Tahiti 8-9 Nov 2008

8 Nov 2008

Yesterday we set up wireless internet access from the boat. This morning I downloaded and installed Skype to my laptop. The voice test to Skype failed and we figured that my laptop might not even have an internal microphone. I went out and purchased a headset for about $20 AUD and I was in business. My Skype name is “pachucaman”.

For the last few days Arnold and I have been making trips to the Shell petrol station with our trolley loaded with two 10-liter containers which we would fill up then return to the boat to empty them into our diesel tanks. Today I made the last trip. As of now our main tanks are full with a total of 140 liters of diesel, and we have a reserve of 20 liters in separate containers. I also refilled our outboard motor petrol tank with “Shell Super Sans Plomb” (“Without Lead”, almost a direct lift from one of my high school Latin text books)

We estimate that we used 105 liters of diesel fuel for 37.3 engine running time. This translates to 2.8 liters per hour running at an average of 1200 rpm. We estimate that our 140 liters of fuel will give us 50 hours running time, with another 7 hours from our reserve. That should give us a range of at least 250 nm (plus another 35 nm from our reserve) if we ignore the effects of wind and tide. We expect to use the engine mainly to charge up our batteries. With the amount of sun to be expected in crossing the equator and some help from the wind we hope to average less than 45 minutes per day of battery-charging time.

That afternoon we had a good conversation with Stephen, Brenda's son, via Skype.

The evening was quiet. We watched the Tahitian Princess enter the harbour and berth after dinner. Then the three of us went out looking for some great live music by a group of locals having a lot of fun that we had seen in at an outdoor cafe the night before but found that place closed and followed our ears to other music that turned out to be at the local McDonald's. A group of kids did a great gospel music number. We'll visit that cafe next Friday night in the hopes of spending an hour or two listening to that group over a jug of beer.

9 Nov 2008

This was Sunday and we were reminded how quiet Papeete can be. I had run out of time for my WiFi service and the kiosk sells the cards and which advertises ouvert 7x7 was closed. We had planned to visit the Lagoonarium, an oceanarium near of the airport, but the “truck” bus service to that area was did not run on Sundays. Brenda and I had to satisfy ourselves with a walk to the other side of town to visit the fishing boat harbour, which was very interesting. The fleet impressive its size and the quality of the boats. The shore facilities were excellent with plenty of places to buy fresh fish straight off the boat. This should not be a surprise since Papeete would be the centre of 4.5 million square kilometers of ocean managed by French Polynesia. Arnold had a go at walking up into the hills but was not as successful as he would have wanted because there do not seem to be any maps available.

We all got back to the boat for lunch and after a nap I watered down the boat to cool it down and we made preparations for some mast work. Arnold took the slack on the halyard connected to my safety harness as I went up. At the mid-mast light I put it a new steaming light globe which tested out OK. I then continued up the mast and at the very top I got as comfortable as I could and working with Arnold below made three revolutions of the new Raymarine wind indicator at the rate of 1 revolution per minute to “linearize” the unit. Part 2 of the process was to hold the wind indicator so that it was pointing directly to the front of the boat so that Arnold could make suitable offset adjustments to the unit. Brenda was on the next jetty with binoculars to help me get a good line. We did the best we could and I returned to the deck. Arnold had offset the display a whopping 160 degrees to get it to report accurately where the wind is coming from. But as feared that resulted in the wind direction numbers reported on the chart plotter also being adjusted by 160 degrees so that it now tells us where the wind is going to. Arnold and I have concluded that there is something wrong with the display. The truth will probably have to wait until we get to Seattle. In the meantime we will be able to see the apparent wind direction from the steering station, which is the most important thing.