Hi folks, sorry it's been a couple of days, but things are moving a bit slower for Bud and Fuzzy so this blog will be a bit more intermittent until I can return and the journey resume. Meanwhile, some things have been happening.

Bud has had time to sit down and be coached on getting pictures off the camera card, onto the computer and onto an email, so if you care to check back over the posts since I left, you'll see many now do have pictures. I added the rest of the pictures to the gallery.

Bud and Rick were able to get into the Charleston City Marina, and get a reasonable monthly rate, so he signed up for 4 weeks. Hopefully, we'll be heading to Florida before the 4 weeks is up, but that was still the cheaper way to go.

Rick Samson did catch his plane, and now, no doubt to his great relief, is back home and back at work and no longer a poorly paid deck hand.

Bud contacted the on-site mechanics of the boatyard in the area that is the place to go for good and fair (though of course not cheap) boat work. They came aboard and checked out the engine. The problem is not the engine, it's the Max-Prop. A Max-Prop is a propeller whose blades will feather to reduce drag under sail. When we bought the boat, the surveyor said it needed to be checked. Before we launched this spring, Bud tried to take it apart to service it, but didn't see how to even grease it. All he saw were a bunch of set screws that didn't seem to do anything. This fall, just before we left, I saw one of our fellow TYCers greasing his Max-Prop. There are special fittings that you put in the holes where those set screws come out, and special grease that can then be pumped through those fittings. We think that has not been done to this boat for a long time. So now the prop needs attention, how much, we're not sure.

Once the boat is in the water, there are two ways to work on the prop. An underwater mechanic can dive down and remove your prop for you, or you can have the boat hauled (pulled out of the water). The first alternative is by far the cheapest. However, (and this seems to be a theme with us and this boat) you can't do that with a Max-Prop. There are too many parts that will fall off as you try to remove it. So if you have a Max-Prop you have to have the boat hauled. Once it's out of the water, they put a table under the prop before they even try to take it off. There's a chance (and given our track record, I've got to think it's a very remote chance) that the prop just needs servicing. More likely, it needs to be rebuilt. And being a Max-Prop only one company does that. That company is, of course, in Washington, about as far away in the continental US as you can get from Charleston.

So, on Monday, Bud has an appointment to move the boat 13 miles upstream to the Charleston Boatyard and have it pulled. Then if needed, the prop will be taken off, cleaned up and shipped to Washington. Bud can expect to wait two weeks for its return. Meanwhile, he'll be living on the boat in a cradle at a boatyard in the middle of nowhere (going in and out via ladder and all the other inconveniences that involves) while still paying for a slip in a perfectly nice marina off downtown Charleston. But, at least it's not the engine!

Bud also met a lady on a boat next to Earendil who is a dog groomer. After Bud had balded Fuzzy in two places trying to trim the hair on his feet, he was able to spend about three hours with her while she showed him what is needed (it's on order) and how to groom Fuzzy properly. This is not a skill I expected Bud to ever acquire. The photo is Fuzzy post grooming. The hair is still pretty long and it makes it obvious how he got his nickname.