July 3 – 5
You may recall, oh faithful reader, my post of April 11. In that post I recounted a fuel filter issue that sidelined us for an afternoon. You may also recall our friends Dave and Sue Heilman had just joined us for the run to the Keys. History repeats. So the Heilman’s drive up from Louisville and meet us in Brewerton, NY for a ride through the Thousand Islands area of the St. Lawrence Seaway. First day on the boat we are headed to Oswego which is a little town on Lake Ontario. Great Lakes are soooo close. Underway on a really pretty day and I get a high temperature alarm on my starboard engine. Shut ‘er down. Enter the engine room (pretty hot down there) and the large hose that feeds the water pump appeared to fail at a juncture of 2 hoses. Fried the impeller.When I pulled the impeller, part of the water pump came out with it. Damn. Option 1 is to run on 1 engine back to the marina/boat yard for repairs. When I call my two buddy boats to tell ’em we are turning back Option #2 appears. John Neal on Saltaire responds that he has a spare water pump from his starboard engine (same engines as mine) since he had upgraded his raw water pumps.
What are the odds???
Moral of the story?
STOP LETTING THE HEILMAN’S ON THE BOAT!!!
Water pump located BEHIND the oil filter.
Old water pump and fried impeller. The black, ribbed item is the impeller. It spins inside the water pump housing drawing raw water into the engine for cooling.
This is the piece of the pump that came out of the water pump when I pulled the impeller out. Not supposed to do that.
We limp to Phoenix, NY and effect the water pump change out, test drive the boat and all is well. John Neal and Carey Garber from Carried Away did the changeout since John had done it before. These guys changed a flat tire in the rain for me.
Phoenix, NY has a free dock wall that we tied up to and spent the night there. When we arrived a group of young men were on the wall to catch our lines and eagerly assisted us in securing Whisky Business. Our first opportunity to meet the Bridgehouse Brats. Over 20 years ago there was a group of young men/boys who would come down to the Oswego River and clean it up and beautify the area. At night another group of kids would come down and destroy everything the daytime kids did. A woman and her father in town got all these kids together and formed the Bridgehouse Brats (bridgehousebrats.com). Very cool. Check ’em out.
My favorite shot of Carried Away. They are leaving us to head straight for the Trent Severn and home in Michigan. So much fun running with these guys. Hopefully we can see them again when we head down Lake Michigan.
Fulton Canal just before Oswego.
Lock #7, our next to last lock before Lake Ontario. We traveled down in this lock. Notice where the top of the chamber is? About even with the deck of WB.
The bottom of the lock chamber. Quite a drop. And these locks are fast. They are closing the doors before the last boat is secure and the water goes out really fast but very little turbulence.
One of the 8 dams on the Oswego River.
Semi circle waterfall over a dam.
In the locks these ropes just hang down and you hold on! Can you see where the rope gets really dirty? Like that all the way down. Good pair of gloves required in these locks.
Lock #8 on the Oswego River just before entering Lake Ontario. Our able bodied and fit lockmaster.
Beautiful sunset. This is how a day on the water should end.
Not ours.
The crew of Whisky Business got out the grill and grillmaster Heilman cooked up some fab filets. We had a wonderful meal and then our Looper friends show up and the party begins. Went to 1 AM. Which is WAY past Looper midnight. Carey went to his boat and got out his guitar.
OMG, we had more fun than any other time on this adventure. WB is sitting a few inches less in the water due to the demise of a whole bunch of bourbon.
Great way to spend the Fourth of July.
Whisky Business Blog 