A Mid-Summer Update!

It has come to my attention that once again I might have become a bit lazy with respect to my blogging responsibilities. Life seems to find a way to interfere with one’s best intentions.

It is already July 27th, and I have no idea where the time has gone. As with my last post, I will have to go with the Cole’s Notes version (for my American friends, it’s what you call Cliffs Notes, and a fun fact is that in 1958 Canadian founders Jack and Carl Cole sold the US rights of Coles Notes to American businessman Cliff Hillegass … so yet another Canadian invention along with:

• Imax movie system ( you are welcome, Christopher Nolan)
• AM broadcasting
• The Gramophone/Telephone/Walkie Talkies
• Snowblower (of course)
• Sonar
• Alkaline battery
• Egg carton
• Electric cooking range
• Garbage bag
• Lawn sprinkler
• CPR mannequin
• The pacemaker
• Insulin
• Forensic pathology in policing
• Baseball … yes we did!
• Basketball … that’s right!
• Hockey … of course we did!
• Superman… look it up!
• The television camera
• The paint roller
• The caulking gun
• THE best wood screw ever … the Robertson screw.
• The electric wheelchair
• The Newfoundland dog
• The Labrador retriever

Not to mention the incredibly long list of celebrities/singers. Here are but a few:

• Alanis Morissette
• Bryan Adams
• Celine Dion
• The two Ryans …Gosling and Reynolds
• Captain Kirk/Scotty
• Nathan Fillion
• Michael J Fox
• Phil Hartman … he was incredibly talented and is missed.
• John Candy … ditto
• SCTV (way better than SNL)
• Schitt’s Creek
• RUSH
• The Tragically Hip (if you don’t know them look them up)
• Bare Naked Ladies

I need to get back to the post, but there are so many more….

I have made some progress with the panels and cabinets for the boat.

From fiber glassing to gel coating. These are for the cockpit area.

Here is my deck box.

And my Family Ties insert.

Of course, there are still some touch-ups to do. I found some Corian offcuts and made these tops.

I have since added the edging to the port side cabinet.

Now I am making trim to cap off the tops of the panels. I’m still working on the starboard side panel and am still hoping to have the cockpit done by the end of the season.

The storage bench at the transom now has a front panel.

My awesome sister Susan made us a drop-down sun shade. The bottom edge has a heavy chain sewn into it. It works perfectly.

Leanne and Gail are enjoying the shade from the evening sun.

If you are ever in the area definitely stop in at the little blue bus in Honeywood. Excellent burgers and poutine!

We anchored in Discovery Cove near Penetanguishene. In the distance you can see the King’s Wharf theatre. There was a wedding that night and we were entertained for a few hours by a group we can only describe as the band that played the wedding band in the movies Old School and The Hangover. I just looked it up and the band is called The Dan Band.

Anyway it was fun.

The next morning we headed back to the marina which was only about a 15 minute ride. As we arrived and radioed to the staff to meet us at the dock to give us a hand we ran out of fuel. Not just in one engine. We ran out of fuel in both engines!! At the same time!!!!

I was always careful about buying the same amount of fuel for each tank and the gauges showed us at 1/4 full. It turns out either both gauges or both senders don’t work.

We were on empty.

Both engines ran out of fuel within a minute of each other. I couldn’t have planned for that to happen.

We were in front of our slip and the wind started pushing us further into the marina toward other boats. Leanne quickly dropped the anchor and we stopped about 20 metres from another boat. We hung out there until the marina staff could tow us to the fuel dock where we put $250 in each tank.

I would like to point out that with all of the first world issues we have had over the last 7 years (it has been 7 years!!!!) I am now trying see every challenge as a learning opportunity.

I have to. It keeps me from literally pulling the plug on this thing and letting it sink to the bottom of Georgian Bay. (Please note if this actually does happen I will delete this post for insurance purposes)

For some reason I thought I would be able to just start the engines again right away.

How incredibly wrong I was.

Here we are at the fuel dock.

I quickly learned that the engines have to be bled. I had to prime the filters with the manual pump. I had to bleed the fuel injectors until the fuel was running clear without air bubbles. I had to clean up the diesel that spilled while doing these first two steps. Then I to repeat a few times because my beautiful engines still wouldn’t start.

They didn’t start because I didn’t do the step where I had to crack the injector nuts to allow the air to bleed. I only found out about this after calling my friend Ed in the Bahamas.

So of course I didn’t have the proper tools on board to crack those nuts. They are 3/4″ and I only had a 11/16″ wrench.

They make these nuts incredibly inaccessible when using a pair of channel locks. I was able to get 3 of the 8 loosened on the port engine and get the engine running.

Hey! This was easy peasy. The starboard engine will be a breeze.

Record scratch…

Nope. I managed to get 3 cracked and got nothing.

Leanne and I had to stay overnight at the fuel dock and at 8:00 am I was at Canadian Tire to pick up the proper wrench.

I got back to the boat and loosened the rest of the valves.

Still nothing.

Ed wasn’t available so I checked with my friend on the world wide web. Their name is Al.

Al told me to crank the engine for longer than the 5 second bursts I was doing and start tightening the nuts at the same time. Leanne was of course the one at the ignition.

As soon as I went for about 15 seconds and tightened one nut the engine roared to life .

I might have cried a little!

I fixed the problem.

Now there was the issue of the spilled diesel in the engine room. For the next two hours I cleaned and created a lot of dieselly rags. Luckily the marina has a container where I could safely dispose of them.

As I was putting away the tools I then found the 3/4″ wrench that I didn’t know I already had.

Please keep this to yourself. If Jason and Kevin find out I will never hear the end of it.

Now on to more fun things.

Here we are with Douglas and Linda. My soon to be daughter-in-law’s Mom and Dad.

Out for a cruise and an anchor for the afternoon.

An amazing sunrise. One of the benefits of getting up early.

One of our favourite breakfasts is egg and cheese on an English muffin with a few slices of real Lilydale turkey breast from Costco. So good!

I was so happy to be able to bring the dock box and start using it. I will be taking it back to the shop in the fall to put on two more coats of gel coat and paint the inside.

Since we installed the table in 2020? 2021? it has been a bit unsteady. My trailer hitch ideas works well but, since it is meant to be removable, it has some play in it. This results in the very heavy top wobbling a fair amount. My friend John suggested that I tap the outside of the hitch and use a bolt as a set screw.

It worked perfectly and it only took me 6 years to do it.

This past weekend we hosted Leanne’s elementary/high school besties. Melissa, Jeanne, and Colleen (and her husband Mike) joined us on the boat for a day on the hook.

The weather was perfect. Temperature and wind couldn’t have been better.

They experienced first hand our all inclusive floating resort.

It was an amazing day for Leanne to get the chance to reconnect and for me to spend time with them.

… and Mike was ok to talk to …

They behaved themselves so will be allowed to join us again.

That’s all for now.

I have more work to do before the end of the season and am hoping I can maintain the energy level needed to get everything done.

The problem is it is just too easy to relax when I’m on the boat.

I guess that was the idea for getting it in the first place.

Until next time I hope everyone stays safe and enjoys the beautiful weather.