Location: 34° 17 S, 95° 54 E
Monday 12:00, 02.12.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 34° 17 S, 95° 54 E at noon on February 12th. We are headed straight for Fremantle (090 degrees magnetic) at 8.9 knots with a lovely NW’erly at 18 knots taking us in. We have come 3545 from the Seychelles and have 1040 to go to Fremantle. As I write this at 1630, we are cheering that we have broken the 1000 NM to go barrier! An extra round of chocolate for all hands!

Today has seemed to be an endless series of small, difficult repairs. Our gas shut off solenoid stuck partially open, which was tough to diagnose. It seems to be fixed now, but the T-junction valve also failed, and we had great difficulty putting together the parts to plumb it all back together. Now we are using gas from a little Brazilian bottle, which should, hopefully, get us to Fremantle.

The diesel was hard to start this morning and when I went over it, I found a small diesel leak from the bottom of the fuel filter. A small drain valve in a plastic water-in-the-fuel sensor had come free and was dripping fuel. We took that apart and used epoxy to seal the drain hole. Four hours later, with the epoxy set, we reinstalled the sensor, only to have it break when it was tightened. Sigh. OK, we don’t need the sensor, let’s just plug up the hole. Easier said than done. Large metric hole. We searched the whole boat top to bottom and couldn’t find anything that fit. Then, finally going through a jar of junk, I found the discarded, failed, salinity probe from the watermaker, which we had replaced in the Seychelles. A perfect fit! It is now getting epoxied into position in a fresh fuel filter and we will know tomorrow morning if we have a functioning engine.

Hannah made a delicious little chicken for lunch. Roasted with lots of onions, olives, curry and garlic. Perhaps “puttinesca” if it were Italian, but we christened it Roast Chicken, Indian Ocean. Marvelous! We were able to have a civilized meal, eating on deck as we rush along almost at hull speed.

We should have a favorable breeze, 20 knots from either our port or starboard quarter for the next two days. The next gale is headed our way as early as Wednesday, as we close the Australian Coast. We will be very careful to keep our options open.

All is well.

Location: 34° 37 S, 91° 50 E
Sunday 12:00, 02.11.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 34° 37 S, 91° 50 E at noon on February 11th. The wind has calmed down a lot. We are headed 130 degrees magnetic at 6.7 knots with a wind of 275 at 15 knots. There is still a big SW’erly swell, which is throwing us around a bit, but of no danger. We expect to run off to the southward a bit and then jibe about midnight as the wind veers more NW, with the beginning of development of a high just north of us. The barometer is well up to 1017. We have come 3356 from the Seychelles and have 1210 to go to Fremantle.

Today was exciting — to dry everything out. We looked like a gypsy (can one still use that expression or will the Romany of Australia come for me with sharp knives?) boat with foul weather gear, boots, socks, long johns, everything crowding for space in the sun. All hatches open below and all is now aired and dried out. Bliss!

The latest system to test us is the stove gas solenoid. We have a system that can electrically shut off the gas at the propane tanks, which are safely set back in a vented stern locker. The solenoid that shuts off the gas seems to be a problem. We had to replace the first on in Cape Town after it failed while crossing the South Atlantic. The replacement failed today and now has been removed from the system. We will try to oil, clean and reinstall it tomorrow.

I spent most of the day working on the Australian Customs “Small Boat Report.” It is four pages long, and has fun questions like “List the make, model and serial number of all electronics gear.” The report has to be submitted 96 hours BEFORE arrival. One recent yacht that didn’t submit the report before arrival apparently was fined A$10,000!! I’m sure that they are nice people, but it does seem a bit ridiculous.

Regular readers know that I have been having issues with Lewmar blocks. Like five have failed so far. Well, now it appears that perhaps I just have issues with blocks. Yesterday a small Harkin failed, and we replaced it with a brand new Barton (South African brand?). The Barton was making some noise today and I went to oil and inspect it and found a little pile of brass shavings just under it as it apparently is in the process of self-destruction. Completely new!

Sigh.

I am going to start a “Quote of the Day” in my reports. Today’s quote is from Don Bamford: “Only two sailors, in my experience, never ran aground. One never left port and the other was an atrocious liar.”

All is well.