Fun day on the lake

 "True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.  The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach.  A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

 I'm not a boat guy.  I have observed the amount of time, money and energy that goes into getting one onto the water for just a single day.  I've also heard boat owners discuss the maintenance, storage, and fuel expenses that come with owning a boat.  I long ago decided that this would never be a hobby of mine.  There's an old saying, "If it floats, flies or f*cks, it's cheaper to rent."  I don't see anything untrue in that saying.

Once I was out of the Navy, I swore that I would never set foot on any boat again.  I've broken that vow twice now.  Many years ago, we took our daughter on a ferry ride in Puget Sound, and now this...

 Three years ago a buddy of mine bought a 30 ft fixer-upper Sea-Ray boat for cheap.  It (and the trailer it was sitting on) had been badly neglected for about a decade, and both needed a lot of work.  He is a bit like me in not wanting to pay top dollar for things.  He showed me the original owner's receipts, which revealed that the boat cost about $90K when new.  I think he paid under $10K for it - but it needed (and still needs) a lot of work.

He didn't have room on his property, as he lives in town - so the boat has been stored on our property.  He worked on it when he had the opportunity, and I helped out when I wasn't working or had other engagements.  The trailer got re-wired, the wheel bearings were replaced, and it got six new (expensive load-rated) tires.  The trailer brakes had to be tested, and it needed a jack.   He mostly borrowed my shop jack in order to lift the tongue of the trailer up in order to attach it to his truck, when he needed to move the boat around.

The boat has two engines, and both out-drives had to be completely rebuilt.  The boat had sat in sea-water with incorrect cathodes for saltwater.  The out-drives nearly had to be scrapped due to corrosion, but were saved in the end.  The out drives were about the only thing he was able to take home and repair at his own place.  The boat is a hassle to move - it's oversize, requires a special permit, a big "oversize load" banner front and rear, and flashing yellow lights. 

The first time I helped him put it in the water, it leaked so badly into the engine bay, that we immediately took it back out without even attempting to start either engine.  Both engine's exhaust bellows and shifter cable bellows were rotten.  The engines exhaust around the propellor shafts, but the propellor shafts are on the outdrives, which must tilt up and down when you take the boat out of the water or in the water.  This exhaust goes through rubber bellows connecting the fixed hull to the moveable (steering and tilt) outdrives.  I guess the bellows fail every 10 years or so, as do the shift cable bellows, which put the props into forward or reverse.  Stuff I never cared to know.

I'm just glad it's his time, money and energy going into this thing, and not (for the most part) mine. 

Below:  A leaking exhaust bellows between the hull and the outdrive.

Everything on the boat had to be tested and/or repaired before it was water-worthy.  Yesterday was the shake-down cruise, where the remaining items that could not be tested out on the trailer got checked out - anchor, generator and air conditioning.  We got to go along for the ride by virtue of being the storage facility and unskilled boat repair labor :)

Happy to say the anchor, generator, and A/C all worked just fine, even if the generator water strainer had a plug missing.  My buddy stuck his finger in the strainer drain plug hole, like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, while I started it for him, and ran the air conditioner, LOL.

Then we took the boat for a spin.  It will do 38 miles/hr.  Not bad for such a big beast.  But it also has two 5.7 liter V-8 engines that get maybe 1 mile/gallon.  We drove along the cliffs looking for mountain goats with binoculars, and then drove over to the ruins of an old limestone mine and silos.  Those provided the raw material for a cement factory in Bayview back in the day.  The limestone was shipped on barges across the lake for conversion into quicklime in the Bayview kilns.  

Below:  Not a great distance to transport limestone, if you are willing to haul it across the water.

Below:  One of the lime kilns in Bayview

Below:  In the water - and not leaking water in!

Below:  Still afloat.

Below:  Somebody else was taking their old WW2-era Higgins boat out of the water for the winter season.  Maybe they have a business bringing supplies to people who live on islands in the lake or on the far side, where it's only accessible by water.

I was grinning ear to ear the entire time.  It was a lot of fun, and I got to see a little local history, and some things I'd only seen from afar.  Not my thing at all, but it was a really good time.