A Little Late

(This post was meant to precede the last one, but timing got messed up) 

Saturday, June 4

Time to head up north. 

We have our new inverter/charger that arrived by post from some company in the US. Did very well on the price, even with the US dollar exchange and the shipping costs. The new catalytic converter for the truck (which as noted in the previous post had the vicious spite to explode right in the middle of everything) also arrived and now it is installed in the truck with the effect of great new sound and new performance quality.

So we packed up the truck with various and sundry items, loaded the cats and, packed to the roof, drove early in the morning up to Britt.

We arrived in good time, made things livable, boated the cats and took on the task of installing the I/C. As the wiring was already in place, it wasn’t too difficult a job. We tested the ends of the AC 110 V feed with shore power plugged in and were happy to find that there was power to the unit available. (One of my fears was that we were going to find that the old unit wasn’t actually the source of the problem. A bit backwards in my process I suppose but it was hard to arrange things properly after we were told that it would be weeks before they could even test the old unit.)

The Freedom 458 is quite heavy, 20 kg, and awkward to maneuver but we got it in place eventually, beneath the bunks in the v-berth, and attached the wiring. With fingers crossed we turned on the unit. Success! Power throughout the boat. Now I could use my new electric backscratcher and Brooke could continue her high-voltage experiments in bringing dead fish back to life. 

We celebrated.

Sunday, June 5

It has become apparent that the weather is going to be ridiculously windy and cold this week. Daily highs of 14 or 15 and winds steady at 25 – 30 kph. Not a fun thing as it means we won’t be able to leave the marina.

We drove into Pointe Au Baril instead and purchased a new bilge pump. No amount of mucking about with the old one was producing results. We found a new pump at the Beacon Marine store in town and installed it quickly when we got home. Unfortunately, it is not the same robust gallons per hour that the old pump had (1500 GPH vs 800 GPH) but it will do for the time being. A larger unit will need to go in someday soon though.

The Rest of the week…

Was blowy and cold and drove us a little mental. In the meantime, we continued fixing up the Mary Mary and spent some time with friends at the marina. 

On Friday, the winds calmed down enough that we decided to go out. We headed over to Black Bay and anchored near The Keyhole. The breeze remained steadily calm and we had a picnic lunch/supper of barbecued burgers on the grill and took the kayak out for a paddle around the area. 

Later that day while enjoying a fire up at the house owned by Kim and Cathy (who were away but kindly allowed use of their fire-pit) Brooke took a tumble and sprained her ankle. It turned out to be a relatively mild sprain but still awkward and painful for the next couple of days.

On the Saturday I made our first clam chowder of the season and later on I went for my first swim. Very cold water so it was a challenge to stay in but I was glad I did it and felt mightily refreshed afterwards.

The next day I was up early and returned to Toronto to do work for the week. Won’t be back up until next Friday. L