The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

First the Bad - As we are finding out as we travel down the river and discuss our misfortune with various boaters, it seems that the Keokuk Yacht Club has known about the submerged concrete block(s) that suddenly jumped up in front of the boat since they rebuilt their docks a few years ago. This is not a good PR move for them if they know there is a hazard in the approach to their outside tie along spaces that can cause severe damage to boats. Word has spread down the river about our misfortune.

The Ugly - That's it in the picture above. You can see that the bottom fluke is bent way out shape, which is pretty hard to do on a 28x29 prop that weighs close to 100 pounds. As we found out later, it was bent 1 1/2" which required about four hours to repair in one of the best prop shops in the St. Louis area.

Now the Good - Two Rivers Marina has a fantastic team who all worked together to get this turned around so we didn't have to spend an entire weekend here waiting for the prop shop to do their thing. Jamie, the marina manager drove the prop down to St. Charles in her truck before heading off to her doctor appointment (she is seven months along expecting twins). She wasn't able to make it back in time to pick it up, so her mother picked it up and brought it back to the marina. Lori, who does the office manager types of things here, was our main point of contact for coordinating and communicating everything. We started working with Lori when we were still 20 miles up river working our way down here. Mark, the lead mechanic and jack of all trades, ran the travel lift to haul us out, pulled the prop, measured the shaft with a micrometer to make sure it wasn't out of alignment, and offered to stay around tonight or come in early tomorrow to put on the new prop. And Randy, who we first met on the fuel dock for a pump out when we came in, is always around to help either us or Mark with whatever we need. This marina is a five anchor in Quimby's that primarily measures service and customer satisfaction. Jeff and I both agree that they earned their anchors today.

We plan to be on our way early tomorrow as soon as Mark finishes working his magic with the new prop. Stay tuned for further action............