Dramatic Kitewind Rescue in Penfield

[Scott]

Dramatic Kitewing Rescue in Penfield

First let me say that all is well. No one drown or was injured except for a minor burn on my forearm.

After a lackluster day with my 5.5 Kitewing on Irondequoit Bay I drove to my home in Penfield. Once in the driveway. I decided to investigate an engine code that had recently greeted me on the dashboard of my 2006 Volvo wagon. I popped the hood and poked around the engine bay to see if there was anything obviously wrong. There wasn’t. I pulled the dipstick to see if I had oil. I did. Always good news. Suddenly a terrible sound came from the engine bay (note that the engine was not running at this moment). Startled, I look around and realized with a sinking feeling in my stomach that my Iphone had slithered out from my zippered pocket in my fleece top and past my opened hoodie jacket down deep into the engine bay of my car!!! It was nowhere to be seen. I was tired. I was cold and it was getting dark and my phone was deep down and buried beneath all sorts of marvelous Swedish engineering. Not good!

First thing I do when something like this happens is to get my wife, Kim. If she is empathetic there is hope. She was and agreed to call my phone so I could isolate its whereabouts. I could hear it ringing and there was a vibrating noise as well. Ah yes, another good reason to leave your phone on vibrate. Although I could hear it; I couldn’t see it. I crawled under the car as best I could. It was still ringing and vibrating. Using my hand, I moved it around holding it against the engine pan until I felt the strongest point of vibration. I now had a good idea where it was and was certain I would have to jack up the car and remove the seven bolts that secure the plastic engine bay enclosure pan to the frame! Are we having fun yet???

Still ringing and vibrating I took another look in the engine bay and deep under the manifold just out of reach was my phone sitting upright against the front of the oil pan. I stuck my arm down as far as it would go. No luck. Kim has tiny hands, maybe she can get it. No luck. Then I drew from many years of stupidity and experience and came up with a possible path forward. I reached into my Kitewing bag and drew out the long fiberglass tip batten. To this I added a nice thick wrap of duct tape; carefully applied such that the sticky side was facing out. I knew I might have only one chance at this rescue attempt. I stuck the sticky batten down below the manifold and between the oil pan and the face of my phone. I levered the batten to press firmly on the phone and it stuck. Very carefully I completed the extraction. On examination everything looked fine and to my surprise and annoyance Siri was on the line; she said, “How May I Help?” A couple expletives slipped from my tongue to which Siri did not respond and then calmly I slipped the phone into my pant’s pocket.

To quote a famous philosopher, ” Life is like a box of chocolates and you just never know what you’re gonna  get.  And shit happens. It happens every day”!

• This topic was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by Scott.

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