Honolulu Star-Advertiser © Susan Scott
March 18, 2005
Today marks two weeks since leaving Palmyra for Tahiti. How long we have to travel yet, well, I have no idea. Maybe a week, maybe two. We’re at the mercy of the wind, which has blown from the southeast since the day after we left. Tahiti is southeast.
There’s a way around this, called beating, but it’s slow and can be downright depressing. We have beaten more than 1,000 miles since we left, but are only 400 miles closer to Tahiti.
We have 1,000 miles left to go, if we could sail directly there, but so far we can’t. So we plug along, coaxing the boat to sail as close to our course as it will go, while enjoying the occasional visit from dolphins, seabirds and pilot whales.
Otherwise, life on board is an unusual mix of the mundane and the remarkable.
Each of the three of us has claimed our own space in the boat. Mine is the best, but as the owner, official worrier and the only woman aboard, I don’t feel guilty.
My aft room has a double bed, a desk, a settee, a hatch and, best of all, doors that close. It is truly a captain’s cabin, and I love being in there.
The cockpit is communal. The three of us sit there to navigate, trim the sails, talk or just be outdoors.
When someone feels like it, we cook. Since the motion, tilt and heat inside the boat make cooking and cleaning up daunting chores, we often eat ready-made food from cans and packages. We’re all happy with that.
Then, just when life starts getting routine and a little boring, something surprising happens.
Last week, when we were becalmed and I tried to start the engine, I got nothing. Dead. I called my boat wizard, Gerard, who had us try a few things and eventually said: “It’s the starter. Replace it with your spare.”
Ah, so easy for him to say. It took Alex and me a whole day to get the old one out and discover that the spare doesn’t fit this engine.
“Then fix the old one,” Gerard said when I called back. “You can do it.”
I wasn’t so sure but he was right. Alex and I spent another hot, greasy, oily day below, and when we finished, that engine fired right up. Go, team Honu.
Later that day, when I opened the engine room door and found water spraying all over the place, I nearly fainted. We’re sinking! But no. When I tasted the water, it was fresh. The alternator’s belt had rubbed a hole in the bathroom’s fresh-water hose.
We lost 25 precious gallons. There’s enough fresh water left (about 100 gallons) for us, but we’re being super-careful now not to waste a single drop.
After we got the motor pushing us smoothly toward the equator (which we hope to have crossed by the time you read this), I accidentally ran the fuel tank dry. Diesel engines really hate this. I have more diesel, but Alex and I must figure out how to bleed the air from the fuel line before we can use it.
I’m confident we’ll figure it out. Then we’ll go back to our quiet little routines and wait for something else to happen. It always does.