Broken Engine Blues

April 1 - 7, 2007

Sunday, April 01, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We spent most of the day saying good bye. It's that time of year and most of the migratory boats are turning their noses north back towards the U.S.

I ran in to town for more water and a few staples as we too are planning to leave in the morning, but towards the south and the Ragged Islands. Our plan is to reach Duncantown in two days and then slowly work our way back up the island chain returning to Georgetown in 2 or 3 weeks.

This will be the 4th time this year we've attempted this trip and we have yet to make it. Hopefully try number 4 will be the one.

In the afternoon, we went up to St. Francis to let them know we wouldn't be around to host poker for a couple of weeks. While we were there, we had some buffalo wings (medium spicey) and a couple of drinks and I got to watch part of the Nascar race.

Around 3 or so, we left and stopped off at volleyball beach to say more good byes. At 5 we were invited over to Bruce and Debbie's boat (Different Drummer) with Eric and Alice(Sunrise) for happy hour. Happy hour turned in to 5 hours of sitting around talking and having a great time. Eventually, we said more good byes and returned home around 11 pm. Thanks Bruce.

Tomorrow we head over to the town side to get a few more things and then we're heading out. Stay tuned

Monday, April 02, 2007 - Red Shanks, Crab Cay, Exuma
By Tom

We were out way to late last night and as a result, we didn't get up and moving until 9 am. We picked up the anchor and motored over to town and re-anchored just outside Lake Victoria. I dropped Amy off at the market and then made three separate trips with 20 gallons of water each out to the mother ship.

When the tank was full, I rejoined Amy in town. We made a few phone calls back to the states to family and then we returned to our boat, pulled up the dinghy and stowed the anchor. At 10:30 we cleared the south entrance to the harbour and took up a heading on Hog Cay.

The wind was 15 - 18 and right on the nose. We lasted about 20 minutes making between 3.5 and 4 knots before I decided that we weren't making good enough time to get to our destination for the day.

No problem, we turned around and rolled out the head sail and flew down wind to Red Shanks. By 12:30 pm we had the hook down behind Crab Cay. We've never actually anchored down here before, but lots of people say its the nicest anchorage in the Bahamas. I don't know about that, but it is very nice and well secluded. It's hard to believe we're only 3 miles away from Georgetown.

There is only one other boat anchored here with us and it looks to be un-occupied. After we got the hook down, I made tacos for lunch while Amy dove in to check on our anchor's set. She reported it as being completely buried, so we'll sleep well tonight.

Post taco fiesta, Amy took a siesta while I played on my computer. In the late afternoon, Amy made chocolate chip cookies and I made a couple of new fishing lures.

By the way, both engines performed flawlessly for the hour and a half we had them running. If we don't have trouble with them tomorrow, I will call them fixed.

So the plan for tomorrow is to head out at first light, get through Hog Cay cut at high tide and then turn down wind a ride the spinnaker to Water Cay in Jumentos. From there it's one day down to Duncantown and Little Ragged Island

Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - Fishermans Anchorage, Water Cay, Jumentos
By Tom

We left our anchorage with the sunrise and motored the 4 miles out the south cut from Elizabeth Harbour. The wind was still right on the nose, but it was down to 15 knots, so the going wasn't too bad.

We motored to within 3 miles of the Hog Cay cut when the starboard engine started acting up again. I hate that engine. I hate him so much. The engine runs fine for a minute and then all of the sudden acts like I pulled the throttle all the way to idle. After 3 or 4 seconds, it decides to run properly again. I guess I have failed to exercise the demons.

We made it through the cut and were able to raise our sails for the remaining 25 miles down to Water Cay. It was pretty choppy on the way down, but we averaged 8 knots for most of the trip. Sailing was interrupted 5 times by the fish whackers. We caught several barracuda and a sand tile fish in addition to missing 2 other strikes.

Ollie and Pam on Dejarlo chased us most of the way and finally passed us when we had to stop to fight a fish. We followed them in to the anchorage and had the hook down by 2:30 pm. After putting the boat to bed, Frank on Cat's Away showed up.

By 3:30 we had the dinghy launched and Amy and I in our dinghy went out spear fishing with Ollie and Frank in Frank's dink. Amy and I ended up staying at the first spot we saw, while Ollie and Frank moved several times. In about 45 minutes of hunting Amy and I scored 4 Queen Trigger fish and 1 Nassau Grouper. Not too shabby.

For the record, Frank and Ollie scored 2 decent sized grouper and 1 crab.

We were all going to get together for dinner, but Amy fell asleep around 5 pm so she and took a rain check. We're going to check the weather dude in the morning, but unless I can diagnose the starboard engine's problem here in the anchorage, we will probably just hang out here and fish for a few days, then head back to G'town to effect repairs(again). The Jumentos are not a place you want to break down in

Wednesday, April 04, 2007 - Fishermans Anchorage, Water Cay, Jumentos
By Tom

I got up in time to listen to the weather dude. Today is supposed to be light and variable winds, so being down one engine, we opted to stay today and fish and then use the building winds tomorrow to sail back to G'town.

Ollie formed the war party by 10 am and Amy and I joined Frank (Cat's Away), Willis and Kathy (Whistling Winds), Ollie and Pam and their two guests (I don't remember their names) for the two mile dinghy ride out to a blue hole located to the west of Water Cay.

A blue hole is a really deep hole in the middle of relatively shallow area. This blue hole had a depth of about 50 feet, but the surrounding area was only 15 feet deep. It was very pretty with great coral formations and lots of sea life. Unfortunately, that life included several rather large sharks who seemed very intent on what we were doing.

I found and captured a large grouper (spiny variety :) ) and Amy procured 3 conch before the sharks scared us away. Amy and I moved in closer to Water Cay and resumed the hunt. The coral was of the scrub variety in 15 to 25 feet. Right off the bat I nailed a 4 pound Margate who was inspecting our anchor. Over the course of the next hour, I managed to get two good sized Hog fish and a Queen Trigger, while Amy added a Queenie of her own. With 5 fish and 3 conch in the boat we decided to call it a day.

We returned to the mother ship to get our fish cleaning equipment and then headed into the beach to clean our catch. Once the job was done, we tossed our fish carcasses into the shallow water off the beach and returned to our boat and loaded up the freezer.

In the afternoon, Willis brought his main sail over and I sewed a patch over a 2 foot rip that he got on the way down here. I didn't get the whole story as to what happened, but it sounded a little like operator error. Who hasn't been there ?

There were 7 or 8 boats in the anchorage and an impromptu happy hour broke out around 5 pm on the beach. Amy and I made Caribbean jerk cracked conch and it was a big hit. A few of the boats left the happy hour around 6 pm to return to their own dinners and those of us remaining broke out our dinner fixings and cooked for the whole group right on the beach.

The center piece of our beach meal were these absolute phenomenal bacon wrapped fillet mignon steak cuts that Willis had brought down from the states. They were by far the best steaks I've had in the last 6 months. Thanks Willis.

In addition to the steaks, I grilled up 4 big lobster tails that Ollie supplied from his freezer. Lobster season is now over until August 1, so the tails were a nice treat. As a group, we stuffed ourselves with awesome food and watched the sun go down. Shortly there after, the mosquitoes showed up and we returned to our boats

Thursday, April 05, 2007 - Red Shanks, Crab Cay, Exuma
By Tom

I woke Amy and the weasels as the sun came up. We had 40 miles to cover today and with only 10 knots of wind and only 1 functioning engine, I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time.

We were under sail heading back towards G'town by 7 am. We started out motor sailing and around 10 am we got to sail just. We fished the whole way and got several fish. We kept two barracuda for Arlene who is the bar tender at the Chat and Chill. We also kept a 3 foot Cero Mackerel for ourselves. Mister Mackerel yielded 14 individual servings, which we placed in the frozen section of Team Dream Catcher.

The trip north was fairly uneventful and found ourselves back inside Elizabeth Harbour (G'town) by 3 pm. We decided to anchor down in Red Shanks as a cold front is supposed to move through our area tonight.

We cooked some fresh Queen Trigger and some potato wedges on the grill for dinner and retired by 8 pm. Tomorrow we hope to look at our broken engine

Friday, April 06, 2007 - Kids Cove, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I started working on the starboard engine as soon as the sun came up this morning. I removed the injector unit again and rebuilt it for the third time hoping that we are still having a fuel problem.

Three hours later, it was back together, but with no improvement in it's performance. Damn you engine!

About this time, I started replacing all of the electronics, but with similar results. In a last chance desperation move, I check the oil level and found that the engine was way, way, way down on oil. So far down in fact that the low oil pressure cutoff was engaged which in turn cuts the fuel flow to the engine. Hmmm.

I filled the oil back up and the engine magically ran fine. Thats the good news, the bad news is where is the oil going? I fear we may have a severe internal problem, but without a pressure tester I can only guess as to the nature of this problem.

Anyhow, we picked up anchor and headed over to town with the tide. We anchored just off of town and assembled the dinghy to go ashore. When we got in to town, everything was boarded up. Apparently today is Good Friday and so nothing is open.

We returned to the boat without any of the pieces and parts we had hoped to get. We spent the remainder of the day hanging out on the boat and then returned to the P&P for happy hour with Brian (Tonga Time) and Speedo Ed (Joy Bells). Ollie and Pam showed up as well, so we had quite a crowd.

Around 8 pm Amy and I returned to the boat, decided against dinner and turned in for the evening

Saturday, April 07, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

With the Easter holiday weekend, all of the businesses are running modified schedules. Amy and I hurried in to the grocery at 10 am as it was only open from 10 - 12 today. We stocked up on some fresh vegetables and a few other necessities and then returned to the boat.

The wind had clocked far enough to the north that we picked up anchor and headed across the harbour to our usual spot right off Hamburger Beach. In the afternoon, I met up with Brian, Ed, and Ollie for a little 2 on 2 volleyball.

Today was also laundry day. We loaded up a large sail bag full of dirty clothes and hauled them up to Saint Francis to get them clean. Amy actually did laundry while I was playing ball. Afterwards, I joined her and watched race cars on the tv and ate buffalo wings (medium spicy) while the laundry finished.

Other than that, not much happened today. George (St. Francis) lent me a pressure tester so I can check the compression on our engine, but I need to find the right fitting to adapt it to my outboard. While sitting up at Saint Francis, we got to talking with Ollie (dejarlo) and Willis (Whistling Winds) and we kind of all decided to head back down to the Jumentos tomorrow or the next day.

Afterwards, we returned home and cooked steak fajitas for dinner. Afterwards, we watched Firewall with Harrison Ford. We both thought it was pretty good. For the record, the engine ran fine for the 15 minutes we used it today