March Thur 17
I found and repaired the oil leak on the genset. It was not a diesel leaf not an oil leak. It was on the return line after the diesel has been supplied to the injectors. Took about 2 hours to repair because I had to remove the air intake to get at the piece that was loose. It was just a connection that had vibrated loose so only had to be tightened. Will test today.
Still sailing downwind wing on wing doing about 7 Kts each hour.
Today I fixed something that had been bugging me for the last 3 years but never got around to fixing it. The catch that holds the bathroom open always needed to be pushed down slightly to get it to catch. I removed one of the screws that hold the catch, filled it with a bit of wood, drilled a new hole about half a screw with away from the old hole and re-attached the catch. Works perfectly now.
It is amazing how long we can put up with some minor inconvenience when it takes so little time to fix it properly.
It is 5:00am Galapagos time and we have 622 miles to cover to get to Hiva Oa. We are covering about 160 miles per day, so have about 4 days to go if we keep the same speed.
Our sailmail account has been restored allowing yesterdays and todays update to be uploaded. I canceled the download of the files on the mail server because it was taking too long to download.
To do a download at good speeds we need to shut down the noisy devices, which means someone has to hand steer for the duration of the download. The best time for SSB comms is at night. Unfortunately there is only one person awake at this time, so it is difficult to hand steer and work the computer at the same time, so I have not worried about the downloads. Maybe if I get a good nigh to HF propagation the download speed will be ok without having to shut things down.
We have not seen any of the other yachts in the fleet for about a week now. As we get closer to Hiva Oa they will come together. We have a roll call twice a day via SSB radio to keep in touch and make sure everyone is ok. We also turn on our SSB radios for 5 minutes each three ours at 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, 9:00 etc. to listen for any one that needs help. This was something that I instigated at the skippers briefing before we started out across the Pacific. We also have our sat phones turned on all the time in case anyone needs urgent assistance.
That is about all I have today.
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