What I hate about cruising.
By Mike Jastrzebski
Sorry to say it but it’s true, cruising is not all about island hopping and cocktails in the cockpit. Most of the time cruising is fun and exciting, but what I hate about it can be described in four words–working on the engine.
It started last week, when we were getting ready to leave Deltaville. I needed to change the oil so I started the engine. It started up just fine but three minutes later it quit running. I started the engine several more times with the same results, so I changed the oil and the next day started looking for the problem.
Now we still have an old Atomic Four engine and despite my hatred of working on the damn things, I can usually find the problem and fix it myself. It’s why we haven’t swapped out the engine for a diesel engine, the other being the cost of doing so.
You can imagine my relief when I discovered a fuse for the wire leading to the coil had burned out. I replaced it and we were up and running. At that point I did an inspection of the engine and discovered that the fresh water pump was leaking. It wasn’t a complete surprise, after all the pump was ten years old, so I went to my Atomic Four parts source (Moyer Marine) and ordered a new pump.
Yesterday, when I should have been writing this blog, I started pulling out the old pump. First I had to take off the alternator. After that the old hoses had to be removed, then the pump. That’s when trouble reared it’s head. The water pump is located in the back of the engine in a space where the lower bolt is nearly impossible to reach. The upper bolt to the pump was a piece of cake but that lower bolt was another story.
There was no place where I could actually see the bolt. I ended up climbing into our storage area, lying on my stomach and reaching in to find the bolt by feel. It just wasn’t working so I had Mary drag out a small mirror that she keeps on board and I was able to see the bolt. Then came the fun part.
All I needed to do was to get a wrench onto the bolt. Sounds easy, right? Not when everything is backwards in the mirror. Three hours after I started pulling the alternator I had the old pump off the engine. Since I had to cut the hoses to get them off the pump, I had to buy some new hoses.
Mary and I climbed into the dinghy and went to shore where we were able to use the marina car. There’s a NAPA just down the road but I forgot it was Sunday and they were closed. So was the local hardware store. That left West Marine. I avoid shopping there as much as possible because of their prices, especially now that they won’t match prices with Defender. Still, they were open and they had the hose so I bought what I needed and headed back to the marina and the boat. Today, while you’re reading this, I will be struggling to attach the new pump. One consolation is that Moyer Marine sells an extension bolt for that bottom pump bolt. I’m hoping it will be a little easier to put the bolt back in, but if not, at least if I ever have to remove the pump again it will be a little easier.
And now you know what I hate about cruising. What about the rest of you out there? I can’t be the only one who finds some aspect of cruising distasteful.
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