Thursday, June 30, 2005: Melanie Cove to Refuge Cove

We left Melanie cove around 11 a.m. on our way to Gorge Harbor. We stopped along the way at Refuge Cove to stock up at the store. We needed to tie up to a dock and have all the guys troubleshoot the dinghy problem and now the windlass. It kept tripping the breaker when we were pulling anchor this morning. Mark was looking for electrical problems with the windlass while Bob and John checked the oil in the gear case and found none. They must have shipped it from China without oil. Bad news -- thank goodness the little store had tubes of oil. Once it was filled, it ran much better. When we get back to Seattle we need to have Sterling check to make sure no permanent damage was done. Unfortunately the transmission cable was broken on the dinghy motor. We needed to get it fixed and the only place to do so was Campbell River, historically renowned as "The Salmon Capital of the World." They had a Honda repair guy there. We headed for Campbell River while the others headed on to Gorge Harbor. We made plans to catch up to them as soon as possible.

We arrived into Campbell River around 3 p.m. but were informed that it was too late for the repairman to make it out. The next day was Canada Day (like our July 4th) so Saturday was the first they could fix it. So we made ourselves comfortable in the really nice marina which was located right behind a shopping area. We found a great restaurant and just enjoyed our forced break.