Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Raiatea Boo-hoo-hoo

Woke up to 25 kt winds coming right into the bay, so we decided to steam around to the lee side of the island. But 10 minutes after dropping the mooring, the engine stuttered a few times and died. We unrolled the genoa partway and tacked the rest of the way out of the bay, while I thought over what the possible problem was. I had had trouble starting, so had replaced the fuel filter a few days ago. Thinking this was the problem now, I tried bleeding the air out of the fuel line. No joy. With a growing feeling of unease in my pocketbook, we sailed across the channel and were towed to a mooring at Apooiti Marina. By a stroke of luck, we were able to get a mechanic to come to the boat in the morning, in the middle of a 2-day holiday. He quickly identified the problem as insufficient bleeding of the air out of the injectors, which I have never seen happen with this engine. So now, a few thousand francs lighter, we are ready to go again. As they say, cruising = fixing your boat in exotic places!

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