We are really getting tired of motoring. We had one good day of sailing so far on this passage and the last 2 passages of any distance (Tuamotus -> Tahiti and Marquesas to Tuamotus) were similarly windless. The former (to Tahiti) was 50 hours of motoring and about 4 hours of sailing in light air. The trip from the Marquesas to Makemo took 5 days 2 of which were spent sailing, 3 spent motoring. Where are these so-called Trade Winds? This ain't the Caribbean, that's for sure.

At about 6pm local time this evening we shut the engine down for a few minutes so we could check-in with the Pacific Seafarers Net, a ham radio network of boats on passage. We need to shut the engine because it causes so much noise we cannot hear the radio. Additionally, when we transmit on certain frequencies the RF causes the voltage regulators to send incorrect signals to the alternators. This can cause too high a voltage to be sent to the batteries which can cause a high voltage condition. This causes alarm bells to buzz and, of course, is bad for the batteries.

Anyway, after checking in we go to start the motor and it just clicks once and then nothing. This has actually happened to us several times in the past and simply turning the switch off and on a few times always fixes it. Not this time. The engine controls were not getting any power and we assumes it was a faulty ignition switch. We were so sure this was the problem that 2 months ago we ordered a new ignition switch (this one with a so-called waterproof keyhole) which arrived in a package with a bunch of other stuff a few weeks ago. We have not installed it yet.

We had to empty the port cockpit locker to gain access to the back of the engine control panel. I put in the new ignition switch (this required much cursing, sweating and scraping of body parts as the space is small where the work is done and the engine running for the last 40 hours has severely heated up the area under the cockpit). Unfortunately the new switch failed to rectify the problem and we were back to square one. I then took out the multimeter and started testing at various points to see where the juice was being sidetracked. After a few tests showed power was making it to the ignition switch I turned the switch on and began testing downstream of the switch. When I put the positive lead from the meter onto the wire terminal where the ignition switch output was routed all of a sudden the panel came to life. The engine of course started without incident at this point. We still have no idea what happened nor why testing with the multimeter seems to have gotten things flowing again, electricity wise. Obviously more investigation is required.

By 9pm we are on our way again, motoring at low rpms as we do not want to make landfall before daybreak. We have about 33 hours to go, at our current speed of 5.3k. This will put us at Suvarov at about 7am on Tuesday morning.