May 18, 2014
Fatu Hiva

When Alan went for his quick swim Just after we arrived he came back with a very worried look on his face.  Apparently the rudder is in danger of falling off.  Not good at anytime and a particular problem here with only a small fishing village ashore.  We both have visions of trying to sail all the way to Tahiti without a rudder.  Not pretty  At least he discovered the problem before the bolts fell off and were lost in the middle of the ocean.  With all the heavy weather we have had, I am not too surprised that the rudder is feeling the strain.  Since he has been up all night last night he decides to wait until tomorrow to go back into the water and do a through assessment

Next day the wind blows, not just a little but seriously strong wind all day.  Still without a wind gage, I am guessing it was 25 knots at least.  We are anchored just off of a very steep canyon and the wind howls down the side of the cliffs and across the little bay. So not a good day for working on the rudder.  We have 175 feet of anchor chain out and we check every few hours to be sure it is holding.   It does just fine.  I am really impressed with this anchor.  We spend a very peaceful day on board, working on small jobs.  I make pan perdu for breakfast with the stale baguettes.   He gets the new anchor light wired and hoisted.  We go through all of the flashlights and put new batteries in them.  Several no longer work and are tossed.   He also goes through all of the batteries to see which ones are still good.  Keeping everything charged is an ongoing problem.  We have 2 small solar battery chargers and a large solar storage battery for charging the computers.  Unfortunately the cables are going bad in the salt air.   

Next day is much less windy.  After breakfast Alan goes overboard to take a good look at the rudder problem.  The rudder sits on a series of 4 pins which are held on with 4 bolts.  The top two pins have come out and the bolts are loose.  The bottom 2 are OK.   The rudder needs to be reset back onto the pins and then the bolts need to be tightened. It takes the two of us a couple of hours but we are able to get it all put back together and tightened down.  Another plus for the “old school” boat.  No tricky cables or electronics just 4 bronze bolts and pins.

Once that is done we head ashore to have a look around.  It is just a quiet village along a stream.  People are friendly and offer to sell us fruit: pomplemus, bananas, papaya, oranges and limes.  Fruit trees are everywhere.  Unfortunately, Alan has forgotten to bring any change.  He has only 1,000 franc notes in his wallet.  However, I have brought along a bag of individually wrapped chocolate squares.  They are a pain on board because of all the trash from the wrappers  but serve to get us a stalk of bananas and a bag of oranges.  Back at the dingy dock a woman from one of the other boats is wheeling and dealing with a group of kids to trade pencils for fruit and bread.  The most desired trade item is rum or wine.  That is what everyone asks for. 

Back on board we spend some time going over the charts and guide books and talking about the wind and plotting a course.    We plan on leaving tomorrow to head north to Tahuata where there are supposed to be lovely anchorages with clear water and good snorkeling.  It is 40 miles almost directly into the wind, or at least the usual wind.  We won’t know until we get out there what the wind is actually doing.  It should only take us 10-12 hours but we are giving ourselves plenty of time.  If we get there before dawn we can always heave to and wait.