We are packing the boat and almost ready to leave for the Bahamas. I thought I had posted here a few weeks ago to say that we are returning to the Bahamas but I see that the post isn’t here. Hmmmm...
When we returned from the Bahamas last Spring I wasn’t at all sure we would ever return to the Bahamas by boat. After George’s sudden onset of a small bowel obstruction in February, and subsequent surgery, I was afraid to travel to the remote islands that we love. With the passage of time my fear has subsided so we are planning to head to the Bahamas again while we are both still healthy enough to go.
We spent the summer working on projects, sailing and visiting with friends and family. My biggest project was making a new bimini. I will write about that in another post. We were both doing well with our preparations and on track to leave home around the first of November. One of the items on the list was to take the boat down to the marina for a “short haul” and have the bottom and propeller pressure washed. We did that last week. While the boat was being lifted out of the water one we heard a loud noise and saw the arms that hold the straps shake back and forth. After Breeze On was fully out of the water we couldn’t see any obvious damage so they proceeded to clean the bottom and put her back in the water. After exiting the lift area I throttled up to head home. As soon as I throttled up George and I could both feel the boat shaking in a way it never had before. We returned to the marina, had the boat pulled out again and learned that the propeller shaft had been bent. One of the straps had apparently caught on the propeller as the boat was being lifted. To make a long story short, the marina replaced the shaft and bearings and took the propeller to a specialist who checked the pitch of all of the blades. In addition, a surveyor assigned by our insurance company inspected the saildrive and engine and said everything he could see looked good. He had consulted with an expert who said he didn’t believe anything internal would have been damaged as long as the engine wasn’t running at the time the incident happened. So, we are back on track again and planning to leave either tomorrow or the next day (November 3 or 4). We will take our time going down the bay and run the engine a bit more than necessary just to make sure that everything it ok.
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