It was another lovely morning and we eagerly awaited a phone call to say that our V-belts had arrived and that the mechanic was ready to install them. unfortunately, this is Indonesia and we waited all morning for nothing.
After 12:00 I went ashore to see if I could find out what was happening. After a bit of running around and more waiting, finally our V-belts arrived, six for the raw water pump and two for the alternator, so along with the three spare belts I already had, I felt confident we had enough to get us safely back to Darwin.
I also met Agok, the Balinese diesel mechanic. He was quite a big lad and I was wondering how he was going to fit into my small engine rooms, he must have been wondering the same thing as he said he was staying on shore and he was sending two of his assistants out to do the job.
I wasn’t happy with this and I told him I’m paying for a mechanic so either he comes or doesn’t get paid. Next thing you know, all three of them were coming out. I said I only need him, but he wasn’t taking no for an answer and eventually I backed down and all five of us got into my small dinghy with all his tools and off we headed.
I was a nervous wreck trying to prevent them from walking all over my beautiful clean white boat with their black greasy bare feet and black greasy hands. They couldn’t care less about making a mess and it was pretty obvious right from the start that these guys were pretty useless.
He was trying to polish the rust off the pullies with a small piece of rope which was making no difference, then a head pops up out of the deck hatch to say the belts are no good, they don’t fit. Then one of his assistants staggers out and collapses on the cockpit floor. It turns out he was extremely seasick, so Luke had to quickly run him back to the beach and I think his marine mechanic aspirations were over.
The mechanic also wanted to leave and I insisted he remain to do an oil change on both engines and sail drives before leaving. He stayed and replaced the oil in the port sail drive and engine then refused to do no more. As he was pretty useless and making so much mess, I took them all back to the beach and he charged me $80 for his services.
I was happy to see them go, and I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up their mess and changing the oil in the starboard engine and sail drive myself. After this I spent the rest of the day measuring my two V-belts, looking up part numbers and suppliers and I also had my friends back home in Australia also trying to find a supplier in Perth. (Thanks Rod)
It turns out the alternator belt was a pretty standard common size and relatively easy to obtain, but the raw water V-belt was an unusually small and thin belt that was extremely difficult to track down. Even all the Yanmar dealers had no stock and it was just ridiculous how hard it was becoming trying to source some.
Late afternoon after searching all day for these bloody belts, I gave up for the day and headed into shore to have a couple of beers and some dinner.
On the way in we randomly bumped into some people from another yacht passing through and after telling them of our dramas, one of the guys suggested we call a guy called Hesta in Bali who was pretty good at getting all sorts of difficult stuff.
I got his number and headed off to dinner. I would give
Hester a call in the morning and see is he could help us.
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