Fay had very heavy rain during her 3am - 7am watch, but when she broke clear about 6am we had 15kts from the SE though it seemed far too early to have reached the trade winds. The seas were very lumpy all day but there was plenty of wind so continued on our SW course moving very fast and averaging about 8.4kts for much of the day. Nine mph may not seem like much, but it's really quite fast in our situation and would result in having the coveted "200 mile day". But the boat was uncomfortable with that much speed in such lumpy seas so we double reefed the main and throttled back.
Just when we thought we would get a little more comfortable the high water alarm for the aft cockpit locker went off for a second time. We've had a persistent leak there from an unknown source and now it was moving up from annoying to threatening. Pumping it out twice in one day was not good, particularly since this is also where the rudder bearing lives. I removed all the contents of the locker (a lot of stuff!) and investigated further. Fortunately the leak is what we had long expected, though thought we had solved, water is coming in around the transom locker doors. When the boat is moving fast, the entire swim platform is submerged and the lower portion of the locker doors are awash. Water is leaking through the door seal and then finding its way to the bottom of the aft cockpit locker. That was a relief since there was no problem with the rudder bearing.
However, looking closely, I saw that the steering cable looked light it might be chafing on the newly installed starboard autopilot ram's hydraulic lines. I hadn't noticed this with my pre-departure inspection when I viewed it from the opposite side, and even today it was not clear if they were really touching. If they are touching, then the cable would eventually saw through the hydraulic line, or vice versus, since the hydraulic line is sheathed in stainless as well. Neither would be good so with Fay steering by hand I disengaged the starboard ram and connected the port ram. I threw a switch, reversed two wires on the autopilot computer and we were back in business using the port ram. I'll investigate further when we get to the Marquesas.
Then I repacked the entire locker. The high water alarm had initiated a series of events which consumed most of the afternoon!
In search of a more comfortable ride we tried bearing off a bit and heading directly to the Marquesas, roughly WSW. The ride seemed a little smoother and certainly no rougher, so since the wind has held up (the forecast was for much less wind as this latitude) we're headed straight to the Marquesas now rather than sailing the longer distance to first get south before turning west. If the wind doesn't hold we can always turn south again.
I've started a summary of our Galapagos visit, but I'm too tired to finish it tonight.
