Another day in Lagos
Minka of Southampton - Cruising Log
Edmund Wigan
Thu 2 Sep 2010 20:40
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The plan was to continue our journey today. Two
things have conspired against us. Firstly the wind has continued from the north
west which is heading us. More seriously we started the engine this morning to
find a huge cloud of smoke coming from the exhaust.
We opened up the engine compartment to find about
half a gallon of oil in the engine bilge. On further investigation this was
actually a small amount of oil floating on water. The water was salty but I
don't know about the oil as curiosity only takes you so far,
The smoke is probably caused by a faulty fuel
injector or pump which is beyong my expertise so we sent for a mechanic. The oil
in the bilge is due to a long standing problem which means the engine leaks
about a tablespoon full about every 8 hours running. The salt water in the bilge
is a new problem caused by a leak between the sea water and fresh water cooling
systems which overpressures the fresh water circuit which is then relieved via
the radiator cap. The source of this leak is a mystery but could be found by
dismantling the heat exchanger. Thye engine can be run safely with these
leaks.
The mechanic came whilst John was on the boat and
has gone back to see his boss about the problems. John reports that whilst he
was running the engine the top end started making a rattling noise. When I got
back to the boat and started the engine this had disappeared, We have yet to
hear from the engineer's boss.
Depending on the engineer's boss and how big a job
it is to fix the engine we have two choices. One is to stay here until the
engine is fully fixed or maybe even replaced as it is 16 years old. The other to
carry on our trip just running the engine to get into any marinas. The latter
would be fine as long as we have reasonable and helpful wind forecasts. It will
be interesting to see what the engineer's boss says tomorrow when I see
him.
Not all gloom though. We walked down to the beach
this evening and spent a happy hour watching the locals haul in a sardine net to
the beach. Initially there were two teams of about 20 people spaced about 400mts
apart. Each group was pulling a rope up the beach out of the sea at a slow
walking pace. Eventually it became obvious as they got closer together that they
were pulling opposite ends of a huge net. After about half an hour they hauled
he last part of the net up the beach which was full of about half a ton of
sardines. Quite a profitable evening's work. The teams involved people from 5 to
90 all working together. In the UK this would be a community involvement project
managed by a sociologist rather than an old fisherman.
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