Meanwhile back in the real world

Tuesday, Moonshadow's expected 1/2 hour haulout to remove the propeller for rebuilding turned into almost 4 hours as one after another episode was punctuated with comments like "in all my years this is a first".  

Saving all the afternoon's gory details for cocktails in a beautiful cove sometime in the future, suffice to say that in the end Moonshadow was back in the water, crippled without her propeller, getting pushed and pulled to her berth alongside the long concrete pier (where she will be for the next two weeks while we wait for the prop's return from Seattle).  

Moonshadow's 22" Max Prop weighs 45 lbs.  The blades rotate one way when in forward and the other way in reverse, making for efficient propulsion either direction. When sailing, the blades feather into the slipstream for minimal drag.

After finally getting all the docklines tied and fenders secured horizontally to protect Moonshadow from the nasty wooden pilings, John settled down on the pier with a box of propeller parts, a bucket of diesel fuel and some wire brushes to clean and reassemble the prop for shipment to Seattle, and Deb delivered a welcome rum drink.  In a perfect end to a rather trying afternoon, suddenly torrents of water began cascading down onto John and Moonshadow from high above where workers commenced hosing down an eighty foot motoryacht, sitting in her blocks up on the pier.  With a little help from John the workers (also suddenly) came to realize this was a bad time for water works and left!

Wednesday was a much better day.  For one thing, we were able to observe Moonshadow's inagural harvest of the first batch of ice cubes from her new icemaker.  For anyone who's spent any time aboard Legacy, you know we never run out of ice cubes, and now aboard Moonshadow, that tradition will live on! High Fives all around!

When we arrived in Florida with all of John's tools, we discovered that Moonshadow had a complete set of tools already aboard so we were faced with a dilemma.   Voila, another new addition: two craftsman tool boxes that will adorne the best sailboat engine room ever, and accommodate the very best collection of tools afloat.

Here's a Post Script to the earlier post (April 21) about the chap that hailed Moonshadow saying he'd sailed with her "half way around the world":  Turns out this very nice gentleman is named Will La Fleur and sailed on his own boat "Como No" all the way around the world, completing his circumnavigation in Texas not long ago.  He met George and Merima aboard Moonshadow somewhere down under and the two boats and crews saw each other various ports all the way to the Med.  Will is now land locked as he sold Como No, but helps friends  prepare for cruising, does deliveries and is a licensed Captain.  Deb and I are certain Will La Fleur will not be the last person to recognize Moonshadow and come asking about George, as we look forward to seeing Moonshadow's past acquaintances in ports around the world.