Aug 15-16 - unplanned & planned activity

Nothing is ever simple.

We're about to go to Florida and one thing that I'd been thinking about is bringing the Bayliner with us, for three reasons:

1) Kylie and Lauren would enjoy boating in New Smyrna Beach, enabling us to park at the sandbar islands, play with Abby etc.

2) we have a number of expected guests this fall and winter, starting with George Cederholm early December

3) It would take the pressure off me to find and buy a boat for NSB. Self-generated pressure -- I know myself and come November I would be anxious to get a boat for the area and would end up compromising on price, i.e. getting the boat that I wanted but stopping the search for the best price / package deal.

The summer is basically over given our travels over the next few weeks and although we might have used it in the fall once or twice, the reality is that we're quite comfortable taking rides in the Whaler in the area and to Lost Channel -- the only thing that we don't do in the Whaler is trip to Port Loring -- not that it wouldn't get that far, just that it is a long way in a small boat. The Whaler is also what I use for duck hunting. The Bayliner did not get much use this year since all our company was concentrated in a two week period and we tend to use it for longer trips / larger groups / water sports.

So ... we were sitting on the deck in the early evening the other day and somehow the conversation came around to bringing the boat, and Sandy then volunteered (even though I had not even mentioned it to her) that it would take the pressure off us to buy a boat for Florida. We have both really enjoyed the boating down there -- in fact, we do more boating there than up here, at least so far, since the last couple of years up here (north that is) have seen us working pretty hard.

Ok ... so ... let's bring the boat. Not wanting to leave things to the last minute, in case something goes wrong, I moved the trailer into the driveway with the 4-wheeler to hook it up to the X5 to checkout the trailer lights. The only time that they were used was 3 years ago when I pulled the boat+trailer from Toronto to here with the 540 -- ever since then it has just sat around -- with the boat on it during the winter, but sat around all the same.

While it was hooked up to the 4-wheeler, I decided to grease the hubs. I filled the passenger side until old grease, nice and blue, pressed out and then filled the driver's side ... until brown grease & rusty water ... oh oh ... squeezed out. Groan. Ok, pull the hubs to check the bearings.

Pulling the hubs was fairly straightforward since jacking up the trailer was easy -- no boat on it. Sure enough, the driver's side bearings were rusted. They would probably take me back and forth to the landing (3 miles) for a long time, but not 1700 miles to Philly & Florida.

Before pulling the other side, I checked with Sandy, since she was already planning on going into town, to see if she could go earlier. Ok -- so I called Clapperton's garage to ensure that they had the bearings in stock ... yes. Sandy headed off to pick up the bearings while I pulled the other wheel.

After I got the other wheel off, I realized that I might not have enough grease to pack both bearings and called ahead to Clapperton to let them know to give Sandy a tube of grease. No sooner had I hung up the phone and it rang -- it was Steve from TimbrMart saying that Sandy had "lost her bearings" and where should she be going ? Steve has a good sense of humour. I guess that Sandy only heard part of the message and went to the wrong store -- but Clapperton is about 100 yards away and Steve had figured that was where she should be going anyway.

On the other side of the trailer one bearing was clean like new and the other had a slight bit of rust on it -- but I was planning on replacing both anyway. I took emery paper to the outer bearing races to get rid of the rust and was mostly successful -- they felt smooth anyway. When Sandy got back with the bearings I saw that they came with outer races. Also -- no grease -- someone forgot to give it to her even though she must have been there within 2 minutes of my call.

I was not sure how to remove the existing races from the hubs without some special tool so I called Clapperton who said that he just removes them with a flat punch. I worked at that for 45 minutes and gave up -- the hubs were partly connical towards the center and there was not enough lip to the bearing on the other side. I even tried heating it up with the blow torch in case that might free it. So ... since I might not have had enough grease anyway, I went into town to learn the secret of removing bearing races.

Daryl Clapperton tried to use a punch (he had no special tool either) and came to the same conclusion -- no go. I don't think that he had replacement hubs either -- but then used the acetylene torch to partly cut the races and pop them out. When I wondered about "special tool" I had not thought about an acetylene torch, even if I had one. He then found that the bearings that he had given Sandy were the wrong ones ... so there turned out to be three reasons to go back to town -- wrong bearings; remove races; need grease.

We retirees have nothing else to do anyway ... right ? Anyway, life is too short to get irritated at things like this -- this is life and this is how it goes most of the time. He put the new races in (good thing, because I would have driven back home to discover that I had the wrong bearings), we called it square at $20 extra for the labour, acetylene and the $6 difference in the bearing prices (the wrong ones were more expensive). I filled up the X5 with gas ... ready for the long trip to Florida ... and headed back to the cottage. Once there I greased and installed the new bearings, installed the hubs ... good to go. I hooked up the X5 -- checked the lights -- everything was ok (remember, this was what started this entire process).

And go we did -- just in case something else was going to go wrong I launched the Bayliner from the boathouse, removed the ski tow post (don't expect to use it in Florida) and we took the trailer down to the landing and pulled it out of the water.

Now that I'm writing this I wonder if I should bring along the tow post anyway in case at some point I want to pull someone on skis or a tube -- it would be easy to leave in the boat for the trip. I'll try to remember that. Another thing that I have to remember is to pick up a spare tire & rim on the way -- I'll find a Canadian Tire that is open before we cross the border. I have a spare tire for the Whaler trailer but this is a larger tire size.

I started this project around 9am and finished around 4pm. "Unplanned Activity" is the title of this blog and in the north that can easily take up your entire life. I spent another hour or so getting the boat ready for transport -- packing ditra into it and the kitchen sink (yes, the kitchen sink).

Ditra -- I plan on tiling the two bedrooms in Florida and want to use Ditra down there too, right on top of the concrete pad. The bedrooms in Florida are carpeted right now. I will also likely replace the tiles in the master bath -- we plan on redoing that next year. I might tile the guest bedroom this coming winter. I might also need the other roll of Ditra but I can bring that down in November.

Kitchen Sink -- stop laughing -- yes, we're bringing a kitchen sink. We are having the kitchen redone this winter -- already have a deposit and specifications with the contractor -- and the sink that Sandy wants is only available in Canada. The manufacturer -- Franke -- sells sinks in the U.S. too, but it is a larger size. This sink is the same that we have installed here at the cottage.

Sandy did some more cleaning -- I've bored you enough with the story of replacing bearings -- I won't go into details about cleaning bathrooms (unless something exciting happens !).

Planned activities for today -- backup computer, copy files for offsite backup to Florida, organize stuff, pack clothes, pack the car, get house ready for closing, if the rain stops go for a bike ride -- the day will go by quickly.

That's all that I can think of for now.