When you fall in love and she lets you down!!!
Hi from Skipper Steve.
After my last report where I stupidly mentioned that Kasuje was behaving wonderfully well and that I was slowly falling in love with a piece of machinery, I now have to admit that the course of true love is not running fair, and that we have had a bit of a fall out!!
However more on that later, after I have described the wonders of the Island of Tanna. We have just left this beautiful place with a heavy heart after what for me was a humbling couple of days with the warmest,friendliest, most charming and happy villagers I am ever likely to come across. The whole village of Port Resolution greeted our fleeting visit with open arms and a genuine warmth which for us from our western culture quite takes your breath away. If only we could be so loving and generous of heart, maybe most of our culturural problems would disappear. These people live a very simple life and have none of the trappings of our culture, however, unlike the poor communities I have previously visited, they are in great health, are well educated and certainly appear extremely happy with there way of life. The islanders do not endure any form of crime, they have a simple diet of fresh home grown food, which is cooked communally each evening and sing and dance the evenings away. All the children, (and as the adults appear very productive there is a lot of them) attend the local school, can speak English, French, and there own dialect and play soccer at an extreme pace!!! They treated us to a formal ceremony of welcome with an exchange of presents followed by traditional dancing and singing, the cava was extremely strong and it wasn't long before the more gregarious of our fleet was joining in, (to the great amusement of the locals!!!)
So it was again with great regret that we had, too soon, to leave the island for our onward passage.
Now that is when the trouble started.
Firstly Mike decided that boat life was not for him and the thought of another passage was too much to stomach. So a flight out was hurriedly arranged and all being well, we will meet up again when we get to Sydney. We were very sorry to see him leave but fully understand that the curse of Mal de Mer can destroy any enjoyment of sailing.
Then Kasuje decided to play up.
Whether she felt neglected, or that I was not giving her enough attention, but she certainly showed her displeasure.
Firstly, the cold water system decided to cough and splutter and delivery everything through the taps except cold water!!
8 hours later after advice from a number of our fleet much sucking and blowing of pipes, we found the problem (air lock in the primary pipe) and the water flow was restored.
Secondly, the water maker decide to spit and fart, then shut down, all by itself!!
We are now in email communication with the manufacturers but as yet we have not found the problem. So we are on water rations and starting to smell a bit.
Thirdly, the navigation lights on the pulpit went out. We are still looking for the fault.
Lastly, and the final straw in our current relationship, as we left Port Resolution bay a gun shot like bang was heard from the engine room with what looked like smoke billowing out from the pedestal. All hands on deck went up, Northy and I descended into the bowels of the engine room fire extinguishers in hand to be greeted on tentatively opening the engine room door by a seen from a seedy Turkish bath. Steam, dirty water and pieces of rubber splattered to all quarters. Fortunately no fire but blown water pipes and we hope no further damage to the engine block. The cause she had over heated as I had stupidly disconnected the engine alarms when I had problems with the alternator and had forgotten to re connect them!!!
So after a tentative day sail, we are now anchored at the next island in the chain, engine less, rationing water and with the prospect of a long day in the dirty engine room.
Apart from that we are all well Dawn ,Robert and Northy appear very happy and I have some sweet talking to do!!
Kind Regards
Skipper Steve