Still in padang - update sunday 26th

S/V Galatea update
Neil Scott
Sun 26 Apr 2015 11:28
We have had 2 dry days and nights - quite a change. But now looks and sounds like we might be in for some rain later this evening - looming clouds and thunder somewhere nearby.

Got 2 more winches serviced today, that's a total of 5 so far. I will try to get the last one done tomorrow. I had started number 4 yesterday morning but only managed to get 3 of the 4 bolts out the top of the winch before messing up the head of the 4th. Strike 1!

So I hopped in the dinghy to go across to one of the other boats nearby to see whether they had a bigger alan wrench to help get it off. I could not start the outboard and after about 100 pulls and, now with 2 sizable blisters on my fingers, I gave up. Strike 2!! 
(The outboard has been running well despite the fact that the rubber, gas priming button had recently perished and disintegrated. It was just a matter of time before things were going to get difficult).

Then I decided to run the boat engine to charge the batteries which were getting a little low. After an hour or so the engine started missing and would not idle. Was this because of dodgy fuel that we had taken on a week back?? Strike 3!!!
So Mike and I emptied the first primary filter, dissembled and cleaned it, replaced the filter (old one was looking decidedly grubby), and refilled it with diesel by pumping more from the main tank. We then repeated this for the backup primary filter, except for the fact that we could not get the pump to suck up diesel from the tank. So we had to get the pump primed and after a lot of messing around, got the 2nd filter completed. Then we changed the secondary filter at the engine.

Then our friendly Indonesian chappie, mr Nor, came across from the other boat, started the dinghy outboard with no problem, helped me to remove the offending winch bolt, and then watched as we crossed fingers and fired up the main engine. It ran fine for 2 hours, so we can only put it down to the possibility that with all the boat's rolling at anchor, sometimes quite heavily, the liquids in all the tanks got swished around mightily, and in the diesel tank's case, stirred up the, quite likely, not insignificant amount of crud from the bottom of the tank, some of which ended up fouling the filters and thusly, starving the engine. Hopefully that's the reality of it and it's not due to dodgy fuel which could lead to more serious issues. We had the diesel checked by another guy from that boat, mr Mus, the captain, and he reckoned that it looked and smelled like the kosher thing. Here's hoping, but rather this issue surfaced here at anchorage rather than 300 miles offshore.

But by the end of the day, i hadn't achieved much. Another of those days!!

Otherwise, we are expecting Chis to arrive this Wednesday, clear customs, immigration etc on Thursday (Friday is a holiday here), and depart from Padang either Friday or Saturday evening, depending on when we are ready to go. This won't come too soon - we have just about had enough of our time here, especially with the prayer wailing that seems to have been incessant today, Sunday, probably as a way to needle the Christian population.

Ok , cheers for now,

Neil and Mike

- S/V Galatea
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