An Easy (?) Day
14 June 2015 | Pugadup
Mark
We decided to stay another day at Pugadup before moving on. We planned an easy day with some beach combing, maybe one dive and general relaxing. The day was nice and sunny. We decided to take dink and kayaks over the the adjacent uninhabited island (there is a caretaker family on this one.) to walk the beach and look for potential dive sites. Dink fired right up as always and then promptly died when I pushed the choke it. Repeat, same. Ran fine with choke out but didn't have much power. OK to get to little island. We enjoyed the island, walking the beach and relaxing in the little holes of sand in the sea grass bottom. The sandy holes are always deeper than the surrounding sea grass bed - perfect for relaxing in. Deb wanted to do the big island as well, so I took her there and then brought dink back to the boat to work on him. Bryan & Jana kayaked over with Deb. When an engine runs on choke, but not off, it usually has a fuel restriction (it could also be an air leak, but that is less common.) I pulled the carb (again) and disassembled it. Sure enough, the main jet was clogged. I cleaned and reassembled it. Then I checked the fuel filter. It was a mess! I cleaned and reassembled it. I pulled the intake from the tank. It was clean. I have a spare tank, so I transferred the fuel to the extra tank, running it through a coffee filter. The first 4 gallons were OK, then it turned milky. I put the last gallon in an old chlorox bottle after agitating it well to try to get everything out. Looked like very fine sand?? And lots of it. Oh well, another problem solved. Dink runs fine now. Lobster rolls for lunch. Then I noticed that despite the good sun, we were only getting ~250W. Should be double that. I did the cover each panel in turn with a towel trick while Bryan watched the amp meter. Sure enough, no output from the port array. Something must have come loose when I moved things around replacing the bimini. After lots of hunting, I found a loose ground connection and fixed it. Now we should have good solar again. Then another dive. I cannot figure out the currents here. As we headed for the main cut, we were fighting a mild current. About the time we got to the coral, it was calm. When we got to the cut we were wisked out to sea faster than I could swim. Why is there ALWAYS such a strong current going OUT the cut? Shouldn't it reverse with the tide? And tides are only 12" here, so usually no big deal. I don't understand. Outside, there was a moderate surge, but it was back and forth so not really a problem. I found a big puffer fish in one hole and a lobster in another. He was good sized and Bryan tried to catch him. Using a tickle stick, he managed to get the lobster turned around, but when he went to loop him, the lobster rocketed backwards hitting Bryan in the chest and then escaping. Coming back in the secondary cut, we again had to fight an outgoing current, but not as bad. We were all exhausted however. I washed down the hookah and got it set for a couple days off. Bryan stored the kayaks. Then we had a couple beers to relax. Bryan did dinner - grilled chicken, pan fried potatoes, and Southern style green beans. It was delicious and I enjoyed the night off. I think everyone was in bed by 8:00 PM! Today we will retrieve all our anchors, visit Tigre and then Nargana, two populated islands.