My new boat stereo works flawlessly, and the dashboard job looks beautiful, there’s no better word to describe it. The Whacker is once again the most comfortable and classy fishing scow on the water.
The two big jobs (installing the new Suzuki motor, and fabricating a new dashboard) are finished, and both added a tenfold improvement to the enjoyment factor of using the Whacker. All that remains are a handful of little jobs that can be chipped away at over the course of the next few weeks:
* Adding metal trim to the sides of the floor along the gunwales: In addition to adding a slick look to the floor, it will also serve to hold down the rubber-backed carpeting; it’s starting to lift as the glue loses its tack over time.
* Install my GPS marine mount: I experimented with the best spot to put it over the weekend by holding my GPS in different places while the Whacker was under power. Initially, I wanted to put it on the right side of the dash above the switches. However, after trying to get on some fishing spots in the middle of nowhere and constantly swinging my head from the fishfinder to the GPS to what’s in front of me (the fishfinder is mounted near the center of the dash, angled toward the driver), I immediately decided it would make more sense to put the GPS mount beside the fishfinder. That way, all my navigation and sonar instrumentation is in one place, and I can see that information as well as what’s in front of me without moving my head.
* Replace and change my fishfinder transducer: I noticed this past weekend that my fishfinder was acting up. Since I first noticed the problem with the motor running, I figured that the transducer was getting interference from the new and bigger motor. Then it would stop working randomly while we were fishing. It was very frustrating to be perfectly motionless and not have the fishfinder work. Since the fishfinder unit itself seems to be working fine, I’m pretty sure buying a new transducer unit will fix the problem. There must be a damaged conductor inside the cord somewhere, maybe from all the commotion of changing the dash.
* Polish up the hull and motor: Some minor cosmetic work would go a long way towards improving the look of the boat itself. Some places on the hull are getting pretty dirty, and one of the most annoying things about the Suzuki is the dirty grease all over the motor pivot, right where the engine lock switch is. Every time I go to lock or unlock the motor pivot using the switch, I get my hands covered in grease. Nothing a little solvent won’t fix.
* Do something about the broken tunnel cover: I chose to leave the tunnel cover on while trailering the boat, which turned out to be a bad idea. The ridgepole ripped right through the fabric, taking with it the grommet.
The whole G20 / G8 thing is bullshit and an absolute waste of resources. How can billions of taxpayer dollars be spent on security, not to mention the millions lost on tourism and lost business, just to satisfy a bunch of bureaucratic government leaders’ urge to display their superiority? Not to mention disturbing the lives of millions of citizens and making them feel like prisoners in their own city. Would it have been so hard to hold the summit at a military airbase, like the one in Trenton? I hear that Lake Ontario isn’t too far away from there; rather than disrupt the lives of people in Huntsville, why couldn’t they have just set up lawnchairs on the pier and watched the sailboats go by there? But who does the responsible thing anymore? Politicians are all a bunch of liars, anyway.
I am pro-capitalist, but anti-corporate. A conservative who also holds a handful of far-left ideals. I am a firm believer in the Henry David Thoreau quote, “That government is best which governs least”. Too bad that people are collectively too stupid and panic-prone for that approach to work.
