Saturday, January 28, 2912 the little motor that just couldn't...

Well we heard from Marine Max…
prognosis – bad…
the little motor is still jinxed.
Wayne asked if we could run it as is – just not in idle. Paul talked to the mechanic and he said it runs fine in gear but if you let it sit in idle for more than 30 seconds then it will flood and not start. Same old same old… So, while they didn’t charge us for all the time put in, we were charged ½ hour diagnostic and parts… sigh… we picked the little motor up and brought it back. Klaus, Barb and I tried to hold onto the dinghy and lines while Wayne got our little outboard on the dinghy and tried to start it. It did start right up but Wayne wasn’t fast enough to get away from the dock, and the motor stalled. We got him back to the dock and, yep… same old, same old… it wouldn’t start again. Klaus said to disconnect the fuel line and let it run dry while trying to start it, but that still didn’t help. It seemed like it wanted to, but just couldn’t do it again. Once a day seemed to be enough for it. Sooo we let our hands do the walking to see if we could find a new carburetor and what was available on the market in the way of little outboard motors. There wasn’t much in the line of used outboards and trying to figure out which carburetor we had proved to be a job. There are about 5 different ones for 5hp Mercurys… tomorrow is another day…
The potluck was very sedate tonight – not many people here and it felt almost like a buffet line. Chicken, burgers and sausage, cole slaw, potato salad and no line rushing up to get to the food. It felt very strange – almost restaurant like. I’d say this is probably the last Saturday night potluck with the free meats. It was a good conversation with Klaus and Barbara. It sounds like we might be crossing together and traveling with them up to Georgetown. They still have time to get there and mosey back along the way, and we still have February and March to get to wherever we’re going. A month of travel before having to make a decision to head back or keep going…