Yesterday Michael and I had what I lovingly call a “Mexico Experience”. This is defined as a field trip to some sort of marine related workshop; a trip that doesn’t go as planned, requiring us to pivot to a different timeline where things work out better than expected. Yesterday was Michael’s birthday and he gave himself the gift of a day off from work so we could toodle up to Seattle to fulfill his greatest birthday wish: to get Hiram’s exhaust riser inspected and buy Hiram a new flexible coupling.

Not pretty, but damned useful.

New readers won’t know that Hiram is our red Beta Marine engine, the heartbeat of Galapagos when she isn’t sailing or sitting at the dock. We love Hiram and take good care of him. The story of Hiram’s exhaust riser is long and filled with ‘events’, a word which, used here, means failures of the cracking and leaking nature during critical passages. Hiram’s exhaust riser has seen action in such far-flung locations as Astoria, Oregon and Bellingham, Washington. Fortunately for us, that’s as exotic as it got. The story begins here, if you have some time, but the short version is that when we bought this boat, we needed to have a new, much taller,  exhaust riser created to keep water from back flowing into our beloved Hiram. This back-flowing water would cause Michael to lose all the blood in his face and come close to passing out from sheer traumatic stress, and also all kinds of other engine-related hoopla.

Hiram, sans exhaust elbow. Don’t worry, there is plenty of clearance for those wire covers you are seeing in the photo.

Part of what eventually solved our troubles with vibration and cracking of metals  was a cheap stainless exhaust flex connector we got at O’Reilly Auto Parts. That’s right. It was cheap. It was probably Chinese stainless. It was most definitely NOT made for marine use. And it worked brilliantly since 2014: all the way to Mexico, Hawaii, and then home. We carried an extra on board; in fact we could have replaced the entire exhaust with pieces we have on board. But only now are we finally getting to that project because it has held up well. The secret shame of marine exhaust systems: cheap auto parts. But the O’Reilly has recently developed a tiny leak, so we know that underneath all the protective tape, it’s probably rotten to the core.

Sooty exhaust riser in hand, we trundled up to Seattle on a field trip to visit Broomfield’s Marine Exhaust. We like to drive to Seattle together because it means we can use the HOV lanes and we might get lucky and be able to get there and back without being stuck in wall to wall traffic on I-5. We like Seattle, but we hate driving up there, so we go together to be sure our suffering is mutual.

Anyway, we should have known we were on the wrong timeline when, enroute,  I tried to call the phone number listed for Broomfield’s, just to be sure they were open during lunch,  and it was a number that was out of service. Hmmm. Then Michael’s Google Maps showed the location in a completely different place than my Google did. These indicators are sure signs that you are not in the correct universe for your plans to go smoothly. Having arrived at the wrong location we pulled into a parking lot to park; a lot that turned out to be reserved Monday-Friday for a business we had no interest visiting.  Sighing deeply, I got out of the car and just walked the short distance to what I was sure at this point was the wrong place. At least the sun was shining.

Hiram is named after this man behind the counter in a 1930’s Chicago eatery. That’s Mike’s grandfather, Hiram, otherwise known as Red.

There I found two workmen behind a fence having what sounded like a good natured convo so I decided to throw myself on their mercy. An earthy-looking man with many tattoos but few teeth greeted me warmly. Did he know of a place called Broomfields? He did. And it had gone out of business. Ahhhh. That ‘splained the phone number and the weird address.  He used to be a welder for Broomfields and based on his apparently considerable experience he recommended Ballard Marine Fabricators, just up the road a couple of blocks.  We didn’t know any better, so we trusted the colorful toothless man and sashayed up the road a couple of blocks, exhaust elbow rattling in the back of our Mexico van, plastic dashboard Jesus swaying to the rhythm of the potholes. We were loving the vibe. Our van really blended in with the whole aesthetic down in the marine area of Ballard.

You know you are in the right place for marine exhaust when you see this sign in the window.

Yaaasss! See that accordion looking part? That’s what we’re looking for. Exactly.

A young man waited on us pretty quickly (I mean, they are alllll young these days) and he  immediately understood what we were after. Giving a critical eye to the business end of the riser where it attaches to the engine, he decided he would give us two bids: one to just have an entire new riser made, in case there is enough corrosion to warrant that, and one to replace our O’Reilly flexible coupling with a nice marine grade one like the one on the sign. He said that will last longer than 8 years and I believe him.

As we talked, I had seen him eyeing that black tape, pushing a fingernail underneath to try to peel back the heavy secret it contained. I didn’t think Michael had mentioned what was underneath the obscuring tape and I could stand it no longer. My internal pressure was building due to extreme fear of being judged unworthy,  and in a moment of explosive confession, I found myself telling him about the O’Reilly part, hidden discretely underneath the black protective tape he could not seem to remove easily. Would this man think we were going to be happy with O’Reilly quality? Would he think we should not be touching things like engines and exhaust systems? Would he think we were not worth his considerable experience and expertise and didn’t take our exhaust system seriously? Would he even feel sorry for Hiram?

Looking a little more closely at the business end of the elbow.

We received zero judgment for our use of a cheap auto part. Not even an eyeroll. Just a smile and low chuckle of forgiveness.  This welding man said he had seen much worse than our exhaust riser that, after all, had not failed us for several years, including three seasons in the Sea of Cortez and two ocean crossings.  He smiled and said he worked on a lot of fishing boats and fishermen will do anything to keep their boat running. I asked him if he’d met many sailors. I felt absolved.

We left Hiram’s exhaust elbow in what we believe will be capable hands (crossing all the fingers). I wished Michael a very happy birthday and we left the parking spot that had appeared directly in front of the shop, in their own parking lot. In Seattle.

Our next stop on today’s birthday field trip was Fisheries Supply and the Marine Sanitation store next door, where we wanted to look at marine lighting and marine heads. Recently we replaced our old Skipper II head with a sleek and wonderful fresh water flush electric Dometic Master Flush 8100 marine head. Woooo hoo that’s a mouthful. This new head is so beautiful and shiny and so easy to use that even our daughter, who has kind of a love hate relationship with the boat (she loves the boat but hates the toilets) said she could see herself spending more time aboard now. High praise, indeed.

It’s…..beautiful.

Aside from the electric part and the internal macerator part (yes, we do flush toilet paper, thank you very much), what I like about this toilet is that it’s a fresh water flush. We learned salt water is just too corrosive and also leaves too much calcification behind. This means higher amounts of maintenance for our old Skipper II, which is the unit we have in the forward head.  It’s getting long in the tooth, as are we all, and we were hoping to replace it with a manual fresh water flush unit. We are kind of into replacing parts lately: body parts, boat parts, it’s all the same to us. We think it’s important to keep one manual toilet just in case the fancy new one gives us trouble far away from the dock.

It’s not nearly as pretty as the new one. But it works.

So we looked, but we didn’t buy. (We do that a lot at Fisheries $upply.) Putting a different style toilet in that space is going to be harder than it looks, which means more of a project than we want to take on right now. The fresh water flush manual toilets are all pretty low profile, which means we would either have to build a platform for one to sit on or begin referring to the forward head as the ‘squatty potty’. Honestly, at this point we will just love the one we’re with and not pump sea water into it. We will fill it with fresh water from the sink and then flush away. Unfortunately we cannot plumb it for fresh water because it’s not intended to be used that way.

It was a good day, ending with our first cockpit gathering since we landed in Olympia two years ago, almost. I got the cockpit ready for partying and all the kids and their significant others came over to celebrate both Michael’s birthday and the joy we have in stepping back into our boat lives. It feels like it’s been about 5 years, but it has not even been two yet since we docked here in Swantown Marina. We are glad to be back to doing boat projects, glad to be getting the old girl spiffed up for the next trip.

Two years ago we celebrated Michael’s birthday on Kauai. I’d say that birthday was maybe the best one he ever had, even if he is thrilled at the prospects of Hiram’s new exhaust elbow. We took the dinghy around the corner of Hanalei Bay and anchored it in a tiny rocky cove. We saw our first ever Monk Seal as we donned snorkeling gear. He slid into the water without even giving us the time of day. Once we had faces in the water, we discovered we were surrounded by sea turtles. There were maybe 30 of them just hanging around, grazing and doing turtle things. Unlike Mexico where the turtles are shy and fearful of people, Hawaii’s turtles don’t seem to care that they share the ocean with us. They just go about their business.  It was a delightful day and one that stands out as a talisman for things to come.

Just a tiny alcove, just big enough to anchor our dinghy safely.

S/V Galapagos. Standing by.