Adam flew back to Australia yesterday and I'll miss him. I went into the regional town of Kokopo with him to sort out some visa issues we had from leaving PNG and then coming back in without actually going anywhere. The rather thick set and authoritarian head of the office scrutinized us in his corner office. Thought for a while he was going to close and lock the door behind us. How long does it take to get to the Solomon's? 2 - 3 days? Where were you then for 6 days? And what is this visa you have Devlin. APEC Travel Card. Never heard of it. Can you get cash out with it too? I just said we just wanted to leave the county and return to our families and that seemed to go over well.
Kokopo was a delight after dusty Rabaul. Also a waterfront town but has a long beach instead of a port, a couple of restaurants, a beautiful hotel and some great supermarkets. I stocked up on some Australian cereal and muesli, soya milk and olives and then had dinner at the hotel overlooking Blanche Bay where we sailed only days earlier. There were a couple of young Japanese businessmen there from Tokyo and I could not resist saying hello. We are having drinks together on Saturday. Was also able to purchase a sim card for my phone and now have full internet access again which was good for catching up on a lot of things.
Adam made it back to Cairns safely and has found two diesel engine workshops. I have found someone local however who has worked on this model engine before and is coming along this afternoon to take a look. If we can pull out the injector pump we may well be able to clean it up and get it working again ourselves. That then leaves the injectors. We don't know if they are working or not yet and won't until the pump works.
So I am now left with 3 scenarios.
1. We get the pump and injectors out this evening and fix them ourselves over the weekend. That would have me getting out of Rabaul on Tuesday.
2. We can't fix them so I take them off to Cairns Sunday, get them repaired (or replaced) on Monday fly back Tuesday and hopefully out of Rabaul by Thursday. I have found a workshop in Port Moresby which might save a day. The German engineer in Lae is too far away from here. Quicker and cheaper to fly to Cairns!
3. Parts cannot be simply repaired or replaced and specialist comes to Rabaul - don't want to think about that just yet.

Whilst I have been waiting on assistance with the engine I have been working on other issues. The toilet had completely stopped. Dismantling it this morning was not fun. The macerator had dental floss around it catching lots of debris and the impeller was also broken. Sure glad I bought that repair kit. Glad to say it is now working fine now.

David