This is a fine anchorage, well protected from wind, scenic, and near to a dog walk and town. After our trip to shore, we did some chores and I continued to strip the old varnish from the door and hand holds on the starboard side. We attracted some more blind mosquitoes during the night. It seemed a waste of time to try to wash away the stains that they leave behind until they are all gone even though we would like to clean the boat.
Since it was about time to change the oil in the generator (every 100 hours of running), I decided to do it after lunch. Tim Smith was coming over for dinner so I should have had plenty of time. Well, like every project on a boat, it turned out to be much more than I has planned for. The oil change went fine, but while I was doing it I noticed a slow drip coming from the generator, somewhere. It turned out it was coming from the seal on the generator’s raw water pump. Even that shouldn’t have been a problem because we had a rebuilt pump as a spare. The trouble was that the impeller in the spare pump had hardened, taking on a permanent curved shape. When I tried to remove the impeller I wouldn’t come off no matter what I did. I even used a utility knife to cut the rubber blades off the hub so I would have something to grip with the pliers. By then it was 1600 and time to pick Tim up at the town dock.
Tim had a great idea on how to remove the impeller, the use of heat. We went to the old hardware store that was a couple of blocks away and bought a propane torch. After heating the remaining hub with the torch and some more tugging and hammering the impeller came off. Finally, we got the generator running again around 1800, more than six hours after I started the minor project.
Dora made some tasty fajitas for dinner and I got Tim back to the dock just before dark. It was a beautiful clear evening with a nearly full moon.
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