Heading up the west coast of this island chain turned out to be a little interesting. The winds were forecast to be in the 20-25 knot from the ESE. For the short distance we had to go this wind would have been fine. We planned to just use the headsail as we weren’t overly fussed by speed. As it turned out the winds varied from 5-35 knots and came at us from all sorts of directions owing to it spilling over the islands to our east and rushing through gaps in the hills. Bar the initial gap between the islands, it was impossible to sail so we motored the rest of the way.
Then came one of those pieces of irony that makes one wonder. Just the previous day I’d mentioned to Helen how nice it had been that the shaft seal leak we’d experienced on the way up here had failed to resurface. Well, shortly after arrival the port bilge pump (the new one) went off and I soon had it traced to the shaft seal which was now, again, leaking.
There is not a superstitious cell in my body so experiences like this are always intriguing. I guess one hypothesis is there is some mystical field around us which perversely likes to jinx us by making us wish we didn’t think or say certain things. It could, of course, be simply a coincidence. A more interesting hypothesis arises from wondering why I chose Thursday to think about the shaft seal leak after it not being on my mind for so long. Perhaps the alarm had gone off sometime recently unheard, perhaps while we were sailing, and I’d only picked up the alarm subconsciously. Thus, my final hypothesis, and my most compelling, is that the shaft seal leak was on my mind for a very real reason. I just didn’t know it. There is so much evidence to show how our minds pick up clues subconsciously that this hypothesis has to stand there along side (actually, striding ahead of) the mystical field and coincidence hypotheses.
When we’d waited for the early afternoon heat to dissipate we lifted our mattresses, emptied out the storage below the bunk and tackled the seal. No farting around. I dumped a heap of grease into the seal and the leak stopped. We’ll see if this fix is as lasting as the previous time I did this back in May.
One upshot of all this is I rediscovered some rather nice wines under our bed so they stayed out.
Later in the afternoon/evening I fired up the grey cells to tackle another Euler Problem, this time succeeding. The first one I’ve nailed for some time.
Ashore here is a resort which played loud music in the evening. We didn’t go ashore and we have no real desire to stay. The winds are still howling outside from time to time but we’ll probably try to push further north today, perhaps as far as the Blue Lagoon so named after the movie filmed there. We have the movie on board and have yet to watch it. No doubt we will once there. We know some of our friends are there so it will be nice to meet up.
Final note, I’ve updated the previous day’s blog to add the pics of the mantas. Enjoy.
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