Were we "Belt" a Challenging Day

Blue Monday, and I'm not sure what they call a bad Tuesday, but we certainly didn't have any good results from our efforts to overcome our broken belt issue today. What I do know, is Out To See is still moving forward, and today we made good progress, but on one engine.

This morning I phoned everyone I could, to get a Volvo belt for our one engine. After several phone calls I finally made a connection to the local Volvo dealer and he was located near Troy at the beginning of the Erie Canal. He said," I will check availability and call you right back" and it is now 9 pm and still no call.

I called the local NAPA parts dealer and he said "bring the old belt here, and I will see what I can get". Sounded good to me, but finding a taxi was our next challenge. No taxi's to be found, so I tried Uber and sure enough one came in 15 minutes. Off the three of us went to get a new belt and some groceries. Yes, NAPA had a belt and Jan and Cynthis had the groceries.

Next problem was, we could not get an Uber back, nor a taxi, so we were sitting with two bags of groceries and 4 bottles of water. It was just too far to walk carrying all we bought. Jan then went into the grocery store and the manager arranged a taxi for the low low price of $25 for a 7 minute ride. The Uber was $10 so we got ripped off by the taxi company, but we did made it back. to the boat.

We felt pretty good about things now, and Captain Paul proceeded to install the belt. With some assistance from Jan we got it tight and properly installed. Not much room in the engine compartment for two to work.

It looked good after we installed the NAPA Belt, but it didn't last long.

I fired up the engine and within 10 seconds, the new belt was frayed and destroyed. Something else was wrong. I then called a local marine mechanic and he came over immediately, and did a quick check. "You have a bad water pump," he said, and now we know why the belts are being damaged.

We decided to move forward on one engine and make up as much distance as possible. In the meantime, we obtained the part numbers for a new water pump and belts and called Ess-Kay Marina and asked if they would get the parts and install them when we get to their marina in Brewerton. And that, is our plan. All we need now, are the parts and we will know more tomorrow on the timing.

Here are a few pictures from the route today but we travelled this portion before and didn't see much that we have not posted already. Our minds were really into fixing the boat.

On our route we saw a train pass by and we are hoping that you do not have any Amazon Prime deliveries that you might be missing or late. If so, they could be on the AMAZON EXPRESS that went zooming by.

As we headed up the river past Albany, we came upon a Riverboat loaded with around 200 Military BRATS who were whooping it up, cheering loudly and greeting us as we boated by. They must have chartered this boat for an evening cruise, away from their station. BRATS stands for children that grow up in a military family or known technically as Born Raised And Transferred. They certainly were having fun together, brat or not!

Today, at 2:45 PM we left Catskills and travelled northbound on the final stretches of the Hudson River. We passed through Lock 1 at 8 pm, which was the Federal Lock and tomorrow morning at 8 am, we will head into the Erie Canal and make as much distance as possible. If we can get to Little Falls, we will do well and likely make it to Brewerton by our planned arrival Thursday.

We did get a sunset picture as we passed through the Federal Lock

Like I said - Stay Tuned, and let's see what happens tomorrow

Here is our Nebo Log for the day. We travelled 69.9 km's at 14.2 Km per hour average and it took 5.27 hours.