Nov 8 - about boating

Well, thanks to Bonnie, I found out why the battery was giving a low signal at the cottage - the power was out for about 36 hours.  It was a BIG outage, also affecting them in Magnetawan.  In fact our cottage was back online before some of Northern Ontario.  Our freezer and fridge should be ok since the house temperature was low.   I really need to put a min/max thermometer in both of them.

We did two boating-related things yesterday.  I did some more Craigslist research and emailed another couple of people and the first person that I'd been emailing finally got back to me.  We made arrangements to come and see his boat and struck a deal.  It's a Carolina Skiff 16' with a 40hp motor, trailer, trolling motor, bimini, live wells and two dogs in the pictures !  It's well setup and clean.  I'm taking his word that everything works but he wouldn't take my word and take a check ... not surprising on that score, so I'm going to the bank this morning and picking up the boat this afternoon.

It's got a 1 7/8" ball, unfortunately, so I went to Advance Auto and picked up a ball and then attempted to remove the existing 2" ball from my existing hitch insert (whatever they're called).  Wow.  Two huge wrenches and no luck.  Finally, after a lot of work and Sandy's help, bracing one of the wrenches on the driveway, lots of Kroil penetrating oil and a sledge hammer hitting the other wrench, bang, bang, bang over and over for the entire width of the nut -- not just to get it started -- the 2" ball was off.  A little oil and it spins freely. Who says that stainless steel is actually stainless ?  Actually it wasn't really rusted, just that the threads were frozen with road gunk acting as thread locker.

All that done, I might just replace the hitch on the trailer with a 2" hitch but not having the trailer in front of me, I couldn't weigh one option against the other.

The other boating thing that "we" did was ...

Cassie and I took the little Whaler out for a good spin.  It really does run well but I'm still planning on putting it on the block.  If it won't sell for something decent, perhaps I'll bring it up north. I will call Ralph's Mobile Marine this morning and get a quote on fixing the starter and replacing the cowling retaining clip.

On the way back from the Skiff, which is located Beachside in Ormond Beach, we stopped at Hulls and picked up Lionfish and scallops.  We had the scallops for dinner last night; they were excellent.

Today's agenda is set - go to bank, bike ride, pickup boat.  I'm going to have to juggle boat and trailer ownerships if the Whaler isn't fixed and sold quickly ... or ... plan to take it up north.  It's a good kids boat.

Onward !