Courtesy of the “South Equatorial Current” we have smashed our daily distance record and achieved well over 200 miles in a day. The flow has been up to nearly 4 knots at times and we have had a steady 15 -18 knots of wind pushing us along too. We could have done more if we wanted to, but we played it safe and put a reef in for the night to keep things under control if the wind blew up again. We’ll try and stay in this current as long as we can before hanging a left to French Polynesia.
One of the things I find annoying with boats is the frequency with which stuff breaks. It’s generally expected and is dismissed with a “oh, it’s a boat, what do you expect”. To some extent I get it as its a salty, high UV, dynamic environment and materials get stressed. However, I still think some of it is poor product design, build quality and a general concensus that boat owners are more affluent and will pay for replacements…. people joke that BOAT stands for “Bring On Another Thousand $$”.
So two repair jobs today – the first is the outer fridge door falling off… this one is poor product design as you can see the number of times it’s been repaired… I tried doing something different, but it didn’t work, so I lined everything up and screwed it all back together (you can see all the repairs that happened over the years).
The next thing to break was a little more serious – Our fresh water pump started running continuously, the pressure dropped significantly and it started overheating. I needed to turn it off and work out what was going wrong… We carry a spare, but I didn’t want to switch over until I knew what was wrong with the main one (as that’s just the sort of person I am)…. As an aside you have to be comfortable with pumps living on a boat. At last count, we have 34 of them onboard (probably more).
So back to fixing the water pump, I stripped it right down. There is something decided;y satisfying in pulling a well engineered product apart, seeing how the different pieces go together and working out where the issue is. It’s even better if you put it all back together properly with nothing left over and it works again!
Turns out it was a corroded electrical connection that was causing the voltage to drop, making the pump run slowly and meaning it couldn’t get to it’s cut-off pressure. Still it was good to pull it apart as there was a lot of carbon dust from the bushes that needed cleaning out. All plumbed back in and it’s working properly
More animals that decided to end their life on our deck overnight… I stood on one of the squid in the dark whilst walking to the helm – it scared the *** out of me!
I tried cutting the squid up for calamari, but it was horrible and messy, so they went over the back.
To celebrate 4 years of owning Nautilus and both being awake at the same time to enjoy a meal together, we lit the braai (bbq) and open a decent bottle of South African red (One man band, 2018 – from Iona winery) It’s full body and notes of dark berry jam, pepper spice, and smoky vanilla, perfectly complemented our juicy Galapagueñ ribeye (yes there are cows on Galapagos, so many cows), which was served with bbq roasted new potatoes and seared organic aubergine.
And as anyone who has spent any real time on Nautilus knows, no dinner is ever really complete with out a game of Carcassonne, which despite Caspar’s cockiness I won!!
P.S… if you’re virtually following us on our journey, don’t forget to comment, A it’s nice to know that someone is reading this waffle and B the days are long, the ocean is endless and there are just 2 of us on this boat…
