Thursday – 8 FEB 2018 -- cleaned propeller, and bottom of AB
Woke this AM, thinking that I’d better get under the Autumn Borne today… because there’s a potential window for crossing coming up…. And this thing has got to MOVE (as IN THROUGH the water)!!!
We’ve seen boats sit for half the time we’ve been here in VERO… and not be able to move away from the mooring, because their propellers didn’t look or work like propellers any longer…. They looked more like rotating basket balls on a shaft… not much thrust to rotating basketball…
Anyway… I got out the full BC (buoyancy Compensator), Scuba tank, wet suit.. the whole enchilada.. Got it all on, and went over the side… and under the AB….
Surprise… the visibility was all of about 6 inches… literally to see the Propeller I was turning it 3 inches in front of my face mask…EVEN then most of the cleaning was done by FEEL…. Same with most of the bottom of the AB…
I could see the basic shape of the HULL, silhouetted against the light of the sun from above… but that’s IT. So I swam from one end to the other feeling with gloved hands, and scraping the few barnacles that were there… with my wooden paddle (wooden paddle doesn’t scrape off the bottom paint).
Same with the rudder and keel bottom… Although when I got down to the bottom of the keel.. .I was literally standing on the bottom of the waterway here. Not very deep where we are located.
SO…. Anyway… the propeller is now clean and ready to go… the bottom is decent and ready… and the shaft ZINC.. is still there, but in sad shape… BUT it’ll wait until we’re in the clear water of the islands, before it gets changed out.  Good Plan, eh?
In the afternoon, susan and I went shopping… for books, and scuba gear (small stuff)… for me mostly carabiners that clip onto my BC, and hold tools, etc. that you need for cleaning the bottom, and changing zincs… etc. The really nice one I had is now at the bottom of our HOP-O-NOSE slip… OOOPS!!! Along with set of Allen wrenches (attached).
SO… The late afternoon (4 PM to 6 PM) was spent at the local happy hour – cruisers meeting at the north tiki hut… some 60+ cruisers meet, and share food, and conversations…. NICE TIME!!!
OK…. Time to relax… it’s 2020 hours…. And I know after all that swimming, and scraping, when I go “horizontal”…I’ll be “out like a light”.