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Lydia - Rain and a gremlin



We didn't see as much of Huahine as we would have liked, but the rain was
unrelenting. On Thursay morning we had a swim, did some shopping, had coffee
at the
"yacht club", and headed off for Raiatea. Not much wind, but dark clouds and
lots of rain about. Five miles out, twenty miles from lay-up and
maintenance, the engine alarm burst ino life. That could mean oil pressure
or engine temperature. The oil level has never given cause for concern, and
was last checked a few engine hours ago in Moorea. The temperature looked ok
on the guage. Inlet strainer checked, ok. The water pump felt hot despite
the guage. Impeller? Nothing for it but to return to Huahine, using sail as
much as possible. Once there, I decided to change the impeller, which is a
pig of a job on this boat because of difficult accessibility. Job done, it
took two hours and a lot of wriggling and barked knuckles, and for the
record the old impeller was perfectly serviceable. The oil level was,
surprisingly, a little low, and was topped up. A friendly engineer from a
neighbouring boat had a look and noticed that our oil-pressure guage was
reading maximum, which must be wrong. Faulty guage triggering the alarm? His
advice was "it will get you there".
So the next morning we sailed at 7 am, 15 knots of wind on the beam, all
three white sails fully set and doing a good 6 knots, the engine alarm
beeping away when on, and the blackest of clouds ahead. Within a short time
we had wind gusting at 35 knots and horizontal rain. In came the staysail
and most of the main, yankee down to pocket-handkerchief. And so we
continued, wearing foul-weather tops for the first time this voyage, until
the wind dropped and we started the alarmy engine, and on to Raiatea in
gradually decreasing rain. Through the pass in the reef and into the lagoon,
spectacular as usual, and we motored up the lagoon and round the top of the
island to Apooti marina with Bora Bora looking majestic in the distance.
As I write we are in the marina, our lay-up yard is two miles round the
corner, and we have three days to wind down and get the boat sorted and
clean. We have hired a car so that we can also have a look round the
island. This morning, Sunday, we drove all the way round (60 miles) taking
in the views and looking for somewhere for a beer and a light lunch:
everything was
shut except for the snack-bar at the airport where, to be fair, they did us
well.
Is the voyage over? If so it hasn't sunk in, but it's been some
adventure.Regards from Steve, Alvaro, and Donald.


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