July 5th, 2011

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July 5th. My date stood me up.

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

The promised hoist, yesterday, has not yet been met. But later today…

It rained 12 hours steady on Sunday from 4 till 4 p.m., then I still managed to get a secondĀ coat of bottom paint on the areas that will be covered by the stanchion when the boat is shifted. I worked all day on the drive shaft to engine alignment. But in the end I got real lucky. I was all resigned to having to lift the engine up from the four bases and re drill the holes. But when I had all the 12 nuts taken off their bolts and used a lever to lift the engine from the front and then let it back down it settled in a perfect alignment. Totally in the opposite direction of where I had expected to have to drill the new holes. Baffled but satisfied. Yesterday I installed the flex coupling. This is going to make the ride a whole lot smoother.

I figure that I’ll be back in the river by the weekend and then I need to wait for the engine controls to arrive from Holland. Probably towards Monday.

The 4th of July almost passed as just another day but one of the guards, when I came “to work”, yelled “happy Patru (4) July Americano!”.

Since I left in 2005 I had the “fourth” that year in Papeete, Tahiti. 2006 in Tawi-Tawi, the most southern Island in the Philippines where I had made an illegal (because I had no visa) stop to get a supply of $1 a fifth rum before my next stops in Moslem Malaysia and Indonesia. 2007 I was back in Tacoma, visiting by air from Virginia, 2009 I was working on the boat in Green Cove Springs, Florida. 2010 in Holland. Who knows where I will be the next couple of years. I do miss the tradition in Tacoma, the activities on the bay front, the fireworks, often watched from the boat at anchor in the bay.