If you think you are tired of this story, think of how we feel! You’ll never guess what we found 8 hours out of Subic, just South of Manila—terns wheeling and diving, flying fish exploding in groups, and a 15 kt breeze with bright sunshine—you guessed it……another leaky fuel hatch.

Called Ray Wolfe on the Satellite phone who restrained himself from actually telling me, “I told you so” although he had suggested we consider replacing all of the hatchcover gaskets and sealant—a big job involving significant fuel transfer and 5 more hatches. We had hoped that it was an isolated issue localized to the second hatch we repaired but clearly it is a generalized problem with the gasket material itself and I will be discussing the issue with the builder.

So, so we go back to the Subic Bay Yacht Club in our old spot. This will like take 2-3 days as the material has to be shipped from Manila, 3 hours away and it is Sunday. We will replace all the gaskets.
On the good news front, if there is any at the moment, is that everything else on the boat is working well and the engine is purring like a cat, albeit it a big one.

As we leisurely cruised back up the coast in the late morning Roger had a great quote —“This is really nice. We really should do more of it” Roger also just forwarded me a bunch of his pics, a sampling of which I will post to the gallery.