July 26, 2009

Chief Edward’s Dry Dock
A couple of folks have let us know we've slacked off a bit on the reports about our Vanuatu stay. It does seem as if the time flies by, and we lose track of days here. We've become so involved with the villagers from Essen Bay and Moso Island that it's getting a little hard to do maintenance on Sequester. My repair work on small generators, chain saws, outboard motors, weed whackers, and even a sewing machine have slowed a little, but continue. Karen gets called for a medical assessment at times, and the ladies and children always like to talk to her. One change in her routines that I've noticed is a result of the relatively cooler climate here, as compared to the Marshalls. Karen's started doing a lot more cooking and baking, so I'm eating better in that regard as well as having a lot more fruit and vegetables available than we've had for a couple of years. This week Chief Edward gave us some of the first tomatoes and lettuce of the season. It was great to have a tossed salad.
Edward controls over 1000 hectares of land here, including several sand bars along the beach, ideal for allowing a multihull yacht to dry out on a low tide. Last week we asked and received permission to use his beach during the extreme tide around the eclipse to clean and repaint the bottom of Sequester. So, for several days I was busy scraping and starting to wet sand the undersides of the boat. It was quite windy and cool, and my time in the water was limited by my "shiver factor". We paid a villager to get us a couple of logs, 3 meters long, and about as big around as his leg. These were to be tied to the sides of the float hulls as legs, to keep the boat from falling over with one float down in the sand. It's a good thing his leg wasn't any bigger than it is! He brought fresh hardwood tree trunks that were pushing my weight limit pretty hard as I maneuvered them into place the next morning. He had expected to be there to help me set up for the tide, at dawn. But this is the Pacific islands, and he's on island time. I knew better than to wait for him to arrive, so when it got light, we moved in. We tied the stern to a tree ashore, set an anchor off the bow, and managed to get the legs planted and lashed. The position of the beach was well protected and calm, so it went as nearly perfect as we could have hoped for. As we waited for the tide to fall, young Jerry arrived to apologize for being late. He had me repair his broken canoe paddle, then headed off to his job at a nearby resort while we started final prep for the anti-fouling paint.
The next 6 hours were a blur of scrubbing, sanding, washing, drying, taping, and painting. Near the end, we got paint on the lowest part of the hull, as the returning tide approached, then went back and taped and rolled paint along the waterline as the water came up to our knees. The last hour we had an audience of Edward's son Kenneth and his two nephews. Kenneth waited patiently, holding a broken generator starter, until the paint was on. Then, as Karen put things away and cleaned up a bit, I drilled and wired the recoil spool, trying to make it usable again. In the end it was futile, but Kenneth decided he could get another used one from his friend's broken down generator, and he'd learned how to assemble it, so he borrowed a couple of sockets and left. We had about another hour before the tide would float us, and I started to prepare a warm shower. I hurt all over from the continuous scrubbing, sanding, hauling, and crawling around in awkward positions. Then I heard Teacher Paul's outboard approaching, sputtering, backfiring, dying. I saw two boys frantically trying to paddle the unwieldy boat upwind to the beach, using a couple of floorboards as they perched on the transom. Nobody here carries a decent paddle in their motor boat. With the incidence of water in the fuel and corroded electrical connectors, it's a good thing there's only a small pass from the harbor to the open ocean. I got in our dinghy and towed them back, tied them alongside Sequester, and got out the tool box. It took a few minutes to diagnose water in the carburetor, and a half hour to clear it from the filter, pump, and lines. As I finished up, the sun was setting, and Sequester was starting to rock and twist in the little wavelets of the bay. The boys gave me a hand getting the legs untied, then took off for Moso Island. We fired up our motor, retrieved the anchor, and went back to our preferred spot, south of the small stream that produces the sand bars. By 6:30 PM we were hanging on two anchors in a quiet bay. By 7:30 we were asleep.
Now, 3 days later, the sore muscles are improving, and we've got most of the boat cleaned up from all the sand and detritus surrounding the work on the beach. The villagers saw that we were pretty trashed, and have limited repair requests to those urgently needed for the big Independence Day celebration that starts on Moso tomorrow. The generators for the church audio systems are up and running, and a dozen villagers have checked to be sure we'll be there in the morning to start the party. I'd best go get some rest. This may be as strenuous as working on the boat. Ted