More Repairs

I went ashore in the morning to take a look at the two DVD players that weren’t working.

First I took a look at Camili’s which was described as being in black and white only. Upon plugging it in this indeed was the case. On further inspection the disk tray wouldn’t open either so that was an additional problem. Opening it up and examining the tray revealed a problem with the mechanism which was readily fixed. I figured the black and white issue was something to do with setup for which I needed the remote control. Camili gave it to me but it didn’t work. I opened up the battery case and it was full of crud so I cleaned it out and replaced the batteries. Now the control was working but not all the keys.

The setup key worked but try as I might, using just the down and left arrow keys (the others didn’t work) I couldn’t find a setting that would control the colour. As I was trying this I was getting more and more irritated by tiny ants that were vacating the control. I looked like a few had made their home in there. I decided to try and make the rest of the control work so I squirted in some contact cleaner. This was the cue for the entire ants nest, which had settled inside the control, to vacate, eggs and all. This was a new one.

Once the ants were clear the control still didn’t work. I opened it up and tested the internal connections. There were some dry joints between some of the circuit board layers which needed fixing. This was a pain in the arse job to do with my limited tools as I had to run a new wire from one side of the board to the other and the only thing I could solder to was scraped off circuit board connections. I managed it and got the control working. One of the keys on the control was labeled P/S which toggled between PAL and SECAM. That did the trick.

I was less successful with the other DVD player. I span up ok and recognised the presence of disks so most of the circuitry was working. However, the disks couldn’t be properly read and it would give up. My best guess was a wobbly drive motor as it did make a rattle and the disks weren’t spinning smoothly and this I could not fix.

After returning to the boat and a bite to eat Helen and I went snorkeling. We first went to a tall coral head which was very interesting and festooned with fish. Two of the giant clams from the farm were nestled on the top. I managed to take a picture with one and with Helen in it to give a sense of size.

We also snorkeled a reef near the beach. Here there were many more giant clams although not so fully grown. There were also a number of old beds, presumably from the former leper colony.

While we were snorkeling Endless arrived and offered us beers when we popped by to say hello. We showered off and returned to Endless giving them the lowdown for the area over a couple of cans of NZ beer.

We separated for the afternoon. In the evening us, the Jarana’s and Endlesses all met up on Dreamtime for a pot luck dinner. There we learned that Petr from Endless had bought a pig that is now going to be cooked this afternoon by the villagers. That should be fun. Today we’re also going to pile onto Dreamtime to go around the corner for a dive or two. I’d better start getting things ready.