This bay is a great little place. Quite sheltered except from the 'williwaws' (the winds that blast down the valleys of the mountains across the water). When we arrived on Monday night, Michael and Liam readied the dingy for deploy on Tuesday so we could go snorkeling and explore the beach a bit. Well, this crew is not an 'up and at it' kind of crew, so it wasn't until the afternoon that we finally got into the dingy to go. They didn't get the 'sleepy head' genes from me. I'm up every morning between 5 and 6! We snorkeled for about an hour and explored the north shore of the bay. We saw some beautiful fish but not much coral. The kids played in the surf for a while and then it was time to come back to Gromit and examine the jib sail which we saw was ripped.

It was now later in the afternoon and with only limited light left, we knew we had to get the sail down to see if we could get it sewn before dark.

Plans often change. Have I ever said that before?

Here's what happened:

We were going to be leaving here this morning - Wed- but when we went to take down our jib (most forward sail) because of the tears in it, we noticed that there were some set screws sticking out of the roller furling extrusion. We couldn't just lower the furler car (the 'car' is how the sail is raised and lowered), because it would have gotten stuck on the screws. So, up the mast I went to release the jib from the car by undoing the shackle. Then, some williwaws (strong winds blowing down the mountain side) and a hole bunch of rain came pelting down. I could hardly see what I was doing and Michael was at the bottom of the mast trying to hold on to the jib as the wind was making it flap wildly. There was so much pressure on the shackle at the top that I was having a problem pulling out the pin and then I was worried that when I eventually did get the pin out that the shackle would get flung into the water. I tied the shackle onto a line and when I got the pin out, the shackle went sailing down attached to the strapping of the jib. At least it was safe and not in the water. The whole time, I was rocking back and forth. I've worked at the top of the mast before, but usually it has been in a stable place with out waves or wind. Also, as I was going up the mast, I was checking out if there were any issues such as loose screws etc. At the top, I noticed that one of our cotter pins, that holds the whole furler cable, had almost completely backed out. With my pliers! I started hammering it back in. This took so long and in the end, I wasn't able to bend out the edges, because it was raining so hard and getting dark. At least the pin is back in, but another trip is required to bend out the ends and bring down the furler car so that when the sail is repaired it can be reattached and hoisted. Oh, such adventures! Nevertheless, the view was beautiful and I got a great fresh water shower!!!! Poor Michael, he was at the bass of the mast freezing while I was struggling with the pin. Zoe had hot chocolate made for us when we finally got back to the cockpit. WOW!

Today, Wednesday, the plan is.........right, the plan is to sew the sail in the morning and get it back up the furler. Tomorrow we hope to sail to Nuku Hiva to finally check in officially. We'll hopefully meet up with Artemo after our check in.