What a fine day, overall. I’ll tell you about our lovely evening when it’s time.

Same old, same old for a lot of the day. Heat and work, heat and work were the order of the morning. We did get the second solar panel installed and tested them: they were producing over 12 A for several hours and we actually turned off the AC charger. It’s good to know that something works since that’s not always the case.

Conni worked on deck in the cockpit most of the morning while I installed a new galley fan. She erected the bimini cover and dodger, so we have some shade, now. She also polished a lot of stainless steel. Does that even sound reasonable to you? Why should one have to polish stainless steel?

I used a piece of aluminum strap, bent it to the guessed-correct angle, drilled some holes, and used it to mount the new fan. I also disassembled the old fan in an effort to fix the oscillation problem, but the problem was a stripped nylon gear and was not repairable. I’ll mount it elsewhere as a non-oscillating fan. Waste not, want not.

At 1200 we left for our bungalow to wait out the heat but Conni decided that she wanted to investigate the Raiatea Yacht Club and the various Moorings and SunSail charter boat marina. It’s beautiful! We decided to enjoy a lunch there and shared poisson cru, or raw fish marinated in coconut milk and line juice with lots of onion and such, the French Polynesian national dish. The presentation was gorgeous, so take a look at the site. We also strolled around the marina and found where the non-charter boats were moored and tied. At US$35/day or US$25/day for a week’s rental, it’s something that we’d consider.

Before arriving at our bungalow, we made our usual stop for baguette and Orangina. As we were paying, a Bob Marley song started playing and I simply could not keep from a bit of a move. The checkout guy just howled! “Good sounds!”, he said, obviously feeling the same need to dance. Ah, music!

On our return to the yard, I was contemplating work on our new raw water pump cover: a Speed Seal. The expensive device allows an easy replacement of a raw water impeller with no special tools. The new cover was machined out of a block of bronze and was just beautiful work. Without hesitation, I said to Conni, “Want to see some beautiful machining?” Since her dad is a true machinist, she understood what she was seeing and agreed that it was beautifully done. There are few people who would have understood what they were seeing.

My success of the day was in figuring out the wiring problem with the bilge pump automatic feature. As mentioned, the manual circuit worked but not the automatic. I had replaced the pump panel switch since I had an extra and the old one was very old. Didn’t help the problem. After a few stumbles, I cut the hot to the automatic circuit and grounded the meter to the house bank negative. Nothing! It was the damned wire! I gave the wire a bit of a pull and it slipped out of the conduit and exposing the broken wire! I always use marine grade wire and terminals, so had simply never seen a high quality wire fail, but there it was. I used my wire fish tape (a spool of stiff metal wire that one uses to lead wire through places that are inaccessible) and ran another wire: house voltage at the wire’s end. I’ll get the old pump and put a new float switch on it and I imagine we’ll be fine.

Conni, meanwhile, had struck a conversation with a single-hander whose boat had just been pulled. He told her that we should join him for a beer, at least, at the little restaurant/hotel where he was staying. We decided to join him and had a great time! They were serving steak and fries for US$5 and large Hinano beers for US$4! What’s not to like? We listened to his tales woe concerning the single-hand journey from Mexico to the Marquesas that we had completed three years ago. An Australian family also joined us since their boat had also just been pulled. What fun! Meeting people is one of the best parts of cruising and this put us back into the cruising lifestyle.

Tomorrow will be a difficult day, but we did have a fun and successful day today.