This morning it is very calm and an ideal time to have a quick tour of the engine room with Bob. Sharon, Dad and I put on our safety ‘jandals’ and headed down stairs. Surprisingly it is quiet compared to the rest of the ship except for when you actually go into where the engines are …
According
to the dials it is around 44 degrees celsius in the engine room itself.
Sharon
and Dad did the first tour as there was only 2 spare ear muffs.
First
you enter where the generators are – there are 2 (1 per engine)
You
cross a little bridge and then you enter where the engines are, this room is a
lot warmer than the other 2 and also noisy
Don’t
ask me anything about engines as I know and understand nothing
Really
all I heard was each engine is 8 cylinders (whatever that means) and that they
are currently at around 345 degrees celcius so try not to lean on them with the
sway of the ship!
Coming
back I passed the auxillary or backup generator
After
chatting with Bob in the engine room we then decided to get a photo of Janes’
galley
I
have only really had my appetite back the past 3 days so I have missed a lot of
Janes lovely cooking … Dad says that he will miss Janes cooking while he is on
the island!
Lunch
was chicken pies and that was spent watching a movie just idling away time
until we get to Mangareva. We started
seeing the islands around 2pm and due to the very low cloud sometimes we didn’t
see them at all.
Estimated
time of dropping anchor was round 3pm.
Fortunately
for us Maurice invited us up to the Bow as we entered the islands and passed
over the reef. It was fantastic being up
there. In order to get there we had to
walk between the giant flower pots (water tanks), scramble over the timber and
catch and walk around the funnel stack thing
Of
course being at the bow of the ship for the first time in our lives we enact
the titanic with Sharon being the suitable damsel!
It
was great being up there we looked over the side to see just how a deep indigo
blue the sea was and as we went over the reef it became more shallow but
unfortunately due to the overcast day we couldn’t see the bottom. Before coming to the reef the ocean is around
4000m deep and then all of a sudden there is a shelf (the reef) and the depth
becomes around 300m deep. Peering over
the side we got a good view of one of the anchors …
And
here is looking back towards the bridge
And
here is the island of Mangareva itself – Lea Ann and Uschi are staying in the
township of Rikitea which is on the other side of this view of the island
We
dropped anchor around 3.19pm and Hamish and Wade got the zodiac out –
ironically it felt like they were 2 agents getting in a zodiac to do something
naughty (just like the Rainbow Warrior saga!). So they zoomed off around the
point (as we were hiding out of view) while there Hamish had our passports to
get it stamped that we arrived and then departed although we didn’t officially
get of the boat we still had to have the passports stamped. They picked up Lea Ann and Uschi … meanwhile
we just hung around the bridge
You
can see our next leg of the voyage – Gambier islands to Pitcairn Island. And Neil and Dad where keeping an eye out for
the zodiac … and also sticky beaking as to what they might see on the island
(not much really)
I
didn’t get any photos of Lea Ann and Uschi arriving as it is all in a
movie. They were both relieved to get on
board they had been on Mangareva for 2 nights and had yet to have a hot shower as the shower is solar and there
is not much sun around here lately!
Later
in the evening we had yet another time change – our final clock change to make
us 20 hours behind NZ.Thought I would put this here, since NZ we have seen birds (even when we were 1000 miles from land) and not sure it if is always the same ones but Neil finally managed to get one in a photo
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