Grease Monkeys

Claire and I have spent the last few days servicing the skidoos. The mechanic could not come out to do the job and we have had to do it ourselves – the blind leading the blind. One of the machines just will not work so we can’t fix that, but we have been dismantling, cleaning and reassembling 3 pairs of Rave valves on the other 3 Doos, which I was shown how to do last year by Hurry. Don't ask me what rave valves are - I think they make it go.

Taking a rave valve out

Cleaning

Before - After

We greased the undercarriage and put new bearings into many of the track wheels. We’ve now run out of bearings and new wheels so none of the skidoos can be used until we get spares next week – a bit of a blow as it puts us back when we should be recce-ing routes for the season.

Clearing snow

Camp Mascot

We’ve now got our new 64 amp cable installed, more like a snake than a cable, so can run all the heaters in the containers without blowing the fuses. The broken sledges have also been repaired, by Steve who arrived a couple of days ago.

Putting in new power  cable

Fuse box in Weather Haven

Fixing sledges

A large amount of the fuel we should be using for the skidoos for the season seems to have gone missing at the airport, so we have been digging holes in the snow to look for it without success. The fuel we did  find has now all been transferred into Jerry cans.

Transferring fuel

Looking for fuel

The two dogs continue to cause trouble. Whilst very friendly, they chew everything in sight and last night I beat them away from the camp with a shovel. They came back later and chewed one of the Doo seats to pieces.

The Hilton incinerator toilet has had it’s ups and downs. The other day it was blowing about 40 knots and the venting did not work, so all the fumes of the burning ‘stuff’ blew into the Hilton. Talk about make your eyes water! Spindrift also blew into the vent and soaked the you, the toilet and the bog roll placed directly below it.

Camp visitor - an Ermine

The first groups arrive next week, probably at the same time as the spare parts for the skidoos, so we will have to do at least one journey before then to test our travel systems. This will be difficult, as some of the wheel bearings on all skidoos are ready to break. We have been trailing a method to recover a disabled skidoo and hope we don’t have to use it.

Rescue system

Lighter evenings

Kingair arriving

 

Sun Dogs in the morning