Engine Woes Continued

Where Next?
Bob Williams
Sun 7 Mar 2010 12:56

Alongside Ushuaia
Weather: Sunny and warm

Another very pleasant day in Ushuaia, and another day for me bent over an engine getting covered in diesel oil. After a lot of messing around and still getting no fuel to the injectors I came to the conclusion that the fuel injection pump had to come out (I am not sure what conclusion the Mechanic came to as with His limited Inglese and my even more limited Spanish I am at time very uncertain as to what we have just said to one another). Patricio, whose nickname coincidentally is Pato, the same as the sail maker in Mar Del Plata, had given up on it the day before but after studying the engine manual for some time I could see no reason why it shouldn’t come out relatively easily so I had another go at it yesterday afternoon. And in less than 15 minutes I had it out - I surprised myself once again. Now I just need to get it serviced.

Last night after dinner I wandered the dock to enjoy the night air and look at some of the boats - there are always boats coming and going. I ended up talking to another Australian, Steve, who runs a charter boat in the area, an ex British Steel racing boat, very nice indeed. He has been based here for seven years, his young French crewmember has been with him for the last 18 months. We enjoyed the evening swapping yarns. He very generously looked into his vegemite stowage but as he only had three jars left decided he had none to spare, as the nearest supply is the Falkland Islands.

All is well.

Bob Cat:

Now why is it that gato and pato rhyme in Spanish but cat and duck sound nothing alike in English, hmm … you see the skipper is not the only one who asks some pretty deep questions. But I promise you that I will not lose any . . . Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.