Those close to me would be justifiably sick of my bitchiness. As for many, this has been a bumpy summer for me. To compound the daily challenges, I've missed no opportunity to respond as poorly as possible, take offense at everything and make the worst of every situation. It could be the Delta variant and its promises of future masking, lockdowns, business disruption and braying about tyranny and oppression by those hell bent on incubating new variants. It could be that we're supposed to be going 33 and 1/3 in August, but it's more like 78 rpms with work demands. It could be bad wiring in my brain or the stankin' heat.
Nowhere have I been more sour than in my office work. Things are actually great in that enterprise, but again I'm snatching misery from the jaws of happiness whenever possible. I don't understand me that way, but that's how it is. [cue the Babe mice: 'The Way Things Are']
Today, for example, the trap hauling day started with a visual migraine and unexpected trip back to the wharf for a snort of immutrex, which if you have migraines, I highly recommend. Laurie and I then set forth out of the harbor on a truly beautiful morning. There were a couple of lobsters here and there so all was going pretty well.
About half way through our gear, two things happened. Actually, one thing didn't happen and the other thing really, really did. The thing that didn't happen was the pot hauler rotating such that my trap would come up. Quick and confused look at the switch. Move the handle back and forth. Nope. Seconds later, I discovered the thing that did happen, which was a boisterous fountain of bright red hydraulic fluid arcing across the forward compartment and down into the bilge.
Fortunately, we weren't far from the harbor, and Laurie is way cooler under duress than I am. She got a bucket under the fountain so I could get most of the way in without committing environmental infractions.
Just outside the breakwater, Jeb, savior in many a situation in Matinicus Harbor, came out and towed me to the mooring.
I've taken apart a few hydraulic components, but the usual fog of breakdown stress had me questioning whether to lefty lucy or righty-righty to get the substantial fittings apart. I also prefer not to break things such that a small problem gets much bigger. The top piece came apart with a few swears and a pipe wrench. The bottom fitting pretty much gave me the finger with its rusted threads. Glistening though they were with recently liberated fluid, there was no give.
Uncertainty about how something comes apart or goes together is often the hardest step of any repair, especially for those of us who have no training and only know how to deal with what they've already broken. I understand alternators, fuel and pressure sensor lines, temperature gauges, gear coolers, steering valves and other things I've become familiar with only when they fail.
Clayton, as always, is the go-to person because he has broken everything that can be broken on a boat as well as a few that make Art Stanley, guru of all things marine diesel, to say 'well, I've never seen that before.' My sense is that Clayton is very proud of those moments. For me, he always knows the what and how that I do not.
Since he was just climbing the ladder as we paddled in, I asked. "Thrust and pipe wrenches." Laurie interpreted that as muscle and wrenches, but Thrust with a capital T is spray goo that penetrates stubborn rusted parts even better than WD-40 or PB Blaster. I helped myself to a can and an extra wrench from his shop and had the business apart a few minutes later, plus a couple of paddles across the harbor.
The rest of the day was a merry-go-round of calling Penobscot Island Air, finding out they had a plane landing in 5 minutes, calling Megan to pick up the dead hose from PIA, her getting it to NAPA to fabricate a new one and a lengthy cleanup process wherein multiple gallons of hydraulic/salt water broth were pumped out of the bilge into buckets followed by a great deal of swabbing, wiping and scrubbing. Added features were having to find my phone on the road in 3 separate pieces after taking pictures of the hose and carelessly leaving the phone on my truck hood.
Throughout the day, I was more content than I've been for weeks in the office. A bad day fishing...
