In the morning we watched another boat pull up a crab trap right from the dock and pull Dungeness out. What?! Ok, maybe we can catch a crab here! Melissa tried to convince the boys to set both prawn and crab traps. But after working on the autopilot they were like “nah”.
For lunch Jim fixed savory crepes with chicken. Frustrated by the burners we are working with (the little ones from the hardware store we bought since the stove blew out) because they were not really hot enough to brown the crepes properly and they took freaking forever. But they turned out great. The rope you see on the floor in this picture was 200 feet of backup anchor line that was found in a locker. Took us 30 minutes to get it untangled and into a state we could stow it with any hope of using it in an emergency.
After lunch the guys worked on fixing the auto pilot. The pump had separated from the hydraulic motor that drives the rudder. Why the screws were not installed remains a mystery.
Jim went into the back locker to try and just stick the two parts back together.
Alas. The pump and the motor have groves that have to align. And it just wasn’t going together right. The boys beat it up for hours to no avail. They finally decide to remove the screws on the motor assembly to remove it from the bulkhead in hopes of being able to rotate both parts enough to get the gears to align. That turned out to be non-trivial as some of the screws were stripped. So getting them all out involved an impact screwdriver. Then one of the screws needed a new head – so Dave made it a new head by banging on it with a hammer. After they got the motor loose, they played with it for a couple of hours trying to align it. Jim tried, Dave tried, and Jim tried it again. Jim said “one more try” and sure enough the assembly all slid together. Jim yelled up to Dave to give it a try. The shaft moved, the rudder moved, and both Jim and Dave could see the gages matching what was happening inside the assembly. Quick! Screw it all together!!
And wouldn’t you know it – the song playing on the radio at the time was “On the Road Again”.
We then went for a walk through Lagoon Cove.
For Lagoon Cove happy hour tonight, Jim made Sweet Potato rounds covered in cream cheese with a little sour cream, with shredded pork. SO GOOD.
The happy hour was even more folks than last night. Including the media crew from the R2AK race. https://r2ak.com/ They had lots of stories to tell of the race and covering the event.
When we got back to the boat, Melissa made cherry cake.
And Dave cleaned the front windows so the crew will be able to see out tomorrow when we are underway.
