Day 32 Happy Easter

If it’s not one thing it’s another
The little hose - Mark always gets up at least once during the night to do a walk around inspection. After seeing everything in “normal” condition so many times, it is easier to spot anything that is not normal. Somewhere on the trip from PV he noticed that the engine was loosing a small amount of coolant.
He also noticed a small amount of coolant in the well under the engine and by cleaning off the engine, he determined that the small hose that feeds the “transmission oil heat exchanger” was leaking slightly.
This is a little like noticing that the water in your car radiator is down a bit every now and then. You probably would also notice there was a rusty stain on your driveway under where you park at night but unless there is a big puddle, you would just add a little water every now and then and leave it at that.
At 3:30 AM Mark jiggled “the little hose” (credits to Oksana) as he had done for the last 20 some days just to see if everything was tight. This time it wasn’t. The whole thing broke off in his hand. The rest of us were quickly rousted and spent the next two hours draining the system and finally removing the broken part. We got back to bed again at about 5:30.
So much for leaving for Fatu Hiva.
Mark was off to No Regrets at 7:30 to see if they had some parts we might use and by 9 he was back with the part repaired and with breakfast (plus Dave, Pat and Carly).
Had this part failed at sea, we would have had no engine, no electric power to charge the batteries and no way to make fresh water (unless it rained). This also would have made anchoring in a strange harbor with unknown currents, tides and winds a very risky proposition.
Hiva Oa must not want us to leave.
More cleaning - The trip to Fatu Hiva takes 5 to 7 hours and we do not want to enter an unknown harbor at night so leaving today was not possible. This meant we could do laundry. Oh joy.
It is amazing how quickly laundry builds up in the tropics. The heat and humidity not only causes sweating but everything (like the dish towels) gets musty quickly. The ocean looks and feels refreshing but that does not last long if there is no fresh water to wash off the salt. Salty skin and clothing is sticky and never gets completely dry.
With four people washing and rinsing, we set up a production line and knocked off $50 worth of laundry in less than an hour. We quickly drew up a business plan to see if this would support us if we stayed on Hiva Oa forever but unfortunately the financials did not hang together so we decided the best we could do was enjoy the clean clothes and get ready to leave tomorrow.