July 19, 2009.

We’re still here in Spa Creek. Being so close to the park gives us an opportunity to watch as others spend their weekends communing with the water.

On most weekends a bunch of newbie kayakers will show up and be led through a series of kayak safety lessons.
It’s pretty interesting to watch as the class is taught to flip themselves over and then right themselves. There seems to be a lot more to the whole kayaking thing than I had realized.

There was some type of big family gathering up in the park and one guy spent the better part of the day taking small kids out in a canoe for a trip along the waterfront. It was kinda cool as he taught each new canoeist how to handle their paddle. If you look closely you can see that had flotation attached on either side of the canoe to make things safer.

Another fairly new trend on the water is kind of a Polynesian based water sport. You stand on what amounts to a large surf board and use a long handled paddle to propel yourself along. Some people look really at ease while others seem to be a little more hunched over and

concentrating on staying balanced. I guess it would be a good workout.

I finished a big project the other day. A guy’s 400 pound generator died recently. The engine side of the generator had failed. There was no room to separate the generator side of the unit from the engine while it was still down in the generator room. So I had to build an arch over the generator so we could use a come along to lift it out of its hole in the middle of the salon.
After we got the generator out, we split the engine off and one of the other guys drove it to South Carolina. There’s an engine place there that stocks this same engine but needed ours as a core trade-in.

So we had our brand new engine in just 2 days. The first thing I did was to paint it white so it matched the rest of the generator.
Then it was off to the boat to mate it back up with the generator so I could drop it back down into place. It was a bit of a chore to get the thing out of the truck and carry it down the damn finger pier and
onto the boat but “Bob” and I were able to pull it off without any major injuries. It took the better part of the day to put it all together, drop it into place and then reconnect all the associated hoses and wiring. It all went well and the guy is back in the energy making business.

In an ironic twist of fate, our generator is once again giving me fits. It wouldn’t start and I traced the problem down to the fuel shut off solenoid. We ordered the part and once it arrived I installed it and met with limited success. The engine now starts and runs, but it runs in an overspeed condition. When the generator runs at too high an RPM it generates too much voltage and can quickly destroy your electrical system. The generator has a governor that controls the speed of the engine. We’ve had problems several times in the past so I’ve become somewhat of an expert at setting the governor. But try as I might, I cannot get the engine to run at the correct speed. Its driving me crazy…….