Papeete or Bust!

We were so excited to have our boat projects “finished” (more on that later) and to be living on a functional boat again that we forgot about the realities of sailing the boat. With the goal of sailing from Port Phaeton to Papeete, we got up at 6 a.m. only to be met by a pelting rain storm. After not having been on the boat for over three months, just trying to remember if we reinstalled everything the right way (we didn’t) and how to sail the boat was a huge challenge. 

With surf breaking on both sides of us we carefully navigated out the pass, but when we got the genoa up we realized the furling line (that pulls the sail back in like a window shade) was way too short. So out in the middle of the deep blue ocean I had to go forward and undo 20 wraps of 80 ft. line off the drum, no simple task at the dock and certainly more challenging with the waves breaking over the bow. 

With that task done, we experienced some excellent sailing, up to 10 knots with the wind off the beam. Then the wind totally died and we motor sailed for about three hours, and then ran into a wall of 23- to 30-knot winds right on the nose. We debated about going back (there was a huge reef to leeward of us for the next 20 miles. For every 100 feet we sailed we slid about a couple of feet towards the reef. If I had been a Math major I could have calculated whether we would make it or not, but I was a History major so it was a moot point. It was very questionable in my mind if we could sail that high to avoid eventually hitting the reef. But with the motor on to assist us it turned out we’d left just enough sea room and came roaring through the pass at Papeete. With my left leg not working because of a torn meniscus, walking around the bouncing decks and getting done the sails was not fun, but we got it done.

The marina at Papeete was recently remodeled and is now a first class operation. We enjoyed watching these huge cruise ships tie up and disgorge their thousands of passengers onto the streets of Papeete.

Arriving at Papeete we thought all our "boat jobs" were completed so we could just relax for a while. It turns out we were a tad bit optimistic.

The promenade along the waterfront is packed with people day and night.

Of all the places we've traveled around the world, we've found the Polynesians to best understand the concept of "work/life balance."

It was wonderful to see Marce and Jack on Escape Velocity again, even if it was only for two days.

Luckily our friends Jack and Marce on Escape Velocity (leaving tomorrow morning, as always) helped us get tied up, which was wonderful given that we had about 25 knots of cross wind. The dock at the City Marina in Papeete was totally rebuilt several years ago and it’s now a first class marina. It was nice to sit in the cockpit and watch everyone (it’s like the Seattle waterfront on a warm summer’s day) walking along the seafront promenade that goes for about three miles along the water. On the seaward side of us are several cruise ship docks, and there’s a huge cruise ship in right now that blocks out the sky. Quite the show.

While the installation of the water maker was a fairly simple job, it's always the complete disruption of our living spaces that's the most difficult to deal with.

The Spectra Ventura 200T water maker fits well into one of our deep lockers. A high pressure Clark Pump forces the salt water through a special membrane that separates the salt from the water, quite an amazing process when you think about it.

The water maker's membrane needs to be flushed with fresh water following each water making session. The filter on the left filters out any chlorine from our fresh water tanks that could damage the membrane. On the far right is the feed pump that pumps salt water to the Clark Pump for separation into salt and water.

On Saturday Oct 10th, in fit of masochism, I decided to take a crack at installing the new water maker. I was going to wait until we got to the Marquesas, but I’d read enough that I thought I could do it. I explored the most likely installation locations and found the previous owner had the exactly same water maker (Spectra Ventura 200T) installed at some point on the boat. That meant I just had to match up the screw holes, and the plumbing/wiring runs were already in place. 

I had a few hiccups along the way when the instructions were ambiguous, but I got it working on Sunday morning — producing beautiful, pure water for free (solar panels power the 24-volt water maker at 5 amps/hour). I had a few leaks at first and got them fixed, but then I noticed a weird thunking noise every 20 secs. I  powered the water maker down and sent an email to our friends on Escape Velocity (who had just left). They have the same water maker and they said the noise is normal from the high pressure pump shifting. So I guess we’re good to go. 

Having a water maker dramatically changes our lives in a number of ways. In the South Pacific there are fewer locations to get water and many times you have to land the dingy on beach with breaking surf and then haul 250 pounds of water in 5-gal. containers down the beach, into the dingy, and onto the boat. Not fun. 

Now we just flip a switch and cool, clean water comes flowing out the hose. We get to take longer showers (not sure we can do that at this stage), have fresh water to wash down the boat and SCUBA gear, and don't have to plan our lives around water acquisition. We did loose a lot of storage so the problem now is try to get everything back into new places. That will definitely be a challenge.

It was fun to watch the passengers on this huge cruise ship as they looked down, watching us.

Amazingly my torn meniscus kind of moved back in place so the pain is gone for now and I can actually walk. We took a celebratory walk along the incredible waterfront promenade that goes along the Papeete Harbor shoreline. The government built a wonderful park along the water with lots of grassy fields where the locals play soccer, volleyball, and picnic areas. 

The Central Market in Papeete is a huge covered building full of fruits, vegetables, fabrics, and curios that attracts crowds from the cruise ships as well as locals.

At night near the square the "roulettes" (food trucks) set up operations. It's a wonderful place to get a relatively inexpensive meal (somewhat of an oxymoron here in Tahiti).

Meryl and I absolutely love the Polynesian print fabrics, so you can imagine our joy finding this fabric store in downtown Papeete. Here Meryl shops with Britta from the sailboat Desire.

Papeete is chock full of "black pearl" shops where the cruise ship passengers can get good deals on the unique pearls. We will be traveling to the Tuamotus where the pearls are farmed so we will probably wait until then to buy some as gifts.

This woman gave me the best 10-minute shampoo massage and haircut I've ever had. In many of the South Pacific islands men are raised as women depending on the needs of the family. In Tahiti these "women" are called Mahu and are totally accepted in society.

The weather has calmed down a bit and it’s actually cooler at night, almost a perfect temperature. We took some time (in between long walks to marine chandleries and ACE Hardware looking for parts) to enjoy some local French restaurants (I especially enjoy the hot fudge sundae at Chez McDonalds) and to do a little shopping. Meryl got me a beautiful Polynesian print shirt so now I look exactly like all the guys coming off the cruise ships. Our plan now is to just wait a bit for the right weather and then head to the Marquesas.

Well, as usual I spoke too soon. I said something no cruiser should ever say: "I think our boat projects are almost done." Any cruiser worth his salt knows that utterance is the kiss of death, even with "knock on teak." Sure enough, that night -- after spending a lovely day just wandering around Papeete "because our boat projects are done," I heard an ominous noise from the engine compartment. The refrigerator was making a weird sound. The fridge is the one thing (outside of the engine) that we can't afford to lose. After listening to the fridge I surmised that the carbon brushes to the electric motor that drives the compressor were failing;  this has happened twice before.

The next morning we began a campaign of trying to find out who could fix electric motors in Papeete. We arrived at the most likely candidate's shop at 11:46 a.m., just one minute after they had closed for their one and one-half hour lunch at 11:45. Oh, I forgot to mention we'd walked halfway across town to get there. A nice engineer at a neighboring electrical business helped us out, even driving us to the second most likely business to fix electric motors, who informed us "yes they do, but at their other location (located right next door to where the engineer worked and where we started our search). Well you can see where this is going.

Long story short, we found a great refrigeration guy who confirmed it wasn't the motor but the flexible coupling between the motor and the compressor that was failing. Wow, I thought, do I feel better now. We could try to order one from the States, but it would take up to a month and one-half and cost up to $500 with shipping and customs duty, that is if we could find one. Or, our mechanic had a machinist friend who could fabricate one out of teflon for $250. A Hobson’s Choice, we chose the second option. Now, just two days later we have a functioning fridge again and we can hopefully leave here this Friday.

As typical, when you start fixing one thing it leads to another, a boat being just like a big Pandora’s Box. Since I had to fix refrigerator, I had to disassemble a lot of stuff in the engine compartment, so with the area open I decided to tackle one more thing on the list, a lot of rust on the aft end of the engine, especially the starboard aft engine mount and transmission linkage. This is stuff you can’t have fail and rust will do that fairly quickly. 

It meant getting in there with a very powerful grinder/electric wire brush and getting everything shiny again without ripping part of your hand off with the grinder. Actually the hardest part of the job was finding a single spray can of Yanmar engine paint that I know is on the boat somewhere. It was supposed to be at the bottom of the deepest, most crowded compartment on the boat, the one we’d just emptied four days earlier to install the water maker. After emptying not one, but all three deep compartments the paint was no where to be found (I did find a bunch of other stuff I’d been looking for, however). So out of eight cans of paint on the boat, I found seven, but not the important engine paint. That meant another hour-long walk down to the ACE Hardware to buy something that approximated the color, but not exactly. 

Since two metals were involved in the area, I had to first put on a special primer that bonds with the rust to the steel, and then zinc chromate as a primer for the aluminum engine.  After two days we got everything painted and it looked brand new, but when I was putting all the parts back together I felt a drip of water on my neck. Eureka! I had finally found the elusive drip that had been causing the rust issue. The vacuum breaker on the engine cooling water loop that was overhead behind a bunch of wires had been leaking for years. It was a fairly simple fix to put new vacuum breaker on, so hopefully this persistent problem is solved. 

Never again will I say “all the boat projects are done.”