I went in the water today with four-pound mallet in hand. And I let that shaft have it. And when I was spent I crawled up onto the dock, spent ten minutes under the hose, and went inside to have a look, sure that it hadn’t moved. But it had, a good two inches. Just enough for me to drill the set screw in and tighten everything up nice and tight. We’re mobile again. And shouldn’t have a shaft falling off every time we throw the boat into reverse. So that’ll be nice.

After that was finished I tested it by starting up the engine and throwing it in gear against the docklines. Two minutes in the engine died. I knew why of course, it was because of my laziness/stupidity. I installed that inline electric fuel pump to help me with any future fuel line bleedings, but then didn’t bother to bleed the line afterward. Makes perfect sense. To someone with an IQ of forty.

So I went about bleeding the line using the new pump. I flicked it on, cracked open the bleeder valve on the first fuel filter and waited. And waited. And got nothing. I could hear the fuel pumping in the tank, but nothing was making it down the line. It took me a few minutes to figure this one out. I installed the pump on the starboard tank fuel line because that is the tank that the excess fuel goes into after pumping through the engine. Meaning that is always the last tank to run dry. Seemed logical to me. But today I realized that with it installed there the fuel still has to go through a T-fitting where it meets the port fuel line and is then reduced to one line leading to the engine. Eventually it dawned on me that the fuel was not being pumped to the engine because it was hitting that T and heading both ways, losing power in the process.

Fortunately that was easily solved by closing the shut off valve to the port tank. Immediately upon doing that the fuel came spewing out of the bleeder valve at the engine. It used to take me a good twenty minutes of pumping the tiny primer thumb-sized valve on the fuel pump to get the fuel to flow, now it’s a one second job. Pretty sweet. I bled the whole system in under a minute then just for fun did it a second time. I’m pretty stoked about this new little addition. It’s about the cheapest thing I’ve added to this boat, but may just prove to be the most useful. Now if someone could devise a product to keep all that fuel coming out of the bleeder valve from pouring into the bilge we’d really be in business.

Ouest has really taken off on the bike riding front the last couple of days. Really it’s only about the third time she’s ridden it since she grew the extra inch necessary to safely reach the ground. It’s amazing how quickly she’s learned to balance. One, two, three, GLIDE! “Bye Papa!” she yells back as she glides down the sidewalk. This pedal-less bike is so genius. And the best part about it is that I don’t even have to bend over to give her a push. I just grab her shoulder, give her a little nudge, and she’s off for maybe fifty feet at a crack.