Harøysund, on dry land!

It was great to see Håvard again, almost two years since we last met him. We have been very lucky to meet such lovely people in Norway and Håvard has really gone above and beyond. Just a few hours after he arrived we had been lifted out which for someone used to craning boats I'm sure is no big deal, but for us, our little home suspended in the air above his fishing boat was a bit scary!! Quickly though she was on dry land and we could get started on getting her fixed. It wasn't possible to fully investigate the problem with the boat in the water as various hoses had melted and so the water ingress made it not particularly sensible to dig around!

Ashore!

Since we managed to contain the fire (or overheating) and prevent the boat from total loss the insurance does not cover the overheating engine work and so we are having to do the engine work on a much tighter budget, therefore we are working on the engine ourselves. We discovered the cause of the problem was the shaft within the water pump had completely sheered, thankfully the engine seems to have avoided too much damage and will run again with some work all being well. While we were out of the water we took the opportunity to fit the new bellows which Volvo penta had kindly sponsored us, we have never personally been involved in taking a sterndrive off of a boat and so it seemed a bit daunting! After a lot of hours and a lot of varied language we had the sterndrive back on, having replaced bellows and anodes.

Now I'm no expert, but I am guessing that shouldn't be like that!!

The exhaust hoses had been melted due to the vast heat and we have replaced them with new ones. The water pump has proved more difficult as it had appeared to be out of production but thanks to a contact of Håvards in Oslo we hope to have a pump arriving from Sweden in the next few days!! After this arrives and has been fitted we will be ready to be craned back in to the water and ready to wait to cross Hustadvika.
Its also been really good to see some of the nice people we had met here when we were last here, it feels like home! Since we have completed all the work until the pump arrives we will have a couple of days to do some land based exploring, maybe even go on some dinghy expeditions!!