The Mechanic .. continues

Where Next?
Bob Williams
Sat 6 Mar 2010 00:52

 

Alongside Ushuaia
Weather: Sunny and warm

The Mechanic arrived yet once again and while Patricio is a very nice guy I was really hoping that this relationship might have ended by now.  This morning we couldn’t even get the engine started.  I won’t bore you with all the technical details but suffice to say none of the news has been good today. We spent a lot of time trying to pull the fuel injection pump apart, something you only touch in a diesel engine as a last resort, and which involved dismantling part of the boat‘s interior. In the end it is all related to dirty fuel. Rule 1 through 20 from the book of Diesel engine husbandry is “Thou shalt ensure the engine is supplied with clean fuel“, not always easy in a small boat in out of the way places. So tomorrow morning I will be cleaning out fuel lines and filters and see if this helps. And I already stink of diesel!

Manana manana.

All is well.

Bob Cat:

So the skipper reckons he stinks ... no comment.

Meanwhile my abode has been turned into an obstacle course over the past few days.  Getting from the bunk to the food bowl is ridiculous. I had investigated a number of options, over the dry food storage, over the settee berth, and the central path was clearly out of service, but found the best route was, after negotiating my way past boxes of tools and other sundry strange objects scattered hither and thither, to walk along a narrow beam like an Olympic athlete (fortunately us felines are natural athletes even when in our elder years) then to squash down flat and crawl along on my tummy beneath some huge box that normally occupies an entirely different attitude. The trip, I regret to say wasn’t worth the trouble. But I eventually made my way back, starvation barely relieved, and . . . Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.