AWEIGH on the “hard”

Quick Note: We've had terrible problems getting Internet connections in small towns and remote anchorage locations. So, it's been almost a week since we were able to post. Sorry.
That’s a boaters description of taking a boat out of the water for storage or repairs. At noon on Tuesday, (October 2nd), we brought the boat to the boat yard and she was hauled out for inspection of the propellers. Interestingly, there was a large mass of 3/8” line wrapped around one shaft and the other prop was knocked slightly out of alignment. It’s critical that all three blades of a propeller be in perfect alignment. If one blade is out only a quarter of an inch, that will cause vibration, which can result in even worse problems. Fortunately, we carried a spare set of props that had been aligned, so they were installed. It still is a rather difficult job to break seventy pound propellers off their shafts, but the yard crew did a great job. After power washing the bottom of the boat and cleaning off the growth that starts on all boats, even in fresh water, they launched the boat and we returned to our transient slip. The attached picture shows the yard area where AWEIGH had the work done. Unfortunately, I left my camera on board and there was no way to get it off, so the picture does not show our boat “on the hard”. Later that afternoon, a man arrived to start working on our master stateroom head (toilet) which had failed shortly after we left Alton. Despite all my efforts, I could not solve the problem of the system’s failure to generate a vacuum. The vacuum pump is located under and behind an area that can only be accessed by crawling through a tiny hole. It required a small, thin man with the strength to work with one hand while supporting himself with the other and this yard had just the man. He worked for quite a while before the problem was isolated. It was not in the vacuum system, but in the line which ran under the floor. Over the years, the line had drooped down until it rubbed on the starboard drive shaft. It took years to wear through, but eventually a small hole was made which caused the problem. They somehow were able to change that section of piping and we were back in business again. Life is good now that the mater bathroom works even though we do have a second head forward on the boat. Enough of the technical stuff. Wednesday morning, Judy and I took one of the loaner cars and drove to nearby Shiloh National Park to visit the battlefield and visitors center. Shiloh was the site of a fierce Civil War battle involving 65,000 Union and 44,000 Confederate troops. Nearly 24,000 men were killed or wounded there in two days of fighting. It was very moving to walk through the National Cemetery and see so many unidentified graves.