This was Tom trying on his new "dude" hat.  He looks good in it and saves it for special occasions. Today he found a little "pork pie" hat in a thrift shop (we were looking for old clothes we could use as work clothes) that he's already wearing more as his everyday hat.  He looks good in it too. I (Tom) have found a great new drink for the evening cocktail hour, Jose Cuervo Gold and a little salt and lime. Only a couple of fingers per evening as I don't want to become a lush!!!

Yesterday evening was much milder, gentler than the most of the evenings we've had.

 

 

I took pictures of this bird(s) because we see them all over Florida.  I remember seeing them at Ft. Walton Beach.  They are green herons.  The lovely thing is that they are also in Arkansas.  After I saw them down here one time, I was able to identify them and appreciate them when I saw them at Lake Wedington, out west of Fayetteville.  They sit around and watch for fish and make noises like they are longing to see a fish.

 

                                    

 

 

Yikes!   I thought I added one picture and look what came upl   All the ones I meant to add with captions.   But I see they tell a story as they are. We spent the morning shopping:

degreaser for the boat's diesel motor, work clothes for us at a thrift store, cheese and wine from particular stores for each and the obligatory groceries. We always get the same stuff:  five kinds of fresh fruit that we have every day chopped up together, greens for stir fry, Nappa cabbage we use for an  oriental salad, you know the drill. Carry them home in plastic shopping bags.  Learned about a great cold foods carry box you can get at Publix in which you can bring home frozen and cold stuff - really important for the refrigerator/freezer here 'cause it really doesn't freeze from scratch  - likes to start with cold food.

Tom came home (we each caught different buses back) early to initiate a conference call for business that he does once a week. I came later with groceries. 

Today our folding bicycles arrived and we put them together.  You can see the process.   We rode them around town a little then stored them on the bike rack here.

Also, the dinghy motor came back infinitely improved. We've been keeping a fellow boater's dinghy here while they visited home so we are a two-dinghy boat just now.

THEN, (more?) we came back to the boat, Tom sprayed the motor down with degreaser, Nancy scrubbed the engine with little brushes and Tom rinsed it off. Then we ran the engine a while to see how it did with transmission fluid.  We still see some leakage so tomorrow we'll be having Pete (a local specialist ) visit to help us decide what to do next - run with putting in transmission fluid occasionally or replacing seals.

Nancy actually helped with the degreasing of the engine. I sure hope she didn't break a fingernail!!! I also hope that's not my toothbrush she's using!

While running the engine, Tom put a line in and look what he caught!  He's caught a few salt-water catfish since we've been here.  We throw them back  - should we try to eat them?  We have to look that up.

Did you see that picture of the bold sunset tonight?

Tom has just made us a great dinner of orange roughy, butter beans and cauliflower.  I MUST go and have some.

I (Tom) took over the blog after dinner, while Nancy does the woman's work of washing dishes. I must say, the Orange Roughy  turned out to be pretty good, along with the baby butter beans and sautéed cauliflower.

She's now out on the stern of the boat taking a shower, yelling because the waters cold and she can't get it turned off. Should I go check or just let her suffer??? Better go check so I don't have hell to pay later.

I  have some really great pictures of Nancy in the shower at the stern, but she absolutely refuses to let me post them on the blog.

Well, enough for tonight as tomorrow morning we start all over again doing little things to get
ready to continue northward.