The new Kubota works. And… it works well. I started it up and only had one small leak in the diesel return line. Tightening the hose clamp solved that issue. I love easy solutions with engine issues. I’ve been running it for about 3 hours / day, easily loaded at between 5 and 30 amps for the first 10 hours. I was varying the rpm’s beginning at 1500-1800 and every new hour raising the amount. I’m now at the recommended rpm’s of 2800 and have been loading it up to 60 amps.
While I’m close to 25 hours everything is working perfectly and I AM A HAPPY CAMPER. We’ll move off the dock and onto a mooring at Savusavu Marina. While there are three Marinas and one individual that provides moorings here; Savusavu Marina has brand new moorings with 3 helix screws, new chain and shackles, for each of their moorings. IMHO the most secure moorings in the field.
We pull off the dock and grab a mooring ready for the next 25 hour generator run and begin to look for a weather window heading west. We’re all of 150 miles from our cyclone resting destination and need to get a move on. We have a reservation for November and I am getting a tiny bit concerned. For most of our cruising weather is our guide. But now we have a schedule and schedules and cruising are like oil and water. At times quite dangerous but mostly benign.
There are two areas we need be cautious with and ensure we have the correct weather, the Nasonisoni Passage which has a slew of rip currents out front and a nice flow of water down the middle of the channel in the wrong conditions, and the Bligh Waters where the wind funnels between the two big islands and often is 10 kts higher than predicted with corresponding seas.
To top it all off, now a cyclone has formed N and a little W of us making any travel on the water rather iffy. We don’t like pushing our luck when we don’t need to. So we stay securely tied to a hurricane mooring and wait. We wait, and wait, and wait.
For two days we didn’t leave the boat. It was cloudy and spitting rain for almost 36 hours. In the buckets we had sitting on deck we found close to 30 cm’s in them. By the time the cyclone had moved S and a wee bit W of Fiji it was falling apart. Good news for us because that meant less wind and after a day or so smaller seas.
The first part of the trip involves us traversing the Koro Sea. Our track would take us along the S coast of Viti Levu making it a lee shore with quite often reflected waves and then the timing of the Nasonisoni passage would be almost as critical as in passages in the Tuamotus. Ah what we look forward to. The sweet joys of sailing on a schedule. NOT
Go Slow
Sail Far
Stay Long