MFV BF494 'Pansy', an old Motor Fifie Conversion

Just back from our kid's after just getting there - me Nana's decided to have a stroke for christmas!

Might get down tomorrow, if the thaw's still on could get some caulikng done. It was flipping brassics up there mind

Pumped her oot btw before we left - not a lot in, less afterwards (obviously) AND ...................I fixed something!!! Granted I broke it in the first place

Still can't get the other bilge pump to work and you refuse to tell me the secret, looked in tengine room, bit of water under tgearbox, almost lunched it out but thought feck it, I'm here (See positive attitude ). Smacked me little shoulder on something sharp crawling up tladders to get the rubber gloves on which was great - I felt like you for a wee while. Carefully removed no.1 bilge from it's ole, don't want the bladdy hose to come off now, halfway through the into the next bit move the fella stops dead. Eeek, ran up the ladders - ish thinking, nee bilge pump, I'm halfway to Glasgow with me Mam in the car, the boat is definetly going to die! Flipped the bilge pump switch on the dashboard off and on again (My little heart sank when I saw it was in on mode, thought it might have just tripped or some other simple electronical hoo haa.) Nowt. Turned the big green thing on and off, Nowt. Took a deep breath, thought what would Scott or Shackleton have done in this situation - so I ate a penguin - then instead of skulking back along the pontoon with my hands in pockets, whistling tunelessly - I went back down!

2 deep breaths (and a 5 minute coughing fit) later I slowly scanned the whole environment looking for any type of clue, after half an hour I decided to concentrate my energy on the bilge pump, as that was what had broken. It was silent so the first thing I looked for was the volume control - it was that minging I was reluctant to check for an on off switch. Thought right, cables ya radge, saw the first 2 junction things which are all encrusted with matter and kinda squeezed them a bit, nowt.

Shouted out really loud just to check I hadn't gone deaf and it had actually started working, heard myself so I was dead chuffed not to be deaf, great feeling - I've taken to closing my eyes for a bit then opening them only to find I'm not blind - brilliant, got it down to a fine art and have called it "blinking" will it catch on?

I did a standard cable checkback list troubleshoot which involved some strenous following or "tracking" the cable's alignment with the Mk1 Human Eyeball. Saw an area where something didn't just quite sit right, took me right back to Nam It was a bit of cable with two bits of metal string coming out (like veins, bit scary really, blue and red they was) joined to another bit of cable just the sham. ONLY ................ one of the veins was not attached to it's other vein end - therefore disrupting the flow of fluxity to the pump. I leapt at the thing and grabbed the bits and stuck them together - a git big spark event occured, the pump went off in my hand and I would have fallen over backwards if there was room (Farted with shock instead)

Yeah - fixed the *******. Might get back on the VSO Radio course thing, on a roll.