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The importance of checking out your bilge pumps on a service. 

So below are a couple of pics sent to me the other day from my folks in Zambia. That’s ‘Hooker’. One Christmas many, many years ago, mum bought this for my dad. It has taken our family out on many awesome fishing trips and caught many great tiger fish. They left the boat tied up at their safari camp on the Kafue river, came back a couple of weeks later and that is what they found. Funny shit hey, I am sure someone got in trouble… Glad it wasn’t me. I do wish I could be there to help get it going. They had a bunch of rain, never owned a bilge pump and that was Hookers fate.

It is a time of the year when heavy rainfall can continue for days, if your bilge is not working adequately then chances are that you will get a boat full of water. The obvious ramifications of this would be finding your boat sitting pretty similar to how hooker is sitting in the picture below. In a lot of cases this is pretty terminal to all the equipment on the boat including the engine. If you aren’t one of the elite and don’t have a boat sitting on the water in front of the house, then be sure that the boat bungs are out or the bilge pump is working as water can swamp the fuel tank allowing possible water ingress and fry a battery or two.

 

Typical bilge wiring diagram

 

IT is important to check that the automatic float switch is moves freely and turns on the pump when lifted.

Check that the intake grate is free from stuff like leaves and old bait.

When your bilge pump looks like this, one might think it is time to get a new one installed, and it may also be time to start looking after your boat! 

This is Hooker and the fate of a boat left out in the rain without a bilge pump. 

 

 

I asked my mum to send me some pics of us catching tiger fish on Hooker to post here. She either picked the first couple pics she saw and sent them, or else maybe she was thinking she was funny or something.   

That’s my sister in Hooker, she hates photos of herself, but this photo has got to be all about that big tiger fish. 

Booking out

Isn’t it funny where an idea in conversation can lead? Sitting up late one night with my lovely wife and a bottle of wine our idea was hatched. An idea that was revered by some and frowned upon by others. We had longed for an adventure, a challenge, a change of scenery, now was our time to shine. We were to get our stuff together and travel Australia. The plan was pretty loose in reality. North… that was the plan. Everyone wants to know exactly where we were going, but in truth we had, and still don’t really have any idea. North… What to the gulf, Barra country, surely, but where else to go? Darwin, the Kimberly’s, even Perth. Or do we cut through the center and go through Tasmania and the south coast; we don’t know we may even just go up to the cape. Decisions like this are to be decided upon on the road and because Sal and I are notoriously bad at making decisions, the odd coin toss will be our last hope. It’s hard to preempt the scenery and the conditions and for that matter the mind set of Sal and me and our 6 and 4 year old girls. Our worries rested on the heat up north coupled with the most beautiful and unique ocean of which you are unable to really set foot in on account of the box jelly fish and of course Mr salt water crocodile. Try and tell your 4 and 6 year old who have grown up on the beaches of the sunshine coast that they aren’t allowed to swim in the ocean when its really fricken hot! I don’t really know how that one unfolds. So that’s why the plan is loose, we will see how it all unfolds. With Sally having just finished a degree in nutritional medicine and me having to resign from my long-term employment, the plan was to sign write the vehicle and to try and generate some boat and health work along the way. Boats, engines, health, food based strategy, surely that all goes hand in hand ☺ We figure most Australians need to own a boat and everyone can benefit from a bit of food wisdom to keep you in tune so surely enough work would come our way to keep the going good. In reality this means home schooling the girls, buying a vehicle that could actually be reliable enough for us to do this and then buying a BUNCH of other stuff, essential stuff needed for such an adventure. It wouldn’t be easy and it definitely wouldn’t be cheap.

Ford Ranger – $13 000

A car and boat full of camping gear $1000

TJM 4×4 hand winch a bargain at $200

Hanging out with the wife and kids with a million dollar view, some fishing rods and the odd bloody Mary…….. PRICELESS!!!

Tinka Tinka Marine Bush Mechanics with Ruby

Tinka Tinka Marine Bush mechanics with Ruby at 1770. We show  you how to turn a tyre pump and an air tank into a multi-purpose fully operational air compressor.

Booking Out

Isn’t it funny where an idea in conversation can lead? Sitting up late one night with my lovely wife and a bottle of wine our idea was hatched. An idea that was revered by some and frowned upon by others. We had longed for an adventure, a challenge, a change of scenery, now was our time to shine. We were to get our stuff together and travel Australia. The plan was pretty loose in reality. North… that was the plan. Everyone wants to know exactly where we were going, but in truth we had, and still don’t really have any idea. North… What to the gulf, Barra country, surely, but where else to go? Darwin, the Kimberly’s, even Perth. Or do we cut through the center and go through Tasmania and the south coast; we don’t know we may even just go up to the cape. Decisions like this are to be decided upon on the road and because Sal and I are notoriously bad at making decisions, the odd coin toss will be our last hope. It’s hard to preempt the scenery and the conditions and for that matter the mind set of Sal and me and our 6 and 4 year old girls. Our worries rested on the heat up north coupled with the most beautiful and unique ocean of which you are unable to really set foot in on account of the box jelly fish and of course Mr salt water crocodile. Try and tell your 4 and 6 year old who have grown up on the beaches of the sunshine coast that they aren’t allowed to swim in the ocean when its really fricken hot! I don’t really know how that one unfolds. So that’s why the plan is loose, we will see how it all unfolds. With Sally having just finished a degree in nutritional medicine and me having to resign from my long-term employment, the plan was to sign write the vehicle and to try and generate some boat and health work along the way. Boats, engines, health, food based strategy, surely that all goes hand in hand ☺ We figure most Australians need to own a boat and everyone can benefit from a bit of food wisdom to keep you in tune so surely enough work would come our way to keep the going good. In reality this means home schooling the girls, buying a vehicle that could actually be reliable enough for us to do this and then buying a BUNCH of other stuff, essential stuff needed for such an adventure. It wouldn’t be easy and it definitely wouldn’t be cheap.

Ford Ranger – $13 000

A car and boat full of camping gear $1000

TJM 4×4 hand winch a bargain at $200

Hanging out with the wife and kids with a million dollar view, some fishing rods and the odd bloody Mary…….. PRICELESS!!!

Tinka Tinka Marine

Servicing the East Coast of Australia