Greetings from yacht Ensemble.
I was up early to transfer the diesel from our jerry cans to the fuel tank. I estimate we have about 300 litres - so not quite enough to get us to Niue, - but at least most of the way.
The new consensus with the weather is that the best time to leave is Saturday or Sunday. The advantage of Saturday is that while the swell will still be large (up to 3m) - there will be some wind. After Sunday the wind is forecast to die down until the end of the week. We'll probably head off Saturday lunch time. If we can get one day of sailing in we should have enough fuel to reach Niue. If the waves / wind are unfavorable - our 'plan B' is to go to Samoa where there are good dock and refuelling facilities - and it is roughly the same distance - but to the East as opposed to the South East. Waves are expected from the South West.
After the weather brief a group of us went to a nearby reef to try and see the Manta Rays. Unfortunately it had already clouded over - and the visibility wasn't that good. After a fruitless 45 minutes we gave up looking. Maybe tomorrow.
Magali tried Karson's paddle board again. She's getting really good at it (and guess what she wants for her birthday!)
I spent the rest of the day trying to track down a battery problem. Over the last couple of days the battery voltage had been reading low - even though the bank said it was 100% charged. We'd also had a smell of sulphur - that we put down to suspect fuel. We then found that the voltage wasn't holding - dropping to below 12V after 30 minutes. I checked the measurements with a hand held multimeter and verified the results. I disconnected the additional house batteries on the port side - and no change. Mike from Wind Dancer came over and we agreed it was probably a dud wet cell. So Mike chose a cell and straight away problem identified and fixed. We charged the batteries another couple of hours and it seemed to work - but will give them a real 'soak charge' today to make sure (hopefully it was just the one cell).
Mike and Karson joined us for a celebratory drink and we were later joined by Dave and Bernie (Glamarous Galahs). We had a few drinks and watched 'Around Cape Horn' and 'Fight Club'.
During the night the rain and wind picked up - but not waves to speak of and we're happy with our holding on the anchorage.
Cheers,
David
25 May 2012 004