376: One Engine Down… Do We Risk the Tuamotus?

Our final morning here. I think, right? We're leaving today. Yeah. Three weeks. It's been an amazing stay. Time for the crazy of Tahiti. It's been an action-packed three weeks here, hasn't it? Crazy. Very social. Lots of activities, lots of cycling, swimming. Yeah. It's been good. Time to head off to Tahiti. Of course, nothing is easy. Only have one engine working. We think it might be a battery issue, but we're not 100% sure. But we're going to get going. It's super calm today. We should be fine. Famous last words, right? But we'll maybe see if we can start it once we're out there. Brown thought he saw a little bit of poof of smoke when he was in the engine room when I tried to start the engine, so I'm not sure what that is. But thankfully, we've got the mechanic coming tomorrow. So that should solve, we hope, all of our problems. Telltales. Telltales are good. Engines open. You know that, right? So a little bit of sun on the solar panel created enough power in the battery to get it going. Yay, we have two engines. I like easy fixes like that. It's going to cost a little bit, but I like easy fixes. Man, it's so pretty. We've got a 20 miler this morning over to Tahiti. It'll take us about, I don't know, four hours or so. The sea state is super calm, so thankfully, we're rounding the corner here of Morea and we'll get the production of Tahiti. So it should be a fairly easy, straightforward passage. And we've heard that they have seen sperm whales, so we're going to be on the lookout for everything. Humpback sperm whales, we've heard orcas, so keeping an eye out. Well, the list of things that we need to do in Tahiti before we head off to the Tuamotus has grown, so we now need to pick up a starter battery. We need to change out our oil senders because our oil pressure is reading very, very high on one. Might as well get two of them. And we need to get our tax-free fuel certificate, plus we've got to dump trash and we need a because we're headed to the Tuamotus where we're not going to find anything. So that's the main reason we're heading to Tahiti. We'll be there for five days and hopefully get this all done. Plus, we got a ton of friends that are in Tahiti, so it'll be more social central before we head off to the ends of the earth where there is no one. Well, this has turned out to be a lot rougher than we anticipated. The forecast was way off. Thankfully, we prepped the boat for offshore. We're only going about two knots, so we have put on the second engine. The wind has picked up to 24 knots apparent, so it really was slowing us down. We've got to just get past the corner of Tahiti once we're inside that. We should be in better shape. Anyway, we've got a few more hours here of this rough go. I am really glad that second engine ended up being a battery because this would, we'd have to start sailing, I think. Oh, why not? It would be so unlike us. Okay, well, the drama continues. It is still rough. We are crawling. We tried to start the engine, and it's not starting now. So, back to one engine, and so thankful that the mechanic is coming tomorrow to look at our boat. We're up against 30 knots of apparent wind, and that's why we're doing two and a half, three knots only. The wind has really accelerated. Oh, this is so good. So calm. Oh, very thankful. Oh, it is such a gift to be here and anchor down. Engine's off. Everything went beautifully. We are so thankful. This is such a beautiful anchorage. Look at the water, like two feet under the boat. Clear. Amazing. Yesterday, we arrived here in the Tahiti airport anchorage. There's Maria. It's a beautiful morning. This morning, we're going to take a look at the work that we did on the electrical box because we need to finish this job, and it'll be really interesting since we got completely bashed yesterday on the way over to see how wet it is inside, if at all. Completely dry. Look at that. Nice. So, I think what we'll do is put the silicone in there. So, we're going to caulk the box shut, and maybe what we could do is put some caulk up underneath here. What about this one? I don't know. I think it's pretty tight. Okay, well, that's good news. This morning, we thought Thomas, our mechanic, was coming at 6, but he had something happen last night. So, he's coming between 8 and 9, and he's going to work on the engines. Couldn't be better timing since our port engine is not starting. We think the starter is out, but he'll assess that. He's also going to fix the muffler issue and tap a new hole for us to connect our heat sensors, and yeah, just hopefully do a full assessment of our engines before we head off to the Tumotus. I forgot the joy of this wonderful anchorage, and that is the birds that land on top of the boat and sit at the way top and drop all of the poop. I cleaned a whole bunch of it up this morning. There are like 100 birds, so got to keep on top of that. Anyway, we're going to get ready here to fix that box. Fenders are out, ready for Thomas. Look how beautiful the water is. We only have about 6 inches, between 6 inches and a foot under the keel, so really tight. That is a bommie right there, and that is a bommie we definitely do not want to hit because that would definitely take out a rudder if we hit it hard enough to cut a keel. Still 25 feet from it, so we're good. Living on the edge here. I'm blown away. The box is done, finally. All right, next. I'm headed into the bow to finish this job. Get this wire neatened up in here. Making progress. Getting neater. Done with this job. Just need to cut this off, and we use nail clippers because then it is not sharp at all. If you feel this, there is no sharp edge to it, so it works really well, so use a nail clipper. That job is done, and now Brown's going to try and replace this right now because when our boat was hit with lightning, this light went out, but the charter company never replaced it, so we're going to see if the replacements that we have work for it. For those of you who are wondering about how that magic formula works on our panels for anti-mildew, look at how clean, I don't know if you can see how clean these panels are. There's no mildew on them at all. Goes to show you that that formula really works well. So this will be an interesting experiment to see if this works because we've got these bar lights all over the boat that are out. Yeah, I checked on, I think it was the other side that made sure the wiring was good, and it was. Getting voltage. Whoa, yeah. These new lights that we have have no screws, so we are cleaning the surface with alcohol and using this blue strip. Double sided. To glue the lights onto the surface. The wires reach with no problem? Oh yeah. The wires for the light are very, very narrow, and to fit it into this pink light connector, we're going to double over the wire so that we've got double the thickness, because the wire is coming from the boat. We're too thick for this. How's it? That's a lot of light. All right, one more time. Job done. Yeah. Look at this. Yeah. Best practices. Good job. You did great. Wow, it's like stadium lighting. That's amazing. Great job, honey. Onto the next task. We've got some cracking clears. We need to replace these clears because they're not clear anymore. But for now, we're going to just try and fix the holes that we have with some tape. We got a hole right here as well. We're going to use this Gorilla clear tape to patch that up just temporarily. Wow. Best news of the day, our endless box of spare parts that Brown bought many years ago, and we never knew if we would ever use them. And now you have found what in there? We have found- That's a hydraulic sensor. Is that oil? Yep. Oil sensor. Two oil sensors. And while we're at it, we're going to change the thermostats. Oh, really? After five years? I guess we can just keep the old ones just in case. That's amazing. It's better to have the new parts in the engine than in the box. That's very true. May as well use them. We are ready for Thomas's arrival whenever he gets here. Getting out more parts, staging everything. So we are ready for hopefully fixing everything. This stuff really- The tape really works? Yeah. How important is it to have that working? For me, this sensor is not really, really important. Okay. I don't really care. If it doesn't leak, you can leave it like that. Okay. Because this is the main problem, the leak. Yeah. If it doesn't leak, you did the job. Number one, we let like this, and it works good, so it's okay. And we can do the other later. I can get the drill and et cetera, but it's a lot of draw. Or you change all the black parts and you have already the new sensor. Okay. What do you recommend? I don't care. So that sensor is not important. No. Why? Because there is other alarm before this one. Oh, okay. One is exhaust temperature. Yes. And you have, when the exhaust is going to be high, the engine is going to be high. You have the refrigerant, the coolant, going to be high. Okay. So we'll see it. If it's really hot here, a lot of problem here before. A lot of boat doesn't connect this one. It's better when everything works. Sure. But this one is not. So I think we've limited time right now. Yeah, let's work on the port. Okay, good. That's good to know. And the best thing, if you want to do really good, is to change the black part, the big one. Oh, the muffler. The muffler, because it's on the muffler, there is a thread. Yeah. And it's really strong. Right. This is the best thing to do. Right. Oh, they build the thread into the muffler when they manufacture it. Got it. Okay. And it's strong. For now, if I was you, I don't really care. If there is no leak, it's perfect. If there is a leak, it's not good. First thing Thomas is checking is the battery. The battery is good. Battery is good. Really good? Really good. Fantastic. The battery is good, so it's probably the starter. So the engine doctor is on it. He found a fuse. The battery is doing great. And he found, I saw it smoking, but it still started. It started after. Okay, you have blown the fuse that's back there, the 200, or it's 150, the one back there. Yeah, we've blown that before on this engine. This engine is a massive problem all the time. So Thomas is going to put on, before we start the engine, hopefully it's just the fuse that blew in the battery. But to check our oil pressure, because the oil pressure is very high, he's going to use a tool. Well, and we think it's a cinder, but the cinder is electronic, and it could be going bad. To get the real reading, use the... You're taking out the old oil cinder? Sorry. Yes. Okay. And that is to the right of the... Then this is purely mechanical. How tight does that have to be? Just a little bit. Comfortably tight. Yes. Okay. That's snug. Okay. Go. I want to try something. Wait, he should wait? Yeah, wait. Wait. Okay, wait. The relay, we changed this one already. Yeah, you have a good memory. So normal is 4.5 PSI. I talk in bar. Yeah, bar. The red is bar. Four bar is really good. Okay. Three to four is good. Okay. All good, so... So it's okay. What if we rev it up? Will we see a difference now? Because it's cold, maybe a little bit. Okay. Look, wait. We can do that here. Wait one sec. But normally not more than four. Both of our instruments up there say six. Six? Yeah. Okay, stop. Stop. Wait, wait, wait. Okay, try again. Okay, stop. Ignition off or on? Ignition off. Do you think the relay is broken? Maybe. Ignition's on. There it goes. Okay, stop. Stop. You want to show him how you just did that? Just so he... So you have to take the bolts out to do it, I guess? Oh yeah. I think the new one is out already, but I don't know why. Okay. But it's easy now. I will show you on the starter. Okay, good. So why is the relay blowing out? Too much. Maybe too high intensity because of that, I think. It's not good. I don't like this button. Okay, so we should never do that again. Thomas is showing us. Okay, that's a jump start. Okay, so this is a starter. Touch this one and this one. Okay. It will stop. The power comes here. Battery, the power comes here. But the common, there is power and common, and the common here maybe is not good. Okay. Or on the key. It bypasses the relay. Yes, I bypass the relay. Oh, okay, gotcha. So if your relay goes bad, this is what you do. Beautiful. I love it. Thomas is ordering parts from us, from Papeete. He's like a full service mechanic here. Amazing. All right, we're going to test the oil pressure on this side, make sure that everything is okay. Yes. No big problems under fork. Talk about service. This is amazing. Service Thomas, full service. Thomas is driving us to the marine store so that we can get the parts we need to fix the engine. So they have everything we need. I've never done this by sea. We've done this walking. Yes. We change one and you have one spare. That's great. That's great. You look like you're having too good a time here. I'm your battle bay. Let's have a good time. All right, we got all the parts that we need and we are now heading back to the boat. Thomas is now talking to the electrician who's going to figure out why our relay keeps going out. I put a new connection because the old one was... Oh, okay. He's putting in a new connection because the old one was really bad, he said. Oh, which? On the oil sender. Brown's changing the spark plugs. Thomas is installing the new relay and the new sender. Relay works? No, it's not the relay, not the battery, not the starter. So it's something else. At least we got one engine that works. Ah, what a bummer. It has been a busy day. We've gotten a lot done. It's super early. Yes. Man, six o'clock? Five fifteen. But Thomas was really disappointed that he could not figure out the engine issue. The good news is that the battery's good, the starter's good, and the relay's good. So we know it's an electrical problem. So we can kick that can down the road until February when we get back here. We don't want to miss the window to the Tumotus. But it is going to be a problem that an electrician is going to have to solve, and it's probably going to take a while. I'm sure there's some corroded wire between the helm station and the engine that we got to sort out. But one thing about boating is literally you can't let a little corroded wire get in your way. Otherwise you're going to have a bad day every day. It took us about an hour to clean up the boat since Thomas left. The entire boat was trashed. But it's clean now, so we get to relax a little bit and have lunch. One really cool thing that Thomas did is he did some workarounds to where we can start the engine if there's electrical issues. As long as the starter's working and the battery's working, this workaround is robust. It's very simple. You have to know how to use it, but it gets that engine started, and that's super important.