AUGUST 8, 2013

Our last hurrah in Alaska was to be the circumnavigation of the Behm Canal (it surrounds Ketchikan) ending at the beautiful Misty Fjords. While at anchor in remote Yes Bay (our first stop in the circumnavigation) David was doing normal maintainance in the engine room when he discovered a huge oil leak (2-3 quarts) from the starboard engine. This rendered the engine unusable…a rather major issue. David talked to his Seattle engine mechanic who said we needed to get the parts flown into Ketchikan from the U.S. (a 3-5 day process here in Alaska for “overnight” delivery) and a mechanic flown in from Juneau to do the work. It will be a full day repair as the blower needs to be removed first: translation: $$$$$. David is the kind of guy who will drive across town to save $5, so this does not go over well at all.

After a few cocktails David’s creative juices start flowing and back to the engine room he goes. An hour later he comes out with a grin on his face much like that of a 5-year-old boy who just figured out how to fix his broken bicycle all by himself. He proclaims “I cleaned everything up, used a dental tool to get the broken part back in place and made a patch that might get us back to Ketchikan! I slathered Amazing Goop all around the broken part that gave way. We’ll know tomorrow if it will work.” Say what?

Tomorrow comes and we pull the anchor and start “limping” back to Ketchikan on one engine. After about an hour we turn on the starboard engine and wait. Tick tock tick tock…low and behold the Amazing Goop seems to be working! David gets his mechanic back on the phone and tells him what he’s done. The mechanic’s response: “Brilliant! Do you want a job?”. I will never stop being amazed at this man’s ingenuity. Let’s hear it for all those summers spent on the family farm in North Dakota where he learned to figure out how to fix anything that was broken. That’s my Captain!

Captain celebrating the success of Amazing Goop.