I am working again.  Kinda.  Not really.  A friend has a problem and I am trying to help and the first thing I am doing is going about seeing my other friends and sharing the problem with them.  I picked the ones that were smarter than me this time so that I could make some progress rather than pick any of the rest of you and end up making things worse.  So, if you haven’t heard from me, well…………you know.

Actually, the real truth is: I have friends from all walks of life and the ones I am seeing right now are from the ‘real estate and politics’ section.  I have the techno-weenie, quasi criminal, business, mediation, old school and weird character sections, too – not to mention some really ‘out there’ sections I am too ashamed to admit to.  ‘Course, the ‘back country section’ is by far the strangest (except for family, of course).  The nice thing is that all my friends, regardless of how we know each other are cross referenced in the ‘wonderful people’ file.  

Actually, I can’t really call it working.  It’s visiting with people I care about but don’t see often.  As you can imagine, I have few occasions to mingle in the real estate and political streams anymore.  So, this is great and having something really interesting to share (another friend’s problem) makes the get-togethers even better.  The only reason I am calling it work is that I am exhausted at the end of the day!

I am no longer cut out for the rat race.  I really am not!  The first thing that hit me was sensory assault.  I saw more colours, moving and shaking and flashing and blinking (on Donner and Blitzen) in the first hour than I had seen in the past six months on Read.  It was like being taken from solitary confinement and dipped in Disneyland.  I was confused.

Then I parked the car downtown!  I thought that I was negotiating a down payment on the stall when they gave me the parking ticket!  I was paying $3.75 a half hour or portion thereof.  “Can we do this on a lease-to-purchase plan?  I leave the car here for two months (= to $11,000 in fees), and then I own the stall?”   “Sorry, sir, I do not believe we sell parking stalls”.  Of course, half the time spent in the parkade was going around and around trying to find a spot!

The challenge may take longer to resolve than the time I have allocated but I have either started the ball rolling or else I am going to have to come back to the city for a few months.  Sally is frightened.  “You know what will happen, don’t you?  It will get us.  We’ll be trapped again!  We’ll never get back to Read!  I may have to leave you.”   “The city will never trap us.  Not again.  This will be a one-off contract that may show up now and again every two years or so but, basically, we are Read Island residents now and only short term winter gigs have any chance at us.”

She looked doubtful.  But she needn’t.  There is no way………..

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but my blog has ads.  Given that I don’t pick ém, I have been a bit curious as to what Blogspot (the blog host) picks for me.  I do know this: the Blogspot machine reads my submission before publishing it and, based on keywords, throws up an ‘algorithm-deemed’ appropriate ad to accompany it.  This latest one is a real head shaker.  Seems you, the reader, are being urged to vote for Rebecca Kaplan for mayor of Oakland.  Seems Becky represents real change.

Is that what I am writing about? 

The only connection I can see to the content of the blog is that ol’ Beck looks a bit like Sonny.  That’s a helluva algorithm if they can do that!  ( I just checked back on Outboards ll and found that Becky had been replaced by an ad for food.  Do you suppose the algorithm read this post and changed the ad?  Gawd, that’s creepy).

We’re ensconced in the sumptuous LaQuinta Inn in downtown Richmond.  It’s an extra star or three up from the initially selected Arundell Mansions in New Westminster.  Since my work requires I be in New West for most of the time we are here it only seemed logical to stay in that city and save the commute.  But a quick check of the available Inns proved disappointing to say the least.  They were all popular ‘bar’ scenes and the crowds congregating at the doors were not those amongst whom I would normally seek company.  In fact, I would only seek distance and hope to be ‘upwind’ at that.  New Westminster is not very charming in that regard.

But the Arundell Mansions looked good on the internet.  It is billed as a restored 1910 Heritage site that used to serve as the Provincial circuit judge’s quarters when they were ín town instead of circuiting.  That means that each accommodation is a small suite and the decor is antique.  I love that kind of thing.

Sadly, it did not live up to it’s billing.  It was simply really old and not just a bit ‘tatty’.  We were both considering giving it a ‘try’ anyway when the skytrain rolled past – a foot and a half from the window!  We were on the third floor but if we had been on the second, we would have been able to see the passengers within their very own personal space, albeit for just a flash.  They, of course, would have seen me, too.  In a flash.  Given that one spends some time un or at least scantily clad when in a hotel room, we would have been the equivalent of commuter-flashers had we stayed.  So, despite the temptation to flash thousands an hour, we didn’t stay.

I confess to just a bit of disappointment with our decision.  Just think of the blog entry! Title: ‘Stuck to the Hotel window naked’.    

When I informed our more-than-eccentric host, Glynn, of our intentioned and immediate departure, he suggested that we give one of his Heritage homes a look.  So we drove a few blocks to a narrow, brick and stucco house of the same era as the Arundell Mansions.  The house was just a notch up from the mansions and we were tired so we decided to stay.

The next day we left.  The house was good enough.  Hell, I have lived in Mexico and Belize and Guatemala.  I know cockroaches from New Orleans to New York.  I have even slept head height on the #2 sleeper to Chiang Mai from Bangkok.  I can handle minimal, rustic, run-down and even uncomfortable.  This was all of that but not as bad as some.  It was bad but it was ‘good enough’.

But (gasp), it did not have internet.  I have learned to do without martinis.  I have even delayed showering for a bit.  Now and then.  But NO internet is now unacceptable.  We left in a huff!

Spent the day doing some chores and getting settled.  Tomorrow – work.  Appointments and such.  Could be good.  I hope so.  Our outboard motor/RV fund could use a shot in the arm.  Sal asked,  “Is it worth it?”   And I answered without thinking, “No.  No, it isn’t!”  We’ll see.

Wrestled the damn thing, grease and all, into the back of the truck.  Lucky ol’ Sal is as strong as she is.

We kicked the big, dead motor up on the tilt and used the little ‘rescue’ trolling motor to get the boat over to end-of-the-road where I positioned it with the back to the beach.  Then, driving the truck down the dirt slope and onto the rocky shore and into the water just a little bit, we opened the back and pried the ‘ol’ dead pig’ off the transom.

It weighs about 200 pounds which is nothing for Sal to throw around but she needs good footing for that kind of thing and the slimy boulders of the beach meant I had to help.  So we got the engine off the transom using a 6 foot pry bar and then, slipping and sliding a few feet got it to the back of the truck where we managed to lever it into place onto the dog blanket.  A little shuffling later and we could close the back door.  Put luggage on top of the dead pig, got in and headed for town. 

A few hours and a ferry later we were at Sonny’s.  Sonny is our outboard motor repair God.  He is great.  Sonny is about my age and makes me look young, handsome and slim.  His shop is his single car garage in the old, small-house neighbourhood he lives in with his wife, Sandra.  They reside in the old part of Campbell River.  He’s a legend out here.  Been there, doing that outboard-thing for well over 25 years. 

Everyone knows Sonny. He’s got that crusty, surly nature affected by many older guys many of whom are really very nice and funny.  They just like the image, I guess.  Sonny’s one of them.  Funny, grouchy, just a great guy doing his job fairly and honestly and well.  We’d falter badly out here without the Sonnys. 

“So, what did you screw up this time?  I sure hope you didn’t try to fix something, eh?  Nothing like trying to fix something to guarantee breaking stuff.” 

“Nope.  Touched very little.  Honest.  Maybe got a bit close to the carbs but didn’t touch ém.  I swear.  Ya see, Sal drove my boat.  It was runnin’ just fine.  Then she drove it.  Then all hell broke loose.  So, ya see, t’weren’t my fault.  Not this time.” 

Sonny looks at me with narrowed eyes.  He didn’t believe a word I said but he appreciates me blaming Sal.  Like most guys he’s smitten with Sal and putting the blame on her is like pumping sunshine into his colon but he loves that kind of banter.   

“So, then what?  After Sal broke your liddle motor, poor baby!”

“Well, I did what any guy would do, eh?  I checked things out.  You know……..looked at everything a bunch o’ times and then emptied the water out of the filter.  Hadda start somewhere.  Water in the filter should be removed, right?”

“You running one o’ them new carbs that runs on water?”  I shook my head.  “Then ya done the right thing.  Then what happened?”

“Well, you know, tried a little of this, tried a little of that.  Used the battery up in the process.  Nothing would start.  So, I gave up.  Decided we were overdue for visiting you anyway.  We miss you, man.”

“Check for spark?”  “Nope.  Told ya.  By then we missed you too much to waste any time messin’ with it any longer.  Just got ourselves over here lickety split.  How ya doin, man?”

Sonny eyed me carefully.  More sunshine in all the wrong places.  “Wanna come in for a coffee?”  “Nah.  Thanks, tho.  Gotta fly.  You know how it is.  Busy, busy, busy.”  “Yeah, right.”

With the banter and the mea culpas out of the way, we sorted out the details and left Sonny to rescue us yet again.  We’ll get it Friday when we get back from town.

The weird thing is…………..we really do miss Sonny.  He’s a great guy.  And he likes Sal.  That’s for sure.

Outboard is not running right.  This is not good.  Outboards are yet another challenge out here.  Without them, you are greatly inconvenienced and usually it takes great gobs of cash to get them running again.  Not to mention more heavy lifting. 

They are not like car engines that deliver miles and miles of service between cranky spells.  These things deliver miles and miles of cranky spells before needing servicing.  Usually in the dark.  Often in the rain.  Always when it is totally inconvenient.  Nothing like an outboard not starting to measure the maturity and equilibrium of a person.  

I shared my outboard dilemma with the Q-hut construction ‘guys’.  “OH, Jeez I had that once.  The head was all cheese, it was.  ‘Lectrolysis, eh?  Just ate that old head practically right off the engine.  Could be you’re hooped on this one, bud!”  “Yeah, that happened to me, too.  Head was just gooey muck, really.  Amazin’ it ran as long as it did.  You are doomed, man”.

Frankly, I think it is just a bit of water in the carbs but one is obliged to suffer the horror stories everyone has to offer when you ask their advice.  They never tell you of the time they simply forgot to open the gas line or the kill switch was stuck in the ‘on’ position.  No that would be too easy a fix.  No doom – no humour. 

I’m not worried yet.  Not really.  A smidge uneasy, perhaps, but not feeling doomed quite yet.

That is the way it is with Outboards.  Some of the stories are not just doom-mongering.  Some are truly dreadful.  There is a new outboard design available right now called an E-Tec.  It is a high-tech two-stroke and brilliant in so many ways.  Became popular fast.  But it was not good – not in ‘execution’, anyway.  Seems they are poorly made.  Things keep breaking. 

These puppies start at about $10,000 depending on the size (around here 50hp or more) and go up.  Of course, the company stands behind them – as soon as you get them into the shop.  But a non-functioning 300 pound outboard stuck on the back of your boat in the rain and in the dark going nowhere is not in the shop, is it?  It’s far from the shop.  And we are talking a day of travel one way and no other motor to substitute (who has a spare $10,000 motor sitting around?).  E-tec owners got fed up just as quickly.  There are not just a few of them sitting in sheds relegated to the bad decision department. 

Outboards have other problems, too.  Sal was flying along in her little boat one day when the motor just up and jumped off the transom!  There she was doing 15 knots with the tiller in her hand and only the spinning of the prop keeping the engine anywhere near the boat.  It was ‘free’!

Now, ol’ Puddin’ ain’t the type to let an outboard motor escape on her watch.  So, with one hand on the accelerator twist handle keeping the engine going, she reached around with her other hand and grabbed it.  This caused the motor to slow and start to sink but, before it could do that, she had wrestled it to the boat (slewing to and fro) and, in a swift and acrobatic WWF manner, re-positioned the engine back on to the transom.  Carefully tightening the clamps extra hard, she fired it up and carried on.  Total elapsed ‘down time’ about three minutes!  Not easy. 

“You won’t believe what happened to me on the way to book club she told her friends.” And she told the story.  All the women looked at her like she was a ‘newbie’ and said, “Oh, that has happened to us.  Happens to all of us.  That’s why you are supposed to thru-bolt the engine onto the boat.  Those clamps are not good enough.  Anything bigger than your engine and it is gone in a blink.  Sinks right before your eyes.  One second you are motoring along.  Next – no motor.  Gets annoying after you lose two.”

Seems props ‘spin out, too.  Didn’t know that.  I was zooming along and it felt as if the ‘clutch was slipping’ but, of course, there is no clutch.  “Oh, probably spun the prop”, said Rob when I got to his dock.  “Well, duh.  Isn’t that what one does with props? You know…………spin ’em?”

“No this is different.  The inside hub spins off the outside hub that holds the blades so that your engine power is not transferred.” “Oh.  Didn’t know that.  What do you do?” “Why you take in to the propeller shop, of course.” “Uh, but the prop doesn’t work to get you there…………?” “Well you gotta use your spare prop, don’t ya?”

Spare prop?  You are going to learn your lessons out here.  No question.  And the learning seems to take place in the middle of the problem – not while reading about it in the comfort of your Laz-y-boy.  You only learn about outboard motors hopping off your transom when one hops off.  You only learn about spinning your propeller when you ‘spin’ one.  There is no easy way – only the hard way. 

I am in the process of learning about my engine.  I just hope it doesn’t rain.  It usually does when you are working on it.  Gets dark fast, too.  Ya know why?  Learned this lesson the hard way, too: outboard engines don’t break down in the summer.  Only when the weather is bad, don’t you know? 
 

The best part of working at the Q-hut on Wednesdays is the humour.  Stupid-guy construction humour.  It’s the best.  “Hey, you gonna stand there all day looking at the mess you created or get the persuader (sledge hammer) to work and put the finishing touches on it?”

I know it isn’t funny but standing there, in the rain, having just screwed up something and this old geezer with a deadpan expression giving you a friendly criticism…………well, it is funny.  Somehow.

I was talking to Gary, the professional carpenter who shows up now and then.  “So, you being a carpenter and all, this Q-hut seem OK to you?” “Better than most of the jobs I work on.  Them jobs are all cockeyed.  Not like the well-oiled machine you got going on here.  I especially appreciate the lack of tools and materials.  You guys are good!”  

“Hey!  We got materials and we have tools, too.  We just have to share them is all.  Nobody likes carrying tools up the hill so we use Hugh’s.”  “Yeah, like I said.  A veritable Swiss watch you got going here”.

It’s stupid.  It’s relentless.  And it is funny. 

Doesn’t work with women, tho.  Sal and some of the women were up in the bunkhouse assembling Ikea cupboards when I had decided to quit for the day.  I went to get Sal and saw everybody being busy.  Judith looked pleased as she and Ginny finished putting a drawer together.  I said, “A drawer!?  A single drawer!?  We’re putting in new foundations and walls and floors and you two make a drawer!??”  They just looked at me with daggers in their eyes.

Men and women, eh?  Not even the same species. 

I remember.  I was about to tell you that the fabricated steel assembly that accommodates the new motor and winch for the lower funicular arrived yesterday.  Courtesy of Hugh McNab and son.  It is pretty cool. 

‘Course, it being Read Island and all, we stopped first (before starting) to have Sally’s lunch.  She had prepared it before leaving for book club.  And then, by the time we got to the task of attaching the assembly, time had run out in the day and so we didn’t actually get it done.  Sort of.  We got it from the boat and into place but have to adjust a few bolts and things to make it fit.

And then I messed about with some bolts for awhile until I got bored.  Which didn’t take long.  It think it began to drizzle, too.  And then I needed some tea.  Is the picture becoming more clear?     

You may recall that in earlier posts I explained that the Read Island pace is a smidge sluggish at times.  This suits me well as I am currently running at ‘sluggish’ most of the time myself.  We’ll get to it.  Eventually.  It will take me way too long to do the job by even Mexican standards but, then again, I am only working to please myself and I can rationalize just about anything for the sake of procrastination.  So, I am pleased for now.  And I may be able to stretch this ‘being pleased’ for a couple of months before the need to make progress rears it’s ugly head again.  We’ll see.

The thing about steel fabrication is it results, usually, in heavy things.  And – don’t you know – the heavy things are never fabricated in situ.  They have to moved.  Of course, moving heavy steel on a rock and barnacles strewn beach is something I have become familiar with and I have to say is part of the reason I have embraced the pace of this island so well.  “Let’s let the welds ripen for a week or so?”  Lifting steel in the rain while walking on seaweed laying on a twenty five degree slope is not easy.  

I just have to wait until Sal is up for it.

With the two of us, we are 120 years in combined age.  You’d think we’d know something by now.  And, I am sure that we do.  We just can’t remember it.

Our memories are pretty good about things long past.  I recall them distinctly.  So Sal does her memories.  Strangely, since we did so much together, we are puzzled greatly by the differences in our recollections.  It is almost as if we lived separate lives sometimes.  We do agree on the two ‘other persons’ named Emily and Ben but virtually everything else is open to creative interpretation – on Sally’s part, anyway.  I know what happened.

And I am secure enough that I can say, “Oh yeah.  You are right.  It was you who fixed the car in that winter storm.  How silly of me to think it was me.  Just an old man’s prerogative, I guess, making things up as I go.  I am just glad you remembered your tools, being with child and all at the time.  I remember dozing off, now that you describe the scene.”  

Sal also remembers sarcasm well.  She glares at me even when I confirm her recollection of things.  “Don’t take that tone with me.  I remember perfectly well I used your tools and it was a blizzard and I had Ben in a snowsuit on the roof of the car while you slept in the back.  I remember because I was pregnant with Emily and had a hard time getting close to the engine.  Broken fan belt, it was.  I was in flip flops and it was in the dark, too.  I think I had a broken arm at the time.  You didn’t care.”

I usually apologize at that point.  It’s easier.  Worse, she may be right! 

Doesn’t matter the memory, we each have our own version of it.  Except the recent memories, of course.  They are completely missing.  “Did I bring the hammer or did you?” “What hammer?  Why do we need a hammer?” “Uhm…….didn’t you want something hammered……….?”  “Hmm…….I think I did………now what was it……?”

Seems, according to research (the source of which I cannot recall), we are getting smarter as we age but remembering fewer details.  I guess we are getting better at the bigger picture.  Makes sense, really.  That is the way my eyes are working.  Can’t see the details but the big blurs are more easily interpreted.

This aging thing does not have a lot going for it but according to the same research, we get happier as we get older.  Seems we sense our own mortality and prefer to dwell on the positive given that time is short.  I think that is largely true but it is hard to discern from the dour and sour facial expressions of most of us over 60.  The mouth turns down, smiles are less frequent and the topics are all health related.  Doesn’t seem happy, does it?  (I discarded smiling years ago when someone asked if I had Bell’s Palsy.  I now try to hone a deadpan delivery instead).

But I am happier.  I really am.  I think it is because there is a residual buildup to Prozac.  You know, take anti-depressants for a couple of decades and a reserve of ‘happiness’ is caked on your nervous system like rust deposits.  Ergo: a kind of deep happiness.  Kinda.  Whatever………like, who cares………….

Where were we………….? 

We’ve been picking at our woodpile these past three weeks or so.  No real ‘burn’, just a few ‘take-the-chill-offs’.  But, as you know, each little piece detracts from the pile and today, when I went to fill the in-house-cradle, I noticed that the first of our twelve rows was 2/3 gone.

“Sheesh, Sal.  Wood pile is a-dwindlin’ already!  We were so happy to have that woodshed full and now, in a blink, we are almost down to eleven rows.  I’d say we used close to 5% of the pile already and we have yet to have a full day’s fire.”

“All the more reason to make plans to go south.  Seems everyone up here, when they are talking about getting away from the winter for a bit, throws out the line, ‘and we’ll save some wood!”

That’s pretty funny.  Spend a week or so traveling and a few thousand dollars and the first goal of the trip is saving the woodpile!  But, it’s true.  You see, you can’t buy the wood.  There is no one to go get the wood but you.  Wood is all about you working hard and very little else except a bit of danger and a lot of sore muscles.

The wood has to be processed from standing or wind-fallen logs to trimmed and lengthed.  Then it has to be hauled and floated and hauled again.  Then you lift it up the highline on the winch to get the wood length (about ten-footers as a rule) to the ‘bucking’ cradle.  And from there you buck it into ’rounds’, split it, carry it and stack it. 

We try to do that when we have Woofers or young, strong people to help but most of it is done by me and Sal. 

The hardest part of the job for Sally is setting the chokes on the 10-footers I have cut and deposited at the foot of the hill we live on.  Our ‘living level’ or elevation is about 75 feet up and about 125 feet from the lagoon where the logs await hauling.  Sally has to wrap a choke (heavy nylon belt) around each one, attach it and then haul on the block and tackle (each log length weighs between 200 and 400 pounds) until the log is clear of the ground and hanging at a 45 degree angle.

Sal weighs 125 pounds – give or take – and if the log is too heavy, she is just left hanging in the air and swinging back and forth.  The log doesn’t move despite the 4 to one ratio of the b&t.  I then have to go down the hill and cut that one into two shorter lengths.   

When that is done and the log is cinched off, she gives me a sign sorta like the whistle-punk she is acting like and I haul it up on the gas-powered winch to the top, disconnect it, roll it out of the way and send the b&t back down for another.  We have to do about 50-60 10-footer logs each year, sometimes a bit more.  Sal is pretty tough by the time we have the logs up.

We are very fortunate.  The house is well insulated and the stove is ideally placed.  I researched the stoves quite a bit and decided on a great little Pacific Energy Artisan model (out of production now) and it is very efficient and attractive.  We use – maybe – a wheelbarrow full every two days at the coldest time of the year.  We have neighbours who use two a day when it is cold.  Three to four cords will last us as a rule.  Most people plan on 6.  Many use much more.     

It is a very simple concept, wood heat.  But it is not so simple to do.  They say wood warms you at least twice – when you are getting it in and then again when burning it in the winter.

I’d add a third time: sometimes it so beautiful and comforting that the heat does not seem like the prime reason for having a fire.  I am embarrassed to admit that I have spent more than just a few hours staring at the fire after a long hard day and somehow feeling real good about it.

That part of wood heat is easy to do.

One can buy a 300 amp hour battery for anywhere between $100.00 and $500.00.   The discrepancy in quality can be greater but I choose not to think about it beyond $500.00.  Makes my head hurt. 

You see, I have a 48 volt system and no ‘ordinary’ battery comes with more than 12 volts so I have to marry up four batteries at the very least to get 48 volts.  And 12 volt batteries are the lightweights of the battery world.  They are the ‘disposables’.  If you want ‘hardy and durable’, you drop down in voltage.  A 6-volt battery of similar weight to the 12-volt is twice as long lived.  And you’d need two of them to replace the 12.  Ergo, if you follow the logic, two-volt batteries are the best. 

Add deep-cycle to the specs and maybe a few hundred more amp hours and one can easily spend the $500.00 on one battery and have only 1/24 of the batteries you need to fill out a 48 volt system.  Do the math – that is $12,000.00 for the right batteries for my system!  And I know that one can spend double that quite easily depending on the size of your amp-hour capacity. 

For a really good, heavy duty, long lived, guaranteed, 2-volt based system for a house our size at say, 1000 amp hour rating (modest), you can easily spend $20,000.00 not counting HST.  That batch of bats would occupy the space of a small bathroom and require proper ventilation and insulation and monthly maintenance (not because they really need monthly maintenance but rather because one feels the need to fuss when one has spent that much money on batteries).  They would last maybe twenty years.  

I mention all this simply to vent my spleen.  I need to get it out, to share, to vent my gases, as it were.  You see, the bats are just, maybe, (depending on how committed you get to the amp hours and the quality of the bats in the first place) not even 33% of the cost of the electrical system.  After you build the appropriate buildings to house everything, add an appropriately sized diesel genset, the right electrical interfaces (inverter, charge controller, panels, etc.) wire, attachments, solar panels, wind turbines and towers and a simple off-the-grid system can easily top $50,000.00.  And all that is before you get to wiring the actual house! 

Living off-the-grid is not cheap electrically speaking.  Not really.  Who woulda thunk it, eh?

But let me reveal the most salient point: it is well worth it.  WELL worth it.  Would I pay an upfront cost of $50,000 vs a minor urban monthly hydro bill of only $300 to live out here?  ABSO-bloody-LUTELY.

Who woulda thunk that!?