Great Loop Cruise Video

Only thing I visited tonight was the park in front of the boat and the auto pilot manual.

No clocks cleaned. I'm a pussycat. Actually enjoyed Erie and the people. Even got a plumber on a Saturday night. Only thing not thrilled with are the lack of good marine services. I got spoiled last year at Bennett Bros. Can't stand people who waste time, especially mine.

Thanks for the camera reminder. Just went out with the Windex. Hopefully no bugs tomorrow.
BTW, tomorrow we'll be heading up towards Detroit. Still trying to find a marina that'll fit us around the Wyandotte area if anyone has any suggestions

OK, that sounds like a scary reference. I see where the city took back the marina in 2012 for non-payment of rent.

It's a little outside our range for the day, and not sure we'd want "real Detroit like" since the city is trying to renege on its pension obligation and cutting off water to its residents

Had forgotten. It's outside our range for today, but wouldn't be a bad spot if the boss wants to do a short day tomorrow. I'll check. Viking 58, I might be in touch tonight. It'd be nice to meet up with another YF member.

Goodbye Cleveland

How many ways can the wrong shop screw you. With a list of a dozen (mostly piddley) things we asked the mechanics in Erie to do during a 3 week layover, about the only thing they got to was the oil change. Thankfully I caught that they overfilled us. What I didn't catch was that they played Hercules when they spun on the transmission filter. This is such basic mechanics. Even I know that you hand tighten the filter and then give it about 1/2 a turn with the wrench.

Result: the seal was pinched. Thankfully the boss was watching the gauges as we left. He called me on the radio to tell be the gear oil gauge was heading to zero. The strap wrench was NG for loosening the filter (way too tight and slippery). Thought we'd have to use a screw driver. So we loaded up the oil, turned that motor on only enough to keep it lubed and headed back in to find a mechanic and new filter.

Anybody who watched us come in might have noticed some odd maneuvering. As I entered the marina, with rocks to my left and rocks straight ahead, I dropped the stbd into reverse to make the sharp right turn only to find I had none. For a moment I thought I was going to put 74,000 lbs. on the jetty. Fortunately, it all worked out and I'm tied up. We got the filter off. It's fine but the seal is trashed. Once we get that done and the tranny filled we'll see if we still have a tranny. So far I'm hopeful (no crunching, grinding or bangs, and no metal that we could see when we took the filter off. If I can't be good, let me be lucky.

I don't want to trash a company in print (and they are nice enough guys), but anybody considering having work done in Erie, Pa is welcome to contact me for a reference.

Now I get to clean up many gallons of oil from my engine room. Oh what a fun day so far.

Spoken like someone who's paid to ride with the motors. The rest of us depend on the morning engine room check (done, no leak apparent at that time and did not notice the pinched seal), and the several checks we do while running. Captains are not engineers. If we were you wouldn't be needed.

"Who the heck uses a wrench to tighten spin on filters anyway."
Obviously the guy who changed this filter.

Bottom line is that we're fixed; the transmission is fine, and I'm back in my slip for tonight. Now lunch and back to cleaning up.

P.S. for the small boaters (not the engineers as you know this). When we first provisioned the boat I brought on a bale of oil pads. As we'd use half of one to catch any kick-back while fueling I'm sure the boss thought that bale would last 3 lifetimes. Today he found out why I have them. Letting an oil spill make it to your bilge pumps is a sure way to get an expensive visit from the CG and DEC.

Only to snug, not to crank. Arthritis in the thumbs.