Boat gremlins
12 May 2009 | Grenada
Devi
It would appear that Deb and Jay's presence kept the boat gremlins inactive. For two weeks the gremlins slept. The day after Deb and Jay left the gremlins started playing on the boat. On our sail from Grenada to Carriacou we heard a thunky noise from the auto pilot. Fortunately we had already landed our tuna and could hand steer. When we got into Tyrell Bay Hunter checked the bolt that holds the steering arm and sure enough it was about to snap- no worries, we have a spare.
As Hunter was doing his work on the auto pilot I noticed that the fridge was not cooling. Without a pause or grumble Hunter got out the refrigeration gauges and got to work or trying to get the coolant pressure in the correct zone. Hunter worked on this all afternoon and into the evening. By the next morning we could see that something else was going wrong. We had the choice to sail south to Grenada and try to get an appointment with the very busy refrigeration man, or go north to St. Vincent and give Albert a call to see if he could see us. Albert (AKA "High Tech") was very responsive and dedicated to helping us so we gave him a call for advice and to see if he was available. No, he could not see us in St. Vincent just now because he is in Petit Martinique (said Petty Martinique). Petit Martinique is 2.5 miles east of Carrioacou and 10 miles from our location. Yes, he would be delighted to make a boat call if we got to Petit Martinique (PM). We got the boat in sailing shape and were in PM by 16:00. We called Albert and he said he would be available at 18:00.
Albert blew out the line and got rid of some obstruction in the gas line and stabilized the gas, ate tuna and a beer and checked into a SSB net and was off. Albert is a very active Ham radio operator and is part of a group in the eastern Caribbean that helps with disaster management planning. His group is on Petit Martinique to install a single side band antenna on the island. Until yesterday there was no single side band radio or ham operators on the island and n the event of an emergency (hurricane, tsunami or earthquake) they would have no communications with the outside world beside the VHF radio (which is line of sight), assuming the cell towers were down.
After 18 hours the fridge quit cooling and Hunter has diagnosed the fridge as having a blockage that needs more professional help, so tomorrow off to Grenada we go- after we buy ice
Yes, that is an upsidedown photo of me upside down in the fridge