Sinking Miss Dinghy

March 17 - 23, 2007

Saturday, March 17, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Shitty Death !!! Disaster struck in the night !!!

Around 2 am a mega-squall came through. The wind jumped from 10 to 40 in about 5 minutes and a large 3 foot swell started banging through our anchorage. All the while, the rain poured in and the wind continued to build. After 10 minutes of this, our dinghy filled with enough water that it capsized itself in the swells. Mega shitty death !!!

So there we were, in the dark, in a lightning storm and in 3 foot swells trying to right our dinghy. It took over 90 minutes before I was able to get the engine back on the mother ship and get the dinghy back afloat.

If this dinghy doesn't get it's act together, I may have to do a little "Sinking Miss Dinghy".

There was nothing I could do for the engine until first light, so I just sat in the cockpit and watched the storm rage. Around 5 am it finally let up and by 6 there was enough light to start tearing the engine down.

I had to completely rebuild the carb again as well as drain the engine crankcase out three different times. Around 10 am I took Amy's kayak across the harbour to get Eric and Susan's Mako (dinghy), but when I got there, it wouldn't start.

Speedo Ed happened to be coming by and he lent me his dinghy long enough that I was able to get to town for spare parts and then get back over to the Mako with my battery charger and tools. It turned out the Mako had a dead battery. I set my charger on and then swam ashore to play volley ball.

After ball, I swam back to the Mako and was able to get it started. I dinghied back across the harbour to my boat and then we upped anchor and moved up to Hamburger Beach. We made it about 150 feet when we sucked a random line into the starboard engine prop which of course caused it to stop immediately.

That's ok, right? We have 2 engines.

Engine number 2 ran another 3 minutes before it quit all together. Nice.....

That's ok, I'll hop in the Mako and just tow the big boat the last 300 yards over to the anchorage. Not. The Mako refused to start.

I couldn't use my dinghy engine, because the carburetor was lying in the cockpit drying out. So there we were with four engines and three boats and not a damn one of them would run. We ended up rolling out the head sail and dragging our fleet of completely worthless engines into Sand Dollar beach.

We anchored long enough for me to dive over board and free the line from the prop on the starboard engine. Back in business with just the one engine, we motor limped up to Hamburger where we promptly dropped the anchor for the night.

I hate days like these.....

Sunday, March 18, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I spent the entire day working on engines. In the morning I finished putting out dinghy engine back together. It started on the 2nd pull and I ran it for about 20 minutes before draining and changing the oil a fourth time.

With the dinghy usable again, I tackled the Mako battery. I charged it for 4 more hours and then it too decided it would start. I let it run for 20 minutes and then ran it back to Eric and Susan's boat. Amy picked me up in our dinghy and we returned to the mother ship for lunch.

After lunch I tackled the port side engine on the big boat. I completely removed the intake manifold, the injector system and the fuel pump. It took about 3 hours to get the pieces off of the engines and another 2 hours to clean and re-assemble everything. By then it was dark, so I set aside the re-installation for tomorrow.

We made lobster pizzas for dinner on the grill and then we retired to the cockpit for a couple of cocktails before showers and bed. It looks like more engine work tomorrow.

Monday, March 19, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I tackled the re-installation of the intake and injector system first thing this morning. It only took 30 minutes to get it back together and when I hit the key, the engine fired right up. Nice !

I let the engine run for about an hour while I drained the water separator every 15 minutes. I am hopeful that we have exercised the demons, but only time will tell.

To celebrate our hopefully repaired engine, we decided to host a Texas Hold-em game on our boat. Jack (Freebird), Ollie (Dejarlo), Bruce (Different Drummer), Brian and Charlene (Tonga Time) joined Amy and I in a 5 dollar, winner take all game. Ollie ended up beating us all, but only because I listened to Milo when he said to go all in. Never trust a weasel when it comes to cards.

The game broke up around 9 pm and everyone but Jack went home. Jack sat around and talked with us until 11 pm and then he too went back to his boat and Amy, the weasels and I turned in for the night.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The weather turned super ugly aroun midnight. The wind started howling at a sustained 30 knots with gusts going up over 40. It started raining around 3 am and continued to do so off and on all day.

I took advantage of the rain to wash the salt off the decks and to do some laundry on the rail. In the afternoon the twins and I and Jack and Ollie went in to the beach for hurricane ball. The games were pretty good considering the force of the wind.

After ball, we retired to the Chat and Chill for a couple of beers before returning to our seperate boats. Back on board the mother ship, Amy made brownies before I grilled some chicken breasts for dinner.

After dinner, I got online and checked the weather forecast out of Nassau. It looks pretty bad for the next several days and there is the potential for serious squalls again tonight. We turned in shortly after 8 pm in anticipation of having to do anchor watchs at some point during the night.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I was up from 3 am until sunrise keeping watch on the boat. We didn't have any trouble, but the boat in front of us did. His anchor rode parted and his boat went careening through the anchorage.

I was out on deck and saw it go floating by. It missed us by several feet and then disappeared into the gloom. I called out on the VHF several times before the crew woke up and got themselves squared away.

The wind apparently peaked somewhere near 60 knots during the height of the squall. Our anchor held fine, but our bimini top suffered a few ripped seams that I will have to fix as soon as the wind lays down.

I had both engines in the water and running for about 30 minutes during the height of the storm and neither one showed any signs of letting us down. Maybe we're out of the woods with our engine problems?

Dawn was several hours late due to the bad weather. When it was finally light enough to see, I went back to bed and slept until 11 am. After a lunch of grilled cheesies, I went into the beach with the guys for wind ball. We played 2 games and then called it a day. There is just too much damn wind!

While enjoying a post ball beer, I was approached by a guy named David on the boat Merlin who was having computer problems and asked if I could take a look at it. I stopped by his boat on the way home and after a few minutes I told him the hard drive had crashed.

He seemed kind of dejected to hear the news, so I told him I could take it back to my boat and probably fix it over the next couple of days. He jumped at the chance have his computer fixed, so I ended up taking it with me.

Back on the boat, Amy did some inside chores and I finished making our new fuel filtration system mount permanent. Afterwards, I started working on reformatting Dave's laptop.

Dinner was a grilled potato and steak affair before we settled in and watched a movie with the weasels. The crew turned in at 9 pm.

Thursday, March 22, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The squalls continue to blow. I hate this weather, I hate it so much.

The weather abated long enough for Brian, Bruce, Jack and myself to hit the volleyball court and attempt to make the ball behave in hurricane force conditions. Suffice it to say that the ball had its own idea of what it should be doing in these conditions.

Afterwards, I returned to the boat and made shrimp fettucine for me, Amy and the weasels before we headed up to Saint Francis to set up for Thursday night poker.

The game got pre-empted 5 minutes before the start as another severe squall came rolling through. I talked to several of the regular players and we agreed that it would be wiser to put off the game until tomorrow so we could ride the coming gale out on our own boats.

This sounded really good, but half of the contestants decided they would rather play then boat watch and after a 20 minute debate, Amy and I agreed to host a poker event at 7 pm after the storm passed us by.

We had 16 players at 2 tables and in am all to familiar display of poker prowess, I managed to out bid Bea (Joy Bells) in the end and take home the 50 dollar first prize. I am now 15 dollars away from paying for the wind surfers.

We returned to the mother ship around 9 pm and after tucking in the weasels we retired for the evening

Friday, March 23, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The weather today was as ugly and generally shitty as the last three days have been. Last night around 3 am, a squall came through with 40 knot winds and mega rains that kept me awake until first light.

Around 9 or so, I finished up work on the starboard engine and I am hopeful that I have finally exercised the demons. Only time will tell as the wind is keeping us in the Hamburger Beach anchorage.

Around 12 or so, Brian from Tonga Time came by and picked me up to head in for a little 2 on 2 action at the volleyball court. The wind was blowing well over 25 knots, so the play was a little more like self defense than aggressive volleyball play.

The rain forced us off of the court twice and in the end we ended up playing 3 on 3 as we had 7 players. Suffice it to say that play pretty well sucked today.

Afterward, we retired to the Chat and Chill for a beer or two and just hung out. Amy came in and picked me up before 4 pm and we returned to the boat so I could clean up. A few moments later we went in to Saint Francis for our make up poker game.

I'm sure my dear readers will be mega imporessed when I tell them that I won the first place out of 38 entries for the second night in a row! My wind surfers are now paid for!!!! Booo-yaaaaa!

I think I may need to take next Monday night off as several of the other players are getting mad at my winning streak. It seems everyone loves to hate a winner. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

We returned to the mother ship and Amy went to bed to read and the ferrets and I watched a movie. It wasn't very good and we all fell asleep half way through, but Milo says he's pretty sure it was about Steve's mom and the ways in which she makes the universe unsafe for both sailor and weasel kind alike. He's a viscous ferret when he wants to be.