Marathon, Florida

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Made it to Marathon with one more anchorage. Wed had another adventure. Motor made an ungodly noise and cut off. I started drifting toward shallow water so threw out the anchor. Started to call tow boat us but decided to dive under the boat to take a look. Found a crab pot line wraped tight around the prop. had to get a knife and cut it off. Would have not taken long if I could hold my breath more than 10 seconds. It took about a half hour and about 20 times under the boat but finally got it off. I could not believe that the engine started right up and I was off again. I do have a rattle at low RPM's though. I hope it did not bent the shaft and only knocked it out of alignment.

So I signed up for a month in Marathon to fix things and relax for awhile. It is a mooring with about 200 other cruisers here. Everyone is very friendly and helpful. Some people live here year round and some come every winter. It was record breaking temps on Thursday and Friday, 88. Today about 83 and lower humidity. Really feels good. Every morning at 9:00 everyone tunes onto chanel 68 on their VHF radios for anouncements and trading and general talk and concerns. People trade and buy things etc. Last night there was a lighted boat parade where people put lights all over their boats and ride up and down the channel and blow horns and shoot off cannons. Ha. Fun to watch from the bow of the boat with a glass of wine. Today is a softball game at three.

Nothing much in Marathon though. Real season doesn't start until Feb and things are really dead. The town is not the best thing to look at either but everyone is friendly and laid back.

Things to do while here.
put on a new heat exchanger
put on a new joker valve on my head because the old one is bad and wast keeps backing up into the bowl. Very nasty
Align the shaft. Very touchy job that I am not looking forward to.

Seems like for a month and a half nothing happened and then eveything started to break. Oh well it's a boat!%^&***

I'll keep you posted on events in Marathon.

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Comments

[Frank]

shaft rattle
The rattle could also be from the prop being bent slightly out of balance. Congrats on your trip. I'll have my diving gear when I get there so you wont have to hold your breath. You're not missing anything here. Its been cold and wet.

[DonB]

prop
YUea I'm trying not to think about that. I'm thinking it it just out of line because it doesn't rattle at higher RPMS. I am going to try to align it next week. If it is a bent prop I don't know exactly what to do with it. Sounds expensive though.

[frank]

possible bent prop
Often a bent propeller is an easy fix. I'm an outboard guy, so a bent propeller shaft would worry me.