It's a tough life, this yachting
VulcanSpirit
Richard & Alison Brunstrom
Sun 13 Oct 2013 11:40
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We have been having internet trouble here (ie. no
internet) for it seems like ages, hence the lack of blog entries. It's very
frustrating you know. And of course there are the usual boat maintenance
problems - I've just had the lovely job of dismantling one of our toilets to
replace the impeller (the small rubber paddle wheel inside the electric pump
which drives the macerator), the watermaker is not working so we're having to
ferry water from the shore in 25 litre containers (a long job with a 1000 litre
tank) and today I decided to change the anode on our propeller (a lump of lead
bolted onto the back of the prop which stops the bronze prop disintegrating by
electrolysis) - great until I dropped the bolt onto the seabed under the boat.
Of course stupidly it was the only one we had, absolutely vital and
completely irreplaceable for 1000 miles in any direction. Irritating to say the
least. A fruitless hour of snorkelling followed (luckily we are anchored in only
5m of water so I can easily reach the bottom). The seabed all looks the same and
the boat moves around in the wind in an arc even on anchor making
orientation underwater is very difficult, so I decided to apply some
structure to the search. I dropped a small anchor off the rear of the boat to
mark our position on the bottom and then went down to start a grid search.
Amazingly I found the bolt next to the anchor. Saved! Then I discovered that the
new anode didn't fit (all this taking place underwater of course) even when
persuaded with a lump hammer. So I tried another, with the same result. Turns
out that they're all defective, bar one (the very last I tried, of course). But
sorted now.
But in the unlikely event that you start feeling
sorry for me, here's the bay we're anchored in:
 We're at the Ile des Pins (Isle of Pines) in
southern New Caledonia. The pines themselves are rather special (you can
see a few on the left) and will be subject of another blog very
shortly.
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