Cargados Carajos Shoals visitor.
We have spent almost a week here, what we call the Poor Man’s Chagos. The first few days was recovering from our short but brutal passage. We both felt like we had been run over (by a semi none the less). After we got our bodies back together again, we started on a few boat chores. Thanks to the Iridium email, we were able to contact our refrigeration installer and he came back with a possible fix for the fridge. After a bit of rewiring, it seems the fridge is back working again, and much more efficient on power usage than it has ever been (thanks Ian). However, with a voltage drop as the cause, we will at a later date put in some “bigger wire” when we can source good marine grade wire. We sure hope it stays working until we can make the improvement. When inspecting the engine, we noticed a small oil leak, which became a fountain when the engine was started. It seems a hydraulic oil hose had sprung a leak. Fortuitously, I (Paul) was right there at the engine when it happened. It saved our engine being covered in oil and nothing more than just the usual pool of nasty water in the bilge. We put a “Band-Aid” on it and held it on with hose clips. We hope it lasts till we get to Mauritius. And then, when there is nothing else to do, our on board MacGyver decides to tinker yet again with the defunct FP Generator. Seems he can’t leave it alone. But, after a little tinkering and changing this, that and the other thing, it seems to be going. We were able to successfully run it to complete 2 loads of laundry without it overheating. We are still not convinced but it seems like things are really looking up. The wind is continually blowing (like stink), the generator works, and so nothing for it but to catch up on a few movies and TV series. We haven’t watched the square screen for some time, as power had been an issue for us since the FP Genset became ill. We did meet the 2 inhabitants of Coco Island and were invited ashore but it seems so windy every day, we eventually declined. It was windy enough to give our wee dinghy some grief as gusts were often over 30knots. We were able to amuse ourselves till we get a weather window where it wasn’t blowing >30 knots and the seas weren’t >20 ft. We continued to eat from our stores and it amazing what you can do with a can of tomatoes and some chicken. I baked bread and we had some egg powder so we had the last of our bacon for a very enjoyable brunch of bacon and eggs on toast.