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17 Jun ' 23:25
To-day was much less frenetic than yesterday. The new RAID survived the night, and even restarted without complaint after a a power outage in the night which lasted long enough for our UPS batteries to run out. So we are cautiously optimistic that we have a robust system.
Driving up to the site to-day we passed some cyclists going in the same direction. They are not the first that I have seen and I am always impressed. We saw them when we returned near dusk setting up camp about halfway to Cerro Toco.
At the site we devoted most of our energy to fixing the grease sprayer. Turning the thermostat up a couple of days ago turned out not to be the best idea because the grease had become too hot and turned runny. The plate in the grease can which is supposed to sit on top of the grease had sunk to the bottom and we had to fish it out. Naturally both Omelan and I got fairly greasy in the process. We decided to leave the plate out overnight, turn down the thermostat, and wait for the grease to firm up a bit overnight. Next, we checked that it was still spraying onto the gears. Three out of four nozzles were working well but one was having difficulty getting a good spray. The grease would squirt out like toothpaste from a tiny tube but not get picked up by the air blast. We couldn't quite see in the failing light if the blower is misaligned, but suspect that there is a gelatinous build-up near the end of the nozzle that might get pushed out overnight, because occasionally a small blob would get propelled outward.
Given our recent record, the day would not be complete without something new going wrong. Soon after hitting the highway as we were driving down both Omelan and I heard what sounded like our vehicle going over rumble-strips on the road. Of course we knew that there was no such thing on the road. Stopping the truck we found that on two of our tyres there was a prominent bulge on the side, as though one of the metal ribs had popped loose and was about to burst through the rubber. With only one spare, and cautious lest we should have a blowout, I did not exceed sixty kilometres per hour for the rest of the drive. We got Rolando to contact Hertz and we hope that they will be able to deliver a replacement to-morrow. In its current state it is unsafe to drive.
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