Late yesterday afternoon, I put on my wetsuit and went down to clean the prop and prop shaft. The prop had a few barnacles, so it was good to remove them. I use a handle with suction cups that I attach to the hull to have something to grab onto so the current does not sweep me away and also to have some leverage to convince the barnacles to leave. I got it all done, dried off and put everything away. Then about 10 pm, I realized that I had left the handle attached to the bottom of the boat. This morning, I woke up by putting on my wet wetsuit in 50 deg weather and jumping into the 60 deg water. I retrieved the handle–works better than coffee to wake up.
We took off on the ICW toward Savannah and beyond. It was a good run; the current was with us most of the time and we easily made the 48 nm to the Vernon River and anchored at Possum Point. Along the way, we crossed over the big shipping channel into Savannah. Michelle daringly raced across and missed a big container ship coming up the channel. Further on, we were approaching the Thunderbolt Bridge in Savannah and were stopped by the police for speeding. This is sort of like riding a bicycle on an interstate highway and getting stopped for speeding. We just can’t travel that fast, but, having been repowered, we go faster than we ever could before. So I guess the repower made a big difference. Anyway, we didn’t get a ticket. The officer was also confused because we didn’t have registration numbers. Since we are Coast Guard documented, we don’t have state registration numbers and we had to explain that to him. At least we are not in jail.
