Well, it’s been a minute (okay, a month!) since I last checked in. When we pulled into the marina after our rafting/fireworks adventure in Tod Inlet, our bow thruster literally exploded in Jim’s hands!
Jim dove into troubleshooting, and over the next few weeks we replaced the solenoid, the thermo switch, the controller, and the IPC. Each part took days to arrive. A month later—with everything swapped out except the motor—we discovered the real culprit: the batteries. They were the originals… from 2013!
Hans Bulk kindly drove us to Trotac to pick up new ones, and—woot!—the thruster worked immediately. Even better, the new batteries are much more powerful. Who knew? Our stern thruster batteries are from the same vintage, so we’ll be swapping those out next season too.
In Jim’s defense, how does an exploding controller turn out to be a battery problem? It was a long, hot month waiting it all out. We filled the time with books, chores, bus rides (for the air conditioning), and the occasional meetup at favorite watering holes. And if I haven’t already said how much I adore the entire Bulk family—well, let me say it again!
Ray, from Dancing Bear fame, brought his boat back to Sidney. He had a car, so he came and picked us up and we went out to dinner. It was fun catching up with him.
As soon as the boat was fixed up, we headed out. Our friends John and Julie, were returning from their Desolation Sound trip and we hung out a couple of nights at Lyall Harbour. We had a great time – played games, went to dinner, took a little hike at Winter Cove and explored the area on our dinghies.
This past weekend we joined a PaNNTOA mini-vous at Ganges on Salt Spring Island. Twenty-one boats came, and there’s so much to do on this little island. Paul and Elaine introduced us to disc golf (let’s just say I’ll need some practice this winter). We wandered the Saturday Market—one of the best in the Islands—visited the cidery, and spent time hanging out on the docks. The weekend flew by, and before we knew it, everyone else had headed out.
Jim and I lingered an extra day. The plan had been to hop over to Montague and rent scooters, but with the rain pouring down, that didn’t sound fun. Instead, we went shopping and decided to head out the following day. It was a good call, because the sun is out in full force this morning.
We have one week before we fly home, so we are going to do some more putzing around the islands – and afterwards button up the boat for the winter.
Talk Soon.