Finally heading out to an anchorage
07 October 2012 | Neiafu Harbor
Finally some Sun!
It's now Saturday and the rain is set to start up again today. We had about a 36 hour respite from it. Tracy baled 80 bucket loads of water our of Puff(our dinghy)before we started in on getting the last out with our small bilge pump.
We worked on a project or two yesterday trying to get ready to get out to the islands but Mother Nature just won't cooperate. It blows in the mid teens just about non stop and we've had either 100 cloud cover with rain or just rain. It has helped the island recover from the drought of the last 4 months.
Today, I'll be changing the fuel filters to the engine During our bouncy trip over from Fiji, it stirred up some of the dead bacteria from the bottom of our tanks. It had settled at the bottom of our Racor filter assembly but has slowly moved up into the filter during the occasional use of the engine. It's time to change all of them. The engine worked flawlessly during our trip over to Tonga from Fiji so she deserves a bit of pampering.
It's now Monday and while the rain has slowed down, the winds are still kicking up to the 20 knot range. We've had enough of Neiafu for a while and will be dropping the line to the mooring ball and heading out to one of the anchorages. Probably Manamaca(#15) to see the final days of the school year and meet some of the children and teacher. It's going on on Tuesday and Wednesday so it should be some fun and away from the main harbor for a week or so. We have already spent two weeks here stuck in the rain and wind and just two weeks left before we have to be out of here or pay for an extension.
Since internet is so rare(and slow), we can only pick it up once we get on shore in Neiafu at one of the two places available. One is free(really SLOW) and another charges $1.00(about .60US) for 10 minutes. Much faster and speed is what we need to get things done. The SLOW place counts on you buying drinks as you wait for any kind of connection. Happy to pay.
We picked up a loaf of Italian Bread this morning that we won during the Regatta. Sure hope it tastes good.
So that's about it for now. I did get the fuel filters changed on Saturday and the engine is purring along just fine. Another project taken care of.