A slight change of plan.

Friday 23 April South Pacific 23 degrees 21 minutes South 163 degrees 39 minutes East.

As we continue on the same course, under the same conditions, with the same boat load of issues we of the good ship Chimere have today hatched a plan, or at least a slight modification of the grand plan. As such we have decided to stop in at Noumea in New Caledonia, which lies directly before us.

Now you may wonder ahah! not having enough fun? Really need to visit the Paris of the Pacific? I do insist at this stage that it will be all work. A 2 day stop over to find a laundramat, take all the covers of the bunks and un-salt them, dry them, attempt to find the source of leaks into, well, everywhere, and find some help with some of Chimere’s technical issues. Martin made the very good point that starting a 4 month project with some systems down, especially the chart plotter and auto helm, being Chimere’s central nervous system, would not bode well. It’s all got to work. Bob of course has a contact in Noumea (an engineer in every port?) who he hopes will be of assistance. Bob also mentions that the Yacht club there has reciprocal rights with the Australian Cruising Yacht club, with which he seems to be reasonably well connected. That means nice showers and all that sort of thing.

Our estimated time of arrival there will be Sunday morning. All New Calladonians reading this are encouraged to welcome us there and help out, if you really want. We will then leave early Tuesday morning for Tanna island, hopefully with a repaired central nervous system on board, and some much needed upgrades to our own personal systems as well. And all this without any fun.

Other than hatching plans today’s progress remains much as the past many days. We continue to plough into the wind. I’m sure most of the Pacific has passed across Chimere’s deck in the past few days, and some of if coming in un-invited. Progress is slow but within expectations.

Here’s to perseverance

Bill Vrijens