I’m on my way to Washington, D.C., and I stayed overnight in New Jersey with my friend Chelsea Kahn, at Rutgers University.  I met Chelsea earlier this year in Little Cayman when I stayed with the Little Cayman Research Institute (archived blogs here).  Chelsea and I visited Carrie Manfrino, the director of the Central Caribbean […]

Today was my last day at the boatyard.  I watched as Martin Niemiec launched a boat, I helped Tony the mechanic take a cracked radiator out of a forklift, and watched Dave the shaper finish fiberglassing a sailboat he’s been working on.  I didn’t get nearly my fill of boat maintenance, and I’m really hoping […]

The guys had an engine come in that was overheating.  Chris, a mechanic, fixed what he thought was the problem and we went for a test drive.  The engine was still overheating over a certain RPM (too low an RPM be overheating at), and so we took the boat back so that Chris could pull […]

We extracted a giant Volvo engine yesterday.  Today I watched (and occasionally helped) Dave, one of Niemiec Marine’s certified mechanics, take it apart.  It was great to finally see the inside of an engine, as up until now all of my knowledge had been pretty theoretical.  It makes a world of difference to actually SEE […]

Today we crane-lifted a Volvo diesel engine out of a pretty big boat.  I’m sorry if you were hoping for more technical specs — as I said, I’m learning.  “Diesel” and “pretty big boat” is about as technical as I get right now.  Did I mention I’m learning? I’m learning tons, actually, and I really, […]