October 6, 2008

Luck and skill
This morning early we heard an outboard motor! It turned out that Emai had put the Honda on his skiff, and drove out to show us that it was running. What he failed to notice was that as the motor was running, so was the gasoline.....flowing down the carbs, pooling in the cowling, and pouring out behind. Fortunately the spark plug wires are pretty good, no stray spark leaks, so he didn't blow himself off the water. Dave and I towed the skiff back to the beach, and reworked the whole fuel system again. Found some more granular stuff, and another stuck float, and an hour later it ran, leak free. A convergence of luck, skill and persistence. Hope it gets them through the copra loading when the ship comes. With the ship due in 2 days, suddenly 3 outboards have showed up, joining the canoes gathering all the copra from individual storage to the central loading dock. Evidently the ship pays in store credit, and has a store on board where they can spend the copra proceeds. Sounds a lot like the old coal mine with the company store. And by the way, let me clarify my previous explanation of copra pricing. The $20 figure is what's paid for a 100 pound bag of dried meat, which has been cut and dried from roughly a ton of raw coconuts.
Dave and Linda asked Emai to choose an appropriate recipient for their big yellow tarp, and this morning we all went for another cutting session. It's rolled up on Sequester's work station now, ready for Karen to start stitching tomorrow. Emai says he's arranging for a mass canoe sailing photo op on Saturday, so we should see red, yellow, green, blue and white, silver, black, and white sails all together on the lagoon. Should make a neat video, as I expect they'll all be showing off, flying outriggers and throwing spray. It's not boring yet out here in the boondocks. Ted