DAY 40
Today we have to leave this Island Paradise of Aitutaki. We are all reluctant to leave; it is so beautiful & there is still much more to explore.
Will started to prepare for departure by checking the engine oil, adding water to the batteries, checking fuel level, stowing the dinghy, etc. When he opened the engine compartment to check the oil he discovered a whole bunch more oil had accumulated in the "diapers" that he had placed in the bilge to soak up the oil.
This was so frustrating!! Detecting where the oil was coming from had been next to impossible. So, the next thing to do was to use the oil pump to pump out the oil from the bilge & clean it up & place clean "diapers" down & watch to see if an oil leak from the engine could be detected.
He watched & he watched. Finally, he saw a drip!!! It was coming from a side cover on the engine. Someone had installed a throttle linkage bracket & not used a long enough bolt which
resulted in the end of the bolt being stripped. This then led to the side cover not being securely fastened & allowed the oil to drip into the engine compartment & bilge. If whoever had installed this device had done it properly with the correct size bolt, the oil would not have leaked.
After all this time we finally have solved the oil leak!!! Thank goodness. Needless to say, Will was relieved to have finally figured
out this problem.
The temperature was very hot & humid. The engine compartment is small & closed in making the temperature inside even hotter. While searching for the oil leak he banged & cut his head, had sweat running down his body & was coated in oil up to his elbows.
The Captain was watching what was going on & observed the oil running out of the diapers. She commented to Will that the oil was coming out of the motor & he told her it was not & that the oil she was watching was coming from the rags.
She was not listening to his explanation & questioned him
three different times. Three times he calmly told her of his findings. She still would not believe what he was telling her & once again the argument started. Finally, after she said that "but" word again he got upset with her & told her to "...shut the f&%# up!"
He was at his wits end with her continuous questioning his findings. He had his head in his arms & shook his head back & forth wondering how to get through to this woman without it becoming a rude shouting match. If only
she would listen! It was getting tiresome trying to explain things over & over to her.
Will is very patient & does not easily lose his cool. I have never heard or seen him pushed to his limits the way the Captain pushed him.
It turned out that she was not concerned about the motor not working but that Will had been rude to her! As far as I was concerned the motor problem was a bigger deal than someone being rude.
Finding the oil leak did not answer the problem of the motor, however. It was something else that was happening to make the motor to not work properly. Will discovered that there really was something seriously wrong with the motor.
Without proper diagnostic tools, it was next to impossible to pinpoint just what the exact problem was. The engine had very little pushing capability to navigate through the water.
We would have to rely solely on the wind to get us
to Hawaii.
Before we could leave on the next passage to Suvarov Will had to troubleshoot the water maker once again! This was never ending - we thought that at least the water maker would not be a problem again given that we had got a new part for it.
This time the motor would not work properly. Well, after looking at it again & taking the motor apart it seemed like a "no-brainer."
The water maker had
been installed upside down. With the water maker being mounted in this manner it allowed salt water to run into the motor. Being mounted upside down would also allow oil from the gear box to drip into the motor.
And that is exactly what happened. Good thing Will has experience in these things. He took the brushes out to discover corrosion in the brush guides. After cleaning out the brush guides & reassembly, the water maker worked again.
The next thing to tackle before we set off was to secure the salt water pump in the galley. The screws were coming loose & would end up falling apart if it wasn't secured down.
Once that was done, the next task was to realign the wind vane rudder. It is just one thing after another on this journey. Everyone is very upset & frustrated with the ongoing arguing with the Captain.
Leaving the mooring buoy would be the next topic of discussion! Will cast off our lines from the buoy & we were off. The Captain had been below in the cabin & realized that we were moving without the motor running. She argued that we could not leave the mooring buoy while under sail. Well, we had just done it.
And besides, what was she going to do if she had no engine, how would she get going then? She
was not convinced we could leave under sail even though we were on our way.
I guess the Captain has had enough.
She decides on her own that we are going to head straight for Hawaii & abort our plans for going to Suvarov, Penrhyn & Kiribati Islands. She stated this decision to Will & told him the coordinates (as if he needed them), after he had the sails already set on course. He "seemingly" agreed - we would head for Hawaii.
Once we were established on our course I questioned Will about the change of plans & he looked at me & smiled. He told me that we were on a course for Suvarov! Looking surprised, I asked what prompted him to do that?
We had invested too much money, time & effort in this boat & sailing adventure that he did not want to quit or abort the mission. Even though it was very difficult dealing with the Captain neither one of us wanted to quit. We said we would get the boat back to Hawaii & wanted to do just that. At this point in time we were not willing to let her dictate to us what we were or were not going to do.
Needless to say, I was not unhappy with the decision to carry on. We could handle the Captain. We had so far. It couldn't get much worse, we thought.
This would be our last chance to abort the adventure because there would not be any more places that were on our way that would have any airport facilities. We were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean!
Will still had several weeks left of holidays so had plenty of time left to continue this sailing adventure & visit
more of the Cook Islands. Although we had already gone through some major confrontations with the Captain, we thought that we could cope with anything else that may come along. We felt we had everything under control.
Silly us - the most trying events were yet to
come!!
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