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American Spirit II - Day 88; Fueling Celebrate, Trilium Dingy Transfer, Snack Shop BBQ and Tsumani Alert; Tuesday, April 1, 2014



Up at 6:00 AM. Throat still sore, nose still running. Started generator at 7:00 AM to recharge batteries. This is something we do usually every morning and every evening for about 2 hours at at time. We only burn about 36 gallons of diesel an hour when we do this, which is not a great amount of fuel. While under sail, we charge our batteries with the hydro generator and wind turbine; and use the generator only if we're going less than 5 knots of boat speed.

We finished breakfast by 9:00 AM, when Charlie from the US yacht Celebrate picked Joel and me up in his dingy. Really a motor boat. Charlie's boat is 58 feet, or about 5 times larger than our 40 footer. We traveled in Charlie's yacht to the fuel dock, where Joel remained on the boat and I climbed the ladder at the fuel dock to tend the lines, while Celebrate was fueled. This took about one hour and 20 minutes, as Celebrate has 3 different fuel tanks. He took on board 998 liters, or about 250 gallons. Though that's a lot of fuel (our boat holds 55 gallons in one diesel fuel tank), one boat in our Rally, Nexus, a 60 foot catamaran, can carry 558 gallons of diesel. While we were fueling a large 2,000 person cruise ship anchored in the bay. The name of the vessel was the Marina. It then began disembarking passengers to the dingy dock area, and continued to do this throughout the day and evening.

After fueling, Charlie and Cathy invited us to the Snack Shop for lunch, which was great. Some sort of chopped chicken and wild rice concoction. Very good. After lunch we walked around town until 3;00 PM.

At 4:00 PM I gave Dennis and his dingy a ride in my dingy to the dingy dock, so his dingy could be fixed. While fueling earlier in the day, his dingy had gotten caught under the concrete fuel pier and had its top punctured, a 12 inch tear in the dingy. Not good. I was back at the boat at 4:40 PM, and then we all returned to the Snack Shop for a BBQ dinner that cost only 1,000 francs - $12.50. A great price. Our Rally dinner Wednesday night costs $55.00. It looked like every Rally boat in the fleet had crew at this dinner. It was quite crowded.

We got back at the boat at 9:00 PM, and then Joel got a text from his daughter, Heather, and I got one from my wife, Janet, about a Tsunami in Chile that might be a problem for us in French Polynesia. Initially, it was forecast that a wave 4 meters high (12 feet) might reach us. Once we got the texts, we made an announcement to the fleet, and then we contacted the cruise ship and asked them if they had any updates for us; and if not, to contact us later when they got some. Within the hour, one of the Rally boats, in looking at the Tsunami web site, said that the warning was canceled and that we would get a one meter wave in French Polynesia.

We then watched one episode of The Sopranos, and then went to bed about 10:15 PM.

Brian Fox

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