Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

For the morning I had booked a two tank dive with the operator here at the Nanuya Resort. At 8:30am I was picked up in the skiff and taken ashore to wait 15 minutes while they got sorted. It turned out to be a somewhat longer wait as some guests from the nearby Turtle Island Resort had to be sorted out too. Eventually we were off.

I had booked the dive on the condition that we were going to visit a site called ‘The Maze’ which was a bunch of canyons and swim throughs, the sort of dive I really enjoy. The first dive was not ‘The Maze’. It was more of a basic dive. On the upside the water was clear and I spotted a slug like creature I’ve never seen before. On the downside the dive wasn’t overly impressive. The coral was much the same as some of the better snorkels we’ve done and there was not a huge amount of swimmers.

After this dive the divers from the Turtle Island Resort were dropped off leaving three of us to dive ‘The Maze’. Unfortunately, one of the others, a couple, had developed a headache from a blocked sinus and could not continue. With them out of the picture it was not cost effective to take just me on the dive. So that ended up not as ordered. Plan B is they’ll pick me up off the boat today and do the dive requested. We’ll see.

Once back on Dignity Helen and I went ashore for lunch. I had a fancy for the beef burger which was listed as coming with cheese. My mistake. I ordered a cheeseburger which must have sounded like a chicken burger to the waitress because that’s what I got. Something else not as ordered. It tasted pretty good so I didn’t complain.

I did manage a couple of minor projects in the afternoon. I lubricated the sliders for the main as it’s been a bit sticky when dropping. I also stitched up and end to ended a line we have up from the deck to the mast to keep the port jib sheet away from the mast which prevents the sheet from chaffing. The protecting line had itself chaffed away so this should get a bit more life out of it before I replace it.

Early in the morning we took the kayak ashore to see if we could go for a walk on the island. It turned out we could. The guys in the dive store gave us the directions for a trail that took us over the top of the island and down to a very pretty resort on the east side. Here we found a stunning, deserted beach with lots of interesting rocks. Here we found, out of the way, Lo’s Tea House. Here we bought refreshing drinks and a slice of chocolate cake.

As it was low tide we were able to continue south down this beach, over the rocks and then wade through the bay and channel through the mangroves back to the west side of the island. Here we had to cross the beach where the Blue Lagoon Cruise boats stop. There were big signs along the way saying we were not allowed to do this when a ship was moored but we walked on through any way not wanting to make our way all the way back. We encountered no problems doing this.

In the afternoon we tried a couple of spots for snorkeling. The water varied in temperature and clarity considerably. Near where the cruise ship moors the fish were abundant and hung around us. This suggested they were used to being fed which made it feel a little artificial.

The only project work tackled was applying some WD40 to one of the knobs on the gas hob as it had gone stiff.

During our walk/swim, we found it hard to recognise any scenes from the Blue Lagoon movie. Perhaps more discerning readers will spot something in our photos.

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.