Hauled, Scraped, and Blasted:
Still wonderful temperatures in the high seventies since we got here. What a difference from last year.
Well, we finally got Cool Change hauled (taken out of the water for you landlubbers) to change the propellers. Poor performance had indicated that we most likely had heavy marine growth on the props, shafts and hull. We did not anticipate this when we left Brunswick.
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| Cool Change on the travellift |
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| Yuck1 |
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| Oysters, barnacles, sea cumbers and grass growing on the trim tabs |
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| No wonder the props did not perform |
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| No wonder the performance suffered |
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| Scrape away men |
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| After scraping, the props were traded out for our spares |
The running gear was as bad as we had suspected. However the hull was not bad at all. We had hired a diver to clean the hull about 2 months ago. He evidently did a good job except that he only cleaned the hull and ignored the rudders, propellers, shafts, struts and trim tabs. Now we know what to ask for in the future when we hire a diver to do a job like this! The heavy growth cost us a lot of extra fuel burned in the 220 miles from Brunswick (note: only 180 highway miles).
$329 later, here is the result.
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| Pressure washing the algae scum from the hull |
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| Shiny spare props installed |
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| Heading back to the river |
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| Please don't drop me!! |
In less than two hours we were again floating and motoring back to our slip, D14. We really are getting pretty good at placing the boat where we want it to go...most of the time. To park in our slip we had to back the 40 foot boat between two other boats with about two feet of room on one side and three feet on the other with about a 10 mph breeze pushing us sideways. Of course our great bow thruster had exhausted its battery again. Talk about puckering. Via headsets Colleen instructs me as to where different parts of the boat are positioned relative to pilings and other boats and also directs which way to move the boat. Keep in mind that the captain cannot see the stern from the flybridge and depends on this input. Got very lucky again! I must give credit where due. My friend, Roger, has drilled me to steer the boat with just the two shifters by moving them between forward and reverse to swing the bow and to walk the stern in the desired direction. And...Roger says "don't touch the steering wheel". Thank you Roger. It really works.
Fuel gauges:
Today I replaced the second of the four bad fuel sending units. The task was to be 30 minutes of work and 30 minutes of prep and moving furniture to get the floor panels up to reveal the work site - the top of the port forward fuel tank. Well 3 1/2 hours later the job was completed. The five little screws holding the fuel level sending unit defeated me for well over two hours. I won't go into how I re-engineered the installation. Only two more to replace and here is where they will go.
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| Do you see the gauges within this 8 inch tall access? |
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| The two gauge units are the golden colored discs behind the two black hoses wrapped with the green ground cables. |
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| Harbortown Marina & Restaurant building |
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| Look at me Baby....am I pretty or what? |
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| Let's party |
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| Look..I can jump four feet high |
While visiting at the home of Al & Marla, two four foot tall sandhill cranes swooped in whooping and calling loudly. These large birds have become a regular occurence in these parts. I was raised in Florida and had never seen a sandhill crane in my 50 years living here. We also have seen wild flamingos and bald eagles. In those same years I had never seen a flamingo except in a zoo and had seen few bald eagles. Maybe in the resurgence of these large birds we are finally seeing the results of banning DDT 30+ years ago. What a sight theses cranes were as we approached within 40 feet of them.
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