2019 RV/Boat

It’s now Tuesday and there’s been a lot of activity here and away.  When I left you Sunday, I was feeling pretty good about my boat repair skills and figured I probably had a dinghy that was seaworthy. 

Well, first thing Monday morning I got everything out to assemble the inflatable and son of a gun, another hole.  I said “oh, shucks”.

That little mouse hole is on a seam and that’s fatal for the dinghy.  No way to get any kind of a patch on that one.  We’re through.

What to do?  One can’t enjoy the North Channel without a fishing boat, so the search was on for a replacement after discussing the trauma with my insurance agent.  Seems there are very few places that actually stock those boats.  Want a Lund?  Every town in the state has a dealer.  Want an inflatable dinghy?  There were four choices that I could come up with. 

After a couple hours of searching and phone calls, I stumbled onto a dealer in Bay City that had the direct replacement for my leaky ship…IN STOCK! and relatively convenient to my location.

So it was off to Bay City to get it and then to the Secretary of State to register the boat, then on home for the night so I could cement the davit pads onto the new inflatable.  That was a long day and not a lot of fun, although I did enjoy my bed and a hot, SOFT water shower.

But here we are Tuesday afternoon back at Straits Harbor.

And what’s that?  Yessiree!!!  That’s my brand new dinghy.

All assembled and attached to the davits on the platform.

I'll wait until morning before I swing it up on the davits.  That will give the adhesive another 12 hours of cure time before any load is put on them.

The crisis is over…on with the show.  Speaking of which, the wind FINALLY gave up this evening after a 3 day blow. 

So we’re all loaded and fueled up.  Plan is to head to Drummond Island for a day then beat a path to Blind River, Ontario before the next scheduled blow Friday afternoon.  Friday is Canada Day so there should be some festivities to enjoy there this weekend.  Should be about a 25% exchange premium on my US dollars over there as well.  That will be nice.

So it’s between those two islands, (Mackinac on the left and Round on the right) turn right at the third seagull and go about another 35 miles to the Detour Channel.

That’s the plan anyway.