A Season of Sloth

 The Bleak Midwinter. The time between Christmas eve and New Years Day (and a few days after), The time of short days and long nights, when all anyone wants to do is sleep. That's what it is: a season of sloth. Or maybe it's chronic, serious depression, but I found it difficult to do more than the absolute minimum. I did launch my boat, trailer my boat, and then go bank fishing. Well, really, I fished from a pier.

It started with the motor refusing to stay in gear. Or maybe it started in 1969 when I couldn't bring myself to finish my studies. But let's not go there. Back to the boat!

After I addressed the refusal to stay in gear and doing some other things, among them, cleaning the carb and setting the points, I had the hubris to believe I didn't need to test run the damn thing! So when I launched it, it started and ran for five whole seconds. And then I got it to fire a couple times, and then -- nothing. I pulled out a plug and found that it wouldn't spark. I loaded it back on the trailer, took it home and then went fishing. It was several days before I worked on it again. Today, I will finally begin working on the Outboard Saga again.



Comments

  1. peggyJanuary 12, 2024 at 9:22 AM

    It is hard to get motivated during this Winter abyss. But I know you'll bounce back! xxoo

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
  My Old Spinning Reel Circa 1964, I purchased a spinning reel. It was a DAM Quick Finessa, made in Berlin West. That’s what it said on it. It was the hottest thing! It was, as far as I know, the first to have a quick-change spool, so you could have more than one spool, perhaps with different weight lines. It didn’t come with a spare spool, but over the years, I’ve acquired two more. It was also the first to be convertible, to right or left handedness. Unlike today’s reels, it required you to disassemble it and replace a part with the other-handed one, which came with it. Yesterday, while I was out fishing, the bail spring broke. This is the third time this has happened! Can you imagine! Luckily, I had one in reserve. I installed it and now all is well. But I’m worried. At this rate, I’ll need another one by the time I’m ninety-five years old.  So I did an on-line search. Not only can you find them on ebay.com, but also from other sites as well. And that isn’t all. After a long
Read more
Image
  Shakedown Cruise, June 24, 2023 It rained like hell the first part of the day, and I thought I probably wouldn’t go out. Then the sun came out and I started getting ready. I had two batteries and a trolling motor, so if the 1971 Evinrude failed, the outgoing tide and the trolling motor would get me back. I got it launched and tied up to the dock without too much effort. Leaving the dock, It seemed to be low on power, but maybe that was the difference between a 25 and an 18. I ran straight out, then upstream for a while before slowing down and seeing if I could get it to idle a little. Results were not terrible, so I headed upstream to fish a little. It was then that the motor significantly lost power. After a minute or so, I guessed that it might be running on only one cylinder. I turned it off, dropped the trolling motor and did a little fishing. Using a trolling motor is a new thing for me. This one has a rocker pedal to steer, with a mini pedal in the top right of the rocker
Read more