Monday, no, Tuesday. No, no, wait, Wednesday is going to perfect. ARRGGHH!
The South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) has moved down on top of Fiji which means the weather forecasting is all but out the door. One day, it looks like there’s going to be a tropical depression (no Bueno), the next day looks good to go, then the next shows torrential rain and headwinds.
Bottom line: I don’t want to head out on an over 1200 mile voyage with such uncertainty. Weather is enough of a crap shoot without the added uncertainty of the SPCZ. So we sit…and wait. This is all exacerbated by the fact that there are probably a dozen other boats around here all ready to head back and literally everyone has an opinion and it’s usually; “Ah, you should have left yesterday”. Well my response; “I’ll leave when I think it’s safe and we’ll have a good ride. YOU can leave when you want”.
The next possible window by my calculation looks to be Monday. Not to jinx it, but this one looks pretty decent, so we’re going to plan for it.
In the mean time Murphy has come aboard. We were running the engine today to charge the batteries a bit given the paucity of sun to power the solar panels, and I heard a gurgle, burp and the raw water exhaust quit flowing. This is the main cooling system for the engine, so I shut the engine down immediately. It was after my shower around 5PM, so I’m not going to start digging around until tomorrow, but suffice to say, this is a major issue. It may be simple like a plastic bag sucked into the intake, or something in the strainer. Or, it it might be a bigger deal like a broken impeller. I replaced the impeller in NZ in March, so if it’s that it’s likely due to the pumice fields we have occasionally seen. There are active volcanos in these waters and you run through floating pumice from time to time. It’s possible for the bits of abrasive pumice to get through the strainer and into the raw water system and wear down the impeller prematurely (they are supposed to last at least 500 engine hours).
Oh well. At least we won’t be bored sitting here waiting.
I hope you are able to make the jump soon! Not that Fiji is the worst place in the world to be stuck though. Good luck!
Jeez, you guys have been very busy little bunnies! Say, when you get done sailing how about you come over here? You seem to be pretty good at working through lists and I’ve got a few. 🙂
The band sounded like a lot of fun. Kinda like the little towns in the US with their band pavilion in the center of town and weekend concerts attended by picnicking families.
I think your Mojo may be intervening to keep you from jumping off with an engine problem. Here’s hoping it’s an easy fix, but whatever, it’ll be lots easier in a harbor than our at sea. I’m sure the weather will open up once the repair is made.