Saturday Oct.11

Saturday October 11

So, we were sitting here with our last coffee. I was checking emails and got one form our friends in Thunder Bay, telling us that their surrogate son was here in Trenton working at the base if we needed help, and lo and behold, Mike turned up at the dock!

He took Rick to Can Tire to get a tarp and a pan to drain the oil and then went home to change and came back to help. In the meantime we took the rocker cover off the drive and found the first problem...a nut had fallen off the drive and jammed the gears. Mike and Rick fiddled around until Mike was able to get it out. No damage to the gears!  So Mike drove Rick to Bayside Marine to get a replacement, some gasket material to seal the drive and some extra oil.

Sue & Les, you guys rock! So does your friend Mike!

They found the nut, after some searching through miscellaneous nuts. After some searching for some washers through Rick’s stash to take up the slack AND inserting a cotter pin to hold it, they managed to get the drive back together. It took most of the afternoon to suck the old oil out and Mike said we should be good to get it down to warm weather despite the water leak. His philosophy: You’re more likely to break/drop/loose things if you try to take it apart now. For the cost, just change the oil as often as possible until you get someplace where you can EASILY take it apart. This guy used to fix and teaches mechanics how to fix C130 Hercules engines so we trust his judgement!

At 4:00 this afternoon, we replaced the oil and put the gasket on the drive. We have Mike’s phone number in case we need more help, but we have to wait until tomorrow for the seal to set up before we can top the oil completely and head out. We are confident that everything is ok (because mike was!)

So for all of you that wished for a good day, thanks...it was! Now it’s freezing here so we are going to bed to get warm... and sleep! The barometer shot up today so I had a major headache all afternoon. The river is very smooth tonight and we can see stars for the first time in a long time!

Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer here. Hope yours is too and in case we are out of Wi-fi range for a few days, Happy Thanksgiving! I know we will have one even without the turkey!  And we can have turkey in November when we get to the states.

Hard to see but this is the chewed nut

Not even round anymore

A new friend