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On the supreme advice of my crew I went to WallyWorld this morning and bought two gallons. Thanks Tom.

Now all I have to do is convince my watch dog/wife that it's safe for me to go down there and spray that around.
 
Let me know, the admiral and I can come over and take care of it for you. I'll bring my electric pressure cleaner.
 
What a stellar crew you have, Mike! Tough start but I'll be following along from the CA Delta as you repair and resume. I had a similar issue many years ago on my stbd exhaust elbow that filled my ER with black diesel soot but no water. I was cleaning that for weeks!

I only have one question...

Did you carry enough Klondike bars?
 
GFC said:
By way of a followup. Yesterday (Thursday) I think I had exhausted every bit of energy left in this tired, old, chemo infested body. It was all I could do to stay awake until 8:00 when I hit the sack. I didn't even roll over until about 5:00a.

Today is a new day and I'm back to feeling good. I've already been on the phone with Sea Ray customer service to find out the coolant capacity of my engine. They referred me to a super secret phone number of some people in a super secret division of Cat that takes the basic engine and converts it to a maritime version.

I got the information I needed and relayed it to the mechanic. My marinized 3406C's take a minimum of 65 quarts of coolant, but he suggested we start with 70 to be sure we don't run out.

The marina is absolutely swamped with boats needing to be fixed so I told him to put my boat on a lower priority and take care of the boats in their shop. We're not leaving for about 3 weeks so there's no rush on mine.
Click to expand...

Wifey B: Great news that you recovered so quickly. :D
 
FlyWright said:
What a stellar crew you have, Mike! Tough start but I'll be following along from the CA Delta as you repair and resume. I had a similar issue many years ago on my stbd exhaust elbow that filled my ER with black diesel soot but no water. I was cleaning that for weeks!

I only have one question...

Did you carry enough Klondike bars?
Click to expand...
He hid all the Klondike bars....
 
FlyWright said:
What a stellar crew you have, Mike! Tough start but I'll be following along from the CA Delta as you repair and resume. I had a similar issue many years ago on my stbd exhaust elbow that filled my ER with black diesel soot but no water. I was cleaning that for weeks!

I only have one question...

Did you carry enough Klondike bars?
Click to expand...
While you have it apart you could consider using a stainless street elbo in there.
Other alternatives would be using a schedule 80 pipe elbo or machined rather than cast.
 
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Hi
Could help at locks in Ballard
 
Night Watch, stay tuned to this thread when we depart again. You might just be able to come down and watch the fun with us. It'll probably be 3 weeks or so before I and my crew can free up our calendars to start this trip over.

I have a good crew now and we'll be picking up another (Doug) in Longview when we get there. Doug and I helped take that boat from Seattle to Stockton, CA 6 years ago so I've seen him in action.

On this ill fated trip Jim was going to have to jump ship due to a prior commitment. We still would have had 3 of us to take the boat around to Seattle, and that's a good size crew to have. If Jim is able to make the whole trip that will be 4 crew and that uses up all the sleeping quarters unless two guys want to bunk together. With this group I think that's doubtful but one never knows. We have a sign on the boat that says "What Happens On Beachcomber, Stays On Beachcomber" so I couldn't post any of the gory details.
 
GFC said:
Night Watch, stay tuned to this thread when we depart again. You might just be able to come down and watch the fun with us. It'll probably be 3 weeks or so before I and my crew can free up our calendars to start this trip over.

I have a good crew now and we'll be picking up another (Doug) in Longview when we get there. Doug and I helped take that boat from Seattle to Stockton, CA 6 years ago so I've seen him in action.

On this ill fated trip Jim was going to have to jump ship due to a prior commitment. We still would have had 3 of us to take the boat around to Seattle, and that's a good size crew to have. If Jim is able to make the whole trip that will be 4 crew and that uses up all the sleeping quarters unless two guys want to bunk together. With this group I think that's doubtful but one never knows. We have a sign on the boat that says "What Happens On Beachcomber, Stays On Beachcomber" so I couldn't post any of the gory details.
Click to expand...

Wifey B: Sounds to me like you four dudes just went for a little cruise. :)
 
Chittendon locks in Ballard

If you need an extra hand at the locks let me know and I can board at Shilshole and walk home from fuel dock or Fisherman’s Terminal
 
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NW, we should be good. We'll have 3 (or 4 maybe) on board but you're welcome to watch the mayhem if we're stuck in the large lock with a bazillion other boats.
 
What about the other engine? Does it have a similar piece of junk ell? What exactly ran through there? If it was coolant, you would not think this sort of casualty would happen to a mild steel ell (but I still would not put one on an engine). Anyway, I'd be changing both of them.
 
Locks

GFC said:
NW, we should be good. We'll have 3 (or 4 maybe) on board but you're welcome to watch the mayhem if we're stuck in the large lock with a bazillion other boats.
Click to expand...

Lock are still closed to foot traffic but best of luck!
 
OK Guys!

Are we half way down the river yet?

Hope all is going well. Safe travels to the entire crew.
 
I wrote this on Wednesday night, the first day of our cruise to take the boat to Seattle. I was too pooped to post it then and last night just ran out of time so here it is. I wrote a short post last night but again, was too tired to post it. I did take some photos yesterday and I'll add those as I have time to upload them. Here's Wednesday night's missive.....

On the road again,
just can't wait to get one the road again,
going places where I've never been before

Well, y'all know the rest of that old tune.

We've been over a month getting the boat fixed and fixing our schedules so we could take off for Seattle again.

Well today Jim, Tom and I struck out for Seattle. We left the slip at 9:30, right on schedule. It was windy and as we got down the river a few miles we were running into 4'-5' waves with spray washing the boat from one end to the other. We got to McNary lock about 10 minutes early and that gave us time to set fenders and lines.

After passing through the lock we headed on down river. I was feeling kinda pooped so I turned the helm over to Tom and took an hour nap on the aft seat on the bridge. That felt REALLY good. We got into Arlington, OR right at 5:00 and got tied up with a lot of help from the wind.

After a quick cold one we hiked up into town and had some mediocre burgers for dinner, then back down to the marina.

Now I gotta tell you if this writing seems a bit disjointed it's because I didn't sleep much last night and other than today's nap I'm feeling sleep deprived.

So, with that thought in mind I'm going to sign off and hit the hay. I only took one photo today so I'll try to post that tomorrow and will continue this sorry tale when we get further down river.

Tomorrow's agenda includes two locks and 55 miles of river travel to the town of The Dalles, OR. Hopefully by this time tomorrow I'll be more awake and will be able to write stuff that makes sense.

Nightey night.
 
Sleep tight!

Any thoughts of maybe slowing down a bit and maybe taking a day off somewhere?
 
Here's last night's tale. I'll add some photos when I get some time.....

Nothing great to add. We're in The Dalles, OR. We traveled 74 miles the first day, added an additional 40 or so miles today and went through two locks. The second lock (The Dalles Dam) we had to wait almost an hour for a tug and barges to pass through the lock heading upstream. We could have pushed the issue a bit to get them to let us pass through first because we were closer to the lock but I deffered to the tug and let them go through first.

We ate at a sports bar tonight and had a good dinner. We got a ride from the marina up to the bar from a gal we met in the parking lot (I paid her $10) then got a ride back to the marina from a cop and his wife who had been in the same restaurant. Funny stories in both and I'll probably write them later. I also have a few photos to post but that will have to wait for another time.

For now, it's a bit after 9:00 and I'm heading to bed. Nightey night.
 
Thanks for the update Mike. Ill keep an eye out for you guys on the weather for Bar Crossing, but Monday looks doable.
Cheers
 
Great to hear you guys are on your way and making progress. I'll be here rooting for you from the cheap seats.

tenor.gif
 
After a successful run down river with stops at St Helen for fuel and an overnight at ASD’s home dock they spent last night in Ilwaco. They will be crossing the bar this morning at around 08:30 For the trip up North and anchoring in Neah Bay.
Not the best of conditions as they will have Southern winds of 12 knots, western swells of 4 footers at 9 seconds. Most likely a lumpy ride but winds and swells should die down a bit later on today.
Wish em luck!
 
Had a great crossing this morning. GFC nailed it perfectly. Especially though the massive amount of fishing boats.

We are pointed north averaging 17mph. Seas are good, not rough at all. Little beam but not bad. Trying for Port Angeles today. This old Sea Ray is handling the seas beautifully. Going to be sad to loose a nice boat and skipper. Deck hand Jim is having a fun time.20200817_110012.jpeg
 
Wow, that’s moving! Hope you can make Pt Angeles by nightfall, fingers crossed.
 
John and all, we didn't make it by nightfall. In fact, it was 10:15 when we pulled into Port Angeles and got tied up. We had a quick dinner then we all hit the sack. I am the chief cook and bottle washer so I did the cleanup and dishes and I'm off to bed. It's 11:45. See ya tomorrow.
 
This is all very interesting from an east coasters point of view. I have never heard of all these places - and even had to Google Port Angeles to see where it was!

Stay safe.
 
Well I was up around 5:45, took a shower, dressed and by just after 6 I was up in the galley putting away last night's dishes so we could get the day started.

It's now 6:20, Tom gave me the weather report for today and it looks to be another great weather day. Thankfully, yesterday was a nice weather day so we were able to make some time after we turned into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We ran just over 200nm (231 statute miles) and that's another first for me and the boat.

Today will be a lot easier, only 70 miles to the Ballard Locks (Menzie--google it) and the weather should cooperate. I'm going to sign off and get things started for breakfast.

Later!
 
Way to go, so glad to hear you are making great progress and today will be the final leg. At your speeds you can make the Ballard Locks in less than 4hrs from Port Angeles. No need to get an early start so you don't hit the wall at Admiralty Inlet, it doesn't turn to flood until around 1130 this morning.
 
Woo Hoo! Interested to see the fuel burn on that run! Safe trip Mike and Crew!
 
Made it to Lake Union. What a awesome trip. Pic is at my dock on the Columbia River
20200815_174313.jpeg
 
Congratulations, hope you saw whales along the way!
 
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