Fri 28 Sep – Trying to fix the outboard

Tom couldn’t sleep for most of the night and was out of bed at 04:00 reading about what to do with the engine. The ideal scenario has it rushed to the equivalent of engine A&E but given we’re anchored on a rather remote island, this was out of the question. We’d have to do a DIY job. At 08:00 he started work, first off draining the petrol and oil into an empty wine bottle. By now the girls were awake and they swam over for a chat. In the light of day we were in tears laughing about what had happened, and wondering why Tom and I hadn’t carried our valuables in a waterproof bag?? We have two, and that’s exactly what everyone else had done. Lesson learnt the hard way.

Working on a small engine is fiddly at the best of times. There are loads of screws, nuts and random pieces of metal plus tubes through which oil and fuel drip – none of which you want ending up in the water. Now imagine the engine is attached to a rail on the back of the boat, about 90% of which hangs over the water, then add to that the boat rocking from side to side. Yes, it’s a royal pain in the arse. Throughout the course of the day we managed to drop into the water the kill cord (twice), the spark plus and a towel – none of which float – meaning I was in and out of the water four times, diving the 10 meters to the sea bed to retrieve them. Tom worked really hard on the engine all day, but by 17:00 the bloody thing still wound’s start. It made a few pathetic attempts but that was it. Similarly with the iPhones. I dug them out of their rice bath but couldn’t convince either of them to switch on. I knew it was a lost cause when I plugged mine in to a charger and heard its circuitboards quietly sizzling. I’d been somewhat hopeful but now I had to come to terms with having lost 80% of our photos . 🙁

Feeling very despondent we rode ashore and walked the short distance into the village. The island of Volcano is a fascinating place, and the smell of sulphur emanating in puffs of smoke from the rocks along the roadside give it a very unique smell. We found a nice bar and stopped off for a drink to console ourselves. We started discussing which iPhones to buy as replacements. Of course we really needed them, no question, as over the years we’ve bought a ton of apps, we need Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, email etc etc. But then we caught sight of a group of people sitting opposite us – all together, not speaking and glued to their screens. How utterly sad. It was then we thought – do we really, like really, need them? We definitely need a way to keep in touch with family and friends, so going without isn’t practical, but could we downsize, or try to at least? Our conclusion was: yes. Well, probably anyway so we’re going to give it a go and buy ourselves two minimal smart(ish) phones to see how we get on. We do still have our iPads on which we can run any must-have apps, and having them on a different device will also mean we’ll need to dedicate specific time to using them, vs. using them to kill time. Let’s see if we can turn something bad into something good. 🙂

Having replaced our bad mood with a sense of renewed energy we headed back to the boat, and as we rowed we watched the final stages of what was a beautiful sunset.