Captain’s Log: USA and SE Lagoon

Aug 12-31

Hi All,

It has been almost 3 weeks since my last blog so I’ll try and catchup. We left off with us madly preparing to leave New Caledonia for USA and my mom’s funeral. Well, indeed we did make all the travels and the funeral.

First the travels: Holy butt time batman…..this was by far the most arduous travel we have ever done. When we set all this up I was pretty naive/smug…well, we are experienced travelers, we’ve done this before, no problems….Kathy, OTH, was yeah, right, whatever big guy!!! We had a 28 hour travel day, 12 hour, 14 hour and a 25 hour day…yuck. Air New Zealand was great, on time, great service with smiles….the domestic travel was brutal….United and American were horrible…3/4 legs delayed due to mechanical issues….doesn’t say much for the maintenance of our domestic fleet. We had a 6 hour and 8 hour time zone change and that was the killer. You would go to sleep as you were tired, then wake up an hour or so later and be wide awake for 3-4 hours before nodding off again. I personally hit the wall on 3 occasions…..just in a complete fog, that out of body surreal experience. One day I was standing in line at the post office and I became dizzy and nauseated….came home and fell asleep on the couch!!! We did this all w/o drugs and if we ever have to do this again we will hit the drug store and buy every OTC aid we can get….yep, this body aging thing just sucks!!!

Funeral: I think as funerals go this was a good one. It was primarily organized by my brother and his wife, and then my niece and her husband, a Baptist minister, performed the service. It was a very traditional service and one my mom would have wanted/liked. There are only a handful of her friends still alive and several made it to the service. Other than family, we did not know very many people as most people there were from my brother’s church. But, to our surprise, in walked Rich and Vana, as we were in the foyer waiting for the service to begin. Wow….we were blown away and our spirits were greatly uplifted. Rich and Vana were neighbors in Overland Park when Josh was born and became very dear and lifelong friends….in fact their first born Tanner, was born 6 weeks later!! Well, for the next 4+ years we did a lot together and the kids and moms had a terrific support and friend network!!! It was so good to see them, catchup and the support they gave us was perfect for what we needed.

The best part of the funeral was the support shown by our immediate family….wow oh wow….first, Dave and Josh made all the travel arrangements…..Dave took care of the planes and Josh the hotel and car rental. Then they all came to the funeral….Josh, Courtney, little Sadie (yep still the best granddaughter ever:)))), Dave and Dana….we had a great opening ceremonies Saturday night and then followed with good times with the rest of the fammily with all the nieces, nephews and cousins!!

I’m not sure why at these services people tend to exaggerate the wonderful qualities of the deceased. When I left my Dad’s funeral I said who was that man people were talking about. Well, it was the same for my mom. Dana helped me understand somewhat when she said…..people really want to remember the good times on these occasions…..and I think she is right. Also, as I’ve thought more about this, I think a son’s or daughter’s perspective maybe different than grandkids and friends. But, these experiences have fully confirmed that when I go, I want a big PARTY…the best Scotch and red wine we can buy (for Kathy champagne and wine of course)….come with your best stories…the funniest, the happiest, the toughest times, my most embarrassing moments et al…..you know like a roast where everyone is laughing so hard it hurts….as they say in New Orleans….let the good times roll!!!!

So now we have the Estate and their Trusts to close and disburse to the beneficiaries. More lawyer and accountant times and dealing with 40+ different accounts…..ugh, ugh, ugh. The devil is in the details but we have a very good group of people working on it and we are soooooo much better organized than a few years ago….but still, this is most likely a 6-12 month process. I think when all that is done then I can really say goodbye and let them rest in peace….as it is now, I think Dad is having a good chortle over my angst:))))

When we got back to the boat after the 10 day trip, we found Mystic resting comfortably and in good hands with Brett and Stacey watching over her. For the next few days we did very little but sleep, nap, sleep, nap, a little reading and a few boat projects:)))) We eventually went for provisions and then left the marina last Friday and went cruising in the SE Lagoon.

Unfortunately we are now dealing with health issues. The day before we left California Kathy woke up with her right piriformis hurting and some pain down her leg. Well…..despite all the TLC she has given the injury over the past week it is not any better and in fact, the pain is now too much for her. So, once again we are in the middle of nowhere trying to figure out what to do. She has tried rest, stretching, heat, some ice, advil, Voltaren, 31 Oil (great massage oil) with basically no improvements. So, she is in the process of emailing our doctor….just hope he answers…..we do have the necessary steroids which is what I took when I had the same injury in Guatemala. It worked almost immediately but still the recovery is many weeks…..arghhhhhh!!!

Australia: Well…..we have given up on any Great Barrier Reef activity this season and are now just focused on getting to Australia. We need to make Brisbane by the first week of October as we will keep our 10/15-12/2 USA travel plans that we had already made. We don’t need to go to KC to see my mom obviously, so it will give us more time with our family. Unfortunately, our timing this year sucks…..all our family have plans for vacations, business trips, and cruises while we are back…..so, as we all know, you take what you can, enjoy the precious few times you have and move on!!

We are thinking now to go Bundaberg which is about 200nm north of Brisbane. We could go direct to Brisbane and but the angle is slightly better if we go to Bundaberg making for a smoother ride. There maybe a good window next week….maybe around the 8th or 9th….still too far out to say anything with confidence, plus we now need to be careful with Kathy’s injury.

Boat stuff:
Arghhhhhh……Mr GEN has decided now is a good time to act up again. On our first night back at anchor, after not running the GEN for 3 weeks, it would not start. It would crank but no go. I tried jumping the battery from the new Cummins battery and no go….WTH. I checked a few more safeties and fuses with no luck. I then moved the negative jumper cable from the negative battery terminal to the GEN engine frame and voila it started…..but then immediately shut down again…..hmmmm….went through our checklist again….one item is to check the oil….and surprise, there is no oil….I quickly looked at the Reverso engine oil drain and discovered the GEN valve was open….ok, remember earlier I wrote about being brain dead, in a fog, jet lagged…. this is a good example…..the day before I had changed the Cummins oil…..I had overfilled and needed to drain some oil back out….well, I did but needed to do some more that morning and I erroneously drained the GEN and not the Cummins…..arghhhhhh….in 11 years I have never made that mistake….ugh, ugh, ugh. Well, I refilled the GEN and jumped again and LIG….but wait, there is more….we checked the exhaust to ensure water is coming out only to discover water coming out of the air exhaust. We have an exhaust water-air separator that separates the air which exhausts above the waterline and the water, which discharges below the water line. This reduces the noise of the exhaust water splashing on top of the water. We were so tired and frustrated we just ran for 2 hours like that.

The next day I donned my wet suit and went to take a look at the water discharge thru hull…..about 6-8″ below the waterline…..have I told you the water temp is 70 deg F…..that is most definitely shrinkage temperature….brrrr….sure enough the ball is stuck in the closed position even though the lever arm is in the open position….meaning the lever arm that rotates the ball valve is broken…..arghhhhhh. So, many emails to Bob Senter, the PNW Northern Lights Rep and he recommends not to run for long under our current setup…..too much back pressure and too much residual water that could, on a rough passage, cause excess water to flow back into the GEN and ruin the cylinders. So, a call out to our good friend Brett who comes over to look at what Bob has proposed for a work around, which required 2″ exhaust hose and some couplings which Brett thought he had…but Brett quickly looked at the situation and recommended a much simpler solution requiring no parts…..we just took the hose from the muffler off the water-air sep and put it on the air discharge….so going direct from the muffler to the discharge….we had enough hose to make a great loop going almost to the ceiling so felt very good that no water could come back in from a rough passage.

OK….go to start up with the jumper and nothing….yes, many expletives later we figure the battery now has a dead short so we go direct from the Cummins battery to the GEN starter and voila, we have a purring GEN!!!! Ok….what I hadn’t said was that we had invited Brett and Stacey over for dinner in thanks for them taking care of Mystic while we were gone. We had bought a beef tenderloin roast in Vanuatu and were going to cook that using our recipe we use back home. So, by the time we get the GEN going it is pushing well past 7 pm…..but what the heck….we will make it a big evening….so we started cocktails and by 8:30ish we were sitting down to a gorgeous beef tenderloin dinner. Vanuatu beef continues to live up to its reputation as being amongst the world’s best!!! Oh, and the 1999 Cakebread Merlot was outstanding as well:))))

Shower faucet: Yes, Mr Faucet has decided to get into the act after 11 years….it has started to leak…..drip, drip, drip….causing the fresh water pump to run every 15 min or so…..arghhhhhh!!!! We now just turn the pump off and then back on when we need it. This a mixer type faucet with temperature control. Kathy took it apart as she has become the faucet expert on Mystic…..there is a cartridge that is probably the culprit….hmmmm, let’s see, where do you get a Chinese made cartridge from a 11 year old shower faucet….in New Caledonia….NOT. The search is now on!!!!!

So here we are….in the beautiful New Caledonia SE lagoon but stuck due to Kathy’s injury…..arghhhhhh!!!!! We wanted to move to another island today and maybe do some beachcombing but have decided to stay put and not put any stress on Kathy’s butt/leg. We are planning to go to the infamous Ile de Pines tomorrow but will have to make a game time decision if we should go.

Stay tuned…..

Hope all is well!!!

John
Mystic Moon