Barnacles! They seem to have found a home on our propellor. The previous owner had a putty knife with a lanyard that he used to scrape the prop clean. It looks like we need to do that instead of ignore it and hope.
Our paint help up beautifully. Not a single barnacle anywhere. A lot of easy-to-wash-off goo from sitting at the dock too much. The bronze, however, was a a haven for barnacles.
This leads to a few new jobs.
-
Paint the damn thing and hope that holds down the marine life.
-
Look at the zinc anode on the drive shaft. It's been chewed through completely during the last year. We've got a stray current problem to diagnose. It might be improper dock grounding -- a very common problem.
-
Look at the cutless bearing. There's a small amount of play. Not sure how expensive it is to have the yard extract the propellor, disconnect the shaft, extract the shaft, extract the bearing, reinsert the bearing, reinsert the shaft, reconnect the shaft, remount the propellor. It sounds like a full day of labor.
We need to wash and wax the upper part of the hull, also.
And—most importantly—we need to sail more to keep the goo from growing underneath us.

