I feel a saga about to begin …

We’ve learned about the off-label technique for scoring a berth at the Papeete Marina.  It’s simple really.  You just have to know someone who is staying there in the marina, know exactly when they plan to leave, and arrange with them to barrel in there to snag their slip the minute after they leave.  As the marina office explained to us, it’s strictly a first-come first-serve marina, we can’t hold a slip, not even for an hour – anyway, we don’t have to, the cruisers know each other, and they do our work for us!  Ahhh, if only we’d known …

Well, it was true serendipity … just then, from the road, we spot Icaros in the marina.  One lovely evening, a month ago in Fakarava, we shared sundowners with Bev and Bob on their beautiful boat, Icaros – another Catana 431, Turtlebones’ doppelganger, but newer.  Lovely couple – Canadians, turned Australians, on their second circumnavigation! 

With my daughter Sarah planning to join us down here to cruise around for a couple of weeks, we wondered if we could somehow be in Papeete to meet her flight on July 8 – or more likely arrange for her to take a connecting flight to meet us on another island. 

But, when we reconnected with Bob and Bev, turned out they’re leaving Papeete tomorrow July 7, and we’ve arranged to be there early morning to take up their spot in the marina.  Sometimes things just fall nicely into place …

In the meantime, we’ve been 10 miles away, cruising clockwise around Moorea.  Hard for me to imagine a more beautiful place.  Remote, but not too remote.  Gorgeous anchorages.  Spectacular clear water.  

Lots of visitors to our boat, of the underwater variety.  In Haapiti, we had lots of sharks and spotted eagle rays.  One spotted eagle ray couple, in particular, were around to visit several times every day.  The larger female had very distinctive markings, a bit of a blanket on her hind quarters, looked a bit like an Appaloosa – except of course, not at all like a horse. 

One day, as we were getting back to Turtlebones at sundown, the two of them arrived, Appaloosa ray and her mate, just a meter from our stern, and we watched them have sex from our kayaks!

Just as I’m thinking, if this keeps up – all this beauty, these amazing places with my amazing husband, in total comfort on our beautiful boat – if this keeps up, I might just explode. 

As I’m steering the boat out of one harbour en route to the next and thinking exactly that, the universe gives a little shrug and the engine alarm starts hollering.  No biggie, low on coolant, Bill fills it up, and we’re back underway in no time. But it lasts only a couple of minutes when the alarm hollers at us again.  All that coolant immediately flushes itself out of the exhaust.  Seems the heat exchanger in the port engine has suddenly and completely failed.  Oh dear.

Could be worse though, a lot worse.  If we were a monohull sailboat, we’d have no engine at all.  But as a catamaran, Turtlebones still has a working engine on the starboard side.  Not ideal, since we need both engines to steer in tight places.  But while we wait for a new heat exchanger, we can still sail the boat, and we can limp our way into anchorages on one engine. 

So I assumed we were in for a bit of an expense and some mild inconvenience, maybe a delay of a week or two.  Turns out, in Tahiti, a heat exchanger costs six thousand dollars, and it has to be ordered in from Sweden!  Minimum one month delay, maybe three.  Oh dear. 

So when we get to Papeete tomorrow, we may need to genuflect at the altar of the “douane”.  Our visitor visa expires on July 26, and we’ll have to beg for an extension. 

We are now exploring another option – buy the heat exchanger instead in the US, and have it delivered to American Samoa.  Great idea, thanks to Bev and Bob on Icaros – helps to know people who’ve done this before, this sailing-around-the-world and learning-to-solve-problems-in-remote-places thing.  We can get to Pago Pago on one engine, and our preliminary inquiry to US suppliers was quite promising.  As a US territory, delivery to American Samoa is straightforward, half the price, no tax to be collected, and it could be there in a week or two. 

In the meantime, for the next couple of weeks, we can still get around to other Society Islands – no shortage of sailing adventures nearby. Bill and I are both excited to be able to share a few weeks of this journey with Sarah. 

However … this just in. There are no heat exchangers available to buy.  None in the US.  None overseas.  Sounds like none in the world. How can that be? Volvo Penta estimates end of August before they might have any in stock.  Nothing available in the aftermarket.  Ouch!  I feel a saga coming on …