should work hard more often for longer periods. I always start out suffering a bit, though
not much, and finish feeling healthier and more active. It's actually one of the things I look forward to in heading off to cruise.
The constant motion of the boat and the work involved in sail handling are bound to keep me in better shape. Not that I'm in
bad shape, so to speak, but I'm certainly not as healthy as I'd like to be.

Today promises to be a warm and sunny day and I'm going to get the Great Wall Of Dumpster (I'll take pictures) fixed and be
done (once again) with marina work. I also hope to get the diesel fuel transferred into my tanks and get the empty drums off
the dock. And on to other boat work! Yes! Well, yes. In not so excited a way. I have to get the extra lead out of Falcon and
that's not cinch job by any means. Still, it means moving forward and I'm all for that.
There it is. The Great Wall Of Dumpster. And inside, below the ingenious and artistic corner gusset, you can just see some of
the hydraulic compressing dumpster that this elegant enclosure is intended to conceal from the innocent eyes of delicate
passers-by. The stampeding front on Saturday night produced a waterspout (according to Frank - 1-800-Axe Frank), though
no one else saw it, and he said it flattened the wall, which was indeed, flattened. The owner, however, is looking to move this
property without additional substantial investment. So I gathered the pieces and a couple of new 2 by 4's, stainless
anchorfast ringnails and square drive stainless deck screws, jacks and timbers and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and
slammed the mess back into a wall in 2 1/2 hours. I did just notice - in the pictures - that there is one seam that needs a few
more fasteners, so I'll pop them in later. Anyway, all done the outside work and back to Falcon.