En route now to Easter Island & Puerto Montt, Chile

The Schooner Maggie B has hoisted the Blue Peter (signal flag “Papa,” meaning outward bound within 24 hours) in Rangiroa. We hope to be underway tomorrow by about 1300, the start of the flood. We are headed to Puerto Montt, Chile, hoping to stop at Easter Island on the way.

It has been very interesting to check out of French Polynesia from Rangiroa. It is an official Port of Entry (and exit) but nobody has done it previously. The Gendarmerie National was very pleasant, but they were learning everything for the first time, and needed lots of advice from Papeete. At the end the policeman hadn’t stamped our passports, so I asked for it and he said that he didn’t think that he had the stamp, but was able to finally find it in some storage. In the same way, Bank Socredo was happy, well, not that happy, to give us back our bonds — “Cautions” — but they had never done it before and needed lots of advice from Papeete also. But it only took four hours and two visits over two days.

Two days ago I thought we were in serious trouble. Our autopilot appeared to have failed. Even when the rudder was in neutral, it would flash “55 degree starboard rudder!” and would not reset. I assumed that the rudder position sensor failed. Kath and I tore the boat apart to get to the sensor, which looked and tested OK. So we tore more boat apart to follow the wire from the sensor to the mother board. Still OK. The signal at the motherboard seemed OK — higher and lower resistance, Ohms, depending on rudder position. So maybe a bad motherboard, yike!

But with Margo’s help, I was able to get in touch with the autopilot technician at Furuno USA in Washington, and, over the phone, he walked me through reprogramming the rudder, and, hooray, it came out fine! I’m a Furuno customer for life.

We had also found some small tears in the jib which Hannah expertly restitched, but then the Profurl got balky and wouldn’t let us re-hoist the sail, but finally did after a little “persuasion.”

Robert and I have been scrubbing the bottom for a fast passage. It is amazing how fast the grass grows in this warm water. Sometimes the Maggie B doesn’t seem very big, and I know Nigel designed her with minimal wetted surface, but when you are diving down with a stiff brush in one hand and a scraper in the other, she seems endless.

We have had a bunch of remora hanging around us. Biggish ones — about three feet. They better not try to hitchhike on us to Chile! Tonight we were throwing over some dead and dying bananas, which excited them. Hannah was swimming at the time and discovered that they liked their bananas peeled, so she spent her time feeding remoras bananas. But no hitchhiking!

We are filled to the scuppers with fresh produce from the islands. Mangoes, bananas, papayas, tomatoes, potatoes, grapefruit, lettuce, carrots, cabbage, and lots of limes and ginger for the fish we’ll catch. Then in the freezer there are chickens, steaks, sausages and frozen shrimp. Then tons of cans of everything imaginable.

We’re ready!

All is well.