It’s almost 1100 o’clock. We had breakfast.

After our discussion last night about the wind and what to do today, we decided to stay here and try to get a rental car fire going around the island.

First of all the wind announced in ECMWF and SPIRE should by now be around 25 KN plus gusts. We have maybe gusts of 15 KN but beside this only much lower winds.

But the rain is special. The sky is fully overcast but with a very thin layer of clouds. There’s enough sunlight going through to make the sea around MaRe appearing in the beautiful emerald green with plenty of shades.

From the NE the rain showers are flying over to us. Clearly to be seen and then they hit us. Thin grey volumes of rain drifting over the island. Some times they are so dense that the boats about a kilometer away almost disappear in the grey rain drop volumes.

Mostly, the showers are very short, maybe 30 sec. Some have heavier water droplets some have very light ones.

They hit from the side because MaRe doesn’t point into the wind due to the strong tidal current inside the outer reef. Therefore, wind blows rain inside the cockpit. Right now we moved inside the salon. Maybe in a minute to two we can go out again.

Now I hope we soon can take the tender to an certain area where Easy Rental is supposed to be and have a dinghy dock while we rent their car. We need to find out.

Please keep fingers crossed the sky spat all is water onto us very soon and we can leave for the drive around the island.

After having cleaned the whole exit area of the muffler, I sealed it with heat resistant cement. The additional leak at a threaded hole I could seal as well. With the first metal part of the exhaust mounted onto the muffler, I made a overnight test. Next morning not a single molecule of water came out from the muffler. I was happy!!!

Then, I began reassembling all the parts of the diesel engine for the genset. In the late afternoon I was ready. The enclosures I still kept away to see if all pipes and gaskets are tight.

For the test I only filled in fresh water instead of coolant. Pushed the start button and my genset started running as always. I also started immediately the water maker to get as much fresh water at possible just in case the leakage is still there.

After about 15 min the genset shut down with the same error code. Frustration par excellence!

To verify it, I removed the hose from the muffler and there fresh water came out. Frustration confirmed. The cement did not really seal the little hole which could not be welded. I think the vibrations of the diesel engine are just too strong. I gave up.

After a very short shower I dealt again with the spare parts from Onan NZ to find out that there was misunderstanding. I corrected it and was informed that the needed spare parts first need to be shipped from Onan AUS to Onan NZ and from there to my attention at DHL in Pape’ete.

Also my contact at Onan NZ is a really very helpful person he can’t do anything against the
spare parts set up in his company.

With my strong background in service operations I can say the Onan or the owner Cummins have not much understanding about optimization of spare parts stock and it’s influence to customer satisfaction and cost reduction. Cummins and Onan area selling generators. When such a device is down the owner is in deep troubles because he has no energy anymore. But spare parts deliveries are still in the way they were done 50 and more years again. I asked a few questions and now, without looking really into their figures, I’m pretty positive that I can reduce the sum of the stock of parts of Onan AUS and NZ and have all needed spare parts in NZ and AUS. It just requires a bit common sense and understanding on how to analyze data in an spreadsheet.

Here with my problem of needing a few parts, I suffer from that poor performance.

I’m just very happy that my contact at Onan NZ received the parts from AUS this morning and got them today to DHL. Now, as they are on their way to Tahiti – via the USA – I can track the parts and plan my sail back to Tahiti. Sailing back to Tahiti is the fastest way to get the spare parts and get my genset up and running again which enables me to make water again.

Here I also have to mentioned that my friend Tevai in Pape’ete offered me to pick up the spare parts at DHL and ship them to me by plane or ferry boat. Thanks Tevai for this generous offer.

What else happened in the last days?

Shigeo my old sailing friend from Japan came to Raiatea because it’s better to be here than in Bora-Bora. In Bora-Bora every day costs 4 000 CFP (=40 USD) plus 30 USD for using a dinghy dock a day. Here, MaRe floats in a wonderful environment for free.

I picked up Shigeo at the airport and we went to MaRe, where he settled in. I baked bread and did some things I could do while waiting always until the end of the next proofing time. In the afternoon we had freshly baked bread.

Although Shigeo is the chef on board I fixed us a welcome dinner. “Spaghetti-Roquefort”. A few month ago I got the idea to make a Roquefort sauce. I sauteed chopped onions, put a chunk of Roquefort into the frying pan, and saw how wonderful it melts. To get a bit more liquid I used a very thick milk made of powered milk and water. With a good amount of freshly ground pepper. I liked it, and since then, 2 more people like this spaghetti sauce.

BTW I didn’t apply for a patent, thus you can make it without any legal proceedings from my side.

The next 2 days after Shigeo’s arrival at went twice to Uturoa for shopping, and had twice a small lunch at my favorite “Pâtisserie Apetahi”.

I also got 30 l of freshwater from Marina Lu, the place where they tried to weld my leaking muffler. I was cautioned that this water is not potable. “No problem”, I answered “it’s only for laundry”.
When I tried to get 30 kg heavy water jerry can on my shoulder, an employee of this company, passing by with a fork lift, brought my water can to the dinghy dock about 250 m away. I was lucky!!!

Today, first emails to make sure the spare parts go on their way to Pape’ete, to me. Then cleaning the cockpit, which was still dirty from the days when I worked on the genset.

After a needed break, I changed the lazy stays according to an idea I got a few days ago. The sail bag looks much better now and I’m curious how the main sail falls into the sail bag when I put it down.

The last work of the day, I only could start, was mounting a new 12 V power outlet as it is used for cigarette lighters, at the panel of the navigation table. With all the devices, which need to be charged with USB cables I need one more power outlet to have all charging cables better streamlined and out of my way. Tomorrow morning I’ll complete it.

For today I say “goodnight!”

There is a chance for it! It depends on the work of Robin’s staff. Yesterday they could not work on the muffler. I hope they can do it today. I hope even more they can really close the hole.

This muffler is a pretty complex part. It first is the muffler, then it is the reservoir for the freshwater based coolant, then it has an opening for the real heat exchanger, and it includes also a ring shape injector from seawater circle and cool the exhausts gases before they go into the silencers.
I really would like to talk with a Kubota engineer on how the make this pretty complex “thing”.

Yesterday, I already cleaned the real heat exchanger with a 250 and 400 grade sandpaper. It is a pretty interesting part made of copper. A cylinder of about 25 cm length and about 5 m which is brazed onto a brass flange to mount it onto the muffler. Inside this cylinder flows the coolant (freshwater based) and the seawater. The coolant flow is pressure easy to understand. But the seawater flow goes through about 20 about 5 mm diameter copper tubes. While writing these lines, I recognized that a don’t yet fully understand the seawater flow. I have to make a test with my 50 cm3 syringe to see if my imagination is correct.

Back to Robin. Yesterday, he did me a great favor by calling a shop in Uturoa and asked if they have material to seal mufflers when the normal gasket cannot be replaced.

With knowing where to go, I hitchhiked to Uturoa. I quickly got a lift from a couple about my age. Did they hitchhike when we all where young? I got this thought when I left the car.

I love hitchhiking like in my young days when I hitched a lot in France. Every lift was kind of rolling study room to learn and practice French.

I got the material I needed but had to buy two different ones because no information about the heat resistance was given on the package. I’ll ask Robin.

Now about Robin. I learned his name from the office assistant at the reception only yesterday.

When I first met Robin, and I needed to explain this technical matter in French to him, I swallowed and asked in French if he maybe speaks English. “No!”, was his straight forward answer I I tried my best with French, paper and a pen. Then he started talking English muuuch better then I command French. Then he turned out to be real technical expert. He even knows that my problem happens more often with the Kubota diesel engines.

Although his assistant yesterday told me he is called “Robin”, he will stick in my mind as.”Mr. No-English” being a real technical expert. I like him and his attitude. Here I also have to involved the assistant who is very friendly, helpful, and speaks English. In summary a great place whenever a sailor needs welding work done; they are all experts in aluminum welding.

After I got the material to make a high temperature resistant gasket, I looked for a shower head for the STB stern shower.

The one I used got calcium deposits. As it looked and felt being made of metal, I put it overnight in a bit of my cleaning vinegar. Next day I threw it in the garbage bin. It was made of a type of plastic that dissolves in vinegar. Now I have in the STB shower hose end an M6 screw with a tesa textil tape sealing. Today I got a replacement. I’ m lucky.

I also got an SD card reader, which I need to activate my Lighthouse chart for NZ, and the western Pacific. I hope that when I put it thereafter in my Axiom plotter, that it contains the map for the Southern Pacific island as well; I was told that this is Raymarine’s planned upgrade. I also hope that Lighthouse doesn’t show the pee marks from every sailor who feels to leave his absolutely useless pee mark. In the new Navionics subscription of the Southern Pacific, which I need as an emergency backup, there is so much pee mark clutter that I would have liked to download the chart of at least 2 years ago.

A bit above I wrote that I’m lucky. Today it was really me lucky day.
When I bought some fruits and vegetables, I got big bunch of bananas as a present. I must have been born on a Sunday.

Lucky. Will I be lucky a third time today and the hole in the muffler is closed when I have a look again at the shop on my way home? Please keep fingers crossed!!!

Right now I’m sitting again in the “Pâtisserie Bon’ Apetahi” and write this narration. This place became my favorite one in Uturoa. I asked the waitress about “apetahi” and learned it’s the Polynesian name for a flower. Look at the following Wikipedia link.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclerotheca_raiateensis

I removed the muffler, which also contains the freshwater based coolant.

With Olaf, who came over to MaRe, we looked carefully in the openings of the muffler and found the hole at the exit opening. Then I knew for certain where the coolant gets lost.

After Olaf went back to his boat, the wind got really pretty strong. As Olaf’s tender is fully inflatable only, no aluminum floor, no aluminum bottom, it is very light. In the combination of a strong current and winds from the side his tender flipped over with the outboard engine attached. He could turn it around again, removed the outboard engine and started cleaning it from salt water. As he found some sand in the carburator he called Raiatea Carnage, the shipyard, to get it cleaned. Thus, we took my tender and brought his outboard engine to the shipyard. On the way there, Olaf had the idea to get hole welded.

With the back at the wall this idea could be pursued. The muffler is a kind of aluminum alloy and there is, around the corner of Raiatea Carnage, a company doing also aluminum welding. I went there and asked. A few hours later when we picked up Olaf’s outboard motor, I brought the muffler along. After inspection of the hole by the owner of the company and a very experienced person, he said he will give it a try.

Before bringing the muffler to the welder, I called a technician of Onan NZ. As a result I put a list of all needed spare parts together and send it to Onan NZ.

In between I also checked out various possibilities to get spare parts from DHL office close to Pape’ete airport to Bora-Bora.

Again my friend Tevai offered also his help in this matter. I’m really very lucky having gotten Tevai as a friend.

With the 2 way approach I will see which way I have to pursue until the genset is up and running again.

Luckily, I got my fresh water tank fully filled up before the problem with the genset happened. I also switched over to using seawater as much as possible. For cooking and drinking I started using bottled emergency water. This all allows me to use as little as possible freshwater because when I have to wait for parts from NZ it will take a bit of time.

Now let’s see if the hole can be welded.

The last days the wind turned E blowing at the higher end of the 5 Bft range and the lower end of the 6 Bft. That’s the normal SE trade wind. However, it’s very gusty. The gusts are going up to 30 KN which is in the 7 Bft range.
@a
The Beaufort (Bft) scale is not linearly correlated with the KN units for wind speed. In Wikipedia there is s pretty good article. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale
In the chapter “Modern Scale” there is a pretty good description of the sea condition for the Bft classes. Because of that description I find the Bft scale very convenient for a first value of the wind speed.

Back on board.

MaRe hangs nicely in the wind at her anchor. With almost 40 m of chain out, she is securely anchored.

The nice thing of this strong wind is the charging of the batteries by my SuperWind wind converter. Yesterday evening the batteries where more filled then the night before when I switched off the engine.

Although the wind was reduced during the night, it still reduced the charge being taken out of the batteries.

I’m often thinking I should have two SuperWinds…. Maybe in NZ.

3 days ago every thing was very nice. The weather was nice and I liked my life on board. Had also a long video with my wife being in Tokyo. I showed her around the surrounding of MaRe and she liked the emerald green water. She asked me to post a picture of in the OmaOpa (GrandmaGrandpa) group in Signal, which I did. I also did some smaller boat jobs. Among other things I send the new crew information to Penrhyn Island, required to get the permission to enter the lagoon. Additionally I informed the authorities of Kiritimati Island on the new crew.

In the evening, I was invited by Olaf for dinner because he had fresh board baked bread. We had nice evening with plenty of talks. After I returned to MaRe, I took my shower, charged batteries when suddenly the generator stopped with failure code No.1 – a problem in the fresh water cooling cycle. “Strange”, I thought because I barley needed to refill a bit of freshwater coolant into the reservoir.

Next day I looked at it and indeed coolant was missing. I filled in about 2 – 3 l. Starting the generator and it ran for about 20 min; then the same error code again. I followed the advice of the manual and removed the thermostat to check if it opens correctly. This can easily be done in a cooking pot and a thermometer. Thermostat works. Where is the leakage?

Yesterday, after baking my bread, I removed the heat exchanger to see if there is a leakage and the the freshwater escapes into seawater. Olaf came over to MaRe and with 4 hands we could test it. No leakage in the heat exchanger. Where is the leakage?

As the heat exchanger was removed I could look inside the manifold, which is also the equivalent to the radiator of a car engine. The difference is that the heat is not transferred into the air, but via the heat exchanger into seawater. I filled water into the manifold and could watch how it disappears. But where to?

The only possibility is the muffler through which the cooling seawater flows back into the sea. I opened the muffler, poured again water into the manifold and it came out of the muffler. How does it come into the muffler?

I’m in touch with the people of Onan in NZ and today at 1100 my time I can called a technician in NZ to get an advice.

I am afraid I need a new manifold.

I had hoped that the rain disappears during the night and dreamed of taking dry laundry from the railing in the morning.

The sun came out a bit right now, the wind got less gusty and I wonder when the next brief drizzle will start.

I decided to do my workout immediately, hoping I can complete it before the next drizzle.

Sometimes I’m just lucky. In the period when the sun was out I could do my workout and my short meditation session. As soon as I was ready, the next cloud was so impolite to push itself in front of sun. Why are clouds so impolite?

Now I’m sitting in the cockpit writing this narration and look towards the southern tip of Taha island and the northern of Raiatea. The weather radar of my eyes see the next brief drizzles approaching. The masts of boats anchoring W of the airport area are fainting already in the rain. Grey masts grey out in the grey of the drizzling rain.

1 min or 2 min until MaRe?

I don’t care. I’ll upload this narration and take my shower with or without drizzle and then make my breakfast.

PS
The upload I have to make inside as the drizzle arrived fast.

The last days the weather was very nice. It felt like in paradise. Sunny. A bit of wind to keep the temperature down. Sometimes suddenly a stronger wind. All in all just nice weather.

Today when I had my first look at the clouds it didn’t look good but it also didn’t look bad. Over casted sky. Not much wind so.

MaRe hang nicely at her chain in the current of the inner side of the reef. Current and wind were fighting with each other about the alingment of MaRe. One time the school chain had tension while it with between the hull with the anchor behind the stern. Never saw something like this.

I could see a drizzling rain is approaching. Wind increased. However not that much that MaRe aligned her position only to the wind. The current is just too strong. Wind blew the drizzling rain from quarterly directions into the cockpit. Sitting outside was not possible anymore.

As I had the washing machine running since the early morning, I hung the laundry, despite the bit of drizzle, on the railing. I was lucky. The first part of the laundry for dry. But the rest hangs still on the railing.

I keep it there and hope the drizzle stops and the wind, the laundry dries fast even without sunshine.

Sabine, who was scheduled to sail with me long distance and long time, suddenly got personal problems back home.

We discussed the various options she has to solve the problem. At the end she decided to fly home and solve the problem on site.

I asked my old Japanese sailing friend Shigeo if he wants and has time to join. He wants and he has time and prepares currently his flight to Pape’ete and to Bora-Bora where we will meet.

I’ll sail single-handed over to Bora-Bora a few days before he arrives.

Additionally, I have now to change some documents to get approval for the new crew to sail into Penrhyn Island (most northern off the Cook Islands) and into Kiritimati the second most north-eastern islands of the Kiribati group of islands. I expect it just means some formalities.

Where are the days without internet where it was just possible to sail into an harbor or atoll with the yellow Q-flag and the courtesy flag under the STB spreader…

The OsmAnd offline maps display trails and I use them often. Therefore, after arriving at Raiatea, I looked for trails. I could identify a trail to the two plateaus of Mt Temehani, the highest peak on Raiatea. It looked good on the map.

The lady who gave us, the other day, a lift to the marae warned me about biting wild dogs in the mountains and urged me to take a guide.

The gentleman who gave us the same day a lift back, showed me the entrance of trail and added no warnings.

Well prepared with board made lime lemonade, water, sandwiches and an apple, I took off. The trail was wide, at some spots steep but easy to walk. For about 1 km I walked along houses but only one car came down the hill.
**
To my surprise the map trail did not match the real trail. At beginning I was south of the map trail and then north. In general the direction looked good.

After a bit more than an hour, I reached a Y-junction not in my map. Do I go right or do I go left?

Thus, I first sat down and trank some lime lemonade. Looking at my map track, going right looked as to be the better choice. Thus, I took what looks better. When I continued, the map trail and the real trail matched perfectly fine. “Hurray”, I made the right decision!

Shortly after that I heard voices approaching me. They came down the hill. Two ladies jogged down the hill. They must be in pretty good shape and must do this pretty often. “ia onara”, “bonne journée”, smiles and they were gone.

On such trail, I compare the rainforest, sometimes the cloud forest, with the forest of my childhood and youth. What a difference! But they all have the special elements I like a lot. I miss working with my grandfather in the forest close to our village.

As there was no more junction along my way I didn’t bother to check my map. After the break, map trail and real trail were matching very well. I kept walking. Roughly the direction looked good. “Roughly” I thought, and took my mobile phone out.

There it was, the first surprise. For the last half an hour, the map trail and real trail did not match at all!

At the last junction, I should have gone in the other direction. “Do I go back?”, or “do I continue?”, were the thoughts zipping through my mind. As the trail was very good, I decided to continue expecting I will get out at the other side of the island. Then I would have done what I originally thought about; a cross mountain hike from the western coast to the eastern coast of Raiatea.

So I kept going. The map didn’t show and trail but the trail looked inviting to continue.

When I got the feeling that I reached a top, I checked again the map and found that I reached the top of Mt Momoarea. In the east-west middle of Raiatea’s mountains. Now I knew where I am, but still I did not have clue on where the descending trail will bring me. I kept going.

Shortly later I heard again voices. The two ladies “stalked” me. They came down the hill. Gosh, they are in even better shape than I thought when I met them for the first time. Again, greetings and smiles and they disappeared behind the next curve.

The trail suddenly turned ugly. It was broaden with heavy machinery. Trees along the trail where cut and I had no protection against the rain, which started just in the moment the umbrella of the trees was gone. Luckily I soon reached a tree, which gave me some protection to take my windbreaker from the ISM 2020 Strasbourg (Some people reading this blog might smile now.) out of my backpack and put it on. As the rain didn’t look as stopping soon, I even gave my back pack its rain cover and kept going. It turned out this was a good decision.

I crossed a development area, and an area with pretty new and wealthy houses. However, the road on which I walked then, was pretty poor. It was not a road with holes but holes connected with little pieces of road.

As map road and real road matched very well again I saw that I’m reaching the circular road around the island a bit east of the airport. Considering north to be 1200, I entered the mountains at 1000 walked until the approximate middle of the mountains and left them again at about 0100.

The rest meant walking along the street until the dinghy dock or hitchhike. I thumbed while walking until I saw a gas station with a big roof and decided to go there and take a rest.

With Polynesian friendly smiles of the staff I got permission to stay under the roof. Feeling hungry, I sat down and had my cheese sandwiches.

A while later, rain stopped and I took off after a grateful “merci beaucoup”, “maruru” farewell to the gas station stuff. They did not have much work. During my stay there,I understood that they ran out of “Sans Plombe” fuel, consumed by almost all cars.

I thumbed and quickly got a lift from a young guy. The car had no wipers and a crack in the windshield, but the young guy was in very good mood so we had a good bumby conversation in French and English. He dropped me at the marina, where my dinghy was docked.

Arriving at the dinghy I got another nice l surprise. It was filled for a bit less then 1/3 with water. “It wasn’t raining that much!” was my first thought, followed immediately with the recognition of what I didn’t do. I did not lock the self-bailing valve. I opened it to get some rainwater out when I went from MaRe to the dinghy dock…. (This dragging out the water is based on the Venturi effect.)

I returned sound and safe to MaRe and had nice hike with surprises.

(Later my daughter triggered me to check the internet for the story that the peak I reached, has something to do with a shark. Indeed in the Polynesian culture this peak is considered to look like the rear dorsal fin of a shark.)