We organised for an engineer, Neil Morrison to come out from Uig on the North of the island. He came ,dismantled the engine, and left in the dinghy with Gordon and the cylinder head in my big IKEA bag.
(Editors note -I wasn’t actually in the IKEA bag, the head was).
A replacement was ordered . However, it’s now the weekend, nothing will be done till next week sometime, and Neil’s wife was on the cusp of giving birth to their first baby any time now!
Gordon cleaned up all the disassembled parts and flushed the engine through with diesel in preparation of reassembly.
There was nothing else to be done but get on with daily life on board Camira, that meant going to the laundrette to stop the dirty clothes fermenting in the laundry bag in the bilge and haircuts. Oh, Gordon has now fixed the outboard which should make our many trips ashore a bit easier.
We had to make arrangements to get the batteries charged as they had been run flat when Gordon and Tommy were trying to get the engine started that first day.
I made a call to the harbour master and asked if he knew if the RNLI guys had a charger and he thought they did so offered to come and pick us up off the boat with the batteries. Oh, I forgot to mention that we also ran out of gas last night as well, so when Colin the harbour master came to get us we took the gas canister ashore as well to try and get a refill. After depositing the batteries with the RNLI, we found out from Colin that it was a couple of miles walk to get gas at “Jan’s Vans”, I think this is their equivalent to B&Q. I think Colin took pity on us as we walked off canister in hand and so decided to offer us a lift. Everyone in Portree is very obliging.
