We spent a good part of the last few weeks arranging publicity for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus for its Hartford visit. Before that, we spent a couple of weeks doing publicity for the Disney On Ice show at the MassMutual Center in Springfield. That's why weren't we preparing to cruise down the Connecticut River to our summer home in Norwich.
It seems that Bill's business partner managed to fall down and hurt her head while chasing one of her dogs in the middle of the night on her farm in Barkhamsted. Did we mention that she was talking to her daughter on her cell phone at the time? Turns out she really hurt herself and spent two weeks in intensive care and another two weeks recuperating in the hospital. This all happened just as she was about to go to work on the Disney show in Springfield. Since our company has provided public relations services to Disney and the circus for more than 16 years, we (Bill and Frances) had to step in and try to fill her shoes.
One of the events we created is shown above in this photo taken by Frances from the upper level of the Old State House in Hartford last week. Those are eight Asian elephants enjoying a lunch of carrots, lettuce, apples, watermelon and Italian bread while more than a 1,000 preschool Head Start kids cheered them on. Needless to say, an event like this draws the press and press coverage sell tickets.
Meanwhile, back at the boat, all the winter tools have been secured, the engines start instantly and all the fluids have been checked. We're ready to go except for (and with boats, isn't there always an "except?") the fresh water pump has stopped working - or nearly stopped. It dribbles rather than pumps so once the circus was out of the way, we crawled up in front of the starboard engine and removed the damned thing.
A Shurflo 4901-0211, just about the best pump they make. We wrote the installation date on the nameplate: 8/30/09. That's less then four years ago. Yes, it was properly winterized and it's not that we use it a lot.
We took the pump home and took it apart. Nothing complicated here. Just a four-chamber diaphragm pump. Since the motor works, there wasn't much to do except replace the drive and valve assemblies.
Defender Marine in Waterford didn't have them but West Marine via the Internet did, so we ordered them. Total cost with shipping was about $125. A new pump could be purchased for about $200. Just another example of "screw the boater," in our estimation.
Anyway, the pump won't keep us from casting off this weekend, weather permitting. We just hope it gets a little warmer.
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