A Bad Day on the Boat (still beats a good day elsewhere)

 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...

Sour Cherry Pie and Mental Wellness

Megan did all the pretty parts

Scraggly, lichen covered cherry trees sit at the southern edge of our lawn. Most of the time, the only color below their limbs is from freshly painted buoys hung there in the Spring. This year is the second time they've borne fruit since I arrived in 2006. 

The first time, some serious foragers from Australia came and picked a bunch, in exchange for which, Olive and I had a really cool tour of their 44 footer; their home for several years running. I asked Bernie if the electric fence warning sign was for real, and he replied 'it is when we're in Venezuela.' 

Megan and I puzzled about how to get at the fruit as the branches are feeble and the good stuff was up high. We backed 'Jaws,' the great white pick-up truck, in underneath and were able to get a bunch that way. Then it was stacking a lobster crate in the back which extended our reach and harvest. 

There is a vast wealth of random items in the barn, some of them useful. The giant plastic candy-canes from many Christmases gone by turned out to be great for hauling down branches and bringing many more sour cherries into reach. 

Megan figured out how to slickly pit the cherries with a chopstick while I did up the crust and then the filling. She then did all of the crust finishing, saving me from whatever embarrassing presentation I would've come up with.

Cherry pie from your front yard is a random act of kindness from a beautiful world. 

I intend to deploy pictures of mine to respond to fellow members of the classes of 1990-1992 at the University of Maine School of Law who thought it necessary to post pictures of their sour cherry pies. Janet's also originated here on Matinicus Island, so she beat me to that fair and square. Mine, however, is inherently superior based on the following reasoning: a) it's here in my house; and, b) it hasn't been eaten yet.

Having worked for years to achieve some balance between legal work demands and being out here and working on the ocean, I can say that the last couple weeks have been an excellent example of not achieving that balance. The Maine Bar Journal's most recent edition was all about attorney mental wellness. It couldn't have been timed any better. Not being in the criminal/divorce/child protective realm any more, I don't think about work stress as something needing any real effort to deal with. It turns out, however, I can turn even the nerdiest, most transactional legal work into a nightmare with a little effort. It also turns out that coordinating lenders, buyers, sellers in different states, along with big piles of money, super tight time constraints, wire transfers, time sensitive document shipping and keeping title clear is actually somewhat demanding on occasion.  

So it was joyous to me to go out last Saturday in the post-tropical storm swell to set and haul gear east of Matinicus Harbor. I was reminded that there isn't much that a good ass-kicking on the water can't put into perspective. 

Breaking Bar

 May 19, 2021 - One of the difficult things I've had to learn as a perpetual novice lobster boat operator is that diesel engines need to get run hahhd at least once a day. "It's the worst thing for 'em, idling around all day hauling traps," Art Stanley told me, "those engines need to work."  

My instinct is to baby every machine- to go easy around every corner and over every bump, start and stop gradually - be gentle. 

This I learned from Malcolm. Before leaving for college, I only ever had one job, starting in 3rd grade or so. I started by following Lucille around taking care of shrubs and 'helping' with yard work, lamenting my fate when weeding on a wet mosquito-filled morning, but also marveling at my $.25/hr salary when I got it. I graduated to mowing lawns, and then headed for the big time with Malcolm and the haying crew, where I stayed until leaving home at 18, learning about the coefficient of friction,  weight in motion and to operate and respect heavy machinery with big metal teeth.

Back to Malcolm. One year he purchased an F-150, for, I believe, $100.00, and got many seasons out of it on the farm. He could drive a vehicle slower than anyone else I've known. I believe I could count each RPM, especially on those rare occasions when 2nd or even 3rd gear was called for. Perhaps the velocity dilation actually changed time in that truck, which could possibly explain the longevity of what was already a fully depreciated piece of equipment. It probably also helped that the 1970s F-150 was made of actual metal.

What I took from these lessons was to try and feel the moving parts and joints, listen to the mechanical conversation from the vehicle, and go easy on 'er. You'll get a little more from things that way even if the world passes you by.

As much as I respect Art's advice, Mal's is hardwired. Which brings us to Black Beauty.

Megan bought a 1996 Mazda B4000 pickup truck for $800.00 in the Spring of 2014. Already fully depreciated itself before journeying to Matinicus, BB has trucked every single trap from my yard to the Steamboat Wharf and back for 7 seasons, going into #8. Well, almost every trap. At the end of last season, while trucking gear back from the wharf, a pronounced smell of burning rubber and overheating temp gauge put a premature end to Black Beauty's season. 

I ordered a serpentine belt from NAPA last week. Somewhat amazingly, there is a decal beneath the hood showing which pulleys the belt goes over and under and, more importantly, how to relieve enough tension to slip the belt onto the last one. There's also a fan to be navigated which makes for some Escher-esque spatial visualization in getting it threaded into position. Then the easy part is finished. 

The hard part is never having heard of a 'breaking bar.' I tried for a good long while to use my 3/8" socket handle to torque out the tension. Then I went and got a metal tube from the barn, thinking I could slide that over the socket handle for some extra yoink. Then I went and got a hacksaw so the tube would fit under the hood. Not happening this day.

Bart stopped in the next morning, and since his idea of winter relaxation is to tear down a '92 Volvo and rebuild it from scratch way prettier than brand new, I figured he might have some ideas. 'There's a hammer here. That can't be good. First, get rid of the hammer.' 

'ok.'

Bart's insight involved us applying a lot of upper body strength to push down on the tensioner and the belt at the same time. 20 minutes or so of stubborn diligence, but again, no.

The decal was trying to tell us something. It showed pulling up on the other side of the tensioner as the path to success, rather than pushing down on this side. The problem though, was that with the fan and its plastic hood getting in the way, there was no chance of getting the bulky tube and wrench combo into position. 

Clayton stopped in and mentioned a 'breaking bar.' Now I'd learnt something. I can see why it's good for breaking  stuck bolts, knuckles and for tantrums. This ingeniously simple implement is just a long, extra heavy, but relatively thin and stripped down version of a socket handle. 

 A few seconds of fiddling into place, one good yoink and on goes the belt through a combination of leverage and pulling in the right direction. 

Air in the tires, gasoline in the tank, a charged battery and she's off.