Pursuit

We made it out of Tahiti...again. This time, I think all is good. We sailed back to Moorea and anchored in Cook's Bay again. I don't have much to say except that it is good to be out of the yard and back to cruising again...again. The plan is to hang out here for a few days, relax, check out Moorea and then head on to the rest of the Society Islands. So stay tuned folks. We are back on the move. We want to get all the way to Tonga for the beginning of the typhoon season so we can make the hop from there down to New Zealand.

The extra time in Tahiti was nice though. We rented a car while in the work yard and spent a day driving around Tahiti. It was nice to see the rest of the island. It certainly has some incredible inland scenery, not seen from the water. It was much better than the work yard scenery. Watching others work gets real boring, real fast. It was hard to be an arm chair mechanic. I always wanted to jump in and help, but my place was in the companionway watching and also at the bank machine, getting money to pay. Ouch!

There was a cute little dog in the yard that was just a stray. We ended up adopting her, well, she ended up adopting us. Tara loved it. It was so filthy though, that when you patted it, your hands would turn black. So Tara gave it a bath. It wasn't so sure about the bath in the beginning, but as Tara kept giving her treats to stay still, she started to like the whole bath thing. After Tara had given her a bath, Stinky, as she was aptly named in the beginning, immediately ran twenty feet away and started rolling in the dirt. Everyone in the yard watching had a good laugh. Way to go Stinky! When we would walk into town, she would always have to follow. Again, rolling in whatever smelly thing she could find. There was a dead animal in the road, flattened to an indistinguishable pancake, that Stinky just loved to roll in. Bad Stinky! I think she just wanted another bath, treats and attention from Tara though. On the weekend the gates would be locked, but we had a key to get in and out. Tara would go for a bike ride, leaving Stinky behind. The first time she did, Stinky just started howling. I was down below and didn't know what was up. It sounded like someone was killing Stinky. I went above and saw Stinky just staring through the fence as Tara rode away. Stinky must have hound in her. What a howl!

The boat was a disaster area for a few days as the mechanic had to move the engine forward in order to remove the transmission. He then left the transmission on the cabin sole while trying to get a new seal for the transmission for a couple of days. He wasn't able to find a matching seal and waiting two weeks for one to be flown in was not appealing, but he had a solution. He took the part that the seal went into, to a machine shop. They made a collar of sorts that went into the housing. This new dimension would now accept the available seal. All was good and no waiting for parts. Sometimes it is good to get the locals to fix it. They know the best ways. If I had tried to fix it, I'm sure it would have turned into a shit show, real fast. Especially after watching what he had to go through to get the transmission out. I uploaded some photos to show the block and tackles, chains and blocks of wood necessary to get it out. All this work for such a small seal.