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Day: 9 July 2022

A short walk around Great Ganilly

A short walk around Great Ganilly

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On Day 20 we arrived in the Isles of Scilly, amidst the Eastern Isles, right next to Great Ganilly.

We were only a short distance from Great Ganilly Island, so figured we had better replace our outboard engine oil (a job we had been putting off), and explore the island!

We took the dinghy a short distance to shore and carried it over a bit of rocky ground so it wouldn’t drift away as the tide rose.

Heading counter-clockwise around the island we first found ourselves on a little beach with a webcam (we guess for seals).

There was quite a bit of fishing tackle, ropes and things caught in rocks and on the beach, including this box that said Lowestoft! It’s a small world, as Lowestoft is Kathryn’s mums home town.

The island had a few paths carved out from where people had visited before. But the main inhabitants seemed to be hundreds of sea birds, all of which were flying around keeping an eye on what we were doing…

As we came back around to the western side of the island we got the opportunity to take some nice pictures of Hannah from the shore.

Instagram Post (July 9)

We weren’t ready to head back to the boat, so we relaxed on the beach until sunset.

From the beach, we could see a rock that looked a lot like what Grace described as a giant slug, but we were thinking of a crocodile. So of course, I (Adam) had to go and see what it would look like if I tried to ride it.

Meanwhile, Kathryn was once again getting artsy in the sand.

On the way back to the boat, we could mostly have the dinghy engine off and drift downwind, which was perfect as the seals were out and about.

Instagram Post (July 12)
Day 20: Penzance to the Isles of Scilly

Day 20: Penzance to the Isles of Scilly

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There were points where we were considering not heading the Isles of Scilly, as we are on a schedule to reach Porto, Portugal at the start of August. We thought it would be a shame to miss out though, and the long-range forecast looked good for a hop to the Scillies, follows by a crossing of Biscay or to Brest, France.

We once again used Fast Seas weather routing for this crossing, and we included the details of this in our Nic 38 owners forum reply.

The route was all on a single tack out along the cornish coast, past lands end and straight to the Isles. Our track matched this rather nicely.

We did lose the wind for a little bit as we approached Lands End. We could see the wind on the sea in the distance so motored up to it, and that gave us the opportunity to grab this picture of Lands End from the sea.

We headed into the Isles of Scilly at the closest point to us, the Eastern Isles.

The sea continued to look like the picture above (nice and flat) just with short rolling ocean swell.

There was a lovely little anchorage which we shared with 3 other boats, and a family of seals.

Instagram Post (July 9)

We trekked around the nearest island and on our way back from land in the dinghy the seals were all relaxing in the seaweed close to shore and we snapped this great picture.

Instagram Post (July 12)
Dinghy engine oil change

Dinghy engine oil change

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Arriving in the Isles of Scilly we found ourselves with some extra time, and also the desire to explore some nearby islands.

We had a long list of jobs still to do back on 2022 splash day, one of which was the dinghy engine oil change.

So before exploring anywhere, it was time to tick off another job. Dinghy engine oil change.

Speifically, Hannah’s dinghy is a Zodiac with a 3.3 HP 2-stroke Mariner outboard engine.

How to replace the gear oil

I imagine outboards are normally serviced on land. But we had no easy option to do that.

All of the guides that we found also said that you are meant to use a special gear oil pump of sorts, but we didn’t have one of those to hand.

You can get an overview of what this process is meant to look like in this video.

Mounting the engine

We didn’t really want to replace the oil in the engines normal positions, hanging over the side of the boat, or ashore, in case of spills.

So we rigged the engine in the cockpit with numerous ropes to suspend it in mid air with the floor covered in plastic beneath.

We used one rope heading out from each side of the engine at least to keep it stable.

Conveniently we were in a very flat anchorage.

Replacing the oil

As was mentioned in the video, there are 2 screws that you need to locate.

Here are the screws on our Mariner 3.3 HP.

Undoing the bottom screw allows a little oil to start trickeling out into a container we had prepared. The top one released the flood gates and we waited a few minuites for the flow to slow.

We found a random site online that said that the gear oil capacity for an engine like this was around 140ml, so this is what we were aiming for.

To get the new oil into the outboard we used a syringe whoose nozzle happened to just fit inside the hole opened up by the screw. Pouring oil from our new container into a small bowl, then sucking it up with the syringe and shooting it into the hole, covering the hole with our fingers between synringes (as we needed multiple to reach 140ml).

You can see the syringe we used and difference in our oil colour below. Grey / blue being the oil coming out, and yellow being the oil going in.

We won’t talk about the time we accidently fired oil across the cockpit using the syringe, thats better left in the past.

Doing the screws up, and cleaning the engine off, we were all set for our next dinghy trip!