I was Unfaithful to my Seagulls today!!

[John@sos]

Scenery certainly different to my very flat Essex, but apart from the odd 'Lion' we do not have much problem with the wild life if camping here!

Happy Seagulling on high!

John
SOS

[Collector Inspector]

Critters and the Bush, not exactly bears and mountain cats where I go, I look out for Kangaroos and Emus basically.

I go for a "walk" every now and again into the South West Coastal Scrub, just a swag some easy food and minimal utensils etc. I set off from basically my back door at the Donnelly Hut for a night or two, never more than that.

The scrub is thick and higher than you can actually see over but the Kangas and Emus have regular and easy ways through it as depends on which way they want to go, either to water or to an open space for sunlight and fresh short grasses etc. So they make tracks easy for me to walk.

I walk and make noise as I go, this lets them know that I am "In the Way". They make noise that I hear as they approach from in front or from behind because they are skittish..........I hear them and just roll to one side of the track they have made and wait for them to pass by. Never sneak about on their pathways as if they come onto you and get surprised, there are rather large claws, Emu and Roo, that tend to be used over you in an attempt to run away...........then you are hurt in the scrub which is not a good thing.

Every now and again maybe three or four of these tracks (Maybe 2 ft wide x 5 ft high) will intersect. Maybe a open area of maybe 30ft in diameter. Nice easy to camp but no, go into the scrub away and set your swag and fire for the night. That way you do not get hurt if one "Trips over you" in the night.......remember the claws. Roos and Emus have basically poor night vision and tend to remember by instinct any track. They take flight easily if anything changes so best not to be in the way.

A prolonged sitting next to these areas with a camera is really COOL!

I have no clue as to dangerous animals in other parts of the word but the above post sounds fascinating, imagine bears and big cats aye?

What about being somewhere, on your tod, with wolves? EEK!

So, basically, roos and Emus, bigger than me etc, have the right of way. Snakes are not a problem while moving making noise as above, just keep the swag tight while camped and no surprises in the morning.

The South West Bush is that easy, nothing else to worry about. One nasty Spider but not at all common........

Extra to light kit is Small Pepper Spray attached to right wrist, under sleeve, a 7" boning blade (Heavy, serrated back modification) in holder on right rear ankle above boot quick access to said, hooks and line, light duty loop snare and a small flashlight around my neck on lanyard. Smokes and a quart of spirits.

I carry 5L of water as I would not need to go far for more.

Next time I do these things, I will have an EPIRB as I am not as young as I used to be but still wanna do it etc.

B

[fortyplus]

Interesting stories of the Aussie outback. I forgot to mention the possibility of wolves. Since they have been re-introduced in Yellowstone Wolves have been appearing all over the place. I saw one about 7 years ago when out in my Jeep up a canyon not far from my home. Lone wolves can travel up to a 100 miles a day looking for territory, so even though we are 350 miles from Yellowstone they can "migrate" pretty easily. It was fascinating to see such a large wolf in the wild, but I was glad he was alone and I was in my CJ5. Recently there have been reports of a wolf pack 20 miles south of here. There is a lot of controversy here over the matter, you have the "tree hugger" types who think it's so cool to have wolves and then the farmers who hate having livestock killed and hunters who hate the number of animals the wolves kill, there are claims of elk herds being decimated in some areas by wolves. I personally think the problem is two fold, firstly the wolf "re-introduced" is the Canadian Wolf which is much larger and more aggressive than the native species that was made extinct and then the other animals in the eco system have lived for many generations without wolves and have perhaps evolved into an easier prey for them. As usual with this sort of thing the pro wolf camp have an extreme view where they are just so fluffy and wonderful they can do no wrong and could never hurt a human, there are a few who are at the other extreme, but most are just being realistic about the effect on the eco system as a whole and the future threat if numbers increase, which they inevitably will as the wolf has no natural predator. Wolves are known to kill for fun and rather alarmingly if you think about yourself being on the menu, bringing prey down and eating it while omitting to actually kill it.

The attached link about known attacks on humans also explains why those supporters of wolves claim there have never been attacks made on humans by healthy wolves, a claim which is obviously errant nonsense - http://www.aws.vcn.com/wolf_attacks_on_humans.html

[charlesp]

Ok, I've had a good think about this and I've arrived at the conclusion that if I'm ever attacked by a wolf then a firearm - a big one - is my weapon of choice. I'll pass on the pepper spray for that one...

[fortyplus]

There may be a case of keeping the last bullet for yourself with that business of them eating you without the courtesy of killing you first, that is truly horrific.

Getting a little more back on topic, the new smaller main jet for my Chrysler arrived and I got it fitted. Managed a run in the trash can/wheelie bin and I noticed a big difference in the way it ran and sounded and I also got it adjusted properly with the airscrew etc to idle cleanly and to give first pull starting. Now I'm ready to take it on the water, I may try it tomorrow on my 21' boat, while we are out tubing with the kids, I could work in running it for 10-15 minutes on the auxiliary bracket. Only issues I forsee are possibly getting fuel to it with my current tank and pipe and also I'm not sure with the how high it tilts when locked up that I will be able to tilt it out of the water. I'll have to try it on there, if not the Seagull 90 will go straight on and I'll just have to chance doing a maiden voyage with the Chrysler on the inflatable later in the week.

I'm excited now to try the smaller jet I have on order for the 90, if it improves that even half as much as the Chrysler improved with rejetting, it will be fantastic, not that I have running or starting problems on the Seagull, it just feels too rich to rev right out on the top end. I can see a big reduction in oil emission on the horizon too. One thing I will say is the Seagull handles running over rich much better than the Chrysler did, while you hear many complain about how they had Seagulls that wouldn't start etc. etc. there's no doubt that with just the basics of maintenance they have to be one of the least fussy 2 stroke motors ever built - they always seem to fire right up for me and get the job done for me anyway.

[Bluecloud]

My 'Gull booklet spells out in no uncertain terms that over oiling will cause no damage whatsoever, just a tendency to oil the plug at sustained low revs. Under oiling, on the other hand.....

I live in New Zealand, where we don't have wolves, bears, snakes, spiders worth the worry, cougars, box jelly fish or....much of anything dangerous, really, with the exception of deer hunters who shoot 1st and think sometime next week, if at all....happily Seagulls are not uncommon tho not as ubiquitous as they used to be.

[Charles uk]

There are heaps of dangerous things in NZ;

Chocolate fish,
Meat pies that they inject tomato sauce into,
Pinapple chunks that are soft & covered in chocolate.
Speed limits that they enforce to within 2k of the limit & traffic cops with guns,
Wild pigs,
Hillman Avengers parked in gardens,
Boysenberry icecream,
Red legged seagulls,
Parrots, Kea,s that can strip a landrover in 25 minutes,
& some of the fiercest women iin the world!

[John@sos]

Hello there, I am not really here, (some say that of me a lot of the time!) We are just off to the air port to chase the sunshine that we have not seen here... Typical, cracking day blue sky as far as you can see!

Hey ho.

Re oiling and over oiling. If you put too much oil in a Seagull the jet has no idea it is not actualy fuel it is passing, so passes it as fuel, as there is less fuel and more oil, the result is the seagull will run weak.

Running weak can cause poping back, erratic running and damage to the piston through over heating. Think Seagull got it right with the 10:1 and the subsequent 25:1 mixes and jet/needle sizes. We have been running our 2 gulls, in regular use, on bio degradable for 3 years now, no smoke, no fouling and motors do not miss a beat. Both 25:1 of course, meticlously measured 200cc per 5 litre. (now watch me conk out at the Essex wind down event!)

Have fun out there, Off to catch that plane....

Regards,
John
SOS

[fortyplus]

I think if you have your fuel ratio mixed correctly then your Seagull motor will not suffer any damage running rich, because there is so much oil you are just getting a surplus of oily mixture that makes certain everything is well lubed. As they don't seem to burn a lot of the oil, you hopefully won't get too much additional carbon etc. Getting the fuel mixture right on a 2 stroke though does really make it sound and run much sweeter. Many 2 stroke engines were deliberately set to run too rich at the factory, Yamaha for one, did this on their 2 stroke motorcycles for reliability as it reduced how high they could rev on the top end and also kept cylinder temperatures down. You could increase performance on some models by using smaller jets.

This contrasts with a four stroke where too much fuel can wash the lube off the bores and cause damage. A lot of 4 stroke motors are made to run overly weak to pass emissions standards and can be totally transformed by richening the mixture. Both my Honda XR650 (carburetor) and my BMW (fuel injection) have benefited from being modified to run at the correct fuel/air ratio rather than what was needed to satisfy draconian emissions requirements. While both have more torque and run cooler, they both return better mpg as a result. My BMW gets 3 mpg more with the modifications and another 2 mpg if I run fuel with no added ethanol. So 5 mpg more by outwitting government measures designed to save the planet, I'm not sure how measures that mean using 10% more fuel is supposed to do that.