day 107 straight to heaven
Ellen: The day started with the usual gorgeous dawn pastels, tinged with the remnants of disturbing dreams and resigned wondering if it was even worth asking about our part arriving - as predicted - on a SUNDAY. Nothing happens on Sunday in this or any boatyard. Do people even fly planes on Sundays here? The idea seemed more preposterous as the sun rose higher, and downright hopeless as we watched Tony and both his boatyard employees speed off in their fast motorboat - a bundle of fishing rods dangling off the back. Guess we better do the last of the filing on the franken-bearing. Perhaps the parts can get forwarded to Bora Bora?…. Sigh. If we pound our homemade part into the strut, the only way we’re getting it out is another round of the underwater hacksaw circus, which would be both tiring and disheartening, not to mention permanent. So do we wait for actual confirmation that our part is NOT coming today to start? Will they be fishing until dark? If we wait will we be stuck here another day for no actual reason? How many different plane ticket contingency plans can Qwalen and I consider before our brains explode?
After a round of shelling and some freshwater laundry, I am waiting for a dinghy to appear in the deserted boatyard, wearing only a tank top (just washed my only shorts), and contemplating a naked swim to go fetch a way to get my clean laundry back to the boat, when I hear a distant motor. It is not in fact our trusty portaboat Maururu coming to get me, but Tony’s fishing boat speeding closer, laden with a pile of what I presume to be family members. I am flailing my way hastily into soaking wet jean shorts as he waves at me, pulling up to the little dock. After disembarking the family members and pulling the boat out with the tractor, he holds up… TWO CUTLESS BEARINGS. There’s only a couple hours of daylight left, but we are stoked to DO STUFF…. we’ve gotten the shaft out again, the boat plugged, the new bearing IN, the boat unplugged again, the shaft back in through the new bearing and past the rudder, and some of the prop back on. Also Jamie our new engine mechanic has reattached the shaft to the engine, which is a good thing to not forget amid all the underwater stuff on the outside of the boat, and somehow Naomi got black grease all over the butt of her swimsuit even though she was underwater the whole time. Tomorrow morning: cotter pins and prop blades!
Q here Brass dust, brass dust and more brass dust. Filing, sanding, filing some more, scrutinising the circumference with a micrometer. File some more….got the bearing down to fit with an acceptable tolerance. Ready to install. All we need is 3 or four people to put it in. Now waiting tor the rest of the crew, who are all out busily looking for shells, go for a swim, take a nap. Low and behold the bearing shows up! A quick spree before sunset of boatwork and prep, for a likely possible departure tomorrow!!!!, Amidst our scattered debris of half used bits and bobs is the still deeply buried stern anchor. Nao and I diving for it, a shark circling in the faint distance, looks beefy! Or Fishy I guesssss, like big fishy. No stripes, at least that are visible in the faint evening light, but it does that general vibe of “don’t mess with me” Anyway, back into the water at sunrise to finish at least the current hurdle.
Miriam: I woke feeling a little restless this morning, the wait finally beginning to wear. A swift paddle in the kayak far to the south redirected that energy into curiosity, exploring a new direction and a different variation on the land/sea balance that is atoll ecology. Navigating sand bars and the coral shelf, marveling at coral blooms in vibrant purple and pepto bismal pink, giant clams in their neon squiggles closing at my approach, the one tiny white tip shark cruising in the maybe 4’ deep shallows. Floating under a mixed flock of boobys and frigate birds diving for fish and finally turning to return to the ship. As I approached I was surrounded by seemingly hundreds of milk fish, large, silver, sharp tailed beings all feeding at the surface and startling in fin slap splashes at certain paddle strokes. I arrived at the boat just as everything changed and our days of purgatory sped into efficient action, cutlass bearing installation and beginning to prepare for departure. Fingers crossed we make it out in the morning.
Ia orana, Megan here. Another shark, fantastic. Our manta ray entourage had lulled me into a false sense of security. It seems the tiger shark only disappeared to recruit reinforcement from a potential bull shark - even worse honestly, I hear bull sharks are the surliest. What’s next a bear shark? But hey at least we’re (probably) leaving!!
I decided to try on a more domestic day. While I did pop out for a smidge of beach wandering, mostly I dedicated my day to making focaccia (thank you Caroline for the recipe!)
Jamie, went for a decent walk on the beach today and even a little run over the rocks just to test agility levels. Now I’m tired and realising how my walking ability has atrophied greatly from living on a boat. But that was very fun and I even found some cool shells. Really racking my brains for ways to turn them into jewellery and Knick knacks… a delicious curry and focaccia from Megan today , so good! WoOd: myriad. Myriad - many things maybe together often in a chaotic or unorganised fashion. Used in a sentence: I’m going to Egypt to visit an ancient myriad.
Naomi here, don’t believe Jamie when he says he found cool shells, his are always sub par. I found some shining beauties today, very mysterious as it was on a stretch of beach we must of already combed over 5 times now, but shells are like that. Very amazed to have the new cutless bearing already installed , we will be lucky if we can remember how to sail tomorrow. Now we just have to make some cotter pins, put in the propeller blades, settle up with our favourite boatyard owner Tony, and dismantle the dinghy and kayak in time to sail across the lagoon to time exiting the pass for slack current which in our estimation is probably 11am- it will probably take about 2 hours to sail across the lagoon so ,,, we may have a busy morning ahead of us. There’s no good spot to anchor on the lagoon side of the pass to wait for the current to slack, and the pass has a really tight bottleneck to it which really gets the current roaring so , fingers crossed everything goes as planned (lol) and we manage to get the timing right !
Bluebird out !