The last days were dominated by PC work. Thus simply boring.

However yesterday was a nice day. A day where things happened I didn’t expect at all.

I needed to do some food shopping thus out early the tender into water do drive to the dinghy dock. Had a look at my new neighbor boat, a 48 ft monohull of a modern design. I was too busy with PC work to saw this boat coming in.

Having tight up the tender at the dinghy dock, I walked towards the gas station to continue towards Atuona already “preying” for a car which good possibly give me a lift. But there was only a small Renault rental car with a couple and a child. No chance I thought.

Between the gas station and the beginning of the concrete pier, the street has become VERY bad and I always wondered when these about 50 m will be repaired. Work began yesterday!

I was lucky because just when I arrived where work started, they made a break to let pedestrians and cars pass.

I made just at the other end of the gas station when the little car I saw before stopped and asked me if I want to go to the village. I got my ride without even using my hitch hiking thumb one time. After thanking them I said “You must be sailors”. “Yes we are, we arrived yesterday.”
It turned out they are my neighbors of the 48ft monohull.

And then it turned out they wanted to go to the second food store, which I intended to try myself for the first time.

It turned out that NAIKI, this 2nd food store it’s not bad at all. I got lettuce, lime, a head of red cabbage, Emmentaler and goat cheese, most likely produce locally. In other products the shop I used so far it’s better. Thus depending on what I need, I need to choose the shop.

Later the afternoon Ralf came over to give me a hand with the screws of the hydro generator. He could make it the day before.

Coffee and long talk and the work. It was a typical boat work. All needed to be done blind. Unfortunately I made a mistake when I bought the big washers. I thought there are only 6 screws but there are 8 screws with which the hydro generator is bolted on to the vertical end of the tunnel. 6 replaced washers are already better. I will see if I can get some today at the hardware store.

Thus I now need to get up to be there before noon. Final closing time on a Saturday.

Please keep fingers crossed for a lift to the village and that they have such washers.

I was lucky and had a really nice an sunny day.

The work on mast winch went very smooth.

I now curious if I can pull up the mainsail again to reef 1 again without using the winch handle. If so, I have a good indicator for the need of the next maintenance.

All the night we had no rain, and just before I started writing, I looked through the hatch at the laundry hanging on the PRT genoa sheet and thought that it must be dry now. Having completed my happy thought, it seems that Fati, the Marquesian God for rain and wind is bad-tempered today. He send a very strong, but short burst of rain and tried to blow the laundry from the genoa. He got the laundry wet but not off of the genoa-sheet-clothesline. Lucky me!

Today I will do PC work and when Ralf comes over for a cup of coffee, we will add some work to our coffee talk. I want to improve the mounting of the hydro generator’s up-down mechanism with larger washers. This work requires a third, 5 m long telescopic arm, or a friend who gives me a hand countering the screws outside while I work inside.

Despite quite some rain during the day, I could complete the maintenance of the STB genoa winch.

It was a bit tricky because I mounted a not fully flat washer the wrong way round in the center axis. Result was that the central axis blocked when I tightened the screws of the cage for all 4 axes with their various gear wheels. Fortunately I found pretty quickly that the problem is the central axis and there is only one not fully flat washer. I turned it around and the problem was solved. Lesson learned.

While thinking about the mast winch, I took my biggest screw driver and opened it. I saw that the technician, who maintained the winch last time, used much too much grease. The grease caught dust, which makes the winch rotating harder under load. This means I get the wrong feeling for the tension in a halyard or the top lift.

Thus, tomorrow I’ll maintain this winch as well.

Please keep fingers crossed for day without rain.

It was a good day today. I could complete the maintenance of the PRT side genoa winch.

It’s a 2-speed electrical winch, which, of needed can also be used manually. Thus the great inside is pretty complex. All must disassembled, all parts must be cleaned from the old and dirty grease using gasoline and a small brush, usually used for painting something. Thereafter a thin layer of grease was applied at all parts excepts for the pawls, which need to oiled, and the whole thing to was assembled again.

Please note that there are spare parts left….

Just some additional information for all non sailing readers. For this I assume, I use a handle to rotate the winch; normally I just the electrical drive of the winch.

The power ratio of the winch is 1 : 48. Taking the lever of the manual handle as 1:30, the total per power ratio becomes roughly 1:1500 meaning if I pull the lever with the equivalent of only 30 kg, the genoa sheet gets a tension equivalent to 4500 kg or 4.5 t.

This gives you a feeling about the forces on a sailboat.

Tomorrow I’ll maintain the STB side genoa winch.

When living on a boat the feeling for the days of a week gets lost pretty quickly. Every day is a holiday and every day is a working day.

I just recognize Sundays because I set an alarm for baking bread on Sundays. This gives me structure in my week.

I started with preparing my dough after I got up, and used the time the dough needs to rest for my breakfast and other work. A bit a leisurely breakfast with various cheese, a big pot of tea, and the last part of bread from the previous Sunday. The sourdough bread I bake and keep in the fridge is still pretty good after one week.

During another resting time of the dough in prepared all tools, needed to staple the backrest cover on the newly made board to have all ready when Ralf comes to give me a hand for this work.

Just when my dough was ready for forming breads, Ralf & Gaby came. I put the dough in the fridge to retard further raising to not lose the power of the sourdough in put in.

After a long talk over cups of coffee, we started working on the backrest of the helm station seat. In maybe an hour’s time work was done and the seat became ready your use.

It feels good to know that there is now a new board in which can be expected to last for the next 10 years.

For dinner I had freshly backed bread cheese, tomato, etc. Excellent! I love my freshly backed bread, and eat always the tip as it is.

I woke up early and worked on my French exercises until 0800. Then got up, fixed myself a muesli with papaya, prepared 1.9 l of lime lemonade with honey, opened my PC and while eating my muesli, I checked and wrote emails and some Signal messages. Checked for a dealer in the UK who possible has a water pump for the Kubota diesel engine, which drives the generator of my Onan genset. I decided to have a spare one on board.

By about 10:00 to 11:00, I closed my PC and started preparing my tools for working on the plywood board for the backrest of the helm station seat.

But then Ralf came to give me a hand with removing and re-attaching the furler winch for doing maintenance. After the compulsory cup of coffee and talks, we started working on the winch. It took about 10 – 15 min to remove it.

Next I cleaned all parts with gasoline to remove the old grease, which collected a lot of dust thus winch turned to hard when under load.

Normally I would have greased all parts with winch grease, but today I got a different idea. Already last time I did not crease 2 pawls with grease but with a PTFE spray. This looked good when I disassembled it; no dirt sticking on it.

Thus, I decided to spray all parts of the winch with PTFE. It’s an experiment. If it works it might last longer until the next maintenance is needed. If not, I have to open the winch and grease it. Worst case I have to remove it again for greasing. It’s a risk. But no risk no gain.

A real test how good it works I can only do when furling the genoa under strong wind situations to get really load on the winch. Let’s see.

After Ralf went back to his boat, I started working on the board for the helm station seat. Now the board is ready to be put into the cover. However, I had to recognize the need of 2 hands more to staple the cover along it bottom side. Need to ask Ralf…

As the last work I cleaned the cockpit. Thereafter I felt kind of satisfied about what I achieved during the day.

This morning I went to the shipyard to see if they have plywood as I need it. Lucky!
I got it !

I could reduce PC work time until 1200 every day. This gives me more time for boat jobs. However, I still need to fully set-up OpenCPN. This might take some time.

In the mean time I got 270 l of diesel in MaRe’s tank. This will last again for a while. It was a bit so easy tasks. The 4 jerry cans I have contain about 91 – 93 l depending on the filling station attendant. The last time the attendant gave me a nice hand by carrying 2 jerry cans to the dinghy dock thus I needed to walk only once. But this very nice gesture was also a bit frustrating for me. Why? This guy in his late 20s or early 30s takes 2 20 l jerry cans and walks with them as I would do it with 2 5 l jerry cans….

I used the day when I got diesel, to go to the fruit selling stand I found recently to buy fruits. I found also pineapples on sale but they where prohibitive expensive and still pretty green. Thus, I got another delicious papaya. I like to eat the fruits of the season.

The day before I just wrote my last email for the day, when Ralf and Gaby came on board. They arrived at night a day before. The first morning of their arrival we talked briefly over our VHF radio. They wanted to relax for a day.
Thus the came the next day at noon.

The best thing was too see that Ralf can use his right arm again ; he dislocated it in June. Not yet really as before the accident, but still good enough to sail again. Daily training seems to improve the condition. We talked about what we did since I left with Shigeo the Gambiers early July. I gave them all kind of information on things I discovered and experienced here in the Tahauku Bay and Atuona. It was a long talk until 1600.

I also had to do laundry again. Thanks to the again running washing machine it’s an easy job.
I’m just fighting some stains in the mattress protecting sheet. It gut some stains which requires treatment with chlorine bleach. I hope that after 3 – 4 treatments the stains are gone.

A bit a draw back was the discovery that backrest of the helm station seat was not as it should be. When I removed it and opened the cover, I saw that at the weather side the plywood for rotten. Now I need to get a piece of plywood. I’ll first see if I can’t something from the shipyard to keep my spare material for cases where there is no possible alternative around.

It was a good day.

I went to Atuona to buy a new battery for the STB engine. The old one just broke down, a frequent death of a battery.

I forgot that the hardware store closes already at 1130 for their noon break. With a panini from the food store in my stomach I walked in the Centre Culturel Paul Gauguin, an open air area with the museum with paintings of Paul Gauguin as a central or main part. Near the fountain, from which Paul Gauguin got his fresh water, I set down under a tree to enjoy the shade to write messages with pictures attached to my kids and my wife für their first hand information what I’m doing and seeing. Then it struck me. I turned around and looked at the tree under which I am sitting. This tree is very old, thus Paul Gauguin must have been sitting under this tree as well. Maybe even with some of the persons he painted.

At 1400 I returned to the hardware shop to get a new battery. Asking the shop assistant who knows me already of they could give me lift by there car to the little harbor where I have always my tender at the dinghy dock. He agreed and said at around 1600 it would be possible. “Perfect” i said, “I’ll do some food shopping and come back”.

On the way to the food store, I decided to get a haircut as well. Quickly I found it in the small business areas consisting of small, nicely designer building and lots of places and trees, with the “Mairie” of Atuona, the doctor, the dentist, the pharmacy, the office of Moana airlines, and, and, and. I had to wait a bit; 2 people were in front of me. Sitting outside in the shade of covered terrace was pleasant. I wrote messages and read news. Then it was my turn. As normal the lady who runs the shop, was curious about me and I was curious about her. In a mixture of my broken French and her broken English we could communicate. She actually is from France, the Auvergne with the famous Puy de Dome on which I was once in about 1977/78. She moved to Hiva-Oa and is the only hairdresser here. Her clients are from Hiva-Oa, Tahuata, and Fatu-Hiva, thus, she has a clientele of about 3000. She is not rich, but has a good living in a very nice place. The perfect job.

After food shopping, I went to the hardware store, and they gave me a lift to the tiny harbor where I had my dinghy.

I was pretty busy the last days.

Heaps of emails, again IT work, and boat jobs.

The IT work I knew it will come. But there was an additional work for my PC. It took more time than I anticipated.

In Linux Mint, there is a very interesting and excellent application called “Timeshift”, which makes automatically backups of the system. System means the Linux OS, all application SW and their settings. In the case of an crash the system can be restored. If needed even with Linux image stored in USB stick. One of the great features of Linux.

As a while ago, someone told me that my settings of Timeshift are wrong, I wanted to know more about it and posted a question on the Linux Mint support forum. Within an hour to two the first answered came. 3 answers 5 opinions. Timeshift is extremely easy to handle, but the guru who wrote it, is a pretty smart guy. It’s said he worked 10 years to develop it fully. So there were very interesting discussions triggered. Updated posts came in every hour. The whole discussion in the forum dragged on for more than 2 days. The end of the story for me was that my settings are perfectly right. However the discussion were very interesting and I have learned a lot about Timeshift but also on the way people reply in forums.

Concerning boat jobs, I could get some more maintenance work done. Among them, oil & oil filter change at the generator’s diesel engine.

Disposing of the used oil was easy because there is a tank just at the little harbor. But when I asked at the shipyard where I can dispose the used oil filter, I was shocked about the answer because I was told to throw it in the normal garbage. Considering the number of cars on Hiva-Oa, there must be quite an environmental problem just with used oil filters on this beautiful island.