Saturday, July 9, 2016

Day 99 Work day in Thessalon, Ontario

      I did get to sleep in this morning, but I managed to get started on the oil change for the two main diesel engines at 10 am. Back in St Ignace I bought three t-shirts mainly to wear as undershirts to add an extra layer of warmth, but to work in the engine room, which would be warm from the heat generated from running the engines, I wore just a t-shirt (photo at left). This photo is for my friends from growing up in Lorain, Ohio on the shore of Lake Erie. Don't hate me too much...

      I started the starboard engine and let it warm up for 20 minutes to hopefully get all of the “bad stuff” stirred up in the oil. While that was going on, I got all of my equipment ready, including the oil filter wrench, the 5 gallon can with the oil pump and massive amounts of paper towels. The actual oil change takes about 10 minutes to pump out the 3 gallons of used oil. The drain plug at the bottom of the crankcase has been replaced by a pipe fitting with a hose attached. The hose is routed up alongside the engine where a slip fitting is attached. The photo at the right shows the slip fitting from the bottom of the crankcase (left) and the one from the pump on the 5 gallon can (right).

     The oil pump on the 5 gallon can is shown in the photo at the left. After the oil is out, I change the filter and add 3 gallons of new oil. The oil pump on the 5 gallon can is a reversible, 12 volt DC motor. So, I can pump the used oil back out of the 5 gallon can into the containers that the new oil came in. Since Canada has been totally on the Metric system for about 40 years, instead of buying 1 gallon containers of oil, I bout 5 liter containers, which are closer to 1.32 gallons so I had to incrementally add the last of the oil and keep checking the dip stick to see when the oil was full. Anyway, two hours later I had finished the oil changes on both engines, but I still had to clean up all of the tools and the 5 gallon can. However, lunch was calling…
      We walked into town and found a delightful local bakery/restaurant (photo at right). The old house had been converted into a bakery/kitchen in the original kitchen with the cashier and display cabinets in the dining room, and we ate in either the old salon or drawing room. It was the kind of place where everyone greeted you and chatted. Much fun! I had my first sandwich in over 13 months, and it was ham with lettuce, tomato and onion on freshly made wheat bread. We have been on the Whole 30 Diet since June 1, 2015, and mostly since then I have lost 49 pounds and my arthritic ankles have been more or less pain free since then. Anyway, part of the diet is no processed flour, no sugar, and organic vegetables and meat.   
      The downtown is mainly on one street, and almost all of the store fronts were occupied, but there were some vacant lots. This unique park bench (photo at left) was in one of those lots along with wooden planters and some shrubs. The carvings depicted stylized fish and waves and either were new or very well cared for. We also visited the hardware store for the second time as well as two larger stores that I would describe as department/variety stores with a really eclectic range of goods for sale. Then it was back to the boat to finish the oil change. I ran each engine for several minutes to make sure that there was oil in the oil filters, and the I needed to add about 1 quart of oil to each engine. This marina does not recycle motor oil so we will be carrying the old oil with us until we find a marina that does.
       We stayed on the boat for dinner and in general had a quiet evening. Lucky was always on the lookout for a beach with rocks where she could pursue her new found hobby of fetching rocks. The best that I could do was the boat launch ramp at the marina, which unfortunately was paved with concrete. However, she could go down the launch ramp, splash around and drink the cool lake water. On several of her walks “we” stopped to examine some of the many local outcrops (photo at left). The last of the glaciers retreated through here about 6,000 years ago. There is not much soil around here, and many of the local buildings are actually built on bedrock or have out crops in their yards. The rock is a granite with quartz, feldspar and very minor amounts of mica. This is they kind of rock that would polish very well (i.e. make a good kitchen counter top), but you can also see some “scratches") on the surface that are oriented from left to right in the photo (nail clipper for scale). The glacial ice carries rocks with grains that range in size from dust size up to “house” sized or larger. As these grains are dragged over the bedrock they abrade or wear the surface down. Small particles tend to polish the surfaces, but larger grains can scratch it. The scratches can then be enlarged by further abrasion into glacial striae (shown here) and ultimately into large grooves several feet or more across and deep. The alignment of the striae here show the movement direction of the ice.


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