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What is Wrong with People – Ungulates.
At various times in life most normal people have to ask themselves, usually while shaking their head, “What is wrong with people?” This is the question that I currently find my self mumbling under my breath. (If you’ve never asked yourself this, you just might be part the subject upon which we are about to embark.)
You see, it is 12:30am – that’s middle of the night here – and the people in the boat across the dock from us are carrying on as if they were the only people within 100 miles. I assume, as they have been drinking since I first saw them this morning at about 10:15am, that they are now good and drunk. There are various loud male voices punctuated by fits of drunken female laughter – none restrained, none moderated. The first thing we had to do this evening as we got ready to go to bed, was close all the hatches and doors to somewhat muffle the carrying on. In the time it took for me to get the front hatch closed I was privy to the most degrading and disgusting conversation that was taking place over which all were laughing uncontrollably. Decorum and common decency being sadly wanted by these pitiful excuses for humans, and the self centered nature of their actions, lead me to believe that they were either brought up by farm animals or like the prodigal have descended to the level of the pigs who’s filth they seem to revel in.
In the past, I would have gone out, begging their forgiveness for my family’s bodily weakness in requiring sleep and to gently remind the farm animals that we, here in the civilized world, would very much like to retire in peace for the evening and would be much obliged if they would keep their grunting and snuffling to a minimum. My wife has denied me the joy of turning the hose on the floating pen as one member of the drunken troop is being rounded up tomorrow and shipped off to parts east of here – an occasion for which we too, by rights, should party and carouse all night long.
So, we wait, hoping beyond hope for the sweet sounds of silence that should result in a few unbroken hours of sleep till the morrow when those of us who have some purpose in life and who attempt to be productive members of society rise to go off to our places of employment (and try not to stumble over the dozens of crushed beer cans that the menagerie will have surely left behind.)
In my research for this very liberating post, I discovered that ungulates are known to eat their own young and often feed on their own excrement. I also found that pigs don’t sweat. And so, on that positive note, I shall end this post and go back to trying to tune out the nocturnal sounds of the swineherd 5 feet away from my bedroom window.
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Hard Decisions
We have received a fair amount of questioning from friends and family about what our plans are. I knew that at some point a decision about our future would need to be made but I kind of shoved it out of my mind for a couple of weeks. However, every day The Boy needs a bit more space, A is a touch plumper (in the good pregnancy way) and I’m still, well … fleshy. So, it has become rather obvious to me that one of the requirements that we need to fill is: – we need more room.
Initially, in a fit of spittle spraying panic, I strongly suggested that we had to start looking for a furnished apartment. Of course, the panic was a result of my putting the problem out of my mind for two weeks, and then feeling the pressure of it. A. gamely played along, but I suspect that even then she knew what the plan was. The next day, she called me at work and suggested that she had an idea that she wanted to present but NOT have me shoot down without hearing it. (That’s what she has to do when I get all lathered up about something.)
When I got home she sat me down and said that not only did she NOT want to move into an apartment but that she still wanted to stay on the water. How cool is that? She then proceeded to show me a series of houseboats on Yachtworld. At first, I was thinking – “oh no, not a stinkpot” (thats what sailors call powerboaters – while we sailors are called blowhards) but A. presented the logic to me.
- We are not going to sail around the world in the next few years, not at least until the kids are 4 or 5 yrs old.
- Sailing the 10 or so times a season does not justify us living in such a cramped space even if this is a great bluewater boat.
- Even though I love sailing – the sails up, sun shining, the water whispering past the hull – my family needs more room.
So, we are officially on the hunt for a houseboat. This past weekend we went to look at a couple of 40′ foot steel houseboats – River Queens. They are houseboats with a hull as opposed to pontoons – twin engine … but no sails. Oh well … dream postponed, not dream over.
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Atomic 4 Problems…
Wow – 2 posts in one day – that must be a record or something.
One of my jobs this weekend was to get my Atomic Bomb (Atomic 4 Gasoline Marine Engine) running properly. When we moved the boat from our winter slip over to our summer slip, I noticed that I could not get the engine over about 1200 rpm. It should hit 4000 easily. Of course, I left that problem until I really needed the engine – like this weekend when we wanted to go sailing. Here is what I found.
The engine idled well – or I should say it seemed to idle well. But when I put the boat into gear and revved her up, the engine would begin to bog down and would not go above 1200 rpm. So…
I made a couple of assumptions: I doubted that the prop was fouled as we have not been out anywhere where it could have picked something up. I also assumed the gasoline was OK as it would run in a seemingly normal fashion at idle – certainly not rough anyway. So I decided to check to see if it was my electrical/ignition system. With the engine running I removed each spark plug wire one by one and determined that this here A Bomb was only running on 2 cylinders. Removing wires 1 and 4 made no difference to how the engine was running but removing 2 or 3 would almost stall the engine. So now I had narrowed it down to 1 and 4 – but what was actually happening with them?
Next I pulled the wire off of 4 and positioned it close to the engine block and turned the engine over. The spark jumped strong and hard from the wire end to the engine block. I did the same thing with wire number 1 with the same result – there was good strong spark.
So, now I knew that at least the ignition system was good to the plug – the final thing to check was the plugs themselves. What I did was pull out plug number 4 and connect it to the wire – then placed it on the block so that the plug body was grounded and then turned the engine over – ah ha – no spark. Tried the same with number 1 and again no spark. So what we have is spark coming to the plug but no spark at the plug.
Fred Hawood, the original owner was kind enough to leave a set of used plugs in my engine bin. They were nicely wrapped in a baggie and tagged ‘Used 1998.’ So I eagerly ripped into the bag and replaced plugs 1 and 4 with these ‘used’ plugs and …. tada – we have a full power engine again. This Bomb had 2 bad spark plugs! I can only guess that the insides must have corroded over the winter – but that is just a guess.
Does anyone know how spark plugs fail? I don’t mean burn up, I mean fail – not spark anymore. They appear to be fine – not cracked – no carbon trails, just not firing. Anywho, if the weather holds out, we are off sailing tomorrow.I hope you enjoyed this another episode of Marine Engine fun – by far the biggest headache I have with this boat: my Atomic Bomb.
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Long Weekends at the Marina
We normally try to get out of town for long weekends, but for this one (Canada Day) we decided to hang around and get some things done at home.
The weekenders are all here!
I just got back from the Marina showers – what a strange mix…
Old, young, skinny, fat, short, tall – all in various stages of undress – bumping into each other, laughing uncomfortably … all this to the cacophony of toots and hoots coming from the 8 toilet stalls. Blech!!
Next long weekend – it’s out of town for us!
