I managed to take apart the pieces that I needed to ~ it was the little turnkey thing. I just needed bigger pliers. Cleaned the nozzle with alcohol, scraped out the sooty cylinder, cleaned everything up and put it back together. Made sure there’s adequate antifreeze in the system, etc.

Moment of truth. I flip the switch, run down to the furnace to watch and listen. Three huge puffs of smoke fill the engine room immediately. Dash back up the stairs to shut the system down. Check a few things and try it again ~ more smoke.

I’m done for the day, boys and girls. At least I’m going to take several hours off before I dismantle the whole thing to see what I must have done wrong and try to put it back together. Oh, what I would give for a Y chromosome! Persistence will have to do…

I begin to disassemble the heater, figuring that starting with cleaning the system and keeping my eyes open for obvious problems during that process would be a good start. Then I remember that, oh yeah, the guys have always had to take down the automatic fire extinguisher system when they work on this. Crap!

Let’s also remember that I am several inches shorter than the guys who usually do this, 4 months slightly awkward, and in an unprecedented fit of girlishness the other day, have had a set of nails put on my fingers. They look so nice against the background of tools and engines.

And I don’t have that innate guy thing where you can look at a random bolt on the wall and instinctively know that it’s a 5/8 whatever. Given the correct tools, I can operate them just fine, but it takes me a little while to do the math and figure out what the next fraction down is likely to be. And where someone else might have put it last time it was used.

After standing on my tiptoes enough for one session (no, there’s not an easy place to put a box or something ~ I’m not that blonde!), I have it taken apart to this stage. The nozzle is inside the circle there, and I can’t quite figure out how it comes apart. The little turnkey thingy that would make the most sense to me clearly hasn’t been turned recently, unless it was a gorilla who tightened it back up. As Tana would say, friggidyfrigfrig! I think I’ll leave it for a little while and come back to it tonight.

The silver lining here is that when you’re working, 59 degrees is a very comfortable temperature…

So it’s 59 degrees on board this morning and I wander up to the bridge to fire up Ye Olde Diesel Heater. Guess what?

Flame out. Just marvelous. I vaguely remember this stuff from last year, but what was I supposed to do again? Dragging out the manuals now…

I’m not normally a huge fan of “art” (I know, it’s probably sacrilegious to admit that, but it’s true). Maybe I’m just too obtuse to get it. But I do know that I loved these little metal sculptures out on the pilings. That made me smile.

Which should be the point of art, I think…

Just went in for an early ultrasound today and we think that we’ve got a boy and a girl! It’s very early, so the tech wouldn’t let us hold her to it, but she said if she had to guess, that would be it. Both babies were very active (Twin B, the boy, was getting bumped around by my heartbeat ~ must be sitting right on the aorta!)and both were indignant when subjected to all the probing.

Everything else is good. There’s a potential 4-6 week charter for KJ next year ~ a family with 10 kids! The charter company wanted to make sure I was OK with that, and I am, provided the boat comes back in the same condition in which she leaves (but that’s true for anybody who charters her, really). They plan to hire a skipper, which is probably a good idea ~ they’ll have their hands full the rest of the time! We’ll see if it comes through or not, but I’m hoping KJ goes out a lot next year.