Raiatea - again. May 9-15

I think I left off with our frustrating last day in Bora Bora. 

13 May - Day 9

We left the mooring yard at about 9:00. 

We saw a pod of small dolphin on our way out. I always see them as a good omen and was happy to see them early on that day.   The boat sailed very well and the second hand Main Sail with one reef in and our smaller stay sail in about 20 kt of breeze.  And we arrived back at Raiatea at about 3:00 pm.  We had every possible contingency plan prepared and in our pocket if we lost and engine or steering or any other weirdness!  But we cruised right in... Jeff handled the boat very well!!! Torsten and I got lines on and we successfully did the thing!! LOL

Thursday was a French catholic holiday, so not much was going on in the boat yard. And there was a regatta happening around the island which occupied most of the local professionals.  LOL

Friday, May 14 

Not much assistance available to us, but we got a few helpful tips from professionals via text. 

One of which may have mostly solved our steering issue with the starboard rudder drifting out of alignment... fingers crossed!!! We'll test it out tomorrow.  

We (mostly Torsten) made some real progress on the generator mess. Apparently it swallowed one of the blades off the cooling water pump impeller. SONOFAB$$$  

...and still trying to solve what we believe is an issue with air in the fuel line. 

Decided to get the new sail modified with new, smaller-diameter luff rope in Papeete. 

And we discovered that Percy couldn't stay with his awesome foster family. Apparently his vocalizations were giving their little dog horrendous anxiety.  What a bummer! But our dear generous friends Patrick, Yvonne & Leilani welcomed him to their home in Ewa Beach. He even has his own YouTube channel now! 

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZn4Zz9pfmGPkJzp-fpDM1hiJief8Y20V

Saturday, May 15th

This was our original target departure date. Oh well. C'est la vie. 

The generator runs again! Thanks to many many hours of Torsten's labor in the "hobbit hole"

Jeff re worked the way the new rudder bearings & stock were landed took care of a fair amount of wobble... so that should also help the steering situation.  

Replaced a couple of lines, and cleaned the seals on all the hatches, put in some significant effort to cleaning the engine rooms. (Man, these engine rooms have been neglected!)  I should have taken "before" pictures. ... I always forget that. LOL.

We head out sailing tomorrow- early morning.  And are planning on the trip taking 25-30 hours... as it is nearly 100% upwind sailing for the 130 miles. 

Love & Light 

~e.