Messages in a bottle

Hey Bloggies,

Dan here, your trusty bloggor.  We are way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, approximately as far away as you can get from land anywhere in the world.   We are just about half way between the Galapagos and the Marquesas Islands.

We had a bit of a engine issue when we decided to leave the Galapagos.  We got up excruciatingly early (after a night of endless wine) for the Saturday produce market.  We provisioned up, watered up, fueled up and paperworked up.  We were outta there.  Everything is put away and I fire up the engine, red lights flashing, weird sounds emanating from bowels of boat.  Oh no. I open up the engine cover, I find a 1 cm layer of salt encrusting almost everything.  Oh god.  Mike, from S/V Andante, who happened to be enjoying the wine with us the previous night was within waving distance in the anchorage so wave to him I did as he's an engine guru.  We (well 90% Mike) discover that I've gotten diesel on the timing belt that turns the salt water pump, the belt has become too loose and has caused an oil seal in the water pump to fail, and something's gotten into the water pump and scarred the metal.  So I have some work to do.  I clean off the layer of salt, head to town, get a new oil seal, have the metal smoothed down and ask around for a new belt.  No, we don't have that belt but try this place... After an hour of running from place to place it becomes clear that this belt which I can't start the engine without is not going be available.  So I do what any respectable sailor would do. I beg.  I go from boat to boat in the anchorage on my surfboard with a diesel soaked belt in my mouth.  Boat 1, nobody home, boat 2, nobody home, boat 3, a French boat, great, let me whip out my high school French and give this a whirl.  What are the odds, not only does this boat have the same engine as us but they have two spare belts so I can have one.  Yippey kayey we left at 8pm that night.

We have now been sailing for 8ish days.  We headed straight southwest from the Galapagos on a close reach.  We we averaging 7 knots or about 150 miles per day for those first three days.  "Hey Sylvie, I'm pretty sure we're in the trade winds now, time to turn west."  So we turned the boat west, engaged our trusty windvane and off we went.  Seas have been a bit messy from all directions but the wind has been consistent (except for today, it died) and we're having a good run.   We have 2,000 miles to go.  Think windy thoughts for us.

So we have a basic form of email on the boat and I'm sending this and a few other blog posts, written by Sylvius Maximus, to my sister who will post them for us.  Enjoy these messages in a bottle.  Pictures to follow next time we have decent internet.

Yours,

Dan, Sylvie & Ustupu