Well, we arrived on Thursday afternoon just in case our compressor had arrived and Edison would be fitting it on Friday.

As we sailed through the anchorage we saw the supply ship from Guayaquil which was bringing not only our compressor, but also the liquid that Edison needed to clean our refrigeration unit out with. It was pretty obvious from the toing and froing of the lanchas that the supply ship was going to take a lot of unloading.

Later, as we went ashore and saw all the cargo piled up on the dock it didn’t take too many brain cells to work out that our cargo would not be available in time for Edison to start work on Friday, or for that matter on Saturday either.

So, to cut a long story short, Edison arrived at 09.00 on Monday morning!! He worked right through until 23.00hrs and still we did not have refrigeration. Tuesday he was back and by early evening the fridge was cooling.

I am sitting here on Wednesday evening, having just finished stowing all the food. So far the fridge seems to be working well (at least the drinks are cold for a change). Edison is coming back later this evening to check and hopefully we will get the all clear. It has certainly been a complicated process, but we were lucky to have found Edison.

So, mid morning tomorrow we are setting sail across the Pacific Ocean, 3000 miles to be exact, our destination, Hiva Oa in the Marquesas, French Polynesia.

We are all ready for the crossing and perhaps the delay was necessary to put us all in the right frame of mind. You know when you get worked up about something and finally you just bite the bullet and get on with it? Well it’s like that. Apart from Roger, the rest of us were apprehensive about the crossing, for different reasons, but now we all just want to get on with it. So, apart from short, text only position updates which will show our progress on the google earth map,  this will be the last major blog update for the next 3 to 4 weeks (possibly longer if we can’t find internet access in Hiva Oa) so stay tuned as I hope to have lots of news when I next update.

UPDATE:

Kinky the skink is alive and well (but only just). We was sitting reading in the cockpit the other night and put my book down to get a drink. When I picked up the book, I felt something cold and clammy on my finger and threw it and the book. Yes, it was Kinky!! Anyway, she (I have decided Kinky is a she and I’ll tell you why later) was ok, perhaps a little stunned, but she hung around long enough to get a photo.

So how do I know Kinky is a she? Yes, today I saw baby Kinky. If you bear in mind that the stitching in the photo is normal sized and they are screw holes,  it will give you some idea of how tiny it is.