Day 69, Vivarillos.
24 May 2012 | Vivarillos Cays, Honduras
Mark
Wednesday, May 23. By the time I relieved Deb at 0430, there was 9 kts apparent at 90*, enough that gennie would certainly help. And she did. I unrolled her and added 0.5 kts to our speed. It was still too dark and the radar showed too many storm cells to think of raising the main, but we motorsailed along at 6 kts until Deb got up again about 0700. by then the day was light and most of the clouds were to our East (we are headed SE), so we raised the main and turned off the engines. At first we were only going ~ 5kts, but that rather quickly built as the apparent wind increased. By the time it got to 18 kts apparent, we were making 8. At 19-20, I put in a reef and we continued in the 7.5-8.5 kt range for the rest of the morning. We hit 9 kts briefly, comfortable as can be, wind holding 18-19 @ 60* apparent (about 15 kts real wind). We passed Wet Bar who was motoring on only one engine after hitting something with his starboard prop during the night. The Vivarillos have protection from most angles except South, which is, of course the direction it was blowing. We worked our way well inside the reef and down to were we had at least some shelter from the reef and a tiny rocky outcropping that one could hardly call an island. It was certainly safe and even reasonably comfortable. We were anchored before noon. Windancer arrived about an hour later. Wet bar found his prop had one curled up blade, but thought he could pound it out under water without taking it off (using scuba). We took our dinghy in to a deserted little island that turned out to be a rookery for several varieties of gulls and turns. While Deb walked the island, I got the dink turned around on the sand so I could work on the engine. It wasn't peeing well. At idle there was no water at all coming out and at full throttle, the stream was still weak (but at least it wasn't steam!) I pulled off the intake and confirmed that nothing was blocking that it wasn't. That meant it was almost surely the impeller and although I have spares for the Yanmar, I never thought to get a spare impeller for the Yamaha. Without an impeller, we have no outboard. Without an outboard, we are not going diving. The other two boats are leaving n the AM and I don't think I dare trust that the outboard will not die completely with no one around to rescue us. Thus, I guess we are leaving for the morning too and headed for Providencia where I am sure we can get it fixed. So much for diving the Vivarillos and Hobbies. This has been a frustrating trip for diving. What we have done has been fantastic, but what we have missed for one reason or another has been way too much. Well, we will still have Providencia and the Albuquerque Cays.