Triumph and tragedy
12 December 2013 | Salinas, Puero Rico
It was 7am and Salinas bay was mirror calm as we sat on deck with our early morning cup of Americas’ favourite tea, Mr engine Sir, in tick over. We gave each other a knowing look, which meant only one thing, that this was the perfect moment.
No more waiting for Capt. Jon, whose bad back had postponed our test sail for the last two mornings, it was time for Colin and Jackie to seize the moment. We had hoped that by having Capt. Jon on board, who knows this bay like the back of his hand, that at least we wouldn’t run aground, or if the engine had failed again he could call in a rescue team.
It was time, time to slip the mooring, time for us to take charge of this 40ft and 28,000lbs of boat and trial her ourselves. All we planned to do was to motor out of the bay for about a mile or so, turn around and come back to the mooring. That may sound an easy thing to do, but to us it was about to be a giant step, to at last move our Picaroon all on our own, after three weeks of living on board and all the trials and tribulations that had gone on.
We turned on the chart plotter, still a rather alien electronic gizmo to us, which we barely know how to use. There on the screen is our boat, the surrounding mangrove swamps, and with the depth contours, and any isolated dangers, like coral reefs, wrecks etc. Between where we were and where we were going it looked as though there would always be enough water under our keel, so long as we stayed in the main channel.
Jackie took the wheel, and I went up front, to let go the mooring rope and with Picaroon in reverse we slid away from the buoy, free. She edged back ever so slowly, Jackie engages ahead and we’re finally underway gliding across the still mirror calm morning. No other yachties are awake, or on deck to witness our departure, as Picaroon heads for the open ocean. Not that we’re going to be going anywhere near the open ocean, but it sort of felt like we might.
Jackie is a bit confused by the way the chart-plotter shows us upside down, and although she has an ear to ear grin she tell me that she can’t stop trembling. Picaroon is a very heavy boat, if we run aground we’ll not only be well and truly stuck, but we would be mortally embarrassed, we have to get this right. The pinch point in the Mangroves comes and goes and the expanse of the surrounding islands are about a mile ahead. Jackie pushes the throttle and the GPS tells us we’re doing four and a half knots, and our boat icon on the chart-plotter has moved to show our new position.
Jackie puts her into a 360 degree turn, which Picaroon performs on a sixpence and we head back to Salinas bay and our mooring. Gliding by yachts moored far out in the bay we practice stopping, or at least slowing down, to understand how she’ll react when we get to our mooring buoy. Slowly, ever so slowly we slip in between our neighbouring boats, still asleep, and inch by inch head to our spot. A wrong move right now, as were in very shallow water, and we’ll end up in the Mangroves, but Jackies’ blob on course and I snatch the mooring rope, easily, pop it on the Samson post and were stopped. Engine stop, and a big hug, we did it, we took our Picaroon out and back, baby steps but it was a major triumph for us, and one that deserved a cup of tea, so we put the kettle on.
Later in the day, our triumph of the dawn was overshadowed by a very loud clunck as the outboard kicked into life. An on shore examination, by English Steve reveals a snapped and mangled valve, and a knackered cylinder head, this is going to be costly, and is probably beyond repair.
So our celebration of the dawn sail, is dowsed as we contemplate the options, but well that’s boating, as Capt. Jon likes to remind us. The sailing, that we came to do still seems a long way off as we head out today to the outboard dealers, an hour and a half drive to San Juan.