Now, the “boneyard” is a high-security, fenced –in area with barbed wire adorning the top of the fence. Inside the “boneyard” are some customer’s houseboats and the remnants of old, decrepit, dying hulls of well-used and long forgotten rental boats awaiting their final demise, whatever that may wind up being. The gate to this high-security area is never closed. So much for security! Anyway, in this area, somewhere, in a pile of boat hulls, seats, trailers, and various and sundry boat parts was a Mercury XR6 and we needed to find it. It was the only XR6 on the lake, or within 3,214 miles for that matter. On this lonely black machine were, hopefully, two (probably) well-used rectifiers. Now, a rectifier is like being a little bit pregnant. It is or it isn’t! It works or it doesn’t! There ain’t no “maybe”. So, new or used, they work or they don’t…period! He was working on his day off and said he would go to the boneyard during his lunch hour and get the rectifiers.
Claudia and I went down to the boat about 1:00 and another mechanic handed me two used rectifiers. I picked one, clipped the four leads together and started the engine. It started! It ran! OK so far! I shut the engine down and got my electrical meter to check the voltages. I first checked the battery voltage. Hmmn…12.4 volts! OK, that’s fine. Now, start the engine. Check the battery. It read 12.7 (or thereabouts)! Hooray! It’s working! The battery is being charged! I shut it down and started to bolt it to the engine. There is an old saying when working around boats. It goes something like “When you are working around a boat, have extra parts available to drop in the bilge”. Well, I was working over the open lake and dropped the mounting bracket into the lake. That was it. No spare…except at the boneyard…maybe.
I drove to the boneyard and checked in at the office. I informed them I needed to look for the motor. I had no idea where it was, but I needed to find it. The world depended on it. I was given a green light. I drove to the area where the rotting boat hulls lay…the spot where Claudia and I scavenged the current seats for the runabout. As I turned the corner to the pile of rotting hulls, something black registered in the peripheral vision of my right eye. I stopped and looked. It was an engine, a Mercury engine. This was not earth-shaking, as we only use Merc’s here at the lake. OK, put the car in “PARK” and walk back to check. I closed the distance and saw the very beautiful “XR6” label on the cowling. What are the odds? The very first motor I come to was the one I was looking for. Things were lookin’ up! I found the spare brackets on the rear seat, grabbed them and returned to the Eliminator. This time I held the bracket very tightly as I installed the two bolts that held it. One last voltage check confirmed it was still working. I proclaimed it fixed and replaced the cowl. Done! Trip #15 is now a “GO”!
On Thursday afternoon, Claudia, Gizmo and I moved all three boats around to the Boat Rental dock in preparation for the arrival of the volunteers on Friday morning. After we secured the boats and did a few last-minute chores, we headed for the EDR (Employees Dining Room…remember?) for a delicious shrimp dinner. After dinner, we returned to the rig for an evening of television. We went to bed early to await an early wake-up. We try to get to the parking lot before 7:30 in order to get a parking spot close to the boat.
The alarm went off at 6:30 and we struggled out of bed. We got dressed, walked the dog and headed for the dock, skipping breakfast for the moment. There were no parking spots open. How could that be? Crap! OK…unload the car and drive to the upper overflow lot to park the car. Then walk the over quarter-mile back to the boat. As luck(?) would have it, there was an empty parking space right next to the dock when I got there. And the car was where? Oh yeah, today is Friday the 13th and it’s starting out that way. Great! We fired up the coffee pot, ate a quick breakfast of mini-wheat squares, got the ice chests loaded with block and cubed ice and awaited the arrival of the volunteers.
Our volunteers arrived around 9:30. We got them all settled and went through the welcome and safety briefings. When all was ready and the Social Director woofed his approval,
we cast off and headed uplake for Cedar Canyon.
The weather forecast for the week was for clear skies, high temperatures and a slight chance of afternoon showers and thundershowers later in the week. I can live with that!
We chugged uplake and turned into Cedar later on in the afternoon. The first few good spots were taken by jet skiers, small boats and campers. We continued on, deeper into the canyon. After some searching in the runabout, Claudia found a suitable spot and I nuzzled the boat against the bank. We set out our mooring lines and declared that we were now secured for the duration. We cleaned the immediate area of fireworks and other debris
and went for a swim. Dinner that night was prepared by Larry and was an almost duplicate of my favorite meal, Claudia’s “Hot Stuff”. The only difference was adding cream cheese to the chicken, chili, mayo mixture instead of sour cream. He made three versions of the dish, all of varying heat, which we promptly dubbed “Stuff”, “Medium Stuff” and “Hot Stuff”. The night was beautiful and was punctuated by two satellites, several meteors and numerous bats.
Day Two was a full day of Trash Tracking Cedar Canyon and Forgotten Canyon. We took a short break in Forgotten so the volunteers could hike up to the Defiance House ruins. Dinner that night was some deliciously marinated steaks and a vegetable-potato medley cooked in foil on the barbie. We “top-decked” it after dinner for a better view of the evening sky. The bats and meteors again dominated the evening.
On Day Three, we moved the boat down to the outer cove of Halls Creek Bay. After securing the boat to a moderate-sized rock and a tamarisk tree, we headed down the bay and worked until 5:30 before quitting for the night. We returned for a spaghetti dinner, punctuated by some far-away lightning and some not so far-away lightning, thunder and light rain.
Day Four! Ah yes, Day Four. The day started out under sunny skies, warm and humid. We finished the rest of Halls Creek Bay before noon and returned for lunch. The skies to the northwest were starting to darken. That’s fine. The storms don’t usually come from that direction. The four volunteers and I jumped into the runabout to go exploring. We first headed for Lost Eden Canyon and my favorite slot canyon. There was a boat there so we had to wait about 20 minutes before I could slide the runabout into the (very) narrow entrance.
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The volunteers couldn’t believe I was going to get the boat in there. I love a challenge! I got it in and they jumped out and scampered into the slot. After 20 minutes and a gazillion pictures, they returned and we left. As we entered the main channel, I looked to the north. The skies to the northwest were a little darker than before. That’s fine. The storms don’t usually come from that direction.
I headed downlake toward some Moki steps
and Annies Canyon where we went for a swim in the large ampitheater. After the swim, we completed cruising Annies and ended at another slot canyon. We then again returned to the main channel. I looked to the north once more. The skies to the northwest were very much darker than before. That’s fine. The storms don’t usually come from that direction.
I thought that it might be prudent to cut the sightseeing trip short and head for home, but there were only two things left to see and they were very close. I pointed the boat downlake for the third time and shortly came to Annies Arch and then went across the channel to Alice J arch. After seeing the Alice J, we headed uplake to return to the TT. As we entered the main channel, I looked to the north. The skies to the northwest were now VERY dark. That’s fine. The storms don’t usually come from that direction. I hammered the throttle, just in case.
We got to the 90-mile channel marker, just five miles short of home, when it hit. The water went from only slightly rough to pure snot in a nanosecond. I had to back off from full-tilt boogie to a crawl immediately. Tom and Kathy, who were riding in the front seats, immediately dove to the back and we closed the center section of the windshield. It started to rain and then absolutely poured. I have NEVER seen it rain so hard in my life. Actually, it was a combination of rain and hail and it HURT when I dared to stick my head above the windshield to make sure we were still near the center of the channel. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the amount of rain was in the 5-8 inches per hour range. It was an extra-large, double-huge amount of precip…a true toad-choker, Charlie Brown! We weren’t going anywhere in a hurry. There was no danger, but I just kept the boat moving forward slowly in the center of the channel and we ate it! After 20 minutes or so, the rain slacked off and we again headed uplake, stopping occasionally to gawk at the many waterfalls now streaming over the tops of the cliff. One actually sprung out from a hole in the side of the cliff. It was spectacular…and then some!
After a short ride, we got to the entrance of Halls Creek and I called Claudia on the radio to see how she had fared. She and Gizmo had experienced a complete white-out, worse than we had suffered out on the lake, except that they were inside a warm, cozy boat and we were outside in a cold, wet boat and were totally soaked to the bone. Reassured that Claudia and Giz were fine, we headed to Halls Landing for some root beer floats and ice.
The radio was crackling about a young female further down in Halls Creek that had a near miss by lightning and had lost feeling in her arms and hands. I later learned that four boats sustained serious damage and one had sunk. To be fair, the operator beached the boat in the storm and the swells kept crashing over the transom, filling the boat. It took a crane to retrieve it. That one was a total loss. The other four had $5K+ damage each. Several of the docks here and at Halls Crossing either separated or had their covered roofs fall. I’m glad we were on the edge of the storm and not right in the middle of it.
After slurping down the floats, we returned to the TT where I put out a second anchor as a precaution. Dinner was barbecued chicken, broiled red potatoes, salad and garlic bread. We all went to bed early. The bats were safely home in bed and we couldn’t see much of the sky anyway.
We cleaned up in the morning and headed for the dock. We pumped and washed the TT and then took the Eliminator to the ramp to unload trash.
After we returned to the main dock to unload the volunteers and their gear, I took the Eliminator back to the ramp to pull it from the water and take it to the boat shop, where the mechanics are going to give it a complete overhaul in the next few days. This, hopefully, will solve the engine problems we have been putting up with. I will know next Friday or Saturday when I put it back in the water. We leave next Sunday for a seven day trip up to Hite Marina, the northernmost spot on the lake, and DON’T need any problems that far away from home.
After the Hite trip, Claudia and I are bringing the motorhome back down to Wahweap (Page) on Monday. We will fly back up to Bullfrog on Thursday and stay on the TT until Sunday when we leave for our final trip of the year. When that trip ends on Thursday (the 9th), we will offload the boat as usual but, as soon as we’re finished offloading, we’ll head downlake for a two-day trip to Wahweap and the end of our contract. Our contract actually ends on the 14th, but we have to meet with the people that are taking over for us and go over some of the changes we have made on the boat. We will probably head for home on the 14th or 15th, stopping for one night in Las Vegas so I can deplete some of our savings by shopping at Bass Pro Shops. Unfortunately, BPS adjoins a casino and I’m sure that Claudia will also deplete our savings even further. She may even go into Gizmo’s share!
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