Well it has been confirmed, there is no diesel on the
island and won’t be until next Tuesday, so that puts us nearly two weeks behind
our schedule and means we will have less time in the Tuamotus, which is a shame
as I have been told they are gorgeous.
Roger has been finding it very difficult to accept that
there is nothing we can do about our delay. However, he has been putting the
time to good use. He managed to fix Songline’s Chartplotter and auto pilot and
as a thank you, Phil & Christina took us out to dinner at the Pearl Lodge
resort, very nice indeed.
So he has been doing lots of little jobs about the boat,
one of which was a pet project of mine, which I have been trying to get off the
ground for 3 years. The Hammocks!!
I have been asking for and buying, in the hope of a
positive response, a hammock on the foredeck, just somewhere comfortable to
chill out. But Roger initially said it was not practical due to the staysail
boom being in the way and possibly damaging the genoa.
However, when we were in Isabela in the Galapagos, there
was a boat anchored near us.
On their foredeck they had not one, but two hammocks
slung under an awning and everyday we would see them lying in their hammocks reading.
So it was that in Santa Cruz I got the permission I
needed and promptly purchased 2 gorgeous cotton hammocks for only $20 each (a
bargain!).
So as we were stuck here, I asked Roger if he would set
them up, we may as well enjoy the stay here.
After a little refining of his original idea for hanging
them, we were set. It wasn’t long before Roger was settled into his hammock,
snoring happily.
As Friday night is happy
hour up at the lodge, a crowd of us went along and had a really good
evening.
Bubbles and her
crew had arrived in the anchorage so it was nice to catch up with Alex, Ross and
Deigo and hear about all their exploits.
On Saturday Christina had arranged for us to hire a car
to explore the island. We set off at 09.00 (though it should have been 07.00)
and climbed the twisty, winding roads over the mountains.
The scenery
was breathtaking, thought there weren’t many places to stop. It is quite diverse
with pine forests, barren plains and lush ‘jungle’.
The roads were a mixture of great, okay, reasonable and
downright terrible, barely more than a dirt track at times, which climbed
steeply and hung precariously to the edge of cliffs. Not a road for the faint
hearted.
We stopped along the way and explored ruins, watched
beautiful birds flying overhead, picked fruit from roadside trees and took
numerous photos.
Whilst the trip was rather uncomfortable because of the
road conditions I was glad we had done it, because the island really is
stunning.
We had to get back by 5pm, but by then we were all tired
(having been up since 6am for a 7am car pick up that never happened!) so we
called it a day.
Phil, determined to reciprocate Roger’s help with his
electronics problem, came over the boat with Erique, a refrigeration engineer.
After a quick look at the problem and a discussion, he
told us he had to wait until, yes you guessed it, the supply boat came in with
the Freon he needed to do the job.
Neither Roger nor I could bear the thought of any further
delays, so Erique gave us a contact in Tahiti.
Phil then sent Stuart over. Stuart is a sail maker by
trade and is sailing back to Oz. He took a look at our sail problems, all of
which weren’t insurmountable in his opinion, but we will have to wait until
Tahiti.
Our friends, Stuart ( a different one) and Fran, whom we
had met in Bocas del Toro, what seems like a life time ago had pulled into the
anchorage and somehow, Stuart had heard about our refrigeration saga (who
hasn’t?) so he came up to Roger and said one of his crew is an engineer who
teaches about refrigeration and he would come and sort it our. SO folks, fingers
crossed.
I have a gut feeling it will be sorted out this time.
Why? Because what goes around, comes around. Roger fixed Phil's problems and
someone is going to fix ours. Watch this space!!!
