The day started of a little lazy waking up later than normal then reading for a while. We then decided to go out snorkeling around the nearby point. The water was nice and clear and we saw plenty of sea life. The highlight was catching sight of a huge manta that initially swam in it’s gentle way right towards us then banked off to the side. These are huge and amazing creatures.
We ate lunch fairly early then decided to get the hookah out so we could explore the sea floor a little easier. While I’m getting better at free diving I still can’t stay too long down at the 30 to 40 foot level. The hookah was hard to start but we got it going. We set it up for three and set off from the boat. Within 5 minutes the hookah stopped while we were 25 feet down. We surfaced easily enough and swam back to the boat. We hauled the hookah back aboard the boat to allow it to cool. It had seized.
A little later Ruth from Kamaya paddled by to say hello. I asked if she knew of anyone around who knew anything about small engines. Turned out the additional crew member on Victoria was a racing car engine mechanic. He was glad to come over and advise. In the end we gave the engine an oil bath. We drained the old oil out and overfilled it with new. For a period of around two hours we occasionally hand cranked the engine using a spanner until it turned easily.
We drained the excess oil, put the hookah back together and fired it up. It worked. We set it up for two and John and I tested it out for 5 minutes. We had planned to go out at night lobster hunting with Tim from Kamaya. We called him over to do a shake out dive while it was still light. We all three went down and the hookah stopped again. It had again seized. There it stands right now. We’ll probably go through the oil bath thing again.
We agreed we’d still go out lobster hunting when it was dark but with our snorkels. Tim had heard from the locals in Fatu Hiva that night time was best as the lobsters went out to the ocean floor during the day. We ate our dinner then watched a couple of episodes of the Fringe.
Tim arrived around 8:30. We spent over an hour out there but came back lobsterless. We did spot a few interesting things including a turtle, a giant puffer fish, a large trumpet fish and a tiny moray eel. Swimming at night, particularly underwater is always fun so it was not a waste of time.
Another ‘relaxing’ day here before we move on.
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