agility @ sea

I woke up this morning to the sound of voices and tools; not a good combination early in the day so I buried my head for a minute, groaned, and walked out to see what was going on. Our auto-pilot had worked itself loose, but it was an easy fix. I hope I’m explaining this correctly. There is rubber on the auto-pilot where the bolts screw in that helps hold them in. Incorrect bolts with washers had been used and they didn’t hold. Sven fixed it quickly while Tim steered. We have two auto-pilots, but one is broken and we won’t get it fixed until Papeete which may be 3 months away so we do not want problems with auto-pilot #2. Or Marge, as I just christened her for good luck. That’s what Tim’s dad and Deb named their car navigation system.
Yesterday we nearly broke the screecher halyard. Fortunately, Sven noticed the fraying and we were able to get it down prior to breakage. That was good. If it snapped, the screecher would have fallen and probably gotten underneath the boat leading to all sorts of havoc and pain in the assness. We can fix it and we can also not run it at 14 knots for several hours at a time in the future. I think we are all anxious to get to Easter Island and it seemed like a good idea to make some tracks while we could.
This should be our last day! We will arrive in Easter Island sometime in the wee hours of the morning or maybe as late as dawn. Yippee! Tim and I will explore the island on Sunday while Sven stays on the boat. Sven’s sister is vacationing on the island so they may hang out together and work their way through some wine. We brought several bottles of Chilean Carmenere along, but have only had one throughout the crossing. Tim and I will leave sometime Monday for our first big crossing alone. I’m a little nervous. Not so much about the sleep schedule anymore, but about boat problems. I hope all goes smoothly. The weather should be in our favor.

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