We were away from Gray Hawk for close to 6 months so she was overdue to be dived when I got back. I could have phoned Terry & had him come while we were away and if it had gone any longer I certainly would have. I figured we could go a maximum of 6 months and it turned out I was right.
During our haulout in April that little bit of zinc on the left started out life looking like his big brother on the right. He was pretty well expired by today but that just means he was doing his job. As I have explained here previously, zinc on a boat is intended to be sacrificial – that’s why they call them sacrificial zincs. These little guys fit over the nut on our bow thruster and they are the first zinc on the boat to disappear. We also have big plate zincs on the turn of the port bilge, roughly amidships, plate zincs on the transom and zinc “doughnuts” on each shaft. I have slowed the rate of disappearance on the thruster zinc by a variety of measures – better grounding on the bow thruster in particular – but that zinc is still the first to disappear. And we didn’t have much time left on this one.
As soon as I got back I talked to Terry the Diver and he said he’d be around early this week. It was a gray BC coastal day today and evidently that was depressing traffic in his dive shop at about the same rate it was depressing everybody else in the marina. So about 3:00 this afternoon Terry phoned to see if he could come right away and of course I was game. I had to root around in the engine room to find my allen wrenches but in the course of looking for them I found a part that I had given up looking for a few days ago so I count that time well spent. It amazes me that Terry can manipulate the wrenches and zincs underwater wearing his heavy rubber gloves and never drop anything but he hasn’t lost anything yet.
Things onboard are starting to settle into a routine. Its been raining pretty well non-stop but occasionally it drops back to a gentle drizzle which is such a pleasant contrast that it feels dry enough to be outside. So I’ve been doing the inside projects during the heavy rain and the outside projects when its less wet.
Marilyn is coming for the Remembrance Day weekend so that’s my deadline to have everything ready for travel. We’ll likely spend the weekend in the Victoria inner harbour. I had hoped to have the boat ready for a shakedown cruise on Friday in which case I would have taken it to the Yacht Club dock and spent a couple of nights there. But I’m not going to be ready that soon and I’m not interested in being rushed. I’ve got some u-bolts on order in Victoria that are currently the biggest holdup. The supplier phoned today to say that they might be in tomorrow. I think what he really said was that he had forgotten all about ordering them until I phoned to inquire about them this morning but perhaps I’m too cynical. Perhaps not too.
And speaking of cynical, how about that damn hurrycane?? I think it sealed Romney’s fate. However slim his chance was, 3 days ago he still had a prayer of a chance but now its all over but the crying. Obama gets to parade around looking Presidential and Romney can’t point out that the emperor has no clothes without looking like a whiner. There’s still a slim chance that FEMA will screw up like they did in New Orleans but I’m afraid by the time everyone realizes that they have screwed up the election will be long over.
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