The boat floats

We recently purchased a small flat bottom skiff off of Tommy and Cindy before they sold their house down here. As with any new-to-me motor (the outboard in this case), I went through and gave it the full maintenance package. While I was doing the maintenance, Oceana gave it a good scrub down and got it looking good. I replaced the engine oil, the lower unit gear oil, fuel filter, and the impeller and housing. In doing this, I now know the state of all of the fluids and can start the motor on a maintenance schedule. However, somewhat more importantly, I’m now comfortable using the boat. That means it’s time to get it in the water.

Our dock is rough

If you’ve ever seen our dock, or had the pleasure of walking down it, you’ll know it’s on its last leg. We will rebuild the dock in the future, but that will be after we finish the house remodel. Having said that, I wasn’t comfortable tying the boat off to the dock. With some of the wind storms that have passed through, my concern is that it would rip the dock from the pilings. To overcome that concern, my idea was to set a new pair of pilings off of the edge of the current dock. The boat could then tie up to those pilings.

Setting pilings

Setting pilings should be easy enough, right!? I planned to jet out the pilings using a trash pump that I’ve got floating around. I actually use it for draining the duck pond in the coop. I’d hook the pump to some pipes and put the discharge end at the base of the piling. The piling should then sink down into the sand as the water pressure clears the sand beneath the piling. That was the theory at least. I got everything set up and fired up the pump. It had decent flow so I started jetting a hole where I’d drop the first piling. I carried down a piling and dropped it in the hole. Mark (next door neighbor) asked if I needed a hand and I declined.

This is a two person job

I dropped the piling in the shallow hole which wasn’t enough to keep the piling upright. I then proceeded to fight with the piling and the hose for the next few minutes without accomplishing anything. So I hollered for Mark and he graciously came over and helped. Together, with a bit of struggling, we got the first piling sunk. I think we had 20 minutes in that one. The second one was much more challenging. We fought and fought to get it down. I really don’t know how long it took, but we were both winded when we finished. Success. I gave each piling a few whacks with a sledge hammer to make sure they were fully seated before cleaning up the tools. Lastly, I grabbed a chainsaw and trimmed the tops of the pilings level(ish).

Time for a boat ride

Now that we had somewhere secure to dock the boat, it was time to get the boat in the water. Tom and Kay were nice enough to let us use their ramp to splash the boat. I did a few laps around the lake and the boat ran great. I picked up Oceana and Teak on the dock. Teak was terrified. He was shaking and scared the whole trip.

Sunset cruises

We used to live in Georgia across the street from Lake Lanier. We kept our boat at a marina within walking distance from the house. One of our favorite things to do was go for sunset cruises – usually we’d just go for a slow cruise until we got to the middle of the lake and then just drift from there. It was relaxing. Well, now that we have a boat on the water within walking distance of the house, we’re able to do sunset cruises again.

The second boat ride, a sunset cruise, Teak was still slightly terrified. During the cruise he seemed to get a little more comfortable. The third trip out, Teak was downright excited to get on the boat. No dragging necessary. He jumped right in and as we’re motoring around, he’d try and drink the water over the side.

Nothing new with the kitchen

Not much happened with the kitchen remodel this week. My workload is really high with tight deadlines again so I’m burning the candle at both ends. On top of that, there’s a few potential projects that are almost closed deals that are an insane amount of work that needs to be done in a short time. As such, I’m spending any spare time upgrading tools, equipment, and techniques to try and handle the increased workload. It’s to the point where I need a bigger shop if I’m to handle these larger jobs. So I have actively begun searching for a new shop.

A funny Teak story

In the kitchen, we’ve got a pile of insulation that will be installed in the last exterior wall. At some point this week Teak thought that it would be fun to play in the insulation and to start shredding it. Even though we told him to stop, he continued to play with it when we weren’t looking. So how does a normal person stop their dog from playing in the insulation? With a coon skin, of course. Oceana draped a coonskin on the pile of insulation. Teak was terrified. He wouldn’t even go to the back door anymore. He would just sit on the dining room staring at it, knowing that the coon skin was going to attack him at any minute. After a day we put the skin away. Teak hasn’t touched the insulation since!

That’s all, folks

That’s all for now! Happy Easter everyone.