Back in business

August 1, 2015
Moored off of MaiKai Marina

Aloha Everyone, it has been a frustrating and difficult past few days, but it looks like things may be back to normal. I feel, in general, we were lucky. First bit of luck is that when we entered the lagoon, the marina we are now moored in had no moorings available, forcing us to Bloody Mary's. Not only a quieter anchorage, but we were able to get a hold of a top mechanic, the former engineer from the now defunct Hotel Bora Bora, and we were able to tie up to their dock and plug in and recharge batteries. It took awhile to figure things out, but it seems he did. He did find that we have a bad cylinder, not enough fuel entering it. We suspected the injector, but after replacing it with my one spare, the result was still the same. He then suspected the fuel pump, a more difficult fix. However, he is convinced that this problem has been with me for a long time. He also found a bad glow plug no four cylinder. We tried to find replacement glow plugs here, but no luck. He then switched out the function glow plug from nonfunctioning (or low functioning) cylinder 3 and now the engine starts fine. I will look for new glow plugs in Raiatea next week, or have them brought done to via crew. Yesterday, the Nottages came to Bloody Mary's and we chatted for awhile. The big moment for me was this morning when I tried to start the engine cold. It started just fine, so we left our mooring and came up here. We had a nice farewell lunch with the Yim's at St. James and then they left for the airport. We enjoyed having them aboard and were sorry we couldn't quite show them the time we had promised. We know they made the best of it and had a good time. We have a week to ourselves and plan on heading to the backside of Bora for a few days. I am feeling much relieved! Aloha, until later, David


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