A trip home, a return to the sunshine, and maintenance whack-a-mole.

 It was great to head home for a two week whistle stop visit. It had been 3 months and I was starting to feel a little homesick and missing everyone. 

I left Easso in Cooks bay with the anchor firmly bedded in, but also with the uneasy knowledge that 2 weeks alone on a complicated vessel in a foreign land was a challenge. There is a 7 day anchoring time limit, and the disaffected locals might take a dim view of the boat being there longer than that.  

On arrival in Sydney, the cold and rain were a shock at first; but then I remembered my appreciation for the seasons. It's good to have the cycles of change. However, the cold always gets me thinking of my treasured annual family ski trip.  I had no time for such frivolities this year (because of my commitment to my South Pacific ones) and I feared that they had already flown the coop for good.  Finbar was moving out and Sholto also has his own plans. Cathe was fighting off a winter flu and already gearing up for the pointy end of her PhD. Had I achieved nothing more than to accelerate my journey to becoming a familial fifth wheel?

I hunkered down to try and re-gain some household relevance with some cold weather slow cooking. It was also great to catch up with old friends.

As expected, I also caught a flu, not covid, but a nasty lingering one nonetheless. I boarded the return flight to Tahiti embarrassed and coughing into my mask, before catching up with some of my old NZ cousins in Auckland on my return leg, which was fun after a 42 year hiatus.  

I had 2 kg of clothes and 21.6 kg of boat parts on my return. Foreshadowing some big work days. 

I had been in regular contact with Easso. As he'd expected there had been an aggressive local element which had pre-empted a move to Opunohu Bay, a big move for a solo sailor on a vessel the size and complexity of Evenstar.  

He'd had two weeks on his own in a foreign land, at the mercy of the elements, disaffected locals, and the complex engineering of a big but ageing vessel. I was wondering who I would find on my return? Captain Willard? Donald Crowhurst? Jack Torrance? 

 

There was a scruffy, wild-haired and wild-eyed look on the man who collected me from the dock, but also a palpable sense of relief.

That night the cruise liner looked like a ghost ship further up the bay. RIP Chris Bailey.

After a shave, a haircut and a lunch and the nearby Hilton the next day, Easso's eyes lost the 1000 yard stare; he was in form and ready for action.   

We then re-focused on the next steps for the trip. Which basically involved tackling the various outstanding maintenance tasks. But here's the rub: on boats, for everything you look at, something else crops up; either related, or not.

On day three I hit the nadir. After a long day of testing and diagnosis with wires and multimeter, I leaned down, far into the bowels of the bilge sump, to finally confirm the re-energisation of the bilge pump... And victory, the bilge pump was active again.. But at that very instant, a deluge of water appeared from the engine bay drain. It was a completely unrelated problem, with a very related consequence. 

I immediately knew the watermaker had finally spat out the dummy of the jury-rigged hose clamp fitting I'd set up a month before.... The high pressure pump was spewing water into the bowels of the boat through the newly loose hose. I'd been a little on edge as I'd been half expecting it; and it had the potential to sink us if it happened when the boat was left unattended. I must confess I was tempted to let the newly re-connected bilge pump duke it out with the runaway high pressure pump, but we leapt up and turned the watermaker off.  

The repair involved a foray into the cockpit locker; a hole we call the Yoga Box. Even Cool Hand Luke would think twice before taking it on. But the watermaker is in another compartment behind it... There's only one way in.  

We now had the parts for a proper fix, I just needed Gandhi-like perseverance and the flexibility of a guru. Over many years I have cultivated a certain stillness of breath, and the ability to do up nuts and bolts at contorted angles, without being able to see them, whilst not dropping them, and whilst not getting cramps. These skills have been well-developed repairing 1970's-era cars from both Chysler and General Motors, as well as numerous ageing vessels. On this trip they are paying dividends that were never contemplated when they were being initially attained. 

Et Voila - that small step was done. But how many more remain...

Next it was into the engine bay for more plumbing.  The amorphous thing growing in the raw water strainer could have reached up an throttled me had it been a little faster evolving to a state of self-aware cognition. Sentience looked only seconds away as I scrubbed the filters and flushed the primordial ooze down the sink. 

 

There is more to do tomorrow; we've now clocked two more filters that are probably blocked and slowly destroying pumps on the boat. 

We are working toward a complete understanding of all the electrical, plumbing and mechanical systems. Which we hope to gain other than by destroying them through ignorance or laziness in the first place. But geez there's a lot of them. 

Bonsoir.