November’s 10th, twenty seventeen
We have to thank Dennis and Marianne Centis for their hospitality here in Fort Pierce. On Wednesday night we met at Archie’s just down the way and they invited us out for dinner at their place down the way. We had two great evenings and also met Don and Terri-Lynn their neighbours. They have a nice place here in a great neighbourhood.
I have to remove and rebuild the exhaust riser on Fracas. You may recall that the exhaust riser broke on the way back to Florida last season. The jury rig we made was still intake but jury rigs are short term emergency fixes. I dreaded this job as the four bolts at the manifold connection are notorious for breaking. The location and angle of these bolts make removal of a broken bolt problematic.
There are still times I hear my Dad’s voice, usually when I’m about to do something stupid that will cause me grief. This was one of those times. “It’s so much easier to take some time to get the bolt out than remove a broken bolt” he would say. “Figure out how to get it out with a small wrench, give it a smack with a hammer to get it’s attention”. I could never hit stuff with a hammer like he could, but I had to try. I gave each bolt a smack of sorts, and using a 6 inch wrench applied steady pressure and sure enough I got all four bolts out. The last one, as almost always happens, required more patience… perhaps not awake yet.
When we left the marina, the riser was laying on the floor in the office hopefully on it’s way to the shop to be used as a template for the new riser. I will have to check today to make sure it has moved on. That’s the kind of marina we are in. Our half of the family feud marina requires… well it often requires patience and a wake up smack with a hammer.
I’m struggling with the coffee. I don’t have a weigh scale, grinder or press. I have ground coffee and a Mr. Coffee coffee machine thingy. more later