K'Gari. Voyage of adventure , to the horizon and beyond........: Changing an anode under water-chalking up another experience.

It was so beautiful at Sebayur Kecil, that we were in no hurry to leave.

Its a popular spot with the divers, there was a constant stream of boats, depositing their divers and drifting off after them. It's also obviously used for learner divers, as there were a couple of groups of them ,flailing around us, in one case.

With the water being as clear as it was and although it was a popular drift dive location, the mooring we had picked up was not in the stream, so I thought it was time to try an in water anode change on the starboard propeller.

I have hooker gear on board- worth its weight in gold, so I will, give them a free plug - Power Dive, a West Australian company. They call it a deck snorkel. Great product and just what I need for underhull work.
I had ummed and arghed for a while , trying to decide between a scuba tank or the Power Dive gear. In the end, the simple idea of endless air ( provided I have battery power), was a huge decider over the issue of a tank, which needs refilling, then a b.c.d to attach said bottle to, the thought of the tank hitting the hull as I work below etc etc , all made the Power Dive unit a clear winner in my mind.

Before - well consumed

The anodes I have are changeable in the water, however , far easier to do when the boat is out of the water. As usual it was the amount of grunt I needed to undo what remained of the existing anode, that was the issue. Several different 'schemes' failed to start the undoing process, when I remembered some advice from Steve, that many things can be 'helped' to freedom, by a short sharp tap to break the tension. So hammer in hand, allen key in position and a swift tap or two, well , swift in the context of treading water in 15m depth to stay in position , whilst aiming to hit nothing more then the shaft of the allen key. It did the trick, and from that point on, it became a relatively simple task to remove and replace- and a judicious spray of WD-40 when back on board has actually prevented both the hammer and the sidchrome shifter (which I also employed in the initial attempts) from rusting.