So, what does it take to get a boat ready to move again? It’s not just about provisioning (BTW, the fruit & veg haul cost $35 and the fresh baguettes 60 cents each ).

Are all systems a go?

Every time we leave the US, we bring parts to complete boat maintenance projects. We haven’t done them all yet, but we couldn’t move the boat without making sure we could continue to desalinate water.

Rebuilding the Ecotec watermaker

We brought back a replacement kit to rebuild our ECHOTec watermaker we installed in 2017 (blog here). Luckily we had spare O rings that didn’t come ship with the General Pump WMO2 kit (others carry it as well; shop around). We gave parts an all around cleaning, using 2000 grit sandpaper to knock off varnish, soaking the manifold and other parts in CLR. After 4 tries, she’s purring and delivering us 250 ppm TDS or better water, sometimes in pretty silty anchorages. Sometimes, it takes a bit of boat yoga to get things done…

Harken windless gear box & Seagull water filter replacement

Instead of spending $2,500 on a new Harken 46.2 electric winch, Don dissasembled our winch and diagnosed that the only problem with it was the gear box. So, he then did his magic research and found the gear box for $250 from Bearing Distributors, Inc. For all of you Lagoonies, keep that and this part number in mind! Part No: VF49 P1 24 P71 B14 B3 mfg Bonfiglioli.

And, you know you need to replace the General Ecology Seagull IV filter, when the water starts taking a long long time to come out of the faucet (or 1000 gallons, which ever comes first). Oh, and when you open the filter and it’s very brown 🙁 Instead of me doing boat yoga crawling under the sink to open the canister, Don reorganized the hoses so he can pull them out now!

Running into other cruisers

Sailors tend to travel on a fairly established path, based on annual weather patterns. So, we often run into sailing friends on other islands sometimes by happenstance, or in this case, when we hand delivered electrical parts to Sam Oler and Volker at Marina Taina, and then ran into Thomas on Be Free, who we hadn’t seen since we all left Panama.

Tahiti touring

It’s always good to take a moment to enjoy local art, outside wall of Le Monument Aux Morts (monument to the dead of France) in Papeete.

Bristol clean

Yep, needed to kill a few rice weavils and wipe down some mold inside. Outside, there was some expected growth outside. We tried a fancy cleaning ropecleaner tool by Boatasy, but frankly the powerwasher loaded to us by Dave and Andy Tench (SV Pelagic Life) worked best.

Enjoy is looking pretty good now; which is much harder to do when you have a sheep aboard.

Captain Nez mystery series plug

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