The Boate

the triumphant return to the bay

you may have noticed the scarcity of entries over here in the captains' log. this is because, quite frankly, this last month has been the darkest period of time in the boate's history. in fact, one might say it has been sucking shit since the 6 horsepower johnson two stroke threw out its shift lever. while it was interesting and at times even fun to take apart the motor and then rebuild it, quite honestly this is not why we bought the boate.
yesterday, phil and i pulled out of the slip late in the afternoon with the rebuilt johnson wheezing away. we were creeping up the main channel with some breeze at our head when the pain started. the wind was coming across our port pretty briskly, and rather quickly we went from making slow headway towards the breakwater to being in irons. this situation was only temporary however, as we were almost instantly moving again, on collision course with some rather expensive and large boats. unable to turn off course quickly enough, i managed to get the johnson into reverse and revved while phil fended us off at the bow. still in reverse, we managed to back out of this ugly situation. shifting into forward, the engine.....died. now we were drifting, and drifting fast, towards the monstrous hornblower boats, the ones that the radison or whatever hotel it is uses as party cruisers. these may actually qualify as ships or marine vessels (MV). the johnson started back up after one or two pulls, but now refused to go into forward. i got her into reverse and managed to reverse our current course past the hornblowers and into the rocks. i was planning to gain as much ground as i could in reverse when.....the engine died. this time however, there was no hope of restarting it. the thing has either seized or something in the gear box has slipped into an immovable state. we managed to grab hold of some other boats and push our way into an empty slip thereby bringing the unpleasant adventure to an end.

so this morning, after a discussion with captain steen, en route to los angeles, it was time to get a new motor. there was just no choice in the matter, and several incidents involving jeopardy of life and property were enough to convince me that the johnson is a liability. (i felt like throwing the piece of shit into the murky waters of the marina and watching the fucker disappear). here i am calling captain steen to inform him that the new four stroke honda 5 hp is purely tasteful. even at the break-in period speeds of just above idle, the boate was practically planing on the way out. (slight exaggeration).

chav and brenda and brando and phil were aboard for the triumphant return to the bay of the boate. brandon was pretty psyched to get back to the marina once we had left it, so we cut our trip over to angel island short, headed back and called it a day.

one thing i rediscovered today. beauty is in fact in the eye of the beholder. when the boate was sitting there with the johnson aboard, promising uncertainty in powered navigation, she was nowhere near as beautiful as tonight at sunset after a hose down, with the new rock solid honda aboard.