The good and the bad!

You would have been proud of me this morning.  I got the dinghy out of storage and blew it up on the back deck. Then I pitched it over the side and tied it to the rail.

Now time for the outboard. In the past, this would have marked the beginning of a monumental struggle in which an aging , unstable, weakling (that would be yours truly)would attempt to wrestle a 66 pound outboard over the rail and unto the transom of my dinghy. This would almost always involve several close calls in which either motor, myself, or both would come close to pitching overboard.

But not any more!!!!

When I was packing for this trip last December, I walked out to the barn to load my trailer.  As I prepared to hoist my hefty Nissan 6hp up and into the trailer bed, I happened to notice a little gem hanging on the wall by my workbench:  My ancient 1987 2hp Johnson colt: weight 22 pounds.
The light bulb quickly began to blink in my brain.  Getting older means needing less!
And so I grabbed that little Johnson Colt and loaded it as easy as the wife's handbag, all the while sneering at the weighty Nissan leaning nearby against the wall.

The full implication of this decision was recognized today as I coolly loaded the little guy into the dink and on to the transom with one hand!!!!!!  Wow!  No slipping, no sliding!!! No Oliver Hardy "whoa!  Watch out!"
And the added bonus was that it actually started and ran! (It has the original spark plug)
I couldn't help but smile all the way in to the dock as I put-putted along.  OK,maybe I'm not whizzing along up on plane, but I am at an age where that is ok.  This cruising life is after all about taking life slow and easy and smelling the roses.

But the title of this is "The good and the bad".  So what was bad?
I had to get a new gas can.  It is one of the newly designed EPA approved safety spout models.
I'll be darned if I could get it to work!  I even had to resort to the male no-no of reading the directions. Still no luck.  I admit I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but this thing is silly.  No matter how hard I tried, I could not get gas to flow from this can!
I finally had to take off the top and free pour into the tank.  Yes, I spilled some!  Way to go EPA!

And so my advice to all is to hang on to your old style gas cans with a death grip!!!