“The Pursuit of Happyness”, ’55 Alive’ course, boating gear installations, boating at Lake Marburg (posted from home)
(this post covers 15-22 April)
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Sunday, 22 April
Another perfect boating day! Last night I was so excited about my fantastic time at Lake Marburg that I called my brother and left the message: “OK, so what is your lame excuse for not going boating with me tomorrow?” (he had to work yesterday). He called back a few minutes later and said he had more work to do but could join me at 16:00. I took the Concours up to Bass Pro and bought a battery box for the trolling battery and installed it and a holder for the warning horn (a horn-in-a-can). We had a great evening on the lake, racking up break-in Hours Five and Six and getting in about an hour of late-day fishing.
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Saturday, 21 April-
Today I took the boat back to Codorus State Park and its beautiful Lake Marburg for some more break-in time. I didn’t leave the house until after lunch and I toured most of the lakeshore, adding two hours of run-time to the break-in clock. The boat has an odd rooster-tail coming off the upper cavitation plate at speed (21 mph); I’ll have to work on that. But what an evening! It was spectacular out there. As I cruised around today I saw lots of turtles, a coyote or grey fox (I think the former because of its size and stealth), several ospreys, a BIG carp on the surface with a swollen belly, and many cormorants and Canada geese. The cormorants went to roost at the southern-most island and the Canada geese were taking over the little island near the main launch as I left.
That evening we watched ‘The Departed’, a Martin Scorsese film with Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Martin Sheen. Overall we liked it a lot for the acting (particularly DiCaprio) but the plot line had too much coincidence to be taken seriously.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, 20 April-
Today was boating day! The weather has broken and it’s a beautiful day with a string of just-like-its coming behind. The object today was to work on launching and retrieving and to start the outboard for the first time and start the break-in process. The break-in goes like this: for the first 15 minutes, run the engine no faster than trolling speed. For the next 45 minutes, vary the throttle but don’t advance it more than one-third of its range. For the second hour, vary the throttle up to two-thirds of its range. For hours Three to Ten, limit the throttle to two-thirds of its range but occasionally run it up to max (but for no longer than 5 minutes at a time). After ten hours, change the oil. Today I completed the first two hours and worked out a good single-handed launching and retrieval process. Thank goodness for the walking planks.
I then drove over to Motosports (the dealer where I bought the boat) and bought a spare prop, an oil filter, and the Honda type SM oil needed for the first oil change.
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Thursday, 19 April-
The trolling motor arrived today so I installed it and I installed the walking-planks and fit the docking lines. That evening we finished the ’55 Alive course’ at Dover High and then watched another episode of ‘The Shield’ and decided it’s just too profane and exploitive to continue. We’re pretty open-minded but this show is just too much. Yuck.
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Wednesday, 18 April –
I spent today installing boat gear. The guide-ons were easy enough to install but had six-inch bolts when three-and-a-half would have been plenty. The SawZall took care of that. I also installed docking-line cleats and a fishing-rod rack.
That evening we watched a few episodes of the television series ‘The Shield’. We’re not too sure about this one. We want to give it a chance but it’s badly written, badly shot (lots of extra shaky camera moves to give it “reality”) and very violent and disrespectful of police. If you live like this, you believe all police are corrupt and your only hope is to get one of the more powerful corrupt ones on your side.
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Tuesday, 17 April -
I spent today at Cabela’s in search of boating gear. Because I’ll be single-handing it quite a bit I bought a set of ‘guide-on’s to make it a little easier to load and unload the boat onto/from its trailer by myself, particularly on windy days. Guide-ons are basically a set of carpet-covered two-by-fours mounted on spring-steel brackets parallel to and above the fenders. They keep the back of the boat from floating sideways off the trailer during the launch and retrieval processes and make it possible to ‘drive’ the boat onto the trailer at bare launch ramps (i.e., those without a dock).
I also bought a trolling motor, this one a stern-mount 55-pound-thrust model. We decided to keep it simple and save a lot of money by avoiding the foot-pedal controls used on most bow-mount models. This will work fine and will be a better solution on the electric-motor-only lakes.
I also bought some walking-planks for the trailer tongue. These provide a nice, wide platform on the trailer tongue and frame for those times when I can get the boat partially loaded but need to use the winch to pull it into place. I’ll be able to climb off the bow and walk to the winch, hook to the boat and then crank it into place, all without having to step off the tongue into the water below (at least that’s the plan!).
That evening we attended the first of two sessions of the AARP ’55 Alive’ driver-training course. Now that we’re both over 55 this program not only updates us on driving laws but also gives us a 5% discount on our car insurance for three years. The class was a trip. Our instructor seems like a nice guy but is getting forgetful and also tends to wander. Each of the two sessions is four hours long and it wasn’t until two hours into today’s session that he said, “Oh my, I forgot to tell you that my policy on breaks is you take one whenever you need to”. Here’s another example—he started giving us a phone number which is 800-FREE-411 and said “It’s 800FR3733411” That caused a five minute discussion on what the number is. It turns out he was translating the FREE to its corresponding phone-pad digits (some of them, anyway). Ah, the things we have to look forward to as we age!
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Monday, 16 April-
I spent today working on a plan for next winter’s Florida trip. Labashi has decided she had a wonderful time the last two Florida trips but has ‘been-there, done-that’. She may fly down to join me for a week or two of the two-month trip but otherwise I’ll be on my own. I still have many things I want to do in the outdoors paradise that is the Florida backcountry. That evening we watched “Pursuit of Happyness” with Will Smith. The storyline is a bit sappy but Will does a fine job of acting in this one and is well worth the price of the rental.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 15 April –
The weather continues to be cold, the highs some 15 degrees below normal as it has been since the third of April. But there’s hope...later this week the weather is to be much nicer. I mention the weather because I’m going a little crazy and have been spending WAY too much time on the computer for the last couple of weeks. I spent the morning blogging and the afternoon surfing the web for info about places to visit on upcoming trips.
(this post covers 15-22 April)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 22 April
Another perfect boating day! Last night I was so excited about my fantastic time at Lake Marburg that I called my brother and left the message: “OK, so what is your lame excuse for not going boating with me tomorrow?” (he had to work yesterday). He called back a few minutes later and said he had more work to do but could join me at 16:00. I took the Concours up to Bass Pro and bought a battery box for the trolling battery and installed it and a holder for the warning horn (a horn-in-a-can). We had a great evening on the lake, racking up break-in Hours Five and Six and getting in about an hour of late-day fishing.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, 21 April-
Today I took the boat back to Codorus State Park and its beautiful Lake Marburg for some more break-in time. I didn’t leave the house until after lunch and I toured most of the lakeshore, adding two hours of run-time to the break-in clock. The boat has an odd rooster-tail coming off the upper cavitation plate at speed (21 mph); I’ll have to work on that. But what an evening! It was spectacular out there. As I cruised around today I saw lots of turtles, a coyote or grey fox (I think the former because of its size and stealth), several ospreys, a BIG carp on the surface with a swollen belly, and many cormorants and Canada geese. The cormorants went to roost at the southern-most island and the Canada geese were taking over the little island near the main launch as I left.
That evening we watched ‘The Departed’, a Martin Scorsese film with Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Martin Sheen. Overall we liked it a lot for the acting (particularly DiCaprio) but the plot line had too much coincidence to be taken seriously.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, 20 April-
Today was boating day! The weather has broken and it’s a beautiful day with a string of just-like-its coming behind. The object today was to work on launching and retrieving and to start the outboard for the first time and start the break-in process. The break-in goes like this: for the first 15 minutes, run the engine no faster than trolling speed. For the next 45 minutes, vary the throttle but don’t advance it more than one-third of its range. For the second hour, vary the throttle up to two-thirds of its range. For hours Three to Ten, limit the throttle to two-thirds of its range but occasionally run it up to max (but for no longer than 5 minutes at a time). After ten hours, change the oil. Today I completed the first two hours and worked out a good single-handed launching and retrieval process. Thank goodness for the walking planks.
I then drove over to Motosports (the dealer where I bought the boat) and bought a spare prop, an oil filter, and the Honda type SM oil needed for the first oil change.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 19 April-
The trolling motor arrived today so I installed it and I installed the walking-planks and fit the docking lines. That evening we finished the ’55 Alive course’ at Dover High and then watched another episode of ‘The Shield’ and decided it’s just too profane and exploitive to continue. We’re pretty open-minded but this show is just too much. Yuck.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 18 April –
I spent today installing boat gear. The guide-ons were easy enough to install but had six-inch bolts when three-and-a-half would have been plenty. The SawZall took care of that. I also installed docking-line cleats and a fishing-rod rack.
That evening we watched a few episodes of the television series ‘The Shield’. We’re not too sure about this one. We want to give it a chance but it’s badly written, badly shot (lots of extra shaky camera moves to give it “reality”) and very violent and disrespectful of police. If you live like this, you believe all police are corrupt and your only hope is to get one of the more powerful corrupt ones on your side.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 17 April -
I spent today at Cabela’s in search of boating gear. Because I’ll be single-handing it quite a bit I bought a set of ‘guide-on’s to make it a little easier to load and unload the boat onto/from its trailer by myself, particularly on windy days. Guide-ons are basically a set of carpet-covered two-by-fours mounted on spring-steel brackets parallel to and above the fenders. They keep the back of the boat from floating sideways off the trailer during the launch and retrieval processes and make it possible to ‘drive’ the boat onto the trailer at bare launch ramps (i.e., those without a dock).
I also bought a trolling motor, this one a stern-mount 55-pound-thrust model. We decided to keep it simple and save a lot of money by avoiding the foot-pedal controls used on most bow-mount models. This will work fine and will be a better solution on the electric-motor-only lakes.
I also bought some walking-planks for the trailer tongue. These provide a nice, wide platform on the trailer tongue and frame for those times when I can get the boat partially loaded but need to use the winch to pull it into place. I’ll be able to climb off the bow and walk to the winch, hook to the boat and then crank it into place, all without having to step off the tongue into the water below (at least that’s the plan!).
That evening we attended the first of two sessions of the AARP ’55 Alive’ driver-training course. Now that we’re both over 55 this program not only updates us on driving laws but also gives us a 5% discount on our car insurance for three years. The class was a trip. Our instructor seems like a nice guy but is getting forgetful and also tends to wander. Each of the two sessions is four hours long and it wasn’t until two hours into today’s session that he said, “Oh my, I forgot to tell you that my policy on breaks is you take one whenever you need to”. Here’s another example—he started giving us a phone number which is 800-FREE-411 and said “It’s 800FR3733411” That caused a five minute discussion on what the number is. It turns out he was translating the FREE to its corresponding phone-pad digits (some of them, anyway). Ah, the things we have to look forward to as we age!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, 16 April-
I spent today working on a plan for next winter’s Florida trip. Labashi has decided she had a wonderful time the last two Florida trips but has ‘been-there, done-that’. She may fly down to join me for a week or two of the two-month trip but otherwise I’ll be on my own. I still have many things I want to do in the outdoors paradise that is the Florida backcountry. That evening we watched “Pursuit of Happyness” with Will Smith. The storyline is a bit sappy but Will does a fine job of acting in this one and is well worth the price of the rental.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 15 April –
The weather continues to be cold, the highs some 15 degrees below normal as it has been since the third of April. But there’s hope...later this week the weather is to be much nicer. I mention the weather because I’m going a little crazy and have been spending WAY too much time on the computer for the last couple of weeks. I spent the morning blogging and the afternoon surfing the web for info about places to visit on upcoming trips.
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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