One of the disadvantages of living on a boat with no motor, is that one can't actually go back to one's berth without some form of assistance, so we thought we'd just stay next to the crane for a while.
While sitting near the crane there seemed no point in not actually hooking a sling under the boat and having a look at things.
Crane time is expensive of course, and Michel was in the middle of a few other jobs, and I wanted to inconvenience him as little as possible, so made a great show of rushing round with pencil and paper and tape measure, variously measuring and wiggling things as I saw fit.
Wiggling. That's an interesting word when used to describe movement of the underwater parts of the boat, particularly when those parts in the normal course of events are not, according to the manual, supposed to wiggle. Apparently it is not a good sign if a propellor wiggles up and down, nor for that matter is it a particularly good one if a rudder wiggles in any direction other than side to side. Our brief sojourn out of the water had yielded at least two signs that weren't good!
My head wiggled a bit in Michel's direction, and he wiggled his back in mine in a valiant attempt to show he understood and was sympathetic, but looking into his eyes I could see him thinking "well no prizes for guessing what Bill and I will be doing this winter!".
I nodded and while I was quietly counting the cost of what we may need to do on my thumbs and toes, the boat was gently lowered back into the water.
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