July 28th – 29th Shearwater Breakwater fixing the
engine We continue to work on the
engine, troubleshooting everything we can think of and devising ways to clean
the filters and bowl since we cannot get the bowl off and don’t want to break
it. I have checked with Shearwater
Marine Store and they do not have a replacement on hand. We “MacGyver” our way using a bent stiff zip
tie as a scraper and a piece of t-shirt rag over a shish-ka-bob stick to get as
much of the gunk out of the filter bowl from above as we can. Then we rinse, rinse, rinse and rinse again. Carl blows air into the fuel return
line. Still no joy.
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| Paul on "Tea Cup" to the rescue! |
Walt and Odile have arrived now and tied up
alongside us. We decide that it is time
for a break and head over for another great burger. We make an appointment with the local, well
recommended diesel mechanic. We are told
that he is currently at the dump standing by on a fire that someone set during
the fire band. Not a problem we say.
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| The clogged culprit - un-used fuel pump |
We talk with Christophe, the harbour master
again. He is a sailor as well. He recommends also blowing into the intake
line. Returning to the boat we tear
everything apart again. Between Walt and
Odile’s dinghy pump and the end off of our electric inflator we come up with
the right size nozzle to blow air into the 1/4 “ inside diameter fuel
line. We blow. We cannot get a bit of air through.
Between the tank and the fuel filter there is
a small electronic fuel pump that we do not use (disconnected the power to it
years ago). Carl cuts the hose and
removes the pump and sure enough the clog is in the intake of the un-used fuel
pump. Hallelujah!
Carl rummages around in our plumbing kit and
finds the correct brass fitting (5/16” to 1/4” reducer) to simply join the line
from the tank to the racor filter. Pam
cleans the fuel pump and puts it away.
We strike up the motor and she sputters a bit and then sings, happy to
be rid of the constricting pump. We give
her a good warm up and run in forward and reverse putting load on the dock
lines. She seems quite happy.
We finish up around 8:00 and Walt and Odile are
all hands on deck to cook us another wonderful halibut and rice dinner. All we have to do is put our cockpit table up
and sit down and enjoy.
Throughout the night we have heavy rain and wind
and large barges being towed in in the middle of the night, fishermen yelling…..anyway!
We awake to a “rain” day. Carl and I tidy up the boat after our days of
diving into lockers and tool boxes, put a new oil sausage in the bilge, gather
up all our used oil filters, rags and old sausage and head to the oil recycle
center.
From there we take the local
water taxi to Bella Bella to buy some nice steaks and a few cookie mixes for
Walt. They are out of romaine that was
the extent of Odile’s list. We enjoy
talking with a couple from Victoria BC.
They are on their new to them Catalina learning from their sailing
buddies how to travel through some of this country. We meet them again at the local eatery so we
share their table for lunch and lots of talk of sailing and life in general.
Back to the boat we turn the engine on, she
purrs again, warms up well, revs great.
Just then the local mechanic stops by.
“I was just test driving this dinghy motor I worked on and thought I
would stop in. It looks like you have
made progress.” We talk with him awhile,
explaining what we found and how we took care of it. He will cancel our work order and he moseys
on his way, one less boat for him to worry about on his long list of boats to
work on.
We spend the rest of the day catching up on the
blog, giving Carl a buzz cut and generally relaxing.
Odile and Walt
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