A reasonably late start for us as we were manning the out control at the hotel, it was going to be a fairly relaxed day with only a short regularity to wake up the competitors, we packed up and followed the last of the competitors out and resumed sweep duties, first thing we came across was the chavelle, or the perpetual Chavelle as it keeps breaking down, this time it was the third fuel pump to fail, we didn't hang around as it was being repaired by Kitch and Alan so we pressed on to the next time control being manned by Eds sister and Chris Bruce. nothing going on here so we left to get down to the regularity start, at the start there was the third place Datsun of Grant and Simon, the starter had packed up so a quick push start and they roared off. Owen and I decided to have a go at the regularity and actually managed to get zero penalties but then Owen was navigating so it came as no surprise. The Volvo of heather and Jo were still going on three cylinders since the valve dropped but between us all we'd got Amazon cars to fly out with he parts needed, parts described by the New Zealand mechanic who had built the engine, they went off to deal with that so it looks like it's going to be a busy night! Not a lot else was happening so we pressed on to the hotel where there was two Bentleys waiting for fine tuning, both sorted and then we went to have dinner before the Volvo parts turned up which they did so work started, the standard piston as previously described was in fact not a standard piston but a 20 though oversized piston so all was looking grim, this was confirmed when we started it and found a huge amount of piston slap, it was late and there was nothing to be done so the competitors had no choice other than to give up or press on, the opted to press on but we aren't holding out too much hope.
A memorable moment was when we went to a small house that was preparing raw natural rubber and got to see the processes from the cutting of the tree to the boiling and rolling into sheets of rubber ready for refining, this was a great moment, I also tried beetle nut that is widely consumed in these parts, it was gross!
I have also learnt that it eventually turns your teeth red and gives you mouth cancer so I won't be having that again! I treated myself to another fresh coconut which was chilled this time and I will definitely be having more of those.
We also came across a massive spider at one of the controls so here's a photo just for you Emma!
A random terrapin came wandering past as we were having a stop, bizarre!
Buckleys bogus facts.
When Miami was an original settlement a one metre square of fly paper would have 20000 Mosquitos stuck to it over the course of one night, today if you did the same thing you would have less than 50 Mosquitos stuck to it over the same period!
Buckley is the slightly more ugly one of these two!
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