Port Vila

NORDLYS
David and Annette Ridout
Thu 14 Oct 2004 01:35
PORT VILA
 an extended stay!
 
Port Vila
14th October 2004
 
A few days after I wrote the last webdiary we found ourselves setting out in bright sunshine and with a good forecast for Noumea.  One mile later the engine note changed and water ceased to come out of the exhaust.  Short tacking back to the anchorage we were met by one of the local launches and rather ignominiously put on the mooring we had left so happily an hour before.
 
It turned out that the join of the external raw water pump to the engine had worn so badly it was not working at all.  I had actually discovered this before our return and thus realised to go on was possible but not very sensible.  This pump was serviced in New Zealand last winter and had been put back by the engineer without being  lined up correctly.  We had joined a very long list of yachts that have not found the New Zealand workmanship to be all that it is cracked up to be.
 
A few days went by and the pump shaft and engine 'dog' were made good with weld and the whole has been reinstalled.  Testing has shown all is well, at least at the moment.  Actually we found a really conscientious engineer who was very thorough and  taught me to listen to the various bits of the engine with a stethoscope.  Prevention is a lot easier and cheaper than a breakdown is his philosophy.  He also introduced me to a laser gun that when the trigger is pulled gives the exact temperature of wherever the laser red dot is on.  Rather like a sophisticated lecturer's laser pointer.  This instrument shows no hot spot under the casing of the pump where the join is so we hope for the best.
 
While all this was going on we missed a weather window and grey wet humid weather arrived here as the South Pacific Convergence Zone, SPCZ, has decided to come south early and sit over the Solomon's, Vanuatu and Fiji.  Noumea where we had intended to be is just south of it and in the sunshine.   The wind is stubbornly in the SE at 25 gusting 27 knots and our course is SSE!  Thus we stay put and are catching up on our film going as there is a very good DVD hire place here.
 
Well as the sage says 'if you can't take a joke then you shouldn't have joined'.  The joke, otherwise known as this season's weather, is wearing a bit thin.  Scotland is a place of drought compared to our destinations this year.  So I finish this by saying that we are planning on leaving here directly for New Zealnd tomorrow or perhaps Saturday when the wind is due to be 20 to 25 knots and more in the ESE.  Nordlys and her crew are looking forward to our arrival in Opua New Zealand  which as I write is some 1100 miles away.  Many of you reading this will be being lashed by autumnal gales and we wish you all safe passages, even if they are behind the wheel of a speeding car going over wet and windswept tarmac.
 
Happy times
David and Annette