Some days just end up complicated

           After a busy week and busy Saturday, this is how our Saturday night should have been.                        Cue the music.  

But this is how it actually went.

Terry is smiling here, but only because I told him to. 

Once in a while what should be the simplest of fixes suddenly becomes the most complicated due to one simple mishap.  It all started with the pull cord on our dinghy engine breaking yesterday as I was getting ready to go home after a morning in the ministry.  So I had to row out to our boat.  Not a big deal, I've done it a few times due to user error in starting the engine (yes, I flooded it a few times, my own fault), but today, as I was rowing out, I noticed a 14' Center Console dinghy adrift.  So of course you can't let a nice dinghy float into the rocks and get ruined can you? (Okay, yes I was hoping that somehow we could keep it.  Kind of like a lost puppy) So I did the neighborly thing and started towing it to our boat.  (FYI, I scanned the beach and neighboring boats and I did yell out to see if someone was around. :) Towing a 14' center console dinghy by rowing is no easy task.  I was definitely getting my work out.  As I am just about to reach my boat I hear a voice call out,

"Hey, where you goin with my dinghy."

It was our friend Scott (or as we like to call him affectionately, the Chocolate Hole Harbor Master. He watches everyone's boats and is such a sweetie.). Terry would have known it was his dinghy in a second, but I don't really notice these kind of things.  I mean it's a dinghy.  Scott had been on Serena a sailboat on the other side of the bay working on it and somehow the dinghy came loose.  He was laughing when I explained it was just floating to shore before I expedited a rescue mission.  So back across the bay I started rowing.

Scott was happy he didn't have to swim to shore.  He also happened to have an extra pull cord so I was able to Magyver our engine for when I went in to get Terry later that afternoon. I mean, I don't mind rowing, but if you don't have to . . .

So today's agenda involved fixing the pull cord.  Terry got the cord he needed and started what should have been an easy fix.  It literally was a matter of wrapping the cord around the spool.

Viola!

Ummm,  not.

No, of course not.  That would have been to easy.  Part way through I hear an exasperated groan. Then a metallic ting and another frustrated groan.  It appears that part way through the fix a flat metal coil spring broke.  (For lack of the correct term) We have an older Johnson engine which we absolutely love.  It hasn't given us a lick of trouble over the hundreds of hours we've used it.  It's been the best.  Sadly though, the 10 minute fix soon turned into an hour and a half session in patience and perseverance along with that nagging worry in the back of our minds as to whether a part could be purchased for this ancient beloved dinosaur if necessary. (We literally had to order parts from Scotland last week for our windlass.) Thankfully after several failed attempts and using one of the best tools ever invented, the Leatherman, he was able to get it working again.  For how long we don't know but at least it's running.

I need the Sea because it teaches me.
- from THE SEA by Pablo Neruda

Alright, lesson finished for today.

C