Jeff's Log ~ September 29, 2007

9:25pm

Today, things went pretty well. I got a lot accomplished. The forepeak, which if this was a race boat would be the sail locker, I got repacked with more than used to be in there, and still had a lot more room left than was there previously. Thusly, I moved some things that had been in the lazarrette up to the forepeak and life on board should be a little easier.

After Dave bled the autopilot, we were all feeling pretty secure that it would function correctly. Well, this morning we decided to sea trial and see if in fact it did work. Before we could leave the marina, the Navy had to be notified, and we were given strict guidelines as to where we could and could not go. The pilot still did not function, and because of the symptoms, I decided that a look at various items that are completely hidden should be checked. Lo and behold, the rudder position sensor arm pivot stud had corroded and broken, and the poor autopilot had no idea what the boat was doing. I had more important tasks, and proceeded with repairing a main engine coolant leak, and dumped the pilot off on Dave. He loves that sort of thing anyway. He went to a small repair shop and got a new bolt welded to the old pivot, drilled out the broken piece, and it looks like we’ll have auto pilot for the 900 mile journey to the next port which is Massava in the country of Atria.

If all goes to the current plan, we will be leaving here on Monday, around 10 am. I personally feel like I’m going to leave a little of my family here, because I’ve gotten very close with Alla, Iz, and Ammar. For the short time I have known these gentlemen, I feel that there will be a lifetime bond. I don’t think that any one of us will ever forget the others, and if I am ever within a thousand miles of here, I feel that a visit will become part of my travel plans.

Due to the fact that the next leg of our journey is a fairly long one Ya all won’t be hearing from me for a while. With fair winds, we can easily cover 200 miles a day, but I don’t know about access in that remote part of the world.

I think about everybody and look at pictures regularly. Please remember though, that this still is a job, and I’m not on vacation! I’ll send more first chance I get.