Gus new adventure

Oct 5th brings me into my 66th year with yet another adventure and new chapters to my book of life.

As most of you are aware I took leave of my senses when I purchased my Honda VT 1100.

No regrets I love this bike, in the first 6 weeks put 1800 miles on her. Met a beautiful woman who was born to ride we toured the Okanoga often having roadside snacks of wine and cheese purchased from our winery tours tasting some of the finest wine the Okanogan has to offer.

The Honda blew a rear tire at 80 mph an experience I do not wish to repeat. Replaced the faulty Dunlop with a Metzler.

The Honda tops out at 110 mph and is very stable at this speed. This speed run was done on the Cogahalla connector which is at a very high elevation the engine may have been oxygen starved and may have achieved better performance at sea level.

Time to park the bike for the winter, also finding myself in need of a home thought about buying and RV trailer.

Then got to thinking a Honda cycle is not capable of pulling a trailer so why not fulfill another dream.

At one point in my life I owned a 26 ft cabin cruiser with the ford 302 inboard that could suck up fuel at the rate of 8 gallons per hour.

The boat also had a planing hull, these hulls ride on top of the water you have to have enough speed to bring the vessel onto plane.

I love the ocean but at 8 gallons an hour with a horrible ride I have this time opted for the slower more comfortable displacement hull with the economy of wind power.

Yes I have purchased a Newport N30 sailboat.

The boat has a 23hp Volvo diesel that is happy with half a gallon of fuel an hour. Depending on tide will push the boat at 6 knots. The Volvo rarely gets used in this part of the Pacific we usually have lots of wind but there are sure to be channels and harbors where she'll come in handy.

The boat has helm steering equipped with a gps auto pilot, vhs marine radio and depth sounder.

From ship to shore adventures a 9 ft inflatable with a 5 hp merc.

Next year I'm going to cruise the BC coast from Vancouver to Alaska taking in the Queen Chalette Islands.

Once I'm comfortable with my sailing skills head down to the South Pacific taking my time as I have no schedule nor a job to worry about.

Gus truly retired.

Corby my cycle companion is a land lubber so I'll have to wait and see what the future holds for me in the way of a sailing companion.

Alloy

What a great way to retire, would love to take that trip. Still a dozen or so years before I can think about retiring if I'm lucky.

Thanks.
James

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Originally Posted by Texcan

Alloy

What a great way to retire, would love to take that trip. Still a dozen or so years before I can think about retiring if I'm lucky.

Thanks.
James

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Thanks James for the kind words, truth be said I would much rather have my youth and vigour from my 20's to 50's after those years it's all downhill.

Enjoy life while your young.

Congrats on being retired. It is mighty tough to scrap from a boat or a motorcycle.

My path is a little different. Prefer horses to motorcycles and am as landlocked as one can get. You have chosen a great way to live your golden years. Enjoy. You have inspired many dreams of freedom with this post.

Corby my riding companion during the summer months.

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Patriot76 through my many years of scrapping have experienced sever price drops, I've been fortunate to have had good relationships with the Jewish yard owners who had a larger finger on the health of the industry. I had inside information if the situation was short or long term, with today's crisis no one could have prepared for the downturn.

In the past world conflict had a positive influence on scrap demand keeping prices up, then China came into the picture as a world industrial leader, with everyone putting their eggs into the same basket feeding the Chinese economy by outsourcing North American manufacturing which cost us jobs.

Looking back it was a poor;y played chess game, part of Chinas demand for scrap and raw materials was used for her own infrastructure to keep her own economy healthy but as we all know for readying the news China has built new city's having no industry, people or merchants. The writing was on the wall instead of taking heed we laughed at the fools who also took us down with their failure.

North American industry who closed down their factories, terminating employees by the thousands all because the men in suits were still trying to get the last drop of champaign from the bottle. What I'm saying is their corporate bank accounts were still flush but as we can see now from the news this is also coming to an end. The auto industry and the banks have all been to the public trough asking for bail money.

VW an auto mobile manufacture with a global presence, the emission cheat software who do you think is going to pay for that. I do not own any vehicles manufactured by this company but have suffered a loss just the same. Thankfully my palladium horde is small with only 287 grams but it sickens me to see the price dropping daily.

History may repeat itself back in the 1930's Wall St. had jumpers, those men who jumped left behind family's that society had to support - dead or alive those men were still bottom feeders sucking every dime they could form the populace.

Stocks and Bonds just fictitious value same as the fiat dollar, bring back the gold standard. Impossible Fort Knox we know is empty, from which was proven when the Germans asked for their gold to be shipped back to them.

In the past when scrap prices were going down long term, 6 months or more I would change occupations, this round probably out picking cedar boughs for $0.37 lb.

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Originally Posted by alloy2

Thanks James for the kind words, truth be said I would much rather have my youth and vigour from my 20's to 50's after those years it's all downhill.

Enjoy life while your young.

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youth and vigor is not all that great. i just want to be able to grow a beard like the one in your profile picture.

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Originally Posted by DopenScrapple

youth and vigor is not all that great. i just want to be able to grow a beard like the one in your profile picture.

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ROFLMFAO, that is funny.

Had a woman once tell me that a kiss without a beard is like having soup without salt.

Are you going to live on the boat?

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Originally Posted by newattitude

Are you going to live on the boat?

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Yes full time, although the first two weeks we had nothing but rain and I did think about abandoning the boat, but have since bonded with it.

Some days my boat looks like a Chinese laundry, I wash my cloths by hand in the sink then hang them outside on the rigging to dry in the sun and breeze. Cooking is an adventure for me, not one I'm particularly fond of but a fellow has to eat.

Most of the people living aboard are misfits so I fit right in.

This is the King Pacific Lodge being towed to her summer location, I spent a season working at this lodge as a mechanic keeping the boats and generator in top form.

Awesome job the gratuity's taken off at the time of a customer checking out are divided among the employees at the end of the season, anyone who quit before seasons end lost their gratuity's which went onto the big pot. One of the best jobs I ever had.

The lodge is another success story built on a dream, the owner had resurrected a gravel barge that had sunk and abandoned by the previous owner then while the lodge was being built went out and pre-sold guided fishing tours. It was a gamble that paid off this lodge has been in operation for past 15 years.

If your going to dream, dream big.

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