Departure and Fabrication

I've taken so many photos of or boxes at home that I've added only one this season.  On our way south, we traveled from home to Oakland to visit Conni's dad, LaVerne.  He was instrumental in my completing the work for installing the autopilot.  He freely gave his expertise and time.  Thank you, LaVerne.  From Oakland, we few directly to Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia.  We stayed in a hotel our arrival night, thankfully.  The next day, after some flight delays, we finally arrived in Raiatea.

As promised, this is the only photo of our cargo when we were at home.  We had 3 "blue boxes" at 50-lbs each, my Bill Bag (the big red duffle) at 50-lbs, and Conni's black duffle.  The cardboard container at right is also going with us.  That's the new membrane for our reverse osmosis desalinator.

This is the autopilot rear.  The base that LaVerne and I fabricated is underneath it.  It's 3/8" mild steel, and very strong.

As I've mentioned in our blog, I had to fabricate a system of spacers to take up space for the autopilot connection to the rudder arm.  I did that with precisely-sized stainless steel pieces called, "feeler gauges".  Here is the stock that I used.  The upper piece is 12/1000" and the lower is 5/1000".

The full extension piece that will support the new autopilot.  The pipe flange on the right is the connection for the support leg.  I hope that it works.

Our gear in our Papeete hotel lobby.  Whenever we fetched our gear, we counted it: 7 pieces, total.

 

The Air Tahiti lobby at 6:30AM.  Everyone is ready to board aircraft to travel among the islands.

Conni and I were roasting and this passenger was wearing a down jacket!

We board the aircraft, although as I mention in our blog, we sat on the aircraft for a bit then deplaned for 5 hours. 

A view of our plane to Raiatea via Bora Bora.

Lovely Conni and I enjoy cocktail hour in front of our bungalow. 

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