I had Monday off…..didn’t even realize it.

And yes, unfortunately I am still a card carrying member of the petit bourgeois, not being quite a gentleman of leisure, just yet. I have however, been thoroughly negated at my phony-baloney administrators position, relegated to menial, mostly meaningless tasks (hey, but that might actually be the purpose of phony-baloney administration to begin with….hmmmmmm, food for thought). All of this and more for opening my mouth and making observation of things that cannot be changed by mere mortal. Things like graft, corruption and mismanagement of public resource. Ahhh, but this entry has nothing to do with that…

No, it has to do with having Monday off, which was a true phony-baloney holiday, Cesar Chavez day. Now just whointhehell was Cesar Chavez one might query? Well, Cesar Chavez is the (now deceased) reason behind why grapes cost like $10 a pound in the US. He unionized farm workers to hold the big, nasty US farms hostage, thus ensuring higher prices, eventually forcing the majority of US-American agriculture South, across the border, leading to things like NAFTA.

Enough of this uber-conservative rant for now though….I shouldn’t give a you-know-what who they canonize, as long as it results in a little boat time for you-know-who.

So anyway, I showed up at my phony-baloney administrators workplace, and nobody was there. I thought (hoped) for just a millisecond that perhaps some sort of space / time continuum thing had occurred, and everyone on the planet (except myself) had been transported into an alternative universe, and I was left alone to enjoy the day.

But no such luck.

JR at the park gate told me it was a county holiday (he couldn’t remember which one though), and after verifying this fact with Shorty, who was ostensibly sweeping a parking lot over by the first pavilion, but was really using his broom as a prop for his head,  leaning on it, contemplating the endless surf rolling in here at latitude 26. I immediately headed over to Olivia determined not to waste a single second of this windfall.

First I cleaned the raw water strainer, which was getting pretty stuffed with Thallasia (turtle grass), running ‘Divs iron heart for awhile after that.

And one chore leads to another.

I’ve noticed a bit of smoke lately, and being the ever retentive owner that I am, I finally changed out the big dual fuel filters for the first time since I’ve owned her. It was about time too. The fuel inside looked like honey, and chunks of rust lay at the bottom of the filter housing (no, I don’t have Racors, I have BIG industrial filters, designed for ships of like, 100’+). Island Time Jim, was returning from a trip to the local grocery store and poked his head in the companionway, asking me if I was working or just screwing off. I wasn’t sure I understood. Of course I was screwing off, after all it was a holiday - Cesar Chavez Day. But I was working too, doing vital and necessary – long overdue chores to Olivia.

I told him I would stop down later on maybe really take a little while off… Visit him and ol’ Ron Zacapa.

But first I needed to check the heat exchanger zinc, battery bank fluids, swab down the bilge (yes, it’s clean enough to eat out of), add a little block to the main sail outhaul, repair the forward hatch hinge, install the new DSC VHF radio (one of the plunder items from the good ol’ San Jue-ahn), sailkote the wheel and sail track,  and drag some small stuff up the stick for rigging up new Lazy Jacks and a guy for the whisker pole.

Anyone who thinks that having a boat is all about fun and relaxation, obviously doesn’t own one.

Around 1600 D showed up with the twins. She mentioned that she was going to go walking in the evening, leaving the topic open for me to volunteer accompaniment. I just rolled my eyes, stating that the hardest work that I felt up to at that point was maybe a couple reps of twelve ounce curls.

I had hoped to be able to dive the hull (something I’ve been putting off until the water warms up), but by 1800, it was just too late, and besides, by that time the twins were heavily absorbed in fishing, and so I reposed in the cockpit on a beanbag, propped up against the house, watching the late afternoon sun fade away.

I never did make it to Jim and Janices, before finally heading back to LV around 2100.

My former assistant at the University Lab has taken over with the San Juan 23 that Island Time Jim and I moved over behind Don’s house recently. He seems pretty enthusiastic with her, and so I will try and help him out as much as possible. Right now, he doesn’t know the difference between a halyard and a headstay. Kind of reminds me of me at one point.

Mark finally vacated the marina. The Old Salts(farts) club helped him get the battery on his new(old) motor home charged up, and pointed him in the right direction – down the street. He promptly drove off into the sunset, west, right down Tarpon Street, hooked a left on Highway 100 and moved into the Travelers RV Park, overlooking the harbor, and you guessed it, Anchor….errrr I mean Pelicans Point Marina.