Today was a day of projects.

I climbed down the ladder this morning and started working on our Max Prop. For those of you that have never heard of a Max Prop, let me tell you about it. It's one of the marvels of engineering that can inhabit your boat if you have a spare $6,000 to spend. It's a propeller that will rotate it's fins on a central hub. If you put it in forward, the fins swivel into that position. In reverse, the fins rotate in the opposite fashion and will drive your boat in reverse. Google it for a better idea of how it works. Zephyrs previous owner was kind enough to buy one and have it installed. Today was the day to clean it up, pump it full of grease and put on a new Zinc on the back end.

To do the lubing, you unscrew two little plugs in the center of it and put in regular grease nipples. Pump in a bunch of grease as you rotate the prop and voila, you're done. Really tough huh? Cleaning the bronze was much harder. I went at it with a brass brush on the end of an electric drill. It took off the leftovers of all the barnacles and shells that had though to make the Max Prop a new home. Attached to the rear end of the prop is a zinc that slowly biogrades it self into nothingness keeping the inner metals on Zephyr safe from electrolysis. While I was at that end of the boat, I took off and replace another chunk of zinc that's screwed to the rudder. In all, I have 7 chunks of zinc on Zephyrs stern. Probably too much but that's the way she came and that's the way she will be. Tomorrow, I'll be applying a thick coat of Lanocote, a lanolin based grease that's water proof and something that most ocean critters can't lock on to. It should keep our prop nice and clean, at least for a while. As I worked on the prop, lots of locals as well as the yard manager came by to look at it and see how it works. With these things costing so much, you don't find a lot of them out here.

During the after noon, we pulled out our anchor and chain and dropped it to the pavement under Zephyr. With the weather the way it is, it will give it a good washing. It helps getting all the salt water off it, plus the mud that we have picked up from assorted anchorages we have been in.

Into the cockpit to see why the throttle won't stay in place. When we push it forward to go faster, it's supposed to stay in that position. It doesn't . Keeps wanting to go to a slower position. Looks like a nut on the cable was in the wrong position so I tightened it up and now it appears to be fixed. Guess we will find out when we are back in the water.

On to the pencil zinc that's screwed into the engine. It protects parts of the engine from even more electrolysis. It has been far to long since I checked it and it needed replacing so I did just that.

Onto the batteries. Off came the cushion covers and into the battery boxes I went. Off came the caps and in went the distilled water. These new Trojans are wonderful. Lots of amps and little maintenance. They took very little water at all. Covers to the boxes installed, and the cushions replaced and another job was done.

Poor Tracy spent her day, or at least a great part of it with her head upside down in the freezer defrosting it. A nasty job. Everything has to come out and then the ice gets broken off(not even good for drinks darnit). We'd lost a couple of pieces of meat that had been to far from the freezing unit and had gotten defrosted. That's bad as beef out here is scarce. Her having a bad head cold didn't make her day any better. I did get her to help lowering the chain but she needs a bunch of rest to get over this thing. It's been well over a week since she started it. It started shortly after shaking the hand of one of the fishermen at the village where we went cave hunting. It's the only place she has interacted with people before we came here and she was already under the weather by that time. It's one of the drawbacks of cruising. You stay nice and healthy when out cruising or at anchor at one of the islands we visit but get back to civilization and boom, it can hit you with the simplest contact.

As to my health, I'm still a zipper head with all the stitches in my scalp. They are set to come out next week. Working around the boat with the bottom paint being stripped off, I still wear my wrap around my head keeping the wound nice and clean. Now my hair looks a freight but there's not much choice in the matter. Out here, the simplest infection can kill you. It will be a while before I get back in the water to do any swimming or diving. No reason to encourage little buggies entering my body and doing me harm. One of our friends got a small cut on his leg just before he left Tonga for New Zealand and he almost lost his leg as well as his life. We've learned to not screw around with these things.

Tomorrow, on the more jobs. If it's calm enough, it's up the mast I go again.

Azizah is getting pulled out tomorrow. Yeah!! It will be nice to have them in the yard with us.