Sacrificing Chickens on the Altar of the Engine Gods

March 10 - 16, 2007

Saturday, March 10, 2007 - Thompson Bay, Salt Pond, Long Island
By Tom

Well, the weather gurus did it to us again. This morning's forecast basically doubled the predicted wind value for the next five days. The Jumentos offer virtually no protection from west winds and definitely not at 25 knots, so we opted instead to sail over to Long Island.

We arrived in Thompson Bay off of the town of Salt Pond around noon. The anchorage here is well protected in all weather except possibly south west and with our draft we might be able to hide from that as well. There are currently about 15 boats anchored here including our friend Frank on Cats Away.

We trolled four lines the whole way across and managed to catch 4 barracuda, but no edible fish. We had a fifth strike as we entered the anchorage and Amy was reeling in the lines to stow them, but Amy was taken by suprise and thus we did not get to see mystery fish number four.

Unfortunately, our engine troubles continue. Both engines are acting like maybe there is water in our fuel, which is entirely possible. I am going to check the fuel filters as well, but my money is on bad gas. We may have to make a trip in to town and try and find some water removal chemicals.

In the afternoon, one of the cruising boats here organized an impromptu happy hour on the beach. We made chicken quesadillas and headed in. There were about 20 couples there and we met a few new people as well as caught up with some friends from last year.

Around 6 pm we returned to our boat with Frank (Cat's Away) and cooked a steak and shrimp pita fest on the grill. Milo wouldn't stop stealing the pita breads and as a result we had to lock him in his cage. Dinner ran until about 9 pm when I ferried Frank home. Afterwards, we cleaned up the kitchen and went to bed.

Tomorrow is Sunday and I imagine the island will be pretty well closed, but we may venture ashore and get the lay of the land.

Sunday, March 11, 2007 - Thompson Bay, Salt Pond, Long Island
By Tom

The wind was already blowing a solid 20 knots by the time the sun came up. It still out of the due north, so I guess I am glad we came here instead of to the Jumentos.

Amy went in to the beach early this morning to do yoga. Some of her yogies are here in the anchorage and they kind of ganged up on her to lead a session at 8 am. Of course, we had that daylight savings thing yesterday, so Amy was about a half an hour late. Oooops.

I spent the morning pulling the injectors off of our outboards and trying to clean them up a bit. They didn't look too dirty, but I don't really know what I am doing, so who can say. I did replace the spark plugs on both engines while I was at it because the old ones looked, well, old and I had a new set on hand, so it can't hurt right?

When the engines were all re-assembled, I started them up and let them run. The starboard engine seems ok, but the port side engine still won't idle. If the rpm's drop too low, the engine just stalls out. Hmmm. Back to the drawing board I guess.

Beat down by the engines, we decided to walk up to the Thompson Inn about one half mile away from the dinghy landing. It's kind of a funky place with a little bar and about 12 bar stools of which only one had all four of its original legs.

I understand they serve food here too, but as we weren't hungry I cannot comment on the quality of it. The beers were cold and they had cable tv. I spent a good hour flicking channels like a possessed man before Amy finally took the clicker away from me. She isn't very tolerant of my remote controll proclivities.

We returned to the boat around 5 pm and I cooked dinner while listening to the Nascar race on the satellite radio. I hate you Jeff Gordon, I hate you so much.

Monday, March 12, 2007 - Thompson Bay, Salt Pond, Long Island
By Tom

I hoofed it into town early this morning to check on the likely hood of purchasing some kind of dry gas to remove water from our main tank. For the record, it isn't available on the island. I did find a really nicely stocked marine store that had 14 or 15 complete Racor fuel/water separators that might just fit the bill.

The bad news was they were 122 dollars a piece and I only had 50 dollars on me. Cash deficient, I walked the half mile back to the dinghy and dinghied the 2 miles back to the boat to get more money and then repeated the walk into town procedure again. The final bill was 300 dollars as we needed two of the units as well as a few ancillary products.

On the way back to the dinghy I stopped at the local grocery store and bought some sodas and a pack of chicken wings. There is a beach bonfire happy hour tonight and I am going to attempt to cook buffalo wings, medium spicy, on the open flame.

Back at the boat, I assembled the proper fittings into the different housings and then set them aside to dry. With progress on the engines temporarily stalled, we spent the remainder of the afternoon playing with our computers. As I write this we are getting supplies ready to head in to the happy hour.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007 - Thompson Bay, Salt Pond, Long Island
By Tom

Last night's happy hour was a lot of fun and the wings were a big hit. Out of the 24 wings we took, 2 were sacrificed to the engine gods (read: fell off the grill and into the flames), one suddenly burst into flames and was charred beyond recognition due to a positioning error on the grill, but the remaining 21 were works of art that were quickly consumed by the ravenous crowd.

At the party, we met another youngish couple named Jon and Erin on the sailboat Caretta. Apparently, Caretta is the name of some kind of turtle. We kind of hit it off and so we invited them over for happy hour this evening.

I spent the majority of the day working on the fuel system of our engines. I got both water separator/ fuel filters installed and now both engines are running much better. The starboard engine seems to be completely fine, but the port engine still isn't 100 percent. I think I need to run some more fuel through it and blow it out a little more.

Since I wasn't able to get a dry gas product, I instead bought 10 gallons of Esso's (Exxon) finest 89 octane and added it to our main tank in the hope that it will be mostly gas (as advertised) instead of mostly water as was the case in G'town.

Around 5 pm Jon and Erin came over and I grilled personal pizzas for everyone. We hung out trading stories until 9 pm when they went home and we went to bed. Tomorrow is supposed to be mega windy, so I imagine we'll stay put and I'll get to play with the engines some more.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 - Thompson Bay, Salt Pond, Long Island
By Tom

The wind continues to blow unabated. I took the advantage of the near gale force winds to equalize the batteries. I know most people probably have a slightly more regimented system than we do, but since our little Honda generator cannot create enough juice to equalize our house bank, I let the wind generator fry the snot out of them instead. A truly scientific procedure to be sure.

While the batteries were cooking, I finished up a few remaining details in our Racor water separator setup. I think it was just last week Bruce or Brian were giving me a hard time about not having a water removal system setup and I told them I hadn't ever needed it. I wonder if one of them came over in the middle of the night and poisoned my fuel? Damn you twins!

I made another trip in to town in the afternoon for diet sodas. The store only had 5 left, but it was better than nothing. All told it was a 4 mile round trip dinghy ride, a 1 mile round trip walk and 2 hours worth of time to procure said sodas.

Nothing is ever easy down here, but those are the breaks. When was the last time someone asked you what you did today and you said "I got sodas"?

Back on the boat we watched the sunset and then I grilled 2 lobsters. After dinner Amy went to bed and the weasels and I watched Irresistible starring Susan Surandan. Man does she look a little scary!

Thursday, March 15, 2007 - Thompson Bay, Salt Pond, Long Island
By Tom

The weather dude says the wind is going to continue blowing 25 knots for at least another day. The wind clocked towards the south last night, so we picked up the anchor and motored 2 miles down Thompson Bay to a more protected area right off of the dinghy dock. As we set the anchor, Caretta picked up theirs and headed out of the anchorage bound for points north. So long guys, good luck.

After re-anchoring, Amy attacked pin mold colonies while I straightened up the cockpit. Once our jobs were completed, we made a light lunch consisting of pepperoni slices and vienna sausages with our remaining pack of only mildly stale saltine crackers. Mmmm mmm good.

In the afternoon Amy read a book while I made fishing lures. I managed to score some compression sleeves the other day at the marine store here in town, so I was able to replace some more of the mono-filament leaders on the lures with steel cable.

In case you were wondering, we use steel cable instead of the plastic stuff because most of the fish down here are rather toothy and they tend to bite right through the synthetic stuff. See supporting fish lure picture, side right.

We packed away the dinghy last night in anticipation of moving this morning and we were too lazy to relaunch it, so we stayed aboard all day. In the evening I watched Base-ket-ball for the 43rd time and Amy read a book while the ferrets grazed on the vast plains of our bed spread.

Tomorrow we move for sure.

Friday, March 16, 2007 - Moss Cay, Georgetown, Exumas
By Tom

We were up with the sun and under sail with spinnaker only shortly there after. We decided to head back to Georgetown in anticipation of a series of fronts that are supposed to hit our area over the next 5 to 7 days.

The trip back was perfect. We had 12 knots of winds right behind us and we cruised along at a stately 7 knots the whole way home. The only thing that could have been better was if we had caught a fish, but alas the fish whackers remained silent through out the entire 27 mile trip.

We did have one minor problem right as we were leaving when I engaged the auto pilot. Otto Version 2.0 is apparently wired 180 degrees backward from his predecessor, Otto 1.0. I was not aware of this at the time of installation and as such when Otto 2.0 tried to make a steering correction, he turned the opposite way than was intended.

Of course as soon as he did this, he panicked and turned harder and harder and harder until he finally started screaming in Auto pilot language "HELP! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE !"

I disabled Otto 2.0 and had Amy drive us for ten minutes while I swapped some of Otto's wires. 15 minutes later, we were back in business and Otto drove for the rest of the day without trouble.

25 boats left Thompson Bay this morning and with the exception of 3 large motor yachts, we smoked the field on the way back. We had the hook down off of Moss Cay by 3 pm. To celebrate our return to G'Town, we went in to the managers party at Peace and Plenty. I was denied my free buffalo wings and meatballs because the music festival is going on and so the Peace and Plenty decided to wait until next week. Bastards !!!

We returned to the boat around 8 pm and I cooked some ribs on the grill for dinner before we turned in for the night.