Day 41

The blog site has been down for several days, but life has not been dull. The title of this message should be more like " and then what happened" or perhaps, "what else could go wrong".

Two days ago, in an area called Percy Reach, we hit a submerged rock. The water level is down almost 3 feet, due to the drought in the Midwest . The wind was blowing us to a hostile shore so I quickly launched the dinghy and tried to tow Lydia back to the lock wall, about a 1/4 mile back.
 The Canadian waters are filled with milfoil and it is so heavy that it clogged the tow rope and yet anchored us off shore. After an eternity I freed up the rope and ever so clumsily towed Lydia to Lock 8. I called a lfriend in Trenton, he called another friend who is a diver and he showed up hours later. His name is David Gartshore and I have contacted the Pope to nominate him for sainthood. The prop cage, that was supposed to protect us from such disasters had net into the propeller.Before David came I had dived the situation and had started to remove the prop guard. It was at that time I realized the bolts holding the guard went right through the hull and that if I had completely removed them Lydia would sink.

Now when David arrived I had already resigned myself to having the boat trailered back to Buckhorn for major repairs that would take the rest of the fall. Dave says no way. So he puts on a lung and removes the bolts and guard from the outside. I crawl and squeeze myself into a place. that
 . no normal sized human could get into and using his long pliers and a extended wrench called a Johnson bar fasten the nuts back on while he pushes them back from the outside. They were too long now so we ,had to use oversized nuts a washers. It worked. The prop is not perfect, but is serviceable , so we were able to get underway yesterday and made it to Campbellford where we crashed. Did I  mention that it was pitch black when we mfinished and Dave was working now by feel alone. For my efforts I am black and blue from shoulders to mid ribs. We were desperate. We will be in Buckhorn in a couple of days and a new propeller is waiting for us there.  Dave is, in addition to being a great and handy boat man, a heck of a nice guy. We will never forget his assistance and great personality.

After a good nights sleep at a small hotel in Campbellford we have recovered and leave today , heading upriver as far as we can get.

Much love to all who took the time to read this.