Mechanical difficulties

Well as all our boat owning friends know, when you have a boat; things tend to break now and then.  After a great trip across Lake Ontario Captain Keith checked the engine room as he always does and found we were taking on a small amount of water.  He traced the problem to a leaking shaft seal.  For our non boating friends, simply speaking the shaft is a metal pipe that extends from each engine out the bottom of the boat to the propeller.  This is how the engine turns the propeller.  The hole through which the shaft exits the boat has a special seal that keeps water from coming into the boat.  Ours was leaking, so Captain Keith spent a large part of Sunday morning and much of Monday trying to fix the problem.  He put a new seal on the affected shaft and tightened everything.  Unfortunately he also found a bad bearing also on this shaft.  We determined that it could not be fixed until we have the boat pulled out of the water so the whole shaft can be slid out of the way.  Finding someone to haul Southern Style out of the water up here proved to be quite a challenge, but we hope to have someone to do it in Ontario on Friday.  So we are spending a few more days in Clayton, NY.  And what do boaters do when their boat is broken and they are waiting for repairs?  They shop, eat, and drink.  Oh wait.............. maybe boaters do those things whether the boat is broken or not.  Anyway.........

Tuesday morning we biked to Bella's for breakfast.  The French toast was awesome.  The Bloody Mary was also not bad.

We went in and out of several shops.  Captain Keith purchased a nice necklace for me that I spied in the jewelry store in town. I even found some thread I needed for a recent quilt project in one store.
On the way back from shopping we biked through the downtown park and watched some big ships pass on the St. Lawrence.

Muskie statue

Adirondack chairs in the Park

The Thunder Bay passing Downtown Clayton

After getting back to the boat, I decided to do some kayaking.  The water is so clear and pretty.

My view up the St. Lawrence

No tree, not an official island

Later in the afternoon once I returned from kayaking, Captain Keith and I biked to the Clayton Distillery and did some taste testing.  We came home with two bottles of liqueur.

Clayton Distillery

Bottles of Moonshine

Pengi displaying our purchases

The evening was capped off with dinner at the Wood Boat Brewery.

Tomorrow we are scheduled for a boat ride on a tour boat up to Boldt Castle.  Hopefully we will also hear about our scheduled haul-out.