Friday, early morning, at around 0500, or even a bit earlier, still laying in my bed, I heard a big anchor chain running down the hawsepipe. I knew from the sound that this means, a supply boat came. The supply boats always use the port side anchor to keep the bow in position and bring the stern to the pier.

For the people of the Hiva-Oa it means they got many things they need an wait for. For me it means that on Monday I can go shopping for onions and other vegetables. Last time, when I needed to replenish my stock of onions, the onions in the shop had already sprouts.

I’m curious what I’ll get on Monday in the supermarket.

In June I recognized that my Li-extender battery didn’t work anymore. This special battery has LEDs in each of the 6 elements allowing a pretty good diagnostic.

I contacted the German manufacturer, BOS-AG, and they decided quickly to replace this special battery. As I knew I will be a few month in the Marquesas, shipment from the Australian BOS-AG subsidiary to Marquesas Maintenance Service was arranged. The day before yesterday I got the replacement. Unfortunately it was not a 6-elements block ready for installation but 6 separate elements which needed to mechanically and electrical connected with each other and then have a +- cable to connect the extender to the AGM-lead- acid batteries.

The Li-extender battery has quite some advantages. First all charge regulators for AGM batteries can be used; no replacement for Li-batteries charge controller need to be done. Second the life time of the AGM batteries become longer. Third, the discharge and charge behavior is better. In the discharging cycle first the Li-extender is discharged and only when this is discharged to a larger extend, the AGM batteries are discharged. In the charging cycle it’s the other way round. First the AGM batteries are charged to about 80 %. At this value the AGM batteries reduce their charging current. But with the Li-extender the available charging current flows then into the Li -extender battery but the AGM batteries still get charged. This results in a higher charging current thus reduced the charging time.

I’m glad that in 2021, I decided to get this European product instead of cheap Chinese made Li-batteries. I would never have gotten a free replacement after 2 usage of the battery. Sometimes it’s cheaper to spent a bit more money and buy a European product.

My favorite PC, a Lenovo X230, the last model with a lot of former IBM design elements, ran with Linux Mint until it’s end so fast that I didn’t need to use my newer X240. I bought the X230 in 2012 and installed Linux Mint from the beginning. In September 2023, after 11 years of excellent and fast services, it died because it didn’t charge anymore.

Thus, I took my X240 and updated all data from the external HDD to which I synchronized the data of the X230 regularly, and had all data all my data of my X230 on my X240 within may be 15 min.

A while later, after my OBM had left, I made a few customization on my X240, which I made on my X230. I like the excellent customization features of Linux Mint.

However, my NordVPN connections didn’t work anymore.
I posted a question in the Linux Mint helps forum and within an hour it was running again and within another hour I got all the explanations I need to understand VPN and the possible 3 applications I could use in Linux Mint to run NordVPN’s VPNs. I set up a handful of VPN connections, which allow me to change quickly the country I want to use to get other search results or access to homepage, which are geo-fenced. But the main reason for using a VPN is the protection I get from it. My PC’s IP address is hidden behind the VPN ‘s IP address. Thus tracking me it’s not possible.

Taking all together there was a day work needed to have all on the same level of customization.

I’m more than happy with my Linux Mint machine, which I’m running now since more than 10 years. I’ll never go back to Windows or will start with Apple.

I set up a Facebook account many years ago and stopped updating it more than 10 years ago. I keep it for the reason to find old friends and give old friends a chance to find me. This worked well.

Notifications FB sends to my email account unstoppable I move via a filter directly in my trash folder.

If I don’t search for a friend, I log into FB only once a year to thank my friends for their birthday greetings.

A few days ago I logged in, to do for the aforementioned reason and I was shocked about the suggestion FB sends to me. I guess that at least some 75 % of the suggestions are seductive, lewd images.
I am certainly not a prude but I find the FB suggestions disgusting.

It’s a drastically example that shows how FB narrows the mind of it’s users; every user has to fit into a certain FB box for easier selling the profile to companies who want to sell something nobody really needs.

I started already a few weeks ago to revive my French. I did not speak it for 50 years. Only a few words when I was shortly in France.

Since I will be in a French-speaking country for the next few months, I decided to revive my French.

I started already in Panama with Duolingo for Spanish, I changed from Spanish to French.

Although this app is not bad, one can see that it is made with an English backgroud and that there French native speakers are not involved. It looks like the whole course is made with an AI application not understanding what every human teacher understands as an important matter.

The genus, or gender word is neglected in a way that nouns in vocabulary exercises are never presented with their gender. Verbs are not presented with the personal pronouns. The gender and the matching of personal pronouns has to be guessed and memorize from context of a given sentence.

Although stated as “Read the grammar hints and basic sentences” there are no grammar hints, only basic sentences.

The childish animation can fortunately switched off in the settings

Being forced to see their commercial over and over again gets annoying. And there is also a statement showing up saying language lessons should be free of charge and then they try to sell additional practice time at a hefty price on the next screen. This also in the paid subscription, which I have.

As I don’t like that, I will as the next app test the language course of Babbel and see if this is better.

As for my French, I really understand a bit more and It became easier for me to have simple conversations in French.

Hitchhiking in France was 50 years ago for me a great possibility to practice my French. Now, I hitch between the little port and the village of Atuona and enjoy these communication chances again.

I just heard the sound of rain on MaRe and rushed to close the windows through which rain can come in.

Looking through the open salon door outside, I stopped for a moment to look at the rain and thought “It looks like a spring rain!”

Here in the Marquesas, on the southern part of our globe, spring starts now.

It was, like always, a short shower only. But a nice one.

For us living in Europe or Japan or similar countries and needing something, we only have to think about the shop, which has the best offer. Nowadays a lot of people buy at Amazon and support Amazon’s attempt to kill all the stores at which we can see the things we want to buy without getting them first shipped to us and then return them; what a waste of energy for the sake of felt convenience. Or let me express it a bit drastically: Because we are lazy bums and wonder of the environmental impact but don’t consider that we do a lot to increase our C02 footprint in normal convenient shopping.

Here, on the Pacific Islands of French Polynesia, all what we can get locally – except for a few local vegetables, a few local fruits, fishes, wild pigs, and wild goats – has to be delivered to an island by a supply boat. Depending on island, there are typically 2 supply boats, which are bringing all, what was ordered; typically every second week a boat arrives.

But they don’t necessarily bring all what has been ordered to Tahiti because the supply chain is long. An example are 5 l water bottles. From Hacko and Naro of SY Anixi we learned that such 5 l water bottles are great containers for quite some food. The most important feature is that such containers are insect resistant and storage in MaRe’s storage spaces is pretty good in respect to dimensions. I estimated we need some 15 bottles. I got the last 7 on stock about 3 weeks ago. In the meantime 2 supply boats came but none of them brought the 5 l bottles with them and I am curious about a new delivery of 5 l water bottles. Life on an island.

Landing the good in HIva-Oa and on Mangareva (Gambier Island) is rather easy because the supply boats have a concrete pier to dock.

On Fatu-Hiva, not even in the main settlement Omoa, there is a pier. Thus, the supply boat stays at the bay’s entrance, where the water is deep enough and deliver the good with shallow landing boats. With these boats they have to deliver anything from vegetables, fruits, canned food, house hold goods, hard ware items, fuel in containers, butan gas for cooking, clothes, construction materials, cars, trucks, and construction machinery. Simply all, which doesn’t grow on the islands.

Next time, when I go again into a supermarket in Europe, Japan or in New Zealand, I will definitely think about the difference between shopping for daily needs and in a developed country and a remote island; but I also will think about the relaxed life close to nature on remote islands. Everything has its price.

The last days I did not need to do much IT work as this work is almost completed.

Thus, boat jobs took over. It’s always a good feeling when a maintenance or small repair is done.

Beside this, I now again in my regular fitness program. I feel physically good thereafter because I am feeling muscles in my body, which I normally don’t feel because the slowly rot. This rotting of muscles, thus my body, is what I want to slow down as much as possible and therefore I am doing my fitness training.

After the training I always keep sitting on the mat at the bow and meditation. This two feels good. There is the sun and the wind, which I feel on my skin when I start and finish sitting. During the session I’m focused on my slowing down breathing and feel the air going through my nose. Surprisingly my post nasal drip doesn’t bother me at all while I’m meditating. I wonder what this effect is.

Today during my breakfast the wind turned MaRe around so the stern pointed Mount Temetiu, With 1200 m, it is the highest mountain of Hiva-Oa. I would not be surprised if is the highest of the Marquesas or even of all Polynesian Islands. Its slopes are very steep and drop for a big part steep into the sea. No coral reefs are around the Marquesian islands. This will change when I am sailing to and through the Tuamotus. These are islands with coral reefs around and inside their lagoons.

But back to my breakfast and Mount Temetiu.

The sunlight was just illuminating the greenery starting from sealevel and going up to the top of Mount Temetiu. The sunlight reflected on the rain water of all kind of leaves. Especially the palm trees looked fascinating. A high contrast made them standing out from all other green. Simply great to look at.

And Mount Temetiu had today, while I looked at it, only partially his normal “lei” around its head. “lei”, which means “flower crown” is actually the Hawaiian name. I did not yet find out the Marquesian name for it. Mount Temetui typically wears a “lei” around his head to hide his head. Vegetation up there must be “cloud forest” vegetation. So far I have neither seen nor heard of a trail going up to Mount Temetiu. A pity because I would like to see if I could make up to its top.

Having breakfast with such a view was simply great. I am very thankful to be able to see such sceneries.

A few days ago, the outboard engine did not idle normally. It ran erratically. Playing with joke I could get it sufficiently running. After acceleration it run fine but thereafter it didn’t idle at all again.

When Nora & Hacko said good bye again, I asked them, to please help me, getting the outboard engine inside the cockpit at the holder. With their help or was wonderful easy to get the 27 – 28 kg engine in.

A troubleshooting manual gave me the hint that there could we water in the carburetor. When opening the drain valve of the float chamber a white-yellowish liquid was the first which came out, follow by red colored gasoline. Thus, I got the culprit: water. Nevertheless I disassembled the carburetor completely and cleaned all parts thoroughly. I also blew air through the fuel filter in inverse direction.

After assembling all again the engine ran fine during several very short test runs in the cockpit. Very short only, because of the lack of cooling water.

Next I checked the external fuel tank and there was water in! As water is heavier than gasoline, I placed the external tank in a way that all water accumulated in one 3-dimensional corner. A little plastic hose and I got the water out.

An hour ago I mounted the engine again at the tender. A test run with the engine idling for 10 min showed all should be fine.

Tomorrow I’ll go at land again. In need some fresh food.

Yesterday, late morning I needed to go to Maintenance Marquesis Service to pick up 2 order made rollers for the genoa travelers. After starting the outboard motor I didn’t idle. Thus, with a few tricks I could get the gear in an then it ran like normal. Just idling was not possible.

Today, Nora & Hacko came by this morning to say good bye. They are going around the corner on the west side of Tahuata island where it is nicer than here in the Tahauku Bay. However, there is no internet and I need internet right now.

Just before Nora & Hacko left they helped me to get the outboard motor into the cockpit. I can do it alone but it’s pretty tough. With 2 persons it was a quick job.

When I opened the carburetor I was shocked about the dirt, which went through the fuel filter. I need to filter the fuel in the external tank tomorrow. A short test today in the cockpit showed the motor is running like normal. Tomorrow another test and if an is fine I’ll put it on the tender again. A challenge in a swell of 1/2 m. I’ll see tomorrow.

Fitness training this morning felt again into the rain water.

I also was pretty tired because I worked on my PC until past 0100 this morning. As I normally wake up at around 0500 the same happened today as well. As I could not sleep again, I continued with me French studies. It’s fun to revive a language, I once spoke pretty well. I’m curious what kind of level I can reach while being in French Polynesia.

Now I’m a bit tired and sleep a bit.