After a couple of nights of deep and peaceful sleep, we are starting to feel relatively normal again. Having said that, John woke up in the middle of the night last night - the tide changed and started to ebb so the boat moved around a bit on the dock, and he woke up in state thinking we were at sea and that with both of us in bed and nobody on watch we were in danger.
Wombat had some trouble with his rudder stock, as we mentioned previously, and needed some material to make a permanent repair - additionally Kukka had big problems with his alternators - not charging effectively and hence no amps to run fridge, computer, lights etc for long - and it turns out this was all the result of some pretty dodgy work done on the boat in Sydney whereby an alternator bracket was putting strain on the pulleys and causing belts to burn out. So today, John, Mike and Alex went on a mission to Ducos, the industrial area of Noumea, where they found marine adhesives, bearings, bushes, belts, gaskets, impellers, and seals in industrial quantities and came home poorer but happier.
Destiny seems to have escaped the tide of significant breakages, and our repairs have been limited to routine wear and tear, with no major issues and we feel very fortunate.
A retrospective note: Customs came to Mikes and Lynn's boat on Sunday, having received his declaration form that there were 99 bottles of rum onboard. They were concurrently amazed and sceptical of this, and came to investigate. Turns out Mike did have 99 bottles of rum, widely dispersed over the boat in lockers, hatches and bilge pockets. These were bonded for the duration of the stay. Seems Mike was owed $100 US by some cruiser in the Caribbean and was paid in bottles of Santa Maria Special Quality rum - 110 bottles settled the debt at about 90 cents per 750 ml bottle. Is it rough? You bet!
So tonight we are relishing having internet access and are cooking up a curry of the fantastic blue striped prawns that are so cheap here and of fantastic quality, having had a couple of sundowners on Kukka with Alex and Di.
Keep looking at the pics - click here
Cheers from us!