Tally so far:

Days on journey: 214
Travel Days: 92
Miles traveled: 3294
Guests traveled with us: 12
Marina nights: 142
Anchorage nights: 72
Locks: 38
Fuel consumed: 2493 gallons
Most expensive fuel: $7.60 gallon in Tonowanda NY

First off, Ohio is HOT. I mean really HOT and HUMID.

We actually stayed 2 extra nights in the Huron City Boat Basin than was originally planned. We found out that there was a concert in the park right at the marina on Saturday night and we were having such a great time at night at the local bar and grill with the staff, the locals and another traveling couple that we decided to extend to Sunday night. The other couple, Jeff and Loraine, are working their way down to Cape Coral Florida, just a few hours south of our house, where they will be for a few months before they head to the Bahamas for the winter. Jeff, being the Captain, and I have similar stories of our escapades and stunts while driving and docking the boats. Loraine and Michael share common issues with navigating, working the lines and dealing with persnickety and demanding Captains. We will be getting back together with them in October for more laughs and updated stories.

As was left off on the last post, we were having trouble with the starboard engine dropping RPMs. Well, Ohio Caterpillar never did bother to call us back – so don’t give them any business if ever in this part of the country. But Michael did find a small shop diesel place to call. The mechanics do not work on Friday…this again…but the woman in the office did get ahold of one of the guys who did call back. He was a wealth of information and he even turned us on to a fuel polisher, yup, that’s a thing and more on that later.

After talking to the diesel guy, fuel filters and water separator/first stage fuel filter were changed. The starboard engine was FULL of black, slimey, disgusting gunk, called Diesel Bugs. Diesel Bugs are actually living microorganisms, bacteria, fungus, and all other kinds of eeewwwww that somehow manage to live in diesel fuel. This stuff was shaken from the bottom of the fuel tanks as the result of our 4 days of being battered in Lake Erie and was now free floating in the fuel tank and getting sucked up into the filters and clogging them, starving the engine of fuel.

After changing the filters, Michael called the fuel polisher, Jim. Jim was a gem. He drove out to where we were from 40 minutes away to take a look at the issue. A fuel polisher performs essentially dialysis on the fuel tanks to clean out the bugs from the tanks and the fuel, then puts the cleaned fuel back into hopefully clean tanks. The only issue for us was there had to be two more holes drilled in the boat so he could get to the tanks sending units to hook up his system. Jeez! Why did they make these thing so hard to get to for maintenance!

Turns out Jim recommended that we start by chemically killing the bugs and conditioning the fuel, thereby alleviating the need for the extreme polishing process. We can always do the polishing later if the problem persists. Jim even drove to a West Marine for us, since we do not have a way to get around easily, and bought us the necessary fuel additives to accomplish the task. We just got fuel today and put the stuff in the tanks for the first shock treatment. It will be added to every refueling from now on. I just hope I don’t hear a bunch of banging and screaming coming from the basement as the bug massacre ensues.

We are currently in a marina in Catawba Ohio for tonight and tomorrow night (8/8 & 8/9) where we will be changing the oil (this place has a used oil depository so we don’t have to carry it around with us) and where we have finally located a new supply of fuel filters in case the dead bugs don’t stay dead and we have to change filters again.

Keep checking in on our Adventure. Love to all, Gina and Mike