Another early start to get ourselves ready to leave. We did showers, cut Jonny's hair, filled the water tanks and tieded the boat up. Then it was off to see customs, immigration and the port captain (all on the other side of town a 30 min walk away) to get our clearance papers to leave on Wednesday. Back at the boat and we were ready to leave. We fired up the engine and it made a terrible knocking noise - our hearts sank! We fiddled with it a bit and then decided to see how it ran, so we motored over to the fuel berth to fill up with diesel. It didn't sound too bad (certainly better than it was when under way) but not good in idle. We decided to head back to the marina to see if Warren off Memphis could lend his expert ear to our new knocking noise. We caught Memphis just as they were about to leave and they thankfully were more than happy to come and help us. Warren and Jonny had a quick look and two heads being better than one (Warren's quite a bit better when it comes to engines according to J!) dediced the new engine mounts were a little low. They lifted them and the knocking noise went away! They then set to trying to stop the rattling on the propshaft we had had since Bonaire, and by lifting the engine up slightly on the mounts managed to stop that too. We left the marina and motored around the harbour for 30 mins to make sure the mounts were nicely bedded in - the engine has never sounded so smooth since the day we bought her!!
We are currently anchored in the bay off Noumea having a relaxing afternoon before we set off tomorrow morning for the 840 mile leg to Coffs Harbour in Australia - we are hoping to arrive early next week.
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