I awoke and changed out the lead of the snubber line. This is a piece of line that is tied from the boat to the anchor chain that acts like a shock absorber, so when the boat surges back on its anchor chain, the nylon line stretches a bit rather than the chain pulling back over the bronze bow roller onto the windlass wildcat, a fancy name for the drum where the chain comes over and is led down into the boat's chain locker.....whew....at any rate....we usually anchor with a single piece of double braided nylon that goes over the anchor roller and ends in a 3/8" SS chainhook, attached to the large 10" cleat midline just aft of the windlass. I decided to try attaching the SS chainhook in the middle of the nylon double braid, allowing me to bring in the line thru both sides of the boat's forward most hawse holes. Unfortunately, one side of the nylon is always under pressure pulling the boat just a bit off center line leaving the other side hard against the bobstay, so I didn't like that idea very much due to chafe of the nylon. It only took a few minutes to go back to our original way of snubbing things, so my coffee was still hot when I got done. Our friend Sverke, a Swedish fellow who's been single handing for the last three years (from Sweden, around the horn), then stopped by to help me figure out why the oar of our Sailomat windvane wasn't swinging freely (it had frozen up and was stiff). He also uses a Sailomat wind vane so was quite familiar with them. We took the vane off and brought it to the foredeck where we could work on it, and finally found one bearing surface that was corroded and binding up the entire mechanism. We cleaned and lubricated the culprit area, and remounted the vane. When he left, I got busy on the dinghy's Tohatsus 9.8 h.p. outboard engine. It didn't run properly, and the high speed jet refused to open, so it surged and sputtered, and just wasn't happy. After taking apart and cleaning the fuel pump, the carburator, decanting and filtering the fuel, and changing the spark plugs, it still had the same problem. Hmmm. I then remembered that when I removed the spark plugs, one of them had salt water corrosion on the end where the wire to the coil attaches. If you've been reading our blog, you'll recall that Sue had the dinghy and outboard flip over on her at Easter Island in large swells. Thankfully, no one was injured, but this is the motor that was underwater for a while. The Chilean Armada took it away, cleaned it up for us, and returned it, all as a courtesy. So, I began to think of the spark plug wires, and sprayed everything down with anti-corrosion spray, as well as attempting to spray under the flywheel. I'm not sure if any spray actually got to the coil or any contacts, but the motor runs perfectly now. I've adjusted the idle screw back to where it should be, as I had to turn the idle up to prevent stalling out previously. I also reattached the negative to the starter/kill button, allowing me to use the key/lanyard again. I like that a whole lot better as I'm a firm believer in wearing the key lanyard so if I go over the side of the dinghy the key is pulled out thereby breaking contact with the electrical system and killing the motor. Best I shouldn't fall out of the dinghy, but hey, it happened to a friend of ours, so I don't want the dinghy coming back at me at full throttle while I'm treading water! OK, so....since the motor was working so well, I delivered bananas to several other nearby boats that didn't have any. When I got back to Infini, I finished scanning a large document Dave had given me to review about refridgeration. When we get somewhere with reasonable prices at the printing shops, I'll bring in our memory stick with all our scanned PDF files and have readily available folders on our bookshelf. Meanwhile, Sue was busy baking a large cake for Dave's birthday. Luke stopped by to see her. He's first mate aboard the Carl Linne (yes,the beautiful 106' boat we transited the canal on in Feb.'09!), as well as being a Registered Physiotherapist. Sue's neck and back have been giving her fits over the last few days, and he was able to go over a bunch of stuff with her as well as some acupressure and massage areas that really helped. THANKS, LUKE! Later in the afternoon I put the swim ladder down and we both cooled off a bit and had a deck shower. Oh, did I mentioned we managed to Skype with Ty, Jon and Matt and our friend Steve? What a treat for us to be able to stay in touch! Our connection here is slow and times out frequently, but we can usually type a conversation and occasionally even voice talk to someone. And finally, we and a bunch of other cruisers had been invited aboard the Carl Linne for pizza. I've got to tell you, these folks are the most gracious people you'd ever chance meeting. Marta kept rolling out the pizzas, Ginny had already put out the tuna sushimi, and Luke and Captain Greg ensured the Campari and soda as well as beer flowed freely. We had all bought a dish to share as well, so we were really stuffed! We did manage to sing Happy Birthday to Dave before devouring the cake, and eventually returned to Infini somewhat heavier than when we left her....So, another day in the cruising life came to an end. Although many of our days are so different, this seemed like a good time to let everyone know how one of our days went by so quickly! It looks as if it will be another 5-7 days before we leave Rikitea to go to northwest up the Tuamotu chain to Hao, as the weather is about to turn nasty for a bit, so that will give us a chance to catch up on boat projects as well as get off the boat and walk around a bit.
