Graptolite - Attacked by the Snot Monster
Graptolite's Sailing Log
Martyn Pickup & Heike Richter
Sun 8 Mar 2009 12:24
Everything seemed to be going so well.
While heading north to Uligamu on Thursday, the expensively and recently
repaired alternator unrepaired itself. It left us no choice but to return to
Male' overnight.
On Fridays here it's no use expecting any activity unrelated to Islam.
Saturday also came and went with no sign of Rizza the engineer. Sunday too
now is almost over. It's all getting to be a bit irksome.
How does one exist on a boat with no alternator and no shore power? Lots of
power is needed for all kinds of creature comforts, like making drinking
water and playing DVDs. The answer is to have a generator as well. However,
last night while watching a Korean War movie (in Korean, thank you Mike &
Jacqui) we suddenly had a blackout due to overheating. We found a sticky
clear jelly filling the inside of the sea water cooling system of the
generator. It had also wrecked the blades in the seawater pump.
People will say it could have been a careless passing jellyfish that had
been pureed through the mesh but we are sure we had been attacked by the
dreaded Maldivian Snot Monster.
After picking up a few tips on generator repair from my brother Duncan while
in Australia it only took a few hours of cursing this morning to get it up
and running again but the busted diodes of the alternator needs more than
amateur attention. Where is that Rizza?