One of our loyal readers sent me a private message to say that he was worried about us. When I inquired why, he said that with our hinting that we might head west this season, and the fact that he has heard internet access is much more difficult to acquire that direction, we might be unable to keep up with our pretty-consistent daily posting schedule. I told him to fear not, that we’d explore alternative solutions before it came to that.
One such solution for connectivity is of course Sat. Phones. Just as cel phones have dropped from their original selling price of several thousand dollars 20 years ago to almost giveaways these days, Sat. Phones and their associated charges have come down quite a bit as well. I remember bookmarking the Inmarsat IsatPhone Pro Satellite Phone
Anyone have any insight into this technology, or alternatives, that they’d like to share?
I put this up on the Zero To Cruising Facebook page the other day but thought it only fair that I post it here too. The video shares the sound of the waves which would wash onto the shore in Cumberland Bay, St. Vincent, just feet away from where we sleep, waking us each morning.
Sadly we had to leave this idyllic spot but new adventures beckon! We’re now off to Bequia!
For more than a year, and all the way from Florida, we have carried a bunch of spare parts for our Yamaha engines. One might even say a boat load of spares! Fortunately though, outside of spark plugs, filters and engine oil, we have not had to break into the stash. Until yesterday.
After making the decision to forego hiking to the volcano (we didn’t feel it would be prudent for the two of us to go alone, and we didn’t want to pay for a guide), we decided to make our way south to Kingstown, the capital city of St. Vincent, to re-provision. We found what was, at the time, a pleasant anchorage in Edinboro Bay and actually looked forward to spending the evening there before heading off to Bequia today. When we returned from our 2 hour shopping trip though, the conditions had changed drastically and we were having flashbacks to our rough night back in Cumberland! We didn’t even take the time to store the groceries before raising anchor, it was that bad.
Moving wasn’t the end of the world as we had a couple of backup anchorages planned that were only 30 minutes away. What we weren’t counting on was an engine problem manifesting itself just as we rounded the high rock walls on Duvernette Island. The port engine, which we had been running under for most of the day, suddenly started revving very high, a sound which even Rebecca, who was down below tucking away our groceries, could hear. Using the starboard engine I first got us safely away from the rocks and then raised the other outboard up to see if we had perhaps run over a piece of line or debris. Nothing was quite so obvious and after a bit more testing, it became obvious that we would have to rely on only the one engine. Redundancy is nice though, isn’t it? This entire situation is a bit of a coincidence because George on Earthling also experienced an engine problem after departing Cumberland. His engine overheated due to, what he later discovered was, a blockage in the cooling-water intake. Without the backup engine that a catamaran has, he was forced to make his way to Young Island and pick up mooring under sail. Good job, George!
The blue line heading down towards the bottom of the graphic shows the beginning of the course we have plotted to Bequia. Image from our Polar View software.
Our plans had us stopping in a spot called the Blue Lagoon though, a charter-boat packed bay with a very narrow and shallow entrance channel, and only two lateral buoys to designate the safe passage through the reef. There is no way we would attempt sailing into a place like that. Fortunately, our starboard engine did us well and we navigated the 6′ deep channel and picked up a mooring with little issue. In fact, the only issue that we did have was caused by the “staff” who came over to assist us with picking up the mooring. Seeing a 50′ Catana try to pick up a mooring downwind later in the day, I can see why they feel the need to help. We are pretty good at dealing with our own lines though, when left alone to do our thing. When people we don’t trust try to help us with lines, etc. we usually just smile and tell them “It’s OK, we’re professionals. We do this for a living.” 
Yeah, there are one or two boats here.
With the boat safely secured but with daylight fading, we were eager to explore our engine woes. We again confirmed that there was nothing wrapped around the prop, both from inside the boat and by getting in the water. We also found that the engine revs sounded fine when at idle or with only a bit of throttle applied. With more juice though, the engine revs seemed to race. I had heard of people “spinning a prop” and guessed that might be the cause but, never having experienced it before, I was unsure. I consulted our service manual and found nothing. The Oracle seemed to confirm that the symptoms we were experiencing were indicative of a spun prop though. Given that we had a spare on board, I surmised that the easiest way to test and see if that truly was the issue would be to simply (I hoped it would be simple) swap them.
Isn’t the new prop shiny? Behind it, in the distance, you can see Duvernette Island.
Don’t drop the side cutters!
As it turns out, with both Rebecca and I in the water, carefully handling the tools and the small parts, we were able to switch the old prop for the new one in record time. The water below us was 40′ deep so we really didn’t want to drop anything! Our subsequent tests seem to lead us to believe that the old prop had indeed spun as, with the new one installed, the racing engine revs is gone and we seem to have our normal thrust back. We’ll really only know for sure today though, after we cast off and begin making way out of the lagoon. Our fingers are crossed. If the issue truly is gone, this will go down in our record books as one of the easiest “serious*” repair jobs ever!
We celebrated our (hopefully) repair victory with a nice dinner. Do you know what this is?
*There are always things to fix on a boat. I consider propulsion, rigging and large-scale water intrusion to be among the serious ones though!
I know the photo of our dinghy that I posted yesterday, with its very dirty waterline, offended the eyes of the perfectionists who read our blog. Even I’ll admit that the waterline, and the bottom that you couldn’t see in the pic, was pretty gross. It’s kind of surprising too considering that we raise the dinghy into the davits every night! Anyway, the Mother’s Day reprieve from chores was over and since it was looking so nasty, we decided that ticking “clean dinghy bottom” off of our long to-do list had moved up in priority. When we made our way over to the beach to do it though, the last thing we were expecting was a lesson in a new-to-us eco-friendly* method of completing the task!
Only seconds after we had removed the engine from the dinghy and flipped it over to begin cleaning it, Brother, the helpful local who fixed our outboard the other day, yelled to us and came over to say Hi. When he figured out what we were going to be doing, he told us that we could use coconut husks and sand for the job. Just as it did the other day, my bewildered look must have struck him as a plea for help. Not only did he go on to show us how to use the items that were lying at our feet to remove the barnacles and grime from the inflatable’s bottom, he spent almost an hour scrubbing it along side us! Why? Why does anyone do good deeds?
Throw some wet sand onto the hull and then scrub it with a piece of coconut husk. Voila!
Later in the afternoon one of the boat boys, Ackneil, the young man who helped us with our stern line when we first arrived here, mentioned to us that he was having issues with the spark plugs in his outboard. Because we have a similar engine that uses the same ones, I offered him a couple of plugs that we had recently swapped out of our Yamaha (we keep the ‘old’ plugs that we replace after a certain number of hours, just in case). A little while later he came back and gave us a little fish that he caught in order to say thank you. How cool is that? We had the fish for dinner and it was very tasty!
*Hopefully using an eco-friendly method to clean the bottom of our dinghy will bring me back into the good graces of any environmentalist who I might have upset with my fuel-spilling indiscretion.
- Morning workout…
Rebecca was doing her morning workout, in this case, dancing out on the bow, when I asked her if I could record one of the songs. The above video was the result, first take.
- Snorkeling…
Yes, I know the bottom of the dinghy needs to be cleaned.
That might make it onto today’s chore list.
- A walk to a nearby village…
Bacon!
This is the river that I mentioned that you need to cross to get to the town.
I’m glad the water wasn’t any higher!
- Sunset on the boat…
We were fishing in that exact spot the other day.
I hope these guys had more luck than we did.
- And finally, a party on the beach…
A 60+ foot cat came in and anchored in the bay and Mame Elma organized this band pretty much just for them. They turned out to be cool people and a fun party ensued.
George and Katherine will be leaving us today, heading south towards the end of the island.
Hopefully we catch up to Earthling again soon.
Rebecca would make an awesome entertainment coordinator on a boat or at a resort!
My rope trick was a huge hit.
A day many moms could appreciate I think!
The sewing machine that we invested in prior to heading out cruising has happily paid for itself over and over. In addition to the odd sail repair that it has helped us with, Rebecca has used it to construct at least a dozen other useful items for our boat. She does tend to let the projects accumulate though because the process of clearing some work space, retrieving the machine and fabric, and getting everything all set up seems to, at least in some cases, take a lot longer than the actual sewing itself. Yesterday was one of those days when she decided to clear the needs-to-be-sewn list. Here is what she accomplished:
- Made an adjustment to the barbecue cover that she previously sewed, making it easier to tighten.
- Sewed a new “shoe rack” out of Sunbrella (the dollar store version we had been using finally gave up the ghost).
- Sewed a sheath for our machete.
- Repaired both cushions on our helm seat
While she was busy with that, I took a crack (pun intended) at fixing the helm seat itself. As you can see in the pic below, it had developed a couple of cracks and I wanted to reinforce the broken area before it got any worse. The only problem was that I wasn’t exactly sure how to go about that (how many times have I written that over the years — I’ve lost count). Could I use West System epoxy for the job? Good question, and one that the Oracle easily provided me an answer for. I followed the instructions I found here and although the repair isn’t pretty, it doesn’t matter because the affected area is hidden by the cushion.
