Coopers Quest

[David Fox]

Day 25,16th June $h1£ day according to Gerry
07 47.405 S 129 37.340 W
Weather; cloudy and wet, wind 5- 12 knots, waves 2 - 3 metres


I asked Gerry what I should write about the last 24 hours and his reply was "$h1t£", so that was how our day panned out. The clouds never totally disappeared for the entire day and night, the sun barely came out so the solar panels weren't charging the batteries, it rained on and off all day and night finding the one place in the cockpit that we can't keep the rain out - it runs down the back stay and splashes onto the seat in front of the helm where we sit. Having said that we had a dry moment mid-morning when Gerry announced that we needed to go out on deck as the halyard for the jib had broken, oh joy! Gerry went out first and pulled the broken halyard out of the way and made sure that we had the spare ready to attach to the top of the jib. I joined him as he was pulling down and in the sail, trying to keep it from being blown over the side of the boat and into the water whilst we were bobbing along rolling from side to side at about 4.5 knots. I've explained the same procedure before so I'm going to cut it a bit short here.

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Gerry attached the spare halyard to the top of the jib furler and sprayed it with magic fairy dust to make sure it was moving freely, he then retired to the mast and I took up my precarious position at the pulpit. Whilst Gerry winched the sail up, I fed it into the track trying to keep it from flying over the side of the boat and keeping away from the sheets which were thrashing about and likely to whip me at any given point. We managed to get the sail back up into place and I then had to hurry back to the cockpit to tighten up the sheets and make the sail flyable whilst Gerry finished with the winching, positioning of the pole and tidying up. We had only just finished and were safely back in the cockpit when the rain began in earnest, causing a wind shift and the jib had to be furled away as it was now flapping uselessly. With no sun to make the solar panels worth their keep we then had to run the gen set to top up the batteries, all good on that front for now.

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Time to change out the RO ( Revese Osmosis, Evap to the oldies) filter, as he had put the new membrane in a couple of days ago Gerry thought it would be a good idea to change out the filter so that all the water being produced is as good as it gets. This was a fairly quick and easy job and although the old filter wasn't at deaths door it was probably a good time to do this little job.

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The fuel polisher was again run, we just don't trust that fuel is free of debris and we need to be able to keep the gen set and the engine useable and by polishing the fuel this should help. We each tried to have a nana nap in the afternoon as we are tired and not really getting enough good hours of sleep in so we are taking it when we can get it. There was no sun set as we hadn't seen the sun all day but the sky got darker, the clouds continued to form and drop rain every now and again all through the night and the swell picked up with the darkening of the sky, not really what we needed

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The wind was all but gone so we were being driven along more by the swell than anything else and it was very rocky and unpleasant with things being thrown from one side of the boat to the other and then back again. Yet again we had to run the gen set during the night to top up the batteries, this time however there was another hiccough and a bit of a splutter after a minute or so of running, oh no not again. This would be the first job of the morning - investigating and possibly changing the 10 micron filter yet again. Sure enough when the time came the filter was blocked by some rusty residue and needed a new filter, this is getting to be a serious problem as we now only have one spare filter left and we aren't too sure if there will be any filters to purchase in Nuku Hiva. I have suggested to Gerry that he sends off an email to the authorities there to make sure that they have some in stock for when we arrive as we only have 4 day visas which doesn't give us time to get spares flown across from Papeete if we need to.

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There is no way we are going to continue on to Fiji without any spare filters at hand because Murphy's law says that if we haven't got them we will certainly need them and we aren't prepared to challenge Murphy! By the time dawn came around we had probably managed a total of 4 hours sleep between us, today was going to be a catching up sort of day. The sky at dawn was a patchwork of various colours of grey (like the book 50 shades!)not a touch of blue or sun to be found anywhere. The wind has continued to come from behind us and we have been struggling to keep it at less than 150 degrees so that we can keep sailing by changing our course heading frequently, this will only be possible for a while longer as we don't want to be too far off course by the time we are in sight of Nuku Hiva.
In the last 24 hours we have put another 129NM under the keel and we didn't run the engine in the 24 hours.



Yes, not the best of days
Perhaps a bit of this will cheer you up.

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[David Fox]

Day 26,17th June 2021. Something else to check and fix at that exotic place.

08 04.645 S 32 02.891 W
Weather; overcast and dull, wind 10- 20 knots, waves 3 metres

Another day closer to the end, thank goodness! This wasn't a spectacular day in any way, shape or form. The sun had trouble finding a gap in the clouds which meant that the solar panels weren't able to generate enough power and we were once again having to turn the gen set on to keep the batteries topped off. This of course leads us right into the question of had we solved the issue with the gen set, the short answer is no.

It starts up ok, runs for about a minute and then starts to splutter for a few seconds and then goes back to being Ok again. Most times it does this twice and then runs perfectly for the rest of the time it is on. Gerry has checked the filters and found tiny flecks of what looks to be rust floating at the bottom of the filter housing but the filters certainly aren't clogged so the offending bits of debris have been sent packing and we are now just continuing to monitor the gen set each time we use it until Gerry gets to that exotic place where he will probably have a really good and detailed look at the whole set up.

You need one of these Gerry

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We managed to barrel along all day and through the night with pretty much just the main out, the wind is still dancing around the stern 150 degree port to 150 degree starboard making it a noisy and rolly ride which makes moving around difficult and tiring not to mention the aching from holding on and bracing! At various times we had the jib and/ or the staysail out to try and give us a bit more stability and forward motion but each of those times was very short lived as the wind just kept back winding the main sail from the bounce off of the jib or staysail. Gerry changed out a block where the spinnaker pole brace had caused the slider release to get stuck on the open position, nothing drastic there but just because it needed doing! We tried to catch up with some more sleep, I think we are only about a week and half's worth behind at this point!



Dawn broke and for the first time in a while we actually had sun, good job too as we need the solar panels to prove their worth! I was on watch when it began to get lighter and to my dismay as soon as it was light enough to see the lines from the boom I noticed that the topping lift had broken. I searched the deck for the other end and found it was laying across the deck and over the other side of the boat dragging through the water, it had obviously broken at the mast head. Luckily for us this isn't an essential bit of equipment, we can manage without it until we get to a really exotic place and then we will have to run a new line. I wasn't keen to upset Gerry as soon as he woke up but there really was no other option as he would have noticed it as soon as he looked around, to my surprise he took it better than I thought he would, it's just another thing to add to our ever growing list of things that need attention.



Gerry went and retrieved the bit of line that was through the mast- miles of it, and tidied up the bit that is still attached to the end of the boom (we can't reach that to remove it whilst we are underway - another job for THAT PLACE!). So we are still booming along with the wind in the same direction and the swell pretty much quartering so every now and again we get to surf down the waves. We are averaging 6 knots for now and whittling the miles down, the wind is supposed to be like this for the next 2-3 days so it might just see us through to arriving in Nuku Hiva. We put a further 146 NM behind us in the 24 hours and no engine time. Still no whales and not another boat in sight.


Day 27 18th June
08 25.251 S 134 33.143 W
Weather; sunny, wind 10- 20 knots, waves 3.5 metres

Today was a repeat of yesterday with the exception that we had pretty much sun for most of the day for a change. The wind continued to come from our stern, flicking from side to side but we managed to sail with mostly just the main and occasionally the jib or stay sail out, but these never stayed out for very long as they tended to flap and backwind the main causing that dreadful bang and crash sound that can't possibly be doing the sails any favours. Gerry asked how we could fix the "bits on the sail that are like threads dangling" I had no idea what he was talking about and can only assume that the sails are beginning to fray away slightly in places. I really have no idea and suggested that we might be better off leaving them as they are until we get to Australia, but I'm sure we will be looking at them once we stop moving.

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The fuel filter on the gen set got changed for what will be the last time until we can get some more filters. Although Gerry has run the fuel polisher we are still getting the hiccough in the gen set once it has started up and run for a few minutes. Gerry is now talking about us emptying the first fuel tank into the second one, cleaning out the bottom of the first fuel tank and then refilling the first fuel tank by the jug full at a time, through the Baha filter and then repeating the process for the second tank. I can't say I'm too enthralled by the thought of this, it will no doubt be a messy long and difficult job but in the absence of a whole lot of new filters there doesn't appear to be an alternative (other than not using the gen set which is not an option).

The other thing that he's now worrying about (there has to be something to worry about!!) is our water, we are at the bottom of the first 100 litre water tank and although we have been careful with our use we just aren't keeping up with the amount we need to make to replace what we have used. "Just make more then" I can hear you thinking, easier said than done as the water maker uses battery power to run so we need a really sunny day or to be able to run the gen set to then run the water maker. We know that we have enough water to see us safely into Nuku Hiva but last time we were there the only water available was by taking jerry cans ashore to a remote tap and then lugging it back to the boat and pouring into the tanks, we don't know if this situation has changed but we don't want to be relying on having to cart jerry can loads of water to the boat, fingers crossed that they have a better way of filling our water tanks this time around. After what turned out to be a pretty rocky night dawn apparently happened, not that you would have known as the sky was once again shrouded in grey and black clouds, the sun has peeped through the clouds a couple of seconds at a time and then vanished from sight, we have had a fair bit of rain accompanied by gusty wind in the last couple of hours.

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Our helm seats are soaking wet with little to no chance of drying out unless we get some sun on them at some stage today. The wind and swell are at least in mostly the same direction for the moment and we are skimming along at around 6.5 knots. We are another 150NM closer than we were yesterday and beginning to see the light at the end of this first part of the passage even to the extent that Gerry has satellite messaged our health declaration forms and notification of arrival off to the Nuku Hiva authorities this morning. We have still managed to leave the engine turned off so at least we aren't adding to the engine hours or wasting the, dirty, fuel! Still no sightings of whales, ships, dolphins or weather buoys, the whole planet is deserted from our perspective.

Day 28,19th June So close we can smell it!
08 45.420 S 137 17.565 W
Weather; sunny, wind 10- 20 knots, waves 3.5 metres

The day continued in much the same vein as the previous few days with the sun showing its face and helping to charge the batteries, the wind remained in much the same general direction - aft and swinging between 150 degrees port to 150 degrees starboard, the swell became bigger as the night approached but for a change we had a pretty cloud free night and no rain. Our average speed was around 6.5 knots and we mostly flew just the main, occasionally trying the jib or the staysail just for the sheer hell of seeing if it made any difference to our speed or rolling, it didn't so it got furled away again pretty quickly each time. The gen set is still hiccoughing but we are managing to get it to top up the batteries at night for the time being, it's going to be top of the list for things to sort out in Nuku Hiva.

Both Gerry and I did some more sleep catching up during the daylight hours and then lost a whole heap more sleep during the night due to the rocking and rolling which is more severe at night, it's going to be so good to stop moving and sleep in a bed that isn't trying to throw you out! We turned our clock back a further hour to try and get our arrival time right so today's total is for 25 hours but even so we think we did pretty well covering 164 NM and no engine time. We have cracked the 200NM left to go and are hoping that if we can maintain our current speed and direction we should be arriving around tea time tomorrow night so fingers crossed for the final push!

There has still been no sighting of whales or ships and the dolphins are conspicuous in their absence. We haven't bothered fishing as we have a small stock in the freezer and besides we are going too fast for the fish to catch up with us! We have netted a few more flying fish and squid on the deck which have been fed back into the eco system. So that's it for today, I might leave tomorrow's update until after we arrive, depending on how we are going so don't be surprised if there is no regular time up date.

[David Fox]

Day 29,20 June 2021 Nous arrivons a Nuku Hiva!

08 55.038 S 140 05.994 W

Weather; sunny, wind 10- 20 knots, waves 3.5 metres
29 days, 2hours and 50 minutes but who's counting! |

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Arrived at last, safe but tired
Perhaps a word beginning with K more describes it.


The sails are furled away, the lines are being tidied, the anchor is down, the first beer in 29 days has been consumed and in case you haven't got the gist of it yet we have arrived in Nuku Hiva safely, in one piece still speaking to each other and tired as all hell!

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So to back track, yesterday passed in another day of nothing happening except for us bracing and trying to keep the boat bruises to a minimum. The weather was much the same as it had been for the past 3 days or so and we rocked and rolled our way along doing a steady 6 knots. The night was clear for the most part with a half-moon lighting the way to begin the night watches but of course the obligatory black clouds came over at one point and we had a splattering of rain which then affected the wind and we roared along doing 8 knots for a while. As the dawn broke we were treated to a sunny day and the wind was pretty constant at around 17 knots, still to our stern and swinging from side to side.

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Gerry had the "channels" in other words we were so close to our destination that he was like a cat on a hot tin roof, we couldn't get here quickly enough! The first sighting of land in many days came at around 8 am, a small island that is about 25 NM before Nuku Hiva, so we thought we would have another 5 hours or so before arriving but the wind and swell had different plans, as they both increased our speed correspondingly increased and we were ripping along at 7 knots for the final part of the trip.

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As we got close and could see the landmass I thought I could see another yatch out to our starboard side, but a bit of a way off. I told Gerry who thought I was hallucinating but as we moved on so did the hallucination, I wasn't imagining it, it really was a boat- the first signs of life that we had seen in many days, but it was moving away for us and not going our way.

Then a little closer there was another couple of boats, one out for a jolly by the looks of things and one that didn't seem to know what it was doing as it came out from the anchorage and then turned around in front of us, putting us on a collision course, and headed back into the anchorage. For the last hour we motor sailed as the swell was slowing us down at this point and as I have already said Gerry had the "channels" and just wanted the passage over and done with.

As we followed the other yatch into the anchorage we were surprised to see that there are quite a lot of boats here at anchor and not all of them are Australian or New Zealand boats heading home. We motored around the anchorage, dropped our main sail and picked a spot to drop our anchor. A huge sigh of relief all round and a special commendation award goes to George, the auto pilot, who has completed the passage with continuous service, mostly uncomplaining and without so much as a hiccough, we couldn't have done it without him.
So here are the stats for anyone who is interested.
Our 24 hour distance travelled was 158NM with 1hour of engine time. From 10.15 am until anchor down at 12.50am we covered the final 11.2NM with a further 1 hour engine time.
In 29 days,2 hours and 50 minutes we have travelled 4042.2 NM and during that time the engine has been run for a total of 101 hours. Our average speed over the entire trip, including the extra 4 hours for the clocks going backwards, was 5.78 knots (Gerry worked that out so blame him if it doesn't add up).

Our fresh fruit lasted until last night when we ate the final apple, we still have a couple of onions, carrots and potatoes but not very much else in the way of fresh vegetables. We still have enough meat, fish and tinned goods to last us until Fiji and I still have plenty of baking ingredients for bread and cakes. The coke has just about stretched and made it this far, the beer, wine and rum has lasted as we don't touch alcohol whilst underway but the most important thing is that we have managed to stretch the chocolate out and we still have about 4 squares each left for tonight - great rationing on our part but the supermarket here had better be well stocked or we will be causing riots!

There are a number of things that we need to focus our attention on and fix before we leave Nuku Hiva, the prime one being the Gen set and the dirty fuel issue. Sorting out of the forward stateroom leak (not that it has been a problem with no water coming over the bow) There are a number of lines that need end to ending or replacing, some of our canvas needs some repair work but that might have to wait until Fiji and a sail maker to get done. Then of course there is the regular household stuff that we need to get done like laundry, provisioning, fuel and water stock up and scrubbing the garden and barnacles off of the side of the boat so this is going to be a frantically busy 4 day stop over if we can't extend our visas for any longer period. So now we are down to having something to eat, a shower and sleep in our bed - once we have moved all of the crap off of it that was shoved there when there was nowhere else to put stuff.
So I'll let you know tomorrow how we find Nuku Hiva after a 14 year gap. For now you can breathe a sigh of relief and not worry about where we are spending the night tonight.

[David Fox]

Impressions of Nuku Hiva after 14 years
22 June 2021 @¿
08 55.038'S: 140 05.994'W,

Fancy having a face like that on your flag

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We slept like the dead but still woke up feeling like we needed at least another 24 hours of sleep but that was going to have to wait as we have things to do.

First off let me say that Nuku Hiva is a beautiful place, a large bowl shaped harbour that is surrounded by very high hills all of which are green, yes there must be lots of rain fall here! We immediately noticed a few changes since the last time we were here, there are more houses, but relatively still only a few, there are street lights all along the shore line road which weren't there last time, there is an extended fuel dock but apparently you still have to dingy in and cart the fuel to your boat in jerry cans.

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There is a helicopter based here which services the nearby islands, we noticed a grove of some sort - oranges or olives or mangoes or something- too hard to tell from the harbour, there are new Tiki's visible and there are shore lead lights which didn't exist before and there appears to be more stuff at the dock which we need to explore.

On our arrival we saw a boat that we had been on for drinks in Panama, they had intended to do a straight shot to Fiji so we were a little surprised to see them at anchor here and called out to them to find out what the story was.

After we had anchored and got settled in they radioed and then came across to speak to us, even though we were flying the quarantine flag and hadn't yet checked in. We thought our 29 days was bad enough, they had taken 33 days to get this far and had been totally becalmed for 3 of those days to the extent that they had taken down all their sails as they were just wallowing with them up and going nowhere.
They had an issue with their iridium go phone, which had an intermittent problem causing their SOS not to work; as they rely on this as their EPIRB there was no safe way for them to continue without getting it sorted out so they stopped off here as an emergency stop.

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Talking to them we realized that a few boats have stopped here as an "emergency stop" we aren't sure if the reasons are genuine or not but it is a convenient way of getting around the hoops that you have to jump through to get permission to stop regularly as we had, plus it appears that the emergency stop off is given more than the 4 day visa that we got - so who's the idiots?

Anyway we were here, had done it the right way and were now wondering how we were expected to check in as we had thought that with the mandated visa and hoop jumping there would be a boat coming out to greet us, test us for Covid and check us in, who are we kidding this is a French island!

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As it was Sunday no one was working so it would give us an extra half day to recover, read sleep! We got up at a reasonable hour ready to do the official stuff and start on our list of urgent repair work. Gerry, being the self-appointed captain, had emailed our FP contact to ask what the procedure was for checking in as no one had made any contact and we weren't sure that we were allowed to get off the boat.

Our neighbour had kindly purchased a sim card from the agent he used and dropped it off to us this morning, not cheap at $80 for 10 gigs but there was no way we could manage without it. Gerry hadn't heard anything back from our FP contact by 10 am so decided that he would go into the gendarmerie where we knew that everyone had to clear in under normal circumstances.

Our dinghy got lowered into the water for the first time since we left Curacao, not without a little difficulty as our bird B&T had been well used and the block at one end of the hoist was encased in bird guano which had set like cement and had to be chipped off first. Having said that we got the dinghy and outboard (after applying a bit of grease to the locks which held it in place - at least we know that no one could have stolen it even if they had tried!)ready to go for its first outing in a while, it started first go without any problems, thank goodness.

Take more water with it Nicky

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Armed with all of our documentation and a bag of trash Gerry set off to make us legal. I stayed on board and did the tidy up, cleaned a bit and made inroads to getting back on top of things. Gerry was back sooner than I had expected, everything went as you expect in a French run county, the gendarmerie would only see you to check you in between 7.30 am and 10 am so that didn't happen - a job for tomorrow! He did go and speak with Kevin, who is apparently the local agent ( there was no requirement to use an agent here but he's the guy you need to go to to get anything done apparently) anyway Gerry spoke with him and found out the local facilities as they are at present.

There are still just 2 supermarkets, at a fair walking distance from the dock, there is a local fruit/veggie open market at the dock, the artisan centre for carvings and seed jewellery is still operational, there is a cafe with internet access a short distance from the dock and a hospital/clinic near the gendarmerie.

That says it all.

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Then came the blow of the day, they do not do PCR testing here. This is a big issue for us as we have to send a Negative PCR test done 72 hours before departing our last port to gain access to Fiji. Apparently they can do the PCR testing in Tahiti but the first hurdle with that is we have already applied to FP to and been granted our 4 day stop off here in Nuku Hiva and we aren't sure that we will be allowed to enter Tahiti but we will send in another request and fingers crossed it will be granted as we will be sighting the need to haul out to replace the sewage overboard discharge side valve ( not really urgent but we won't be telling them that), and the need to have our furler fixed (Gerry has it working but who knows!) and we need to get a heap of fuel filters to make sure our dirty fuel from Panama lets us make it home; the reasons are all a bit flimsy but it's the only way we can get somewhere for another bloody PCR test for Fiji entry.
Everyone keeps saying get the vaccine but we have checked with Fiji and they don't care if you have been vaccinated or not, they still want the PCR test, Governments at work!gg

Anyway once we had got past the bad news it all looks good as we now have an extra day on top of the 4 that we will get tomorrow to start fixing stuff. Talking of which it was time to attack the first thing, the jib and furler. Down came the jib and was laid along the side of the deck so that Gerry could grease and check the top of the furler and at the same time he asked if I could stitch part of the sacrificial edge of the sail which was beginning to unravel. Out came the sail mending sewing box with needles the size of large nail, thread as thick as knitting wool but much stronger and waxed, pliers, a sailmaker's palm and a whole lot of attitude. It was a job I really didn't want to have to tackle, it's a sail loft repair job as far as I'm concerned as the whole sacrificial needs replacing and some overstitching on the sails need to be done but there is no loft here so it was down to me.

I spent the entire afternoon grunting and groaning as I stabbed the needle, pushed and tugged the damn thing through the layers of canvas and sail to effect a repair. I only stabbed the needle in myself 4 times and none of them through the eyeball so that was all good.



My fingers at the end of the session were stiff and numb, it hasn't helped the arthritis one bit! Meanwhile instead of doing what he had planned and working on the furler, Gerry jumped in the water and did a scrub of the water line to try and get rid of our garden and its inhabitants, with some success. Our anti fouling has done a good job but the little buggers have clung to just above the water line and needed scrapping off. Gerry says that our prop looks in good shape which is a relief after 29 days at sea. By 5 pm we were both pooped and retired to the cockpit for a cold drink, not even alcohol at this point.

We were too tired to even consider dinner but I threw a rib roast into the oven and did up some vegetables because we needed to eat something. The meat really didn't have long or slow enough cooking but it was edible and washed down with enough wine that we didn't care anyway. Shortly afterwards it was time for a shower and bed.

Tomorrow we will be trying to check in once again and looking at more of the fixing stuff, I'm just not too sure when the rest bit is going to come into effect but I hope it's soon.


Time to turn to.

Had to see why my lawnmower wouldn't start after I changed the oil and sharpened the blade, it was running before I did that. After sailing on a multitude of 'vessels of character' I wasn't going to let a single cylinder petrol lawn mower beat me. Check the plug yesterday, a spark even though not a fat blue one, but was starting to get tired in the heat. This morning after sleeping on it, make sure there is good fuel flow and the float is not hung up. Some eejit designed this with out a sum plug, and you have turn it on its side to remove the oil. 'Some mothers do 'ave'em and they live an all'.
Turns out the plastic covering for the boudan throttle cable had pushed back in way of the clamp, so it wasn't getting any choke for starting being out of position. We have chap in the street who maintains this type of equipment for a landscaping company, I would have hated to go cap in hand for advice. So if yours is having starting problems check that cable to see if it has moved.
Well we will start a new post as I am on my limit for images here.

[David Fox]

Don't have smoko these days, turn to late and have a late duty mess lunch

Rainy day in Paradise
Sounds about right for deepest Berkshire as well.
24 June 2021.Nuku Hiva , Marquesas
Weather; overcast and raining.

Here's Nicky.

Today was going to be the fixing of stuff day but when we got up the sky was full of grey clouds and not long afterwards it began to rain, so much for fixing stuff outside! Never mind there was always the fuel issue to address.

Jonathon, who we had cocktails with last night had offered to lend us his fuel pump so that we could pump the tank out rather than resort to jugging it into a bucket and then transferring it to the second tank, we gratefully accepted the offer and Gerry went across in the dinghy to pick up the pump and hoses.

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Back on board I cleared the space in the salon so that we could access the tanks. Gerry arrived back with the pump and hoses and set about putting it together and finding our Baha filter.

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Next came the destruction of the salon, cushions were rehoused for the time being, wooden slats, which make up the base of a spare bed and do double time as one of the salon couches, were unscrewed and placed carefully out of the way (on the other couch) the inspection lid for the port side fuel tank was unscrewed and the lid and gasket were removed. We now had an open fuel tank in our salon - awesome!

So the plan was then carefully explained to me so that I couldn't get it wrong, the filler end of the fuel hose pump was going to the bottom of the tank where the fuel pickup point is, from there the pump would take the fuel and pass it along into the smaller return hose which I was going to have to hold in the Baha filter over the top of the inspection lid so that the cleaned fuel got returned to the top of the tank. This process was going to be on going for a good half hour so I had to get comfortable and try not to breathe too deeply. Ready, set, go and the process began.

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To start with Gerry had both filters in the Baha - one which is intended to catch the debris and one which is intended to catch any water, we found that the Baha filled much too fast with both filters in at the same time so we stopped and regrouped, taking out the water filter and just running the fuel through the debris filter then, after half an hour of doing this, we swapped out the filters and did the water filtering.

My arms ached and I was sitting at an awkward angle to the tank, I'm sure to have some residual aches from it! Anyway after almost an hour we stopped. The debris filter had picked up a few odd bits of rusty stuff but not nearly as much as we had expected, the water filter had nothing.

So we had finished polishing the fuel in the port tank, back on went the gasket, the inspection lid was screwed in place, the wooden slats lined back up and secured in place and finally cushions returned to their rightful spot. the small amount of cleaning up was done, you wouldn't know we had been there.

Now where is the repeat button? The same process had to be carried out on the starboard tank, it went exactly as the previous tank but without the double filter start - we knew better the second time around! By the time we had run this side through the filtering it was getting towards lunchtime and we had had enough of being stuck in a diesel smelling environment, beside which we had a bag of trash and a second bag of laundry to go ashore plus we needed to collect our bag of laundry from yesterday.

So we showered and changed and set out for the dock, just as the heavens opened in earnest. We tied up and made a dash for the cover of the yacht services place and stood under the awning there after handing in our bag of laundry. We were a little disappointed that the laundry was going to take 2 days this time as they were a little busy, but there was nothing we could do about it.

With the rain still belting down Gerry took off to deposit our trash in the bin whilst I made a dash for the cafe where he met me and we ordered some lunch. The cafe was busy so it took a little while and by the time we had our food and eaten it the rain had let up. Gerry wanted to try our debit cards at the post office ATM which we had only remembered the previous night so we set off up the hill (of course it was up the hill why would it be on the flat) and we got to the post office as the rain stopped. I'd like to say that we hit the jackpot and the machine gave us our life savings but that would just be a lie. Typical of this machine, or so we were later told, it was out of service, we didn't even get to insert our cards!

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So back down to the dock and the laundry as we had to collect yesterday's laundry by 2 pm as they close for the usual 2 hour French break. We bought a couple of Magnum ice creams (on a stick, they didn't have the yummy Lorie special occasion sort!) and sat at the small table along with a young couple who had just arrived. The guy is an Australian and the girl is Swedish, we chatted for a while and got to hear their crossing story (38 days, I was in tears for them!) but they are young and seemed to have weathered it well. Like us they are heading home to Australia but are trying to sneak in as many islands as possible along the way, legally or not. I'm sure we will be having a beer with them in the next couple of days and dispensing some oldies knowledge which they will then ignore!

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The time had come to return to the boat between rain showers, we made it back and settled in to do nothing for the rest of the afternoon, the morning's work and a big lunch had left us pooped. Gerry had a nana nap and I would have joined him if I hadn't been trying to type the blog.


If you are wondering where all the photos are I'm afraid you are going to have to manage without for a while longer as I have no way of up loading them at present. The satellite is fine for the written document but won't do photos and the sim card that Gerry has for the phone won't allow a hotspot so we are having to cool our heels and can only just check our email using the phone. Man on the moon? It didn't happen! Green flash at sun set? It doesn't exist! Easy ways to communicate? It will be coming to a place near us soon, apparently!

Dinner was the next hurdle, as we had eaten a big lunch neither of us wanted anything so we settled on a bowl of soup, well to be honest it was passed off as soup but looked to be dish water with a few strings of pasta and some weird lumps which the can said were chicken - who knows! Another shower and off to bed, there's still a heap to do and we are running out of time.

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Gerry has emailed for permission to extend our stay but typical of any French government department we haven't heard a peep back from them so at this point in time we are supposed to leave here on Saturday morning. So far we have had no luck in locating any fuel filters within FP but we are told that there is a possible shipment due in on Friday which may or may not have the size filters we require.

The other thing that Gerry did was to contact the yard in Tahiti to see if we could get hauled out to fix the aft toilet overboard discharge, they came back with a haul out price but want us to have the fixtures and fittings in hand, they won't supply them! So we just need to know how we are supposed to acquire these parts in a more remote island than Tahiti - any advice gratefully accepted, but believe me when I say we have probably already looked at your idea and rejected it!

[David Fox]

Could the Aussie cricket team have saved the day?
25 June 2021
08 55.038'S:140 05.994'W, Nuku Hiva , Marquesas
Weather; sunny then overcast and raining

A day of frustration for sure! Gerry started the day by checking the staysail and came to the conclusion that we could get by without doing anything to it, thank goodness. He furled it away by himself whilst I busied myself mixing a batch of fruit loaf dough and the putting it in the cockpit to proof.

The next little job was one we hadn't anticipated, for some reason known only unto Gerry he decided to check the windlass as it has been a while since we used it. Good job he did really as one of the foot buttons that operates it (when he's not using the remote control) was stuck. A bit of loving care and attention and a shit load of grease and the thing was back in working order once more.

Meanwhile I made a fish pie for tonight's dinner in case you think I was just idling about the place!. Of course this was only the morning, the main sail was in need of a couple of repair jobs and we needed to run a new topping lift line so Gerry waited until the middle of the day before he wanted to attempt running the topping lift line (mad dogs and Englishmen stuff), this is of course a 2 person job and I was not happy. Out came the bosun's chair, the headsets, the winchrite and a very long line to which Gerry attached a piece of small gauge line and a length of chain to help with the weighting of the line and hopefully make it drop down through the mast easily. The bitter end was tied off to the end of the boom, all that need to happen now was for Gerry to climb / be hoisted up the mast, the line dropped down through the mast and for me to fish it out through the small exit plate on the side of the mast with a bent fid, all in the heat of the day!

Gerry got himself into the bosun's chair and attached the main halyard to the chair as a safety line and he began to climb, hanging on to the end of the new topping lift, with me winding him upwards using the winchrite. Eventually he reached the top and I made my way to the mast to attempt to fish the line out when it dropped down. I kid you not the hole that it was to come through on the side of the mast was at arm's stretch height above my head and I was on tip toe to reach it, add to this the fact that there was a bit of a breeze which was causing some swell to rock the boat so I had to keep hold of something stable with one hand whilst trying to fish in a small hole above my head with the other hand. Gerry was convinced he had threaded enough line down through the mast for me to be able to fish for but as we know, we aren't the greatest of fishermen!

I tried and tried to find the line with no success and Gerry at the top of the mast in the midday sun was getting crosser by the minute as the bosun's chair was giving him a high pitched, squeaky voice. After many attempts and shortening tempers on both ends of the headsets Gerry asked to be let back down to the deck and he would see if he could fish the line out.

Back to the cockpit for me and I let him back to the deck. Then it was on for old and young at the mast - could I even see the line? Not a chance, it was way above my line of sight, could I feel anything? Yes 2 lines neither of which were the right ones, "get me a flash light" not that it helped at all even he couldn't see anything with his height advantage. Ok, on to the next plan, “get the drill', he would drill the exit cover plate rivets out to give us a bigger hole to peer into. I stood a short way off as he drilled the rivets out, the plate didn't move, it was stuck to the mast, "pass me the screwdriver" which I did. So with me standing somewhere between silly point and 1st slip (come on Aussie come on , come on!) he jammed the screwdriver under the plate and it promptly pinged off, "catch it" came the cry but unfortunately no one had told me that I needed my baggy green cap and wicket keeper gloves and there was no one standing at 2nd slip as the plate sailed through the air, at a record breaking speed worthy of recording in the Guinness book of records, and dropped into the water - lost forever to Davey Jones locker. To make things even worse there was still no sighting of the elusive line.



By now Gerry had had enough and thought he would just pull the line that he had threaded down the mast back out, yeh right. He pulled it out so far and then it wouldn't budge any further no matter what we tried, in the end I said that we needed to cleat off the line as much as possible and give it a rest until tomorrow and start over in the cool of the morning with clear heads and better tempers. Was it time to retire to the cockpit and get smashed?

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y
Oh no, there was the main problems to deal with, between us we dropped the main to the deck, only dropping the pin that holds the sliders in place to the deck where it was retrievable thank goodness, but the webbing on one of the sliders gave way totally and was going to need replacing. So we now had the main draped over the starboard side of the deck, out came the sail sewing kit and I made myself scarce whilst Gerry set up to replace the slider webbing, he found another one that was looking a bit worn through so made a decent job of replacing that one as well. I sniped off the frayed bits and pieces and checked the condition of the rest of the sail - it isn't looking too bad and will certainly get us home with no issue.

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The top batten pocket was the real reason for taking the sail down to check as Gerry had noticed that the stitching had come away and the pocket was coming loose. He found the offending pocket and began stitching a very crude seam to hold it in place, realizing the difficulty I had the other day when I fixed the sacrificial on the jib.

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Anyway he had one side done and was about to start on the other side when it began to spit with rain* and we couldn't ignore the fact that the entire hills surrounding the harbour were completely covered in cloud, we were in for a good downpour. The sewing kit was hastily packed away and we retired to the cockpit in time for me to bake my fruit loaves, one of which was then taken over to Jonathon's boat as a thank you for the loan of the fuel pump.

Back in the cockpit we had a couple of adult beverages whilst I baked the fish pie I had made as well as a batch of chocolate and cherry brownies. By the time we ate dinner the rain had stopped, the moon was coming up and the harbour was looking peaceful , making a mockery of our somewhat fraught day of fixing stuff. We just hope things go better tomorrow.

* Reminds about the woman who goes tearing into the Police Station and says to the Desk Sergeant, " I've been half raped". The Desk Sergeant says, " What do you mean, you cannot be half raped".
The woman said," I was, it was a builder and it started to rain".
Alf Garnet.


26 & 27 June 2021 A weekend of rest and relaxation at last!

Saturday we woke up to rain and not just a little bit, it was pouring down and everything in the cockpit was soaked but at least it was freshwater and not salt water which takes forever to dry out. Luckily we didn't have any great plans to do anything outside for the day.

Gerry set himself a goal of getting the sanding and fibre glassing of the leaky area in the forward stateroom done. This of course meant that the entire table space in the salon was covered in equipment, tins, mixing pots and fibre glass matting for the duration of the morning. It really was a one man job due to the space that he was having to work in. I wasn't in the least bit unhappy that I couldn't join in the fun of fibre glassing and set about mixing up a batch of bread taking all my frustrations from the past couple of days out on kneading the dough, and making the best half dozen rolls and loaf of wholemeal bread that I have made to date!

The fibre glassing was finished by lunchtime and the bread was ready for the taste test, which it passed with flying colours. The rain finally stopped for a while after lunch but it took the next 4 hours for the cockpit cushions to dry out enough for us to go outside to sit in the cool breeze, just in time for cocktail hour! We noticed that a few boats had headed off today, we hope that they have managed to get ahead of the rain and gusty winds that accompanied the rain. As always though it was a bit of a case of a boat exchange program as late in the afternoon/ early evening a couple of new boats arrived and dropped their anchors keeping the total of boats in the harbour at the 40 mark. We did nothing else of any note for the rest of Saturday and spent the time lazing around, finally getting in some of that rest and recovery stuff that we were supposed to squeeze into our 4 permitted days here. You might want to note that we are now on unsure footing as far as being here legally is concerned but as the gendarmerie isn't open to check out on Saturday or Sunday there really was nothing we can do except wait until Monday anyway!

So it rained on and off all through the night and we had to keep the boat closed up making it a wee bit humid to say the least. The clouds have totally blanketed the sky and it has continued to rain throughout today as well, no wonder the hillside surrounding the bay is so green!

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Again there were no jobs needing our attention outside and Gerry contented himself with changing out the oil filter and the oil on the main engine this morning. He also fixed a new popper to one of the hatch covers that had come adrift.
Me ? I did nothing except make up a curry and some dahl for tonight's dinner, I didn't feel like doing anything else and as the swell has become very rolly with the rain and gusty wind the boat hasn't been the most pleasant place to be moving around inside, it's been much better to sit and read a book!

So that's been our not very exciting weekend but at least we have finally had some down time to catch our breath ready for the next exciting passage. We have loose plans to leave here by mid-week, depending on what the weather is doing by then and heading for our "emergency stop" in Tahiti where we hope to get a haul out and pick up the badly needed fuel filters that we are in need of.



There is still no news on fuel filters but on the plus side Gerry has had contact with the riggers in Tahiti who have been quite helpful, so far, over our standing rigging issue. Gerry has asked if they could make up the shroud and send it to us for him to install (what could possibly go wrong!) if they can't do that then we are going to have to secure the broken shroud as safely as we can and get it fixed in Tahiti, under emergency conditions. It looks like the current weather pattern is going to be with us for the next 3 days or so meaning that we won't be going anywhere until at least the weekend, good job we have more books to read!

Another trip up the mast 01 July 2021

Well another day has slipped by without us getting very much done, we still haven't heard from the authorities about our extended stay or the fact that we want to stop off at Tahiti to get some work done and get a PCR test done which is required for entry into Fiji - you just can't hurry these things!

The weather has set in for the next few days and we are having to try and get things done between rain showers and lumpy sea swell. I mentioned a couple of days back that Gerry had found one of our shrouds has 3 broken wires and we needed to get things sorted out by a rigger to safely continue our journey, well he has been on the phone to a rigger based in Tahiti and the long and short story is that the rigger can make up a new shroud and freight it to us here in Nuku Hiva. Of course this means that Gerry is going to be the one fitting it, what could possibly go wrong! Before we could set this in motion though it required a bit of work on our part, the guy needed very precise measurements which meant Gerry had to take a spin up the mast with callipers and tape measure end in hand which then got dropped to the deck where I had to note the measurement at the turnbuckle, the callipers were used to measure the pin that holds it in place and the gap that the end fits into.

Does anybody remember seeing her daughtert in Kiwi, but not so many teeth.

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As you are aware by now the swell has been horrible and the boat has been rocking from side to side so badly that it was going to be a difficult task. We enlisted the help of another Aussie who is at anchor here, asking him if he would help us by keeping our boat into wind using our dinghy and outboard motor to reduce the rocking as much as possible whilst Gerry and I sorted out the mast climb and measuring. As it happened we had a brief lull in the swell when the tide turned mid-afternoon and Gerry took advantage of this and began the climb up the mast before our enlisted help got back from his jaunt ashore. The measuring and recording was done quite quickly and hopefully accurately (only time will tell!) and I again gave away the opportunity to hold Gerry at ransom at the top of the mast. Back in the salon, he emailed the guy in Tahiti the measurements and got the quote to send the manufactured shroud to us here in Nuku Hiva, yes we have put our first born up as collateral but there really wasn't an alternative. Our enlisted Aussie helper showed up to help out about an hour later and I think was probably relieved that we had got the job done without him having to struggle to keep our boat into the blustery wind, but at least he showed up and was willing. So now all we have to do is go ashore, log onto internet banking and transfer the funds - that's a job for tomorrow. Maybe by this time next week we will have the replacement in place and operational. At least this particular French man responds to emails and has been helpful so far, we just hope that it continues that way.

Today was also a special day as the supply ship docked early this morning. It is a peculiar looking vessel which is half cruise liner and half cargo ship, it looks like 2 separate ships have been sawn in half and then miss matched together to make the vessel. We looked it up to see what we could find out and apparently it can take 230 passengers on a cruise around the FP islands as it does its fortnightly trip around to each to drop off stores and other essential items. As it visits each of the islands both Gerry and I thought it might be a good way to see the small islands of FP. and briefly considered doing it but we figured that the $7000 each it would cost could be better spent and let's face it, once you have seen one tropical island you have pretty much seen them all and there is only so many cocktails with umbrellas stuck in them that you can drink each night!

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So the next couple of days are the days to hit the shops as they will have all the fresh stock in and it might be the time to find some of the elusive vegetables and fruit that we have been missing out on. As the next time the ship docks we hope to be well on our way to our next destination this could be our only opportunity to stock up! The ship unloaded at the dock during the day and then at sundown it moved off the dock and went out to the harbour entrance where it dropped its anchor for the night. We think that they take off early in the morning to get to the next island dock at just after sun rise, I doubt we will be up to wave it off in the morning. A couple more boats arrived during the day and amongst them was the Kiwi boat, Horizon, with Annie and Ross on board, this was the couple we met in Panama who had hit 2 whales in the Atlantic Ocean and were waiting for a new rudder. It was good to see that they had finally got their replacement part and were on their way south again.
So that was our day really, again not doing very much but every little bit is getting us closer to leaving here

[David Fox]

2nd - 06 July 2021 | 08 55.038'S:140 05.994'W, Nuku Hiva , Marquesas
Weather; wet, wind vicious and nasty, waves causing a horrible swell inside the harbour

We have had the most horrendous weather (well it's pretty horrendous for the tropics but probably would seem like a normal sort of few days to those in England or in the throes of the Australian winter!) it has prevented us from doing pretty much anything. Even going out into the cockpit has been limited to when we can take a bar of soap out with us and have a shower, just kidding but we have been stopering up our deck scuppers and collecting the water runoff by directing it straight into our water tanks. This of course means that we haven't had to run the water maker, so to make sure that it was still running OK Gerry went to start it up and to flush it with fresh water, just after his aborted attempt to help out our Kiwi neighbours sort out their water maker problem.

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We think it was a case of passing the problem on around the harbour as for the first time ever ours wouldn’t start up. Gerry was immediately out in the lazarette doing boat yoga to try and find what the issue could be. As the water maker is a very simple piece of equipment it didn't take too long to discover what the problem was, now I hope you are sitting down because this is going to sound like de ja vu, the pump that drives the water maker has brushes and there is no prize for guessing that these were causing the problem. They had apparently clogged up with carbon preventing the electrical pulse from getting through. Gerry cleaned them off and gave them some TLC which seems to have done the trick as the pump now starts and we can make water once again.

Knowing the issue we had in trying to get the brushes for the auto pilot (they are still floating around Panama or the international space station somewhere, we have never received them) Gerry got on to the water maker manufacturer, who supply the complete unit, including the pump, to see if we could get some spare brushes - just in case. The usual run around has been happening ever since, "we don't have spare brushes", "we don't sell them", "try the pump supplier near you" (closest place is in New Zealand apparently),"no we don't supply brushes try the manufacturer", "no the company was bought out by the water maker supplier".

Circular emails flying now, in the end he asked to be put through to a technical guy and has now, at last, got a proper answer - "the brushes come as part of an overhaul kit", great "how much and where can we get one from" " we can send you a kit, the lead time is 8 weeks". There is a deadly silence, but at least we have an answer of sorts and the tech guy has sent through a schematic so Gerry can check other stuff out, the troubling thing is that he has found a wear patch on the brushes now that he knows what they are supposed to measure. There is no way we are going to order something with an 8 week lead time so we are just going to baby the pump along for the time being and try to be gentle with our water usage. Pump brushes have officially become our nemesis!

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On the up side we heard on Friday that the fuel filters we need have arrived in Tahiti and can be flown up to Nuku Hiva early this week. We put in the order and got an eyewatering quote for them plus freight plus the agent fee, we need to very quickly have a second child so that we can sell it off to cover the cost of these damn filters! They are supposed to be here today so fingers crossed, it will be one less thing to worry about.

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We had let the rigger know that we have transferred the money to his account to get the shroud made up and sent up to us so with any luck by the end of next week we should be set to take off once again.

Gerry has emailed the French authorities three times now asking what is happening with our application to stay longer and also to stop off in Tahiti and I can finally tell you that as of yesterday, Monday, we are no longer here illegally, we have the authority to stay longer and to visit Tahiti, thank goodness. The email didn't say how long we could stay but apparently our visa here is good for 90 days under normal circumstances, not that these are anything like normal circumstances but we will take all the time we need!

The wet, wild and windy days have confined us to the boat and even that has been unpleasant as the swell coming in from the sea has been rocking the boat quite violently making all activities a task and a half with a bruise and brace difficulty thrown in for good measure. The cockpit has been swamped with water as we left the enclosure curtains open but at least it's fresh water and not sticky sea water, we just need the sun to hang around for a couple of days to dry everything out. From the boat we can see a few waterfalls that have appeared on the surrounding hills, it looks like the place could very easily be flooded if the rain continues for any great length of time. Our activities have been reduced to reading, sleeping and some basic cooking along with the showering and teeth scrubbing and not much else. Our dinghy has been tied up alongside the boat as it kept bashing into the stern ladder with the rolling and Gerry has had to climb down into it to bail it out on two occasions and also to right the fuel container which, being only half full, had managed to turn upside down with the bashing and water logging of the dinghy (AKA Opal's swimming pool!).

Talking of swimming, I have been very wary of getting in the water to swim and on the weekend it proved my caution to be justified as I was outside when a shark fin glided between our boat and the next boat over. I called Gerry out to have a look and make sure that I wasn't seeing things - it was definitely a shark and there went any tiny possibility of me getting into the water for a swim anytime in the foreseeable future!.

So today is Tuesday and we have just got back from our first shore trip in a few days. We stopped for coffee in the cafŽe and whilst we were there the Yacht services guy came to find us and drop off a box containing our filters so that was one thing off of our list with a big tick. We had planned on going to the supermarket but the box with the filters was extra to carry so we decided to do the supermarket tomorrow instead and just had lunch before fighting our way back into our dinghy and coming back out to the boat.
We had had emails from the Kamikaze group saying that there is a flotilla heading out of Galapagos this week coming our way, to this end we are trying to get ourselves organised and ready to leave before they arrive and the anchorage gets crowded. Its already hard enough trying to get somewhere to tie the dinghy up to at the dock as people are both selfish and stupid with how they leave their dinghies. Given that the tides are quite big and there are only 2 ladders where you can climb out onto the dock things can only get worse with a whole lot more boats arriving.

Back on the boat Gerry has set about and changed out the fuel filter on the gen set, it took 4 goes to get it to start but hopefully that will get better with the new filter in place.
A final word to our American friends, we hope you had a wonderful 4th July celebration, there was nothing to celebrate here apart from the fact that we are safe and covid free!

8th July Oil everywhere and mouse
Weather; wet, wind vicious and nasty, waves causing a horrible swell inside the harbour


Wet, windy and wobbly Wednesday arrived with not much to recommend getting out of bed but we got up anyway.

Straight after we had finished eating breakfast Gerry began delving in the tool locker, when I asked what he was planning on doing I wished I hadn't asked, he wanted to change the oil on the gen set. As we now had new fuel filters in place he thought that clean oil might help with the sluggish starting. He vanished out into the cockpit and I reluctantly followed him out as I was sure to be needing to fetch something that he had forgotten. Gerry had done the boat yoga stuff and squeezed himself into the lazarette and was busy manually pumping the old oil out of the gen set and into a waste oil container, there followed a whole lot of sailor speak and the first demand, for me to fetch him some kitchen towel.

As I handed him the sheets of kitchen towel there was even more sailor speak, he handed me out the waste oil container along with a small container and lid all of which were coated in a thick layer of oil, at this point I peered into the black hole and saw what all the swearing was about, the oil was all over the place, around and underneath the gen set, miraculously not on Gerry. I held open a plastic bag to receive the yards of kitchen towel that Gerry was mopping up the oil with, it was over everything at this point. I wasn't brave enough to ask what had happened, I value my head far too much to have it snapped off, but Gerry offered up the reason anyway.

Gerry after he had finished changing the oil

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Apparently he had pumped out what he could, thinking that almost all of the oil was now out of the gen set he opened up the valve at the bottom and a whole load more oil gushed out. Why this happened when he thought that it was almost all removed is just a guess but we think that the boat rocking as badly as it was had caused the oil to sit on one side until the boat rolled back and it found the exit point. Anyway there was far more excess than the small container and lid could hold so it had spilt everywhere. One carrier bag full of oil coated kitchen towels and 2 sets of hands with oily grim under the fingernails later, we eventually got the mess cleaned up, and Gerry refilled the gen set with new, clean oil.

Next he wanted to check the glow plug to make sure that it was actually heating up to start the motor but it is well and truly stuck in its hole and Gerry didn't want to force it out and break it as we, of course, don't have a spare one to replace it with. This check was really just to keep me happy as I had suggested that maybe the glow plug wasn't working properly even though it was drawing down the power prior to turning the motor over, Gerry was convinced there was nothing wrong with it but tried to do the checking anyway. He did discover a broken hose clamp on the fuel return line whilst trying to get at the glow plug so that got replaced. By now we were well and truly over the oil change and it was time for Gerry to get out of the lazarette and clean any oil off of himself before giving the gen set a run.

So did the oil change make any difference to the sluggish starting? Not a single bit, we didn't expect it to start first go immediately after the oil change but having tried it a couple of times since we haven't noticed any improvement, it still takes at least 4 tries to get it to catch, we'll just have to live with that for the moment and baby it along.

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By now it was 8.30am and the weather was settling in to another wet and windy day, we really needed to get off of the boat as we had a trash bag that was full and stinking the place out plus we now had waste oil to get rid of so we prepared ourselves to go ashore. There was a brief let up in the rain that we made the most of and hurriedly dinghied ashore, making it before the next downpour. We quickly got rid of the trash and headed across to the waste oil depository which is on the way to the supermarket. We had just dumped the oil and were heading to the supermarket when the next down pour started causing us to have to wait it out under a tree as we had no coats and no umbrella. As soon as there was a let up we head off once more making it to the supermarket in record time where we filled a basket with essential stuff plus a couple of none essential things before we took off at Olympic speed back along the foreshore to the cafŽe.

By now it is was lunch time so we stopped and put in our lunch order. We were a little thrown today by one of the "Plats de jour", it read "Souris d'agneau" and came with pasta, but neither Gerry nor I were sure what this was. We knew that agneau was lamb but neither of us knew what Souris was, possibly a cooking method or maybe a cut of meat?. We weren't ordering anything but baguettes anyway but curiosity got the better of me, I had to know what Souris was so I got Gerry to put it into the phone and Google translate it.

Any takers for identification

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Now if your French is better than ours you possibly know what Google came up with, Souris translates as "Mouse". We were amused and dumfounded but not to be out witted we just couldn't envision mouse lamb. Gerry then put the whole phrase into translate and it came up as Lamb shank which made a whole lot more sense, it just goes to show that you can't take part of a phrase and expect translate to get it right! So today we have learnt a new word with 2 meanings, our French vocabulary is increasing whether we want it to or not!

We had our baguettes and then headed back out to the boat just before the rain began pelting down once more. There was nothing to do for the afternoon but read our books and hunker down out of the weather. Gerry had checked in with the rigger in Tahiti to see if our money transfer had hit his account today, according to him it hadn't even though it was taken out of our account and processed on the 2nd.

It was now 5 o'clock and never has there been more need for a large glass of something alcoholic, we retired to the cockpit to watch the last of the rain clouds coming over the top of the hills and splattering the deck with rain before eventually going back below in time for dinner.

[David Fox]

Caught out by our bad French again, 10 July
Weather; overcast with showers, wind gusty, waves causing a horrible swell inside the harbour

A couple more days of nothing much happening, the wind hadn't died down but at least it wasn't raining although it continued to threaten as the surrounding hills were covered in a blanket of cloud. Gerry mentioned going ashore but I really didn't want to today and we ended up staying on board the boat and having a day of doing as little as possible. We spent a good part of the day sitting in the cockpit and reading our books, a good way to spend the day! Gerry of course couldn't help himself and had to invent a job that needed doing, it was so desperate that he chose to put muriatic acid down the one working toilet that we have, causing it to gurgle and bubble away as it ate its way through the scale build up. I suppose it is quite important that we keep this one toilet working or we will be up shit creek ! We watched a super yacht come into the fuel dock and tie up late in the afternoon, it is the first super yacht we have seen in the harbour, they are of course allowed to go alongside for fuel whereas us plebs aren't allowed to (it might have something to do with draft or the amount of fuel that they needed to buy but who knows!) once they had filled up though they moved off the fuel dock and went out towards the entrance of the harbour and dropped their anchor there. The owners didn't appear to be onboard as there was no invitation for drinks and /or dinner forthcoming, plus we could only see lights on in the very lower deck, where the minions are billeted.

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Disaster has stuck this evening, we have finished all of the rum and every last drop of wine that we have on board so unless we go and buy more we are down to drinking the half bottle of tequila that we have left and a quarter bottle of brandy, oh and then of course there is the 150% proof, rocket fuel, rum that neither of us dare to even sniff!

So Friday has rolled around and we were definitely getting off the boat today. The sun has even chosen to show its self today and the water is a little calmer. We listened to the cruisers net, not that there was anything really worth-while apart from a report of a system coming off of Bundaberg that will have some impact on anyone wanting to leave for New Zealand in the next week, that's not us so we didn't pay too much attention to it. After the net finished we jumped in the dinghy and headed into the dock. Gerry stopped to ask Kevin at yacht services why we couldn't get a hotspot with our sim card, there apparently is a simple answer, which we weren't aware of, you need to go into APN and put in "Internet" and low and behold the hotspot appears, who knew! Once that was sorted we walked along the shore line to the smaller supermarket to pick up some flour which we badly needed along with a couple of other bits that we couldn't live without (a bottle of rum and a bottle of wine to balance out the backpack!). As it was a nice day we strolled back along the foreshore where a group of school aged children were lined up to have a turn of riding one of 3 horses along the water line, apparently it is mid-term school break and the children were all at a camp and this was a "keep them busy" activity.

Back at the cafŽe we had coffee then ordered lunch, Gerry got caught out with his French yet again as the menu said "roast pork roti" which he duly ordered expecting a West Indian style roti - a bit like a wrap. To his horror what arrived was a plate with pork ribs! A quick look at google translate and we discovered that roti in French is actually ribs.

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Gerry was, of course, mortified as those of you who know him well are aware that he doesn't do any sort of meat that comes with a bone in it. The ribs smelt good and I would have offered to swap my meal for his but I'd ordered raw fish in coconut milk so he wouldn't have eaten that either, he had to bite the bullet and eat the ribs! We pulled up the West Indian roti photo to show the girl behind the counter as she couldn't work out why we were so surprised at the sight of a plate of ribs, so yet again we have to remind ourselves that all is not as it seems with the French language and we should be checking everything we expect against the reality of what it really is! Once we had finished our lunch it was time to head back out to the boat, whilst we had been ashore the swell had picked up once more and it was a bumpy ride out to the boat, difficult to get back on board as the stern was going up and down like a lift and rolling from side to side at the same time but we made it and nothing ended up in the water.

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The afternoon was spent watching a movie for the millionth time - Pulp Fiction. Now I have to say at this point that this was the first time I have ever watched the entire movie from start to finish, I have always only seen bits of it in the past and it has never made any sense to me, I'm not really sure that it does now but at least I have a better idea about what went on in it now. Gerry put a second movie on, one that I would like to have seen from the start (Cloud Atlas) but I really wanted to make the most of being outside in the sunshine and left him watching by himself to begin with. It just means that we will have to watch it again some other time! I sat and did nothing in the cockpit except watch the comings and goings of the boats around the harbour, I did a count of the boats and in the last few days there has been an exodus of 12 boats - that's 25% of the boats that were here when we arrived, it must be time for the next bunch to turn up shortly.

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We returned to the cockpit to have a rum thingy, way past cocktail hour, but better late than never. So that was our lot for the past couple of days. The super yacht is still at anchor, we suspect that the owners must be flying in to join the boat in the next couple of days. Oh, one other thing happened today that I almost forgot to tell you, Gerry had an email from the rigger who tells us that he now has the money transfer in his account, thank God. Gerry wondered if it had anything to do with the trace we put in place but I doubt that, I think that the bank just puts the money on the short term money market for a few days to make what they can out of it - well they have to make their money somehow! So now we wait and see how long it takes for the new shroud to arrive here, hopefully not another week!

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The rope down the mast was the topping lift - a line that usually prevents the boom from dropping to the deck or onto the dodger. In theory we don’t need it as our boom height is controlled hydraulically however, to prevent the boom inadvertently hitting the dodger we used to tension the topping lift so you couldn’t pull the boom down past a certain point. The line would neither go in or out so I had to cut 70’ of line off at the top of the mast.

Our watermaker high pressure pump stopped working - or failed to start. Didn’t trip the breaker so I checked the brush holders and brushes. Full of carbon so blew out and sprayed with contact cleaner. Works ok now. Contacted the watermaker manufacturer and he said that they don’t sell spare brushes. Just buy a new motor.
I did contact the motor manufacturer and they will supply brushes - 8 weeks lead time plus shipping ££$. Just take a pair out of an assembled motor. They did send me the brush drawing so might be able to match somewhere.
I’m having trouble starting the genset, even though I’ve changed the fuel filters and the glow plug appears to be working.(I watch the voltage drop when I energise the plug. It’s manually activated). It takes 2 or 3 goes to fire up but when running takes full load.Gerry On Jul 9, 2021,

[David Fox]

Stop Press, Gerry & Nicky arrived safely in Papeete Tahiti
Our fourth week here is at an end 17 July 2021.
Weather; wet, wet, wet. Wind blowing at gale force, waves very rolly


We are now permanent residents of Nuku Hiva as we have been here for 4 weeks, so much for a 4 day visa! It's a jolly good job that no one seems to care or check up on anyone, I'm pretty sure you could just sail in here, drop your anchor and never check in as there is no coast guard and the gendarmes never check-up to see who is here and who has left. Having said that at least we have clear consciences as we have done the right thing and gotten permission to stay, even if it did take far too many emails and much worrying on our part. We have come across a couple of boats that haven't bothered to check in for various reasons, mostly to do with the (refundable) bond that the French authorities want none EU passport holders to pay, which is around US$2000 per person. Funnily enough we weren't ever asked for the bond or a bond letter from an agent, we suspect it is because we had submitted our personal insurance documents with our original application to stop here and that covers us for repatriation to our home country but we really aren't certain, just glad that we didn't have to stump up the bond money.

We see him here we seem him there.

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There hasn't been too much happening in the past week which is why there has been a lull in blog entries, there just hasn't been much to write about.
The weather this last week has been horrible, we have had really gusty wind most days reaching up to 30 knots which is quite a bit considering we are in a bowl shaped harbour surrounded by high hillside on 3 sides and is only open at the entrance to the sea. Luckily the holding here seems to be really good, we haven't seen anything drag and believe me, it has been so gusty during the night time that we have got up to check that we haven't moved on more than one occasion. We have also had rain, rain and more rain which is good from the point of view that we haven't had to run the water maker every day, we have just collected the run off and funnelled it into the water tanks. The flip side to that is that the inside of the boat has been a bit humid and stuffy and we haven't wanted to go ashore as the dinghy ride in would see us looking like drowned rats from both the rain coming down and the sea water coming into the dinghy from the bumpy swell. Just getting into the dinghy has been a mission in itself on the couple of times that we have braved the weather and gone ashore - mostly to get away from the constant rolling of the boat, even Disney hasn't got a ride that throws you around as much as the swell that we have been seeing.

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With most of our jobs done that can be done for the time being there has been very little to entertain ourselves with other than reading books and watching movies (again). Gerry has tried on a few occasions to find out why we are still having start up issues with the gen set and has systematically gone through every possible cause with no positive results. He continues to scratch his head over the sluggish start and is thinking of all sorts of things that might need replacing when we reach an exotic place that has a chandlery. His latest thinking is that we need to get our batteries checked along with the fuel injector and the glow plug - all of which can't be replaced here so there is no point in taking them out for the time being. The odd thing is that the main engine, which runs off of the same fuel line, starts first time every time - it is a frustrating boat thing I'm sure!

He needs a Mobilectomy

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As I mentioned we have struggled ashore on a couple of the days, just to get away from the rolling. The dinghy ride has been rough each time but the real issue comes when you get to the dock and it's low tide and you have to climb up the ladder to get onto the dock - what could possibly go wrong? Then when you return to the boat there is the problem of trying to get back onboard a boat, via a flimsy ladder, that is going up and down like a lift from a dinghy that is going in the opposite direction to the boat - again what could possibly go wrong! then of course there is the fact that we usually have at least 2 bags with groceries or laundry in them to try and get on board as well, it would be comical to watch if it wasn't so damn difficult! So far we have managed to get ourselves and the bags back on board without any mishaps but I'm sure it's just a matter of time and one bad move away.

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Both times when we have gone ashore we have tried to stay there for a good deal of the day which has meant having coffee and pastries before doing the shoreline walk to the shop and then having lunch on the way back. I was amused by another menu item this week, it said "Poulet roti" now knowing that it wasn't going to be the West Indian sort of roti that we know and love but the French translation of "ribs" and that Poulet is chicken, we speculated just how big these chicken ribs must be, of course we suspect that what you would actually be served was chicken wings but we weren't going to be caught out for a third time! Gerry did one deviation from our regular shopping tour and went in search of the hardware store, he invited me along but I declined as it was up a hill from the supermarket with a couple of twists and turns making the walk a further kilometre that I just didn't need to be doing. He found the place and managed to buy a couple of bits that he was chasing along with some more Muriatic acid (you can never have too much of that stuff!)before returning to the supermarket where we loaded up with essential supplies once again. It's very odd doing shopping here, there is no rhyme nor reason to what you will find in the store from one day to the next, if you see something that you might need in the next week you have to buy it there and then as it won't be available the next time you look! This week's buy of the week was broccoli and celery - the first and only time they have been in the shop since we have been here, I wasn't sure why it suddenly appeared as the supply ship hasn't been here this week so where did it come from? yes I bought some!

We have been here so long now that the girl behind the counter in the cafe knows Gerry by name, how sad is that!
Sad for who. Pity Gerry didn't take a picture of the young lady, like the Pananma Adviser, all goes to liven up this blog to us old sea dogs.

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This week has seen the harbour almost completely empty out of boats that are just passing through, we think they are heading out to other French Polynesian islands whilst they can. The few of us remaining here are either locals or, like ourselves, waiting for parts to arrive from outer space. Our shroud was apparently lodged at the post office for delivery last Friday and was supposed to be coming via airmail, well as of yesterday (exactly one week later) it hasn't turned up yet and the post office guy said to try again on Monday! We have become somewhat resigned to the French way of being slow to get anything done, I think we will be lucky to get this darn shroud by next Friday! Even Gerry has given up fretting about it and just shrugs his shoulders and says it will get here when it arrives. The most frustrating thing is that we really can't take off without it and we have missed 2 weather windows whilst waiting, I guess it could be so much worse so we just have to enjoy paradise on the days when it's not blowing a gale and pouring with rain.

It's not as if we can do much in the way of cleaning the exterior of the boat whilst we wait, it's far too wet and the swell is much too rough to be getting in the water to scrub the hull or in the dinghy to try and reach the above water line bits that so badly need to be cleaned, they are just going to have to wait until we are back in a calm anchorage or a yard.

We are slowly getting through our stores on the boat and I've become an expert bread maker, I have even had a success with some spelt flour this week - something I was a bit reluctant to try as I had read a few reports of it being difficult to work with - it's not and it turned out delicious.
We have heard this week that Covid (Delta variant) has arrived in Nuku Hiva, we aren't sure how many cases there are currently but everyone and everywhere is being more conscientious about mask wearing and social distancing. Guess being stuck out in the harbour is going to be a good way to avoid getting it.

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[David Fox]

Week 5 but whos counting 25 July 2021
Weather; improving, wind dropping, waves flattening

Yet another week has whizzed by and we are still stuck here in Nuku Hiva, not a bad place to be stuck but it can be as frustrating as all hell at times.

So let's start with the bad bits, our shroud still hasn't arrived from Tahiti, it's apparently in the postal system and was supposed to come air mail - that's 2 weeks now! We have been told that the system works on an adhoc basis, despite it supposed to being air mail it might actually be coming by ship, no one can tell us despite there being tracking on the parcel!

The supply ship calls in here once every 2 weeks and it arrived here the middle of this week getting our hopes up, they were quickly dashed as there was no sign of our package. A second tanker also comes every 2 weeks and arrived here on Thursday night, again our hopes were raised and dashed, still no shroud! So now we are beginning to wonder if we will ever see it and get out of here, it's a lesson in patience for certain, I don't know how the locals cope with it all the time it must be very frustrating or they must grow and smoke some serious dope here to maintain their sanity!

Gerry has almost become philosophical about the whole situation and is trying his best to be chilled out and relaxed, hard to imagine I know!

That hasn't stopped him from trying to find things to occupy his time this week he took the shower seat off, it's a small wooden seat for you to sit on and shower when the boat is trying to tip you over and he had noticed that one of the corner joints had come apart, it's probably been like it since the day we bought the boat but as neither of us have ever used it, it has gone unnoticed or ignored until now.


If we had some large clamps on board the fix would have been simple but of course we don't have the clamps so it has been a more complicated fix. I suggested that he tried gluing it and applying a Spanish windlass to hold it whilst it set (thanks to dad, I know what a Spanish windlass is!) He gave that a go, after first cleaning up the joint but unfortunately the angle made it difficult to keep the pressure constant and the joint together so it was back to the drawing board.

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The second option was one I really wasn't keen on, gluing and screwing the joint together - what could possibly go wrong? Anyway he cleaned the joint once more marked up where the screw holes needed to drilled out, and set about putting the screws in place then applying the glue before tightening down on the screws. This time the epoxy that he used was the dregs at the bottom of the containers, thinking that as he didn't need much to fill the gap it would do, unfortunately as it was the dregs after 24hours it hadn't set and had leaked out of the joint, back to the drawing board again!

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This time he got out our new containers of epoxy and mixed up some fresh stuff but followed the same procedure as last time, thank goodness it set this time around. Now I suspect it's going to be a case of having to re varnish the seat before it gets put back into the shower but I'm keeping very quiet as I don't want to end up with that job. As to whether the seat will hold up to use it's anyone's guess but it has a better chance now than it had originally.

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Other jobs this week, well there is the continuation of the never ending saga of the gen set and it's sluggish starting. Gerry has gone through every conceivable possibility to try and work out why there is an issue, even to the point of contacting the manufacturer, who is convinced that it is a fuel starvation issue. We have found this a bit hard to swallow as the main engine which uses the same fuel line starts first time, every time.

Gerry tends towards thinking it is a voltage issue but as there isn't a battery supplier here we can't do much about checking that until we get to Tahiti, with that in mind and to make certain that there isn't fuel starvation he has had the fuel lines apart and cleaned out / blown through each and every bit of fuel line in the system. Now I have to say that there was a bit of dirt and rust that blew out of the lines but nothing that should have blocked or reduced the flow and after cleaning the lines we tried the gen set again with no different result but at least we know the fuel lines are clear. So we are back to starting the engine and then firing up the gen set before turning the main engine back off again every time we need to use the gen set.

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The last job for the week has been the checking of the auto pilot hydraulic oil which he found to have dropped and needed topping up, checking the pullies, greasing them and making sure that they are operational just in case we need to use them any time in the near future!


The really good thing this week has been the change in weather, the wind has dropped but there are still occasional gusts that rock the boat around, the rain has taken itself off over the top of the hills and dropped somewhere else and we have had a few really warm and pleasant days when sitting in the cockpit has been quite pleasurable, if somewhat boring as most of the boats have taken advantage of the better weather and left for other ports. Of course there have been a couple of new arrivals but even they haven't stayed for very long, getting out whilst the going is good.

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Gerry managed to get a couple of good photos of a double rainbow that showed up in the harbour early in the week, luckily it was the end of the rain for a while. With the change in weather and the calmer swell we have been able to sleep a bit better but the cooler night have meant that we have needed a blanket ( I can hear you all laughing at what wimps we are!)

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There is a cruiser's net radio broadcast that operates here on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, giving information and letting cruisers get to know the goings on around the place, we listen in most days and on Wednesday this week it proved to be an essential service. The first call out is always for any emergency traffic or medical requirements and on Wednesday a boat put out a call for assistance to get the captain ashore as he had been discovered lying in his cockpit by a boat crew that he had lent something to.

This man is a lone sailor so he was lucky to be found as he had apparently been lying in the cockpit for 2 days, the call was for a bigger dinghy to get him ashore but no one knew what was wrong with him, he was conscious but unable to weight bear with nothing was apparently broken. After asking if anyone could assist, the net controller said she could get across in her dinghy but it would take a while as her dinghy wasn't in the water, Gerry to the rescue - he called in and said our dinghy was in the water, and if big enough, he would go to assist.

Quickly dressing he jumped in the dinghy and headed across to the stricken boat where he found the neighbours who had found the captain and a fitness instructor from another boat who had taken charge and was trying to organise moving the captain. Of course the swell was at its worst so getting him into our dinghy was a trial and a half but in the end they succeeded and 3 people plus Gerry took off for the shore where an ambulance had been organised by the yacht services owner and the captain was transferred with a lot of heaving and puffing to the local hospital.

As of today we still have little idea what the problem was but apparently the captain was put into intensive care to begin with (I suspect that it was really an emergency admission ward and not the intensive care that I know and love). There was some talk that it was an infection in his leg that had caused him to collapse and be immobile but it is just hearsay and, in my opinion unlikely, but who knows. We have asked if anyone is looking out for him and his boat as the neighbours that found him have left the harbour and we were told by the yacht services owner that he was doing the checking up so we have butted out but hope that he is doing OK and will be discharged soon. Gerry gets brownie points for doing a good deed this week!



WELL DONE GERRY


Sitting in the cockpit for sun set has become the highlight of the day and it has become quite routine for us to mark the time of day, the helicopter that is based here returns home every evening from wherever it goes, at around 5.30pm we can almost set our clocks by it and start to get worried when it doesn't appear. With the change in weather there has been a slight off the land breeze in the early evening which wafts a delightful scent of jasmine and frangipani out towards us. The moon has been approaching fullness for the week and gives off a beautiful bright glow over the hills for now.

We have spotted a shark in the water yet again in the last day, swimming between out boat and the next one over, there is no way I am ever going to get in the water here confirmed! We have done our normal treks into the supermarket as we run out of rum, chocolate and tim tams and have stopped at the cafeŽ a couple of times for lunch and coffee but otherwise we have been quite lazy and spent our days relaxing and reading our books (again, thank heavens for kindles!) .

The only other bit of interesting news we've had this week is that on the back of the Political unrest and protests in France their president, Macron, is coming to French Polynesia for a break. As far as we know he isn't coming to Nuku Hiva but is visiting Hiva Oa where he will no doubt visit the graves of Paul Gaugin, artist and possibly paedophile, as well as that of Jacques Brei, the singer. We can't begin to imagine the cost of the trip here which will be footed by the French tax payers but we hope the visit is worth the effort!
So with nothing much else happening we are keeping our fingers crossed that this coming week will see the arrival of our shroud and a possible weather window to get us out of here. I'll be back with an update next week, if not before.


6.8.2021

BTW, we were vaccinated yesterday, courtesy of the French government.

Gerry