Man of War, Day Three and Four

OK, those of you that are north of the sweet tea line are not going to be real sympathetic, but it turned cold here. We stayed in the house nearly all day Tuesday due to high winds and dropping temps. Well, mostly due to the high winds. They were about 25 knots all day and blowing right down the harbor. It just was not prudent to take Tisha out, and Huguette is still nursing her cold anyway. We did get out for a lap around the property. At two acres that did not give us much of a walk, but you take what you can get. We have no TV or Internet so we did a lot of reading and I messed around some with the genealogy software I have. That made for some excitement on my part when I accidently deleted my mother. All my attempts to fix the broken chain in my family resulted in extra mothers. I had quite a few there at one point, but finally sorted it out. After all was well I actually found a much easier way to fix the problem by reading the online help. I know, I know…

Here is a look at the weather. The sound you hear is from through the closed glass door.

Wednesday dawned grey, but with no wind. The silence when we woke this morning was eerie after so many hours of loud wind and surf. I should point out that I could throw an alarm clock into the sea from my bed here. We are that close to the water. The way the waves have undercut the shoreline causes the waves crashing ashore to sound like an old washing machine on steroids. You get used to it, of course, but you still pause to figure out every new bump and bang you hear over the wind and surf. It usually just turns out to be a loose shutter and after awhile you start to tune them out as well. Waking up to no sound is then what becomes strange and unsettling. Those of you that have spent time on boats, particularly sailboats, know that it becomes much easier to sleep through the night once you mentally inventory all of the night sounds. It takes a few nights.

We intended to spend some time with Huguette after stopping at Jeff’s market. An afternoon of walks with her dog, Chica, and getting the Blog updated was sort of our intent. I really wanted to know the outcome of last night’s Virginia Tech bowl game. We got to Jeff’s dock just fine, but only by coasting the last few feet. Tisha’s motor had died. I ended up working on that the entire afternoon. Seeing debris in the inline filter I figured that the fuel hose from the tank had deteriorated from the ethanol now found in gas everywhere. I walked to the boat yard and bought some proper fuel hose, new filter elements and a new priming bulb. After borrowing a screwdriver and knife I set to work rebuilding the fuel delivery system. Alas, no luck. Sputters and pops were my only reward.

I walked cross-town (five minutes) to discuss this with the local outboard mechanic, Jay. He suggested that the fuel might be bad after sitting for God knows how long in the tank, so I returned to Jeff’s dock and siphoned the fuel from the tank into two oil containers to be disposed of somewhere, sometime. I then walked to the marina for new fuel. Those readers that drive motorhomes will be happy to know that $4 diesel is a bargain. I paid $5.90 a gallon for regular gas. I had hoped to just get enough to get things running and then return to the marina to top off. I misread the pump and nearly filled the gas tank, now I had to lug all that extra weight back to Jeff’s dock. The new fuel was not the complete answer. I had disassembled and cleaned both fuel filters already, so perhaps there was water in the carburetor bowl. I removed and dropped the drain plug from the carburetor. Luckily it did not go overboard, but it did descend into the unseen depths of the outboards cowling. I think midgets or very small robots assemble these things, for my fingers just could not reach in there to find the damned plug. After much fumbling I retrieved the plug and put everything together again and was rewarded with a semi-functioning motor.

I was able to limp to Huguette’s to pick up Barbara and the groceries in time to get back to the house as the sun set. Tomorrow I will drop the beast off at Jay’s for a carburetor cleaning and what ever else is needed to get things back in order. Living on an island has its disadvantages. If I had not gotten it working we were not getting home. Sorry, no pictures. My hands were dirty.

Tomorrow ought to be good. We are going to Marsh Harbour by ferry to take Chica (Huguette’s dog) to the vet. She needs an exam before flying to the states next week. This ought to be good. Stay tuned.