Hi All,

It's been so long that I'm sure you've forgotten me! I've been shockingly bad about keeping in touch, but internet access in this part of the world is difficult at best.

As planned, I left Computerland May 3rd, but didn't get out of NZ until mid-August. From NZ, we sailed to Fiji, then Vanuatu, and are currently in Noumea, New Caledonia - "The Paris of the Pacific." It's been a lot of fun and some tribulation.

The trip up from New Zealand was a challenge. We left Wellington for Gisborne only to discover that the alternator expert who had removed the internal regulator from our alternator so that I could use my own external regulator to efficiently and quickly charge the on-board battery bank (I can explain the whys and hows if you’re interested) had refused to follow my specific instructions and explanations. As a result, the alternator initially appeared to operate ideally, but a couple of hours out I noticed that it was still charging full speed. The regulator was not in control and the batteries were getting cooked from overcharging. Rather than face the ridicule and embarrassment of returning to the marina in failure, I devised a cunning plan.

I disconnected the alternator completely. We would just use our electronics normally and when the battery bank was low, I’d plug the alternator back in and charge it up. When the bank was full, I’d disconnect again. Sort of a manual regulator.

As I was confident in the ability of the alternator to charge the batteries quickly, we continued to burn power unconcerned. By nightfall it was time to charge up the bank, so I reconnected the alternator and fired up the engine. Nothing. Not an amp. Not a volt. Evidently the alternator had cooked itself before I disconnected it. We had 3 days to go on what was left of the charge. The fridge needed defrosting anyway. And the onboard computer used for electronic navigation and autopilot control was a high power draw convenience anyway. Back to manual navigation and piloting. And I had a good pair of binoculars, so I didn't really need the RADAR right? As it happened, we had enough wind to drive our wind powered generator to offset some of our power usage, so running navigation lights at night and using the GPS was OK.

In Gisborne, we found that not only was the alternator cooked, but it had cooked my external regulator too. A replacement circuit board for my regulator was $700. I was not happy. We managed to get the alternator rebuilt (properly this time) and found a guy in Auckland who was able to replace a diode in the regulator, saving the time and expense of ordering a replacement circuit board from the U.S. The whole deal cost less than a third of what the Wellington genius charged to stuff it up in the first place.

A couple of weeks later we departed Gisborne for Fiji. Customs officials came over from Napier to clear us out. NZ must be the only place in the world where the Customs officials will drive 6 hours round trip to clear out yacht and on the next trip out for a commercial ship call to invite us up to the bar for a beer. It was great.

We were about 12 miles off East Cape motoring along in light wind when I realized that from here on out we would be moving further from NZ. As we would shortly lose cell phone coverage, I called Telecom to cancel my account and pay the bill.

The first guy I talked to advised me that I had to submit a cancellation request in writing with my signature “for legal reasons.” I explained my situation, but he insisted that he couldn’t do anything without a signature “for legal reasons” and asked me to send a letter once I arrived in Fiji. I told him that would be fine, but I wasn’t going to pay for the phone beyond right now. That wouldn’t be acceptable either because they required the signature “for legal reasons.” It was now time to explain that there was no law in New Zealand requiring a signature to disconnect a mobile phone and he should just stop this silly insistence that my signature was required and admit it was nothing more than policy. He agreed, but couldn’t help me “for policy reasons.” I asked for and was transferred to a manager, but was mysteriously disconnected before I ever reached one.

I called back and demanded to speak with the most senior manager available, and if that happened to be Theresa herself that would be even better. Eventually I got a manager of some description and explained my issue and the history to date. He couldn’t help me either. Until I explained that I was working very hard to make a good faith effort to pay Telecom what I rightly owed them, but if he was unwilling to accept my money then I’d happily toss my phone into 1000 meters of ocean and continue to sail off to Fiji, and as I was not planning to return Telecom would never see nor hear from me again. That finally awakened some dim spark of his intellect and he agreed to cancel the account. He took payment by credit card and all was done.

Just as we were saying goodbye, there was a loud bang, the engine started racing, and a huge cloud of black smoke came pouring out of the exhaust. Something very bad had happened. If you are ever told that Telecom can’t turn on or off a phone instantly, it’s a lie. This phone was already disconnected. What's the most important thing about comedy? Timing...

We discovered that the crankcase was filled with diesel. There was so much fluid in the crankcase that the pressure had built up to the point where it popped the pressure relief valve. The pressure relief valve was plumbed into the air intake of the engine, so the oil was sucked into the cylinders and burned as additional fuel. Thus the racing engine and black smoke. We pumped out 13 liters of engine and diesel oil from a crankcase that is supposed to hold 7 liters of oil. There was still some left, but we’d run out of containers to put it in. We topped up the crankcase with fresh engine oil and called maritime radio on the VHF.

We decided to divert to Tauranga and check back into the country to effect repairs. We only ran the engine when we had to, and even then at very low RPM. About 28 hours later we were directed to a berth in the Bridge Marina and met by the very Customs official who had cleared us into the country over 2 and a half years previously. He happily granted us another one year temporary import on the boat and issued us with 3 month tourist visas (we’d been overstayers for 2 months by the time we had cleared out of the country, but the Customs guy in Gisborne was polite enough to pretend not to notice).

Before leaving Wellington, we had paid a diesel mechanic $2k to perform preventative maintenance on a perfectly operating engine. As it turned out, he had inadvertently loosened a valve on the injector pump when removing the injectors for testing and never tightened it. The #3 injector was just pumping diesel into the crankcase instead of the #3 cylinder. $600 and 2 oil changes later, the local mechanics had identified and corrected the problem. After a week in Tauranga, we cleared out of the country again and set sail in earnest for Fiji.

This late in the season, the weather is somewhat unsettled. We had 3 great days of sailing and then the wind went away completely. We motored for a couple of days before the wind came back, but a low pressure system had developed and passed directly over us. We ended up in a gale with winds of about 70-75kph on the nose and seas to match. We were getting weather faxes every hour, so knew what was happening and that we could not do much about it. We hove to (reefed the sails down really short and backed them against each other to stop the boat and hold it at an angle to the seas) for about 18 hours while we went below to wait it out. The motion was somewhat violent, but not so bad that we couldn’t watch a DVD (Shrek).

When the center of the low moved over us the skies cleared and the wind stopped, although the seas did not. As the center moved on, the wind came back at full force from the other direction and quickly forced the seas to come from the south also. We set a scrap of headsail and no main. We surfed downwind the remainder of the trip to Fiji with just a scrap of headsail out.

We cleared into Lautoka the afternoon of August 20 and made it to the marina at Vuda Point just before nightfall. All told the trip was hard, but not as bad as it may sound. We were, however, very happy to tie up the boat and go out for dinner and a beer.

We rented a car in Lautoka and drove around the island to Suva. We drove back through the mountains over what is called the “King’s Highway.” It was an almost impassable mud track for our little front wheel drive Toyota. Very backwater old Fiji. Everybody wanted to talk and wave and shake hands. It’s really a Fiji that tourists never see.

We sailed to Musket Cove on Malolo Lailaii island Musket Cove is the starting point for the annual Fiji to Vanuatu yacht race. It’s a great race with only a couple of rules. Rules include: the first boat to cross the finish line in Vanuatu is automatically disqualified unless they can prove they were blatantly cheating, fishing is compulsory, and motoring is to be regarded as the normal means of propulsion in winds of less than 10 knots.
www.musketcovefiji.com

We arrived the day of the race. We picked up a mooring in the bay and joined the Musket Cove Yacht Club as lifetime members. The fee was a little steep. $1 Fiji for the captain and $5 Fiji for each of the crew. About $8US total. The catch is that the only way to join is to either sail from a foreign port or sail to a foreign port. The island is home to two resorts: Musket Cove and Paradise Island. As yacht club members, we were granted access to all the Musket Cove amenities. Musket cove also has a “marina.” Really a floating pier. Boats drop their anchor in the middle of the channel and back up to the pier. It seemed to be pretty full, but hot and buggy. We enjoyed the anchorage.

At the entrance to the channel is the $3 bar. Everything is $3. They also light BBQ’s for the yachties each night. Crews from several boats would gather each evening to BBQ, have a beer, and tell lies. It was a fun 2 weeks.

We left Musket Cove to head back to Vuda Point Friday, September 27. Our plan was to top off the water and fuel tanks, wash clothes, provision, and clean Toucan over the weekend and clear out of the country on Monday. We’d then sail to one of the outer islands and wait for a good weather window to head for Vanuatu. We had almost cleared the last reef as we rounded Malolo Lailai when we heard a loud noise and a horrible rattle from the engine. I went below to diagnose the engine while Cyndee steered for every little bit of breeze to keep us off the reef.

We found that if we ran the engine at low RPM, the rattle almost disappeared. Once clear of the reef, we shut off the engine and sailed to the entrance channel at Vuda. The following morning, we asked a diesel mechanic friend to help us diagnose the problem. An hour later he’d concluded the flexible coupling between the engine and the transmission had broken. When we pulled the starter motor, we could see bent metal past the flywheel. Cyndee and I pulled the transmission out that afternoon and found that the real problem was a fan blade bolted to the flywheel to cool the transmission had committed suicide. I recovered about ¾ of the blade and a handful of shrapnel.

The guy at the parts desk at the top tier Yanmar (that's the brand of enging) parts franchise in the US told me he’d never heard of such a part and suggested the boat builder put it on. At $20 for a 6 minute phone call, it went downhill from there. At one point we were informed that there was only one of these parts in the US and this guy couldn’t sell it to me because I was not in his region. I had to call an outfit in California to order it. That outfit informed me that they didn't have the part. Ultimately, we bullied the first parts place to air freight it to us. It arrived bent in two places, but we couldn't take the time to go through the whole process again so we straightened it as best we could and installed it. Put the transmission back in and aside from a rattle that indicates a bad bearing, we were good to go. We'll rebuild the tranny in Australia.

That gets you up to Fiji. From there we sailed to Vanuatu. We are currently in Noumea, New Caledonia "the Paris of the Pacific." It really is pretty and the weather is perfect. Aside from the fact that it sits in the Cyclone belt (cyclone season officially began November 1 and the insurance company will not cover damage to the boat caused by "named storms" beyond November 15) and that we speak no French, it would be a great place to stay for the next 6 months or so.

We expect to sail for Brisbane early next week. Early in the new year, we'll have to fly back to the States to visit family and friends for awhile. It's been 4 years or so.

 

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