April 17
We snorkelled again at "the aquarium" on Sunday morning (incredible snorkellling again) and left for Papeete on Sunday afternoon. Going out the pass from the lagoon to the ocean is difficult and must be timed for the tide change. We made it out and have sailed/motored since then. Last night we ran out of diesel in the tank so we've been sailing, sometimes very slowly. We have 10 gallons in two jerry cans on deck so we'll put those in shortly but we need to sail as much as possible to reach Papeete, even if that means sailing at 2.5 knots - we only have 35 miles to go.
So on Sunday evening I made pizza for dinner, halfway through baking the oven went out - the propane system shut down. Lee worked on that with the manuals for the fire boy system and figured out it was a fuse that had blown. We fixed that and then dealt with the "normal" oven issues. In spite of having a brand new oven the darn thing won't stay lit usually until the third time I light it. The first and second and sometimes third time I light it I carefully make sure it's lit, turn the temp. to where I want it, gently close the door. Two minutes later I open it and the oven is off. I repeat this numerous times EVERY TIME I have to start the oven. It's annoying and I have no idea why it won't stay lit.
Then yesterday while we were motoring the engine started making a funny noise, up and down each time we rolled with a wave. We shut it down to investigate and determined that a fuel filter needed to be replaced. So out come the manuals again and we got the container opened with only a few "colorful" words and got the filter replaced.
The thing that most of the rally boats agree on is that you are always fixing things, even the boats that are less than 5 years old are having numerous items break. The boats take a beating with the salt air, heat, humidity, constant motion...... Cruising is not a vacation, typically in port there are several hours a day, and sometimes a whole day when you can enjoy, but the rest of the time and at sea it's a matter of keeping up with the breakages, sleep deprivation at sea, cooking/cleaning up also take a lot of time..... The conditions are similar to camping, which is nice for a week.
As I've said before I can't wait to stay at a hotel, a real bed and a real bathroom will be MUCH appreciated at this point!
sailing at 2 knots for Papeete......
Pauline