My wife is amazing, and how to get something out of the bilge?

labatt · #1 (**permalink**) 07-07-2007

First off... my wife is amazing. I'm horrible mechanically. A few weeks ago our outboard wasn't working. I said "Hold on hon! Let me get the hammer!" She said - "Out of my way - I'll work on it". She had the whole thing disassembled in the dinghy, pouring fuel into the spark and trying hard to get it to work! Unfortunately, in that case it was due to the carb being gummed up.

A few weeks before that she was realigning the belt on our pressure water pump and tightening the belt on the alternator. A week ago she replaced the joker valve in our forward head. Yesterday she changed the oil in our diesel.

Then today we're motoring along and I notice white steam coming out of our exhuast pretty steadily. I lean over and see no water coming out of the wet exhaust. I quick shut off the engine and we drop the hook. So what does the wife do? She changes out the impeller (which didn't solve the problem) and then takes apart the raw water input system (close the through hull, take off hoses to filter, take off hoses to pump, blow air through, reassemble). We don't know what caused the problem (no debris came out) but the raw water system started working again! She's amazing! And of course the impeller was in a hard to reach place, as all are.

The only problem we have is that we dropped an aluminum flashlight, turned on, with 3 "D" cells into the bilge. The bilge is too deep for us to reach with our arm, and the flashlight is sitting in an inch or so of bilge water, flat, where we can't get a line lassoed around it. It's not magnetic so we can't pull it out with that. Any ideas?

danjarch · #2 (**permalink**) 07-07-2007

Take a coat hanger, bend a loop big enough to go over the small end but smaller then the big end, if that doesn't work go to your local hard ware store and buy a trash grabber.

SVDistantStar · #3 (**permalink**) 07-07-2007

Wal Mart has those grabber things for short people to reach things on high shelves. Maybe one of those would work? You do have an amazing wife there, hold on to her.

labatt · #4 (**permalink**) 07-07-2007

We got it! The wife used BBQ tongs to raise it into a vertical position, and I was able to reach in far enough to grab it. Pictures later!

danjarch · #5 (**permalink**) 07-07-2007

Ah, team work at it's finest

CapnHand · #6 (**permalink**) 07-07-2007

Does she have a sister who is single and owns a sailboat? If yes, please provide pictures of the sailboat.

sailingdog · #7 (**permalink**) 07-08-2007

Labatt-

I hope you realize how lucky you are...

She's probably far prettier than you deserve as well.

wildcard · #8 (**permalink**) 07-08-2007

This clearly is a case for cloning. BBQ tongs, add that to my list of tricks!

USCGRET1990 · #9 (**permalink**) 07-08-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by labatt

We got it! The wife used BBQ tongs to raise it into a vertical position, and I was able to reach in far enough to grab it. Pictures later!

My wife wouldn't even make a wort on your wifes butt..!!
Don't leave home without her...

ebs001 · #10 (**permalink**) 07-08-2007

Labatt, I'm surprised your wife allows you to refer to her as "the wife". I have yet to meet a women who likes that terminology. Does she know you call her "the wife"?