Most weekends, when we are in town, we take the dog on long walks. It’s the best he gets all week! There are nice parks in the region but they require longish drives on bad roads, the burning of more gas and longer times staring at the windshield. So, we sought out a walk closer to home. One park that I knew of is behind the York County sports complex and is called Harwood Mills. It’s a little park, near the reservoir, the power lines and some tree farms. Then, Adrienne mentioned a green space with power lines behind Grafton High School. There’s also woods near a main road called Denbigh Blvd. with several access pull offs. It’s kind of an extended part of the road, where the cars drive fast.
We went to Harwood Mills and walked those paths several times. They wind through the woods and my understanding is that they were cut by the local mountain biking association. The woods are fine and the paths are too, although they’re very convoluted for walking.
Then one day, we went behind Grafton H.S. and walked the powerlines. I mentioned to Adrienne that I was pretty sure that those powerlines could take us to Harwood Mills. We walked in that direction and sure enough, we made it to the park. Trouble was, we walked the causeway over the reservoir and were thus on the other side of the reservoir. We walked along the water on the other side, but the water never went away, even when my gps said that it should be gone. Instead there were wetlands and a braided stream in the woods. It was a beautiful, warm February day, the setting was lovely, and we even saw a water snake! Ultimately, to get back to the power lines, we had to go all the way to Denbigh Blvd to get over the water. That ended up being a 5.1 mile walk in the woods and we were pretty thirsty by the end.
So the last two times we went to the pull-offs on Denbeigh and walked through the tree farm and back over to Harwood Mills. That walk, at times took us close to the PHF airport depending on how we went. There are also ways, we’re pretty sure, to connect with the National Park, and I’m pretty sure we’ve already touched on Newport News park. We’ve definitely been to those two parks on other days entering from those areas.
Anyhow, the point is, there is a lot of really great walking and bike riding areas right here in lower York County. My one word of caution, though, is this. When we walked through the tree farm we did notice some smelly piles of what I thought at first, was horse dung. It was pretty funny looking though and later, when I told my friend, Wes Hudson, who did his PhD work in local tree farms, he let me in on a little nugget of wisdom. He said the interesting thing about that particular tree farm is that it is the place where the county sprays it’s biosolids, also known as the stuff that is at the end of the sewage treatment process. It’s supposedly a very nutritious fertilizer, but farmers generally don’t want it. Certainly it’s not full of pharmaceuticals or anything nasty like that, is it?? Anyhow, I guess the take home lesson is that when walking through the tree farm, keep the dog on the leash!
My only other concern is the close proximity of the biosolids tree farm to the drinking water reservoir. I guess they’ve implemented the proper BMPs. Who knows, maybe there's an interesting project for someone to study!
This is actually a lie because this pic was taken at Queens Creek. We were, however, walking the dog and it was a Saturday.
This is the first big walk (red line) where we had to go to Denbigh (top of the pic) to get around the water. Denbigh also borders the tree farm.
This is one of our other walks where we began at Denbigh and walked south towards the airport.
This is a zoom out showing a good chunk of the Peninsula and our walk in red for reference.
Ahh, the lovely tree farm...
I think this is a biosolids storage structure.
Oh yeah, and this is the dog, after a walk, of course. His name is Hampton. We call him "Ham".
We have been involved with the Boy Scouts of America for 6 years, ever since our son was a Cub Scout in the 1st grade. He’s had so many cool adventures, and as an assistant scoutmaster, so have I! Now as a First Class Scout, he is learning leadership skills, making connections and gaining amazing opportunities, one of which occurred in early February.
One of our former scoutmasters, Mr. Joe Harvey is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and accomplished pilot. The other day he let Caleb fly his Cessna 172, Skyhawk II. We departed from Newport News Williamsburg International Airport (PHF) and headed north to Mathews County, specifically the New Point Lighthouse. During the flight Mr. Harvey and Caleb performed an “engine failure” drill and a “controlled stall” at altitude. The engine failure drill included a spiral pattern over the New Point Lighthouse. Turns were up to 60o, which was pretty fun!
When we returned to PHF, they did two touch and go “options” before the third landing for a full stop. Mr. Harvey let Caleb set up the approach, adjust the flaps and bring the plane almost to the ground where, Just before touchdown, Mr. Harvey resumed control, touched down, and then powered back up. By the final landing it was nighttime.
It was an amazing experience for the whole family but the best part were the views! It could have been much more exciting but we declined. Mr. Harvey said that our flight was considered a “level 1” out of a 5 point scale. He said that a “level 5” includes flips! I think I need to work up to that.
Time to earn the Aviation Merit Badge!
This is the view across Newport News, VA towards the James River.
Our lives in the boys hands!
Gloucester Point, Virginia.
Mobjack Bay in the foreground, the York after that and the James way off in the distance during an epic sunset!
Another view of the sunset.
I'd guess about a 40o turn...
New Point Comfort Lighthouse in Mathews County on the Mobjack Bay.
The Coleman Bridge, Gloucester Point, and the sunset!
I love to watch time-lapse photography and so I set up my Go-pro on the roof at work to take a picture every 5 seconds for 45 minutes and this is the result! I used Movie Maker for production. I shoot from the hip (blind) to get the camera pointed in the right direction because I could never get the app on my phone to sync with the camera, hence the reason you can see so much roof hardware.
Here's another one from a window at work taken with my GoPro. Laid a track from the Movie Maker free tracks called Monplaisir... which creates a dystopic scene at the VIMS. Actually the sun came out right after I took the camera down. Again it's a frame every 5 seconds for 1 hour and 25 minutes compressed into 51 seconds.
I have a 19' center console with a 2003 115 hp 4 stroke Johnson (Suzuki) that pushes her well and hasn't given me any trouble until the last year. It started not idling well, especially after it was warm. Then, it really started acting badly! I almost got into trouble near the outflow of a certain nuclear power plant, when I lost power, and then was almost swept into some of the local infrastructure.
I took it to Newport Marine in Newport News, VA. They looked it over and couldn't figure what was wrong. They were extremely fair about it and said that they wouldn't charge me since they couldn't diagnose it. Now that's admirable! Scott at Newport suggested Sports Marine on 17 because they're a Suzuki dealer and they have the computer that could interface for diagnosis.
So, reluctantly, I went to Sports. The guy told me that my wiring harness was fried and he replaced it with a used on. He also told me as an afterthought that I had a hole in my exhaust manifold but that he slapped some Marine Tech in there which "should hold up for a good long time". So I paid him the $500+ and went on my way. It worked fine for about two runs and then acted up again. It idled terribly and then when I slowed I smelled burning plastic and so I shut it down and got towed in. Good thing!
I went back to Newport and told them about what Sports told me and asked them to check it out. They did and said that sure enough, I have a hole in the manifold and no Marine Tech to be found anywhere! They charged me $30 for this look and gave me an estimate of $1000 for parts and $1000 for labor. Said that the power-head had to be removed to do this job. Okay, so now we're getting somewhere. This actually sounds very fair since this is a major job. Newport Marine is a great outfit and I'd love to have them do the work, but, I did't have 2 grand lying around.
My father-in-law, Steve, a retired nuclear pipe fitter was convinced that we could do this job so, I ordered the parts. MarineEngine.com had all the parts for $1149 total. I also had to borrow an engine hoist to pull the power head. Oh boy, this makes me a nervous, but what the hell. I can't afford to pay to have the job done so might as well go for it!
Here are some pictures with the lower engine covers removed:
Starboard side. The exhaust manifold or adapter or whatever is the large piece in the middle between the powerhead and the lower unit.. This is the undamaged side.
Port side, you can see the damage, just about in the center of the photo there's an allen plug and the hole is around that. You can also see the melted (second) wiring harness. It's not completely melted through (Thank God). It seems that only the tape melted, however it's hard to tell because some of the wires are melted together with the tape.
Port side backed up to see the entire powerhead that was lifted off. You might also notice that the exhaust manifold attaches the motor at it's upper part. I thought we might also have to remove the lower unit. Ultimately, we had to secure it on it's top portion once the manifold was removed.
Port side. Close ups of the damage
Valve cover on rear of motor had to be removed since it overlaps powerhead and exhaust manifold.
Overlap shown here.
The Seloc manual has nothing about an exhaust manifold, which I find baffling since it's such an important and significant portion of the engine. So, I ordered an OMC service manual ($75 with shipping). That was money well spent!
6 April Update:
The Johnson Service Manual had it all. It showed specifically how to remove and replace all of the parts. There were lots of steps, but the detailed manual gave me more confidence to tackle the task. One thing that I found funny about all this were the discrepancies in the nomenclature. In the service manual the main part that I need is called "the engine holder". On the Marine Engines. com website where I purchased the parts the same part is called the "exhaust adapter". Go figure.
10 April Update:
I started the motor one last time before the repair job.
15 April Update:
Last week we broke it down. It was nice to have good people helping with this. We removed the intake manifold, the fuel injectors, the valve cover, spark plugs, and all of the electrical and physical connections and then we lifted the powerhead and the pesky piece of you-know-what "engine holder" that caused the problems in the first place. Here are the picture proofs. The only snafu we had was a large bolt that went through the engine holder in the vicinity of the damage that threaded into the powerhead. This bolt came free of the power head but was stuck in the engine holder. It took Sam, Steve and I using a map-gas torch, a hammer, Kroll Oil, a punch, and a ratchet simultaneously for about 45 minutes to free up the bolt that also had to be replaced to the tune of $10, for a bolt!
and since I didn't have the parts yet...I took Sunday and went fishing...in a lake!
found some interesting reading on the subject. Seems to be a pretty common problem. Also, I need to look carefully at my oil pan...
I kind of did a freak out double take when I got the "engine holder"! Got the new part and it looks identical except for a major difference that I wasn't expecting!! There's a hole with bearings that isn't in the old one!
Here are the pictures:
This is the old one:
...and here's the new one. Notice the bearings on the left side? This means the crank case will be open to the environment! I called Boats.net where I ordered the part and stayed on hold for 45 minutes. I thought I would have to call the credit card company. I checked the part numbers and the replacement part numbers. I bugged Robert who is the mechanic at VIMS, and I bugged Scott at Newport Marine. Both of these fellas are awesome and I really appreciate their time.
Anyhow, I got home and Steve came over and we looked at it and pondered it and looked through the other pile of parts that I had ordered and then I started to think about one of them that looked like it had a sealed allen bolt that looked like it would fill the hole in the bearings. Then Steve was looking at it too. We both got very quiet and started fiddling with it. Next thing I knew, I said, "maybe I don't have to stop payment on the credit card, do I?" Yep, there's another design change. Not only is the steel plug absent, but also, the shifter linkage is configured totally different! On the previous model it was bolted to the bottom of the engine holder and it was all exterior. On the new model the splined shaft links with the female component that is screwed into the bearings that are bathed in the crankcase oil above. I think this is actually an improvement after all!
Also, here's the redesign where the steel plug used to be. That steel plug has caused a lot of heartache for owners of the 90, 115, and 140 HP models from 2001 to 2005. It's a damn shame for OMC, and the hundreds of people with this same drama that I've been having.
So, we put it all back together. It was easier than I had imagined. I labeled all of the wires, which I recommend, but they were almost dummy-proof because each plug was unique.
Ran it on the hose and shifted through the gears. I gotta hand it to Steve for pushing this through to fruition! We started at 9am and had it all together and running by 4. Great day! As Steve said, "not bad for a couple of dudes who don't know what they're doing!"
Video Proof:
and with the covers..
and finally, I took it for a spin yesterday. It runs better than ever!
If you have the same problem, and fix it yourself, I wish you all the success!!
For one of our projects we grow natural occurring benthic (def. bottom) algal communities on screens on a flume at the VIMS. Summertime yields reach 30g/m2/day dry weight of algae. Our pumps push pulses of water down the flume, with no grazers, that stimulate maximum algal growth. Over the course of the 30 second decent over the flume the water column nitrogen is reduced and dissolved oxygen is enhanced, which improves water quality. In essence, the algae "scrubs" out nutrient pollution. Then the algae is harvested for biofuel research. Our flume technology has the highest bang for our buck of water treatment than any other available technology and ours is very low tech.
Anyhow, I wanted to post this only to share the beauty of the brown slime that you see growing on the rocks around your local rivers and bays. If you put some of this slime of the estuary under a microscope you may find up to 60 different species. If you put some from the fresh part of the river you can find more than 200 species of algae.
Here are some examples:
The have silica shells (tests) that come in many shapes and sizes. See, brown slime is beautiful.
Here is a chain forming diatom called Berkeleya rutilans. It produces brown filaments that you can see with the naked eye. Here's a closer look:
Some of them arrange themselves in a star like pattern like this Asterenollopsis.
The long one in the center of this picture is Navicula and just to the left you can see a centroid diatom.
If you're old enough to remember the folding rulers then you'll recognize the Pseudo-nitzchia in this video. Pseudo-nitzchia cells cooperate to move through the watercolumn using this folding ruler technique. Pseudo-nitzchia is also produce domic acid that is responsible for the human illness of amnesic shellfish poisoning. Other diatoms are featured in the video as well as a wily polychaete dancing in a bucket called Glycera, that fishermen use for bait and that has a nice bite!
This is also my first time that I've created a video using iMovie. I have a long way to go but I'd like to put many more iMovie creations in this blog in the near future. The song is Girl from Beck.
There are also amphipod grazers that eat this stuff and I thought I'd share a few pics of these guys. I could write many pages about the marine amphipod grazers but I won't at this point. I'll only say that they are very important to underwater seagrass because the eat the algae that grows on the grass and they provide food for many fishes and other critters that live in the grassbeds. Suffice it to say, we wouldn't have our important seagrasses without amphipods.
Also, I should go through my pics and get live ones. These were stored in alcohol and so they've lost much of their color.
I've got this solar panel that was being discarded as part of a dock light. It's encased in acrylic. I've removed the light and battery that had expired and now I have this little PV that puts out about 5.7V DC in full sunlight.
So I was thinking, could I use this to charge my phone or camera when I'm on the water? Could I cause my lithium battery device to explode? The camera battery is rated at 3.7V. Would I have to charge another battery first that I'd then charge the phone with?
So I checked the Google and found this person has a nice little unit. I guess I can just cannibalize a phone charger and solder it to leads on this little PV, and then I'll have a field charger for my phone. If I got some plugs, I could interchange other cameras and phones.
I welcome any feedback on this, especially if you think it's a bad idea. Thanks in advance.
UPDATE: This device failed to charge a cellphone. More recently I purchased a Levin cellphone charger off of the shelf. It's panel also doesn't charge the battery but I can plug it into a 110V wall outlet and then get 2 or 3 charges on my iPhone 6.
I participated in VIMS graduate student, Xiaoyu Xu's study where she measured the mercury levels in various populations of humans, one of which was yours truly. I eat a lot of local fish including croaker, striped bass, flounder, eel, catfish, mackerel, bluefish, etc. I also occasionally eat fish of the world, such as tuna, salmon and eel at sushi and other restaurants.
My mercury level: 0.6 ppm.
Parameters provided with results:
"According to WHO, there is no health effect for adults with hair mercury concentration up to 50 ppm.
For pregnant women, any fetal effect will be impossible with hair mercury concentration below 14 ppm.
The typical hair mercury concentrations in the U.S. population are often less than 1 ppm."
So I guess I'm good! This a 36 pound striped bass that I caught in December. I harvest 100 % of the meat from my fish. My favorite is the meat around the skull and bones. After filleting, I remove the guts and gills and then I slow cook the head and carcass. One this size yields about 2.5 pounds of the most beautiful lump white meat for delicious fish salads and fish cakes. It's the best! Oh, and then I'm left with some really cool skulls and bones. I refuse to throw another carcass away.
