It's been quite the job over the past few days working on Zephyr and getting things done as well as making calls to "experts" to get their opinions on "problems". As I said in my earlier post, we thought we were having problems maintaining the fluid in our "new" paragon transmission. It was full in Neah Bay, WA but didn't register on the dip stick when we got to Newport. I replaced the cooler unit and refilled it. When we got here, the fluid barely touched the bottom of the dip stick. I called the manufacturer as well as American Diesel that originally made our engines and asked questions. At least I did on Monday as we got into Crescent City too late on Friday to call.
I replaced all the pads under the engine and transmission and the engine and ran it at the dock--in gear no less--with lots of lines to Zephyr to make sure she didn't go any where. No leaks, no nothing other than a nice easy running transmission. I had Jay from Moon Angel come over to take a look at it. He's quite allergic to cats so I was thrilled that he would come over. We locked all the kids up. He crawled all over the engine room and basically came back with the opinion that there was nothing wrong with it, I was just checking the fluid at different times. Sometimes while the fluid was cold and sometimes while it was hot, giving me different readings. A sign of relief could be heard all the way downtown. The response I had gotten from Great Lakes Power--they made the transmission--was that I needed to take it back to Sea Marine to have them look at it. They're just about 800 miles from here and I would rather stab myself with an ice pick in a very sensitive area below my belt than take Zephyr back there. We were pretty much on our own. They give you a 6 month warranty on the unit, but only at the original installer figuring that they will take care of the labor charges instead of passing them on to their company. I'll be watching it carefully over the next trip to see how the fluid level goes. Jay's suggestion was to always check it when it's stone cold instead of hot or warm as it will give a false reading. With it being cold, everything would have drained out of the cooler giving a more true reading.
I fixed a few other things including two trips to a chiropractor for my back and left arm and am now a bit better. We had hoped to be off this AM with Nereid when they left but I had a second appointment for this afternoon.
The last day has been tough for Nereid as they tried to get to the fuel dock, they backed up over a crab pot and promptly got snagged in the prop, pulling it right up to the bottom of their boat. It took a diver to get it off. It's against the rules to put pots there so the fuel dock manager confiscated the pot and line. Today, as they left, the cut the turn in the channel a bit to close and ran aground. Luckily, it was a muddy bottom so no harm came to their boat. They made it safely away with no problems after getting hauled off the mud.
We filled ours--or at least got some fuel this afternoon. The fuel dock here is a joke. It's 15 feet above the water and you have to tie up to tires when you pull in. Then you climb up a ladder and tie up at the top where the pumps are. Then back down to the boat to pump your fuel. We loaded up our jerry cans and took them over by cart to have them filled. Ten gallons at a time. The attendant did nothing but complain all the time we were there. He wanted us to bring the boat over instead of him having to wait for us to get the fuel, take it over to Zephyr, pump it into her tanks and come back for more. Too bad, the fuel dock isn't safe and that was how we decided to put our fuel into Zephyr. He's just lucky we didn't want to truly fill the tanks or he would have been there all afternoon instead of a hour or so.
We cleaned up the deck so we can be off about 0500 for the next jump to either Fort Bragg or Bodega Bay further down the coast. The weather is supposed to turn a bit sour by Friday so we will have to really move to make it into Bodega by late Thursday afternoon. It's about 150 miles down the coast from Crescent City.
Well, it's off to bed. We have to be up early in the morning. One thing I would like to add is how nice Jay and Benita Wiggins aboard Moon Angel have been to us while we were here. They are the great folks aboard Moon angel that we spent a good bit of time with in the Port of Brownsville. They have been a great source of help and camaraderie. With out their help and friendship, this stay would have been a lot harder on both of us.
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