The Gnombe named "Nomie"

Bert and I were gifted a Gnombe last Sunday at the farewell picnic on the deck at Harbor Club.  The gnombe is your typical garden gnombe as described by Wikipedia: 

A garden gnome or lawn gnome is a figurine of a small humanoid creature, usually wearing a pointy hat, produced for the purpose of ornamentation and protection from evil sorcery, typically of gardens or on lawns.  Or in our case I guess for the purpose of protection from evils of the sea.

Nomie is a very special Gnombe with a great history.  As background, each year our boat club, Harbor Club, hosts a steak roast fund raiser.  Part of the fund raising is an auction where bidders bid on unknown contents of a bag or box.  At the August 2011 fund raiser, friends of ours Roger and Linda were the highest bidders on the garden gnome who we've since named "Nomie".   They cared for and protected Nomie for the past year, but determined that Nomie was getting sort of stir crazy just sitting at Harbor Club and he needed to go on the trip with us.  As such, Nomie was gifted to us and is now in our care.  Pictured below are Roger and Linda with us and Nomie. 

Roger, Linda and Nomie

Nomie spent all last week riding on the bridge with us but poor Nomie had a bad Wednesday afternoon and ended up face down rolling around on the floor of the bridge during the Saginaw Bay crossing.  He needed a harness just like we did.  He is now back on guard on the bridge and is pictured below with the Mackinaw Bridge in the background.  Periodically throughout the trip, look for Nomie in our pictures.  You never know where he might be.

Nomie with Mackinaw Bridge

We've had a wonderful weekend here in Mackinaw City and got to visit with two friends from my former workplace on Friday night.  Both Dutch and Dan were gracious enough to stop by and say hello when they were in the area.  It was great to see both of them.  Saturday, Bert's uncle Dale and aunt Lucille rode their motorcycle up from Roscommon to visit for the day.  They were kind enough to pick up an alternator for us in Cheboygan.  Bert had replaced one alternator before we left, but the second one quit working on Friday.  Happily the new one is installed and ready to go.

There also has been a fuel usage issue driving Bert crazy.  Overall fuel consumption has been what was expected, but one diesel tank is emptying at a rate of 4:1 compared with the other side.  Saturday Bert changed the big fuel filters in an attempt address the problem.  However, while he was working on changing the filters he discovered something very interesting about the fuel lines.  To make a long story short, diesel engines don't use all their intake fuel and some gets returned back to the tank.  Well Bert discovered that the intake fuel hoses were crossed.  He expects this is what has been causing the problem, likely from day one when the boat was assembled.  Today he disconnected them and switched them around as they should be.  Tomorrow he'll know if the problem has been solved once we are underway again. 

The picture below is facing the stern of the boat so Port (red) is on the right hand side.   As you can see from the picture of the fuel filters and lines below, the green one is now correctly on the left (Starboard) and the red one is positioned correctly on the right (Port).  I swear Bert is one of the smartest men I know to be able to figure things out on the boat and fix it.  Kudos to Bert!

Each fuel filter has a hose on the right had side.  This is what was crossed to the wrong sides.

Monday morning if the weather is good, we'll leave Mackinaw City and head for either Charlevoix or Leeland.    As a side note, I was able to get out on the bike this afternoon for a 16 mile ride on the North Central State Trail which is the old rail road.  Pictured below is a bit of Michigan "up north heaven" away from all the hustle and bustle of Mackinaw City tourism.  I even got to see a couple deer cross the path.