I suppose we'll remember Salinas for tropical cyclone Ericka which came roaring across the bay dumping millions of gallons of rain and enough wind to heel us over quite dramatically even though we were tied up to the jetty, at the Hotel Salinas marina. Ericka discovered all the places that Picaroon had a leak and for over three hours we just hunkered down below. First trying to stem the leaks, or catch them in as many Tupperware containers we could find, and finally giving in to the call of the rum, as late afternoon turned into gunmetal grey beyond the portholes. The thunder struck with a vengeance, the wind raged in the rigging, and warps creaked beyond breaking point.

It was a bit scary, it was a big storm, not quite a hurricane, what they call a tropical cyclone, so they tell me, which seemingly is very unusual, but trust us to find the unusual.

Which brings me round to our voyage from Salinas to Casa de Campo.

It was unusually calm beyond Salinas bay as we turned east heading for Casa de Campo, the winds were light, too light to sail at speed, so we motor sailed most of the way. Even though we had to hand steer, swopping duties every hour, it wasn't anywhere near the trials that we've got used to, it was quite leisurely sailing.

Day turned into dusk and then to a starry night with not a hint of weather on the radar. It was perfect seas to motor in, and Picaroons log reports calm seas and light winds, all was going well, perhaps too well.
We always try to keep the log every hour, and so at 5am on a blissful sea I went below and happened to glance at the bilge pump switch which was glowing red, as if it was working, It's set on auto, which means a float switch operates and switches on the pump if the level gets beyond a foot or so.

Curious I thought, as we hadn't had a drop of water come and visit the boat all passage, no rain, nada. So why would the bilge pump be working. I opened the hatch to the bilge and shone the torch into the void that is our bilge. An inky black shimmering mass of water was swishing about just a couple of inches below the brim. I watched for a few moments expecting to see the level start to drop, as the pump was on, or the switch said it was on. But there was no drop in level, if anything it was rising.

I pressed the manual operation button on both 1 & 2 pumps, and still the level didn't fall one inch.
The primary bilge pump had been working fine, I try to keep a watch on that bit of the boat, just in case, and as far as I knew it was OK. We'd had problems with bilge back-up pump number two, but finding a spare float switch had put number two back into full action. Except, it's switch wasn't latching when I set it to auto, so I jammed a small, unwanted screwdriver, under the bottom of the switch and that seem to do the job of holding it in auto.

None of the auto circuits seem to have actuated, and now the manual ones don't work, and the boat is about to start filling up with water.

I Panic! I forget to write the 05.00 log, which I suppose should have read, " there seems to be a lot of unexplained water in the bilge area of the boat. All pumps have failed to operate, will need to improvise rather smartly to avoid sinking"

Water in a boat, where it's not supposed to be is the constant nightmare of a mariner, and this mariner was now in panic mode. I calmly explained the situation to Jackie who was at the helm, well I think I tried to be calm, but it might have not sounded that way. "THERE'S A LOT OF WATER IN THE BILGE, DON'T PANIC"

The first stupid thing I did was to grab an empty gallon Dansani water bottle, cut a hole in the side with a bread knife, and lower it on a rope, to the surface of the lake in the bilge. The water does not rush into my improvised bucket, as my improvised bucket floats. I haul it up and cut a hole in the other side. It still floats. This is not going to work, I tell myself, but panic has taken over and I frantically try to get it to scoop even the merest drop, until Jackie makes me realise it's little more than futile.

Ok so the electric pumps aren’t working so we go for the pump of last resort, the hand pump in the cockpit. Unfortunately, the little seat that Bernie made for us in Jamaica, that makes it more comfortable to sit and steer Picaroon is bolted to the deck, right in front of the hole that we have to put the pump handle into. Not exactly good planning that, and to make matters just a little more fraught the two bolts holding it to the floor are rusty, and in the dark, take a lot of persuasion to undo.
Finally the seat is removed and we slot in the pump handle. Of course we tested this pump back in Jamaica, with a bucket of water just to make sure that it worked, but we never tried to pull water out of the bilge with it, we just assumed it would work. After furious pumping for five minutes by both of us we came to the dreadful conclusion that our pump of last resort also didn’t work. All that seemed to happen was that the pipe going down into the water wiggled a bit, but sucked absolutely no water out of the bilge at all.


Now at this point we haven't had the water in the bilge analysed so we didn't know if it was sea water or fresh water, and as our bilge has a constant film of oil on it, we hadn't thought to taste it.

OK, get a grip, regroup, stop, think, what would James Bond do now?

He would improvise, that's what he would do, so come on Colin what are you going to do.

I had a brain wave. Well not exactly, but I thought about this guy Peter, the Rabbi sailor we met in Isle a Vache who lent us an emergency pump to clear our bilge when we arrived there after the tanker incident.
It was a small bilge pump with a long flexible tube, and a pair of wires with crocodile clips on the ends. Maybe I could rig up the small spare pump we had in the forepeak, somewhere, with a bit of flexible pipe, a few feet of cable, and hook it up to the spare battery sitting just under the companion way steps, lower it in on a bit of rope, that might just work.

I found the pump, I found some wire, and I utilised the flexible hose from the dingy foot pump, and with a fair amount of gaffa tape I put together my 'get out of jail free' machine. I rigged the wires to the spare battery with some jump start leads and bingo! The pump started pumping, so I lowered it gingerly into the void.

At this point we had engaged Cpt Morgan to steer the boat, albeit in the wrong direction, but it was better than just letting the boat wallow about and meant we could both calmly deal with the crisis.

Of course the pipe was never going to be long enough to go out of the boat, it was only about three feet long, so I hung a Dansani gallon bottle, not the one I'd cut holes into, another, down into the bilge, and held the end of the pipe close to it. It worked, the bottle filled and I passed it to Jackie who took it up top and emptied it over the side. We found another Dansani bottle and upped the efficiency of the operation, as one was being emptied one was being filled and soon we had the level down to about 18 inches, enough to feel happier.

I couldn't see where the water was coming from but decided that it may be the stuffing box, so I set about tightening that up, just in case, even though it looked OK. The water began to rise again, and I noticed, whilst doing the stuffing box, water cascading into the other end of the bilge probably coming from the port fresh water tank which we had just filled up in Salinas twelve hours ago. We obviously had a serious leak, but at least it was from the tanks on the boat and not the sea coming to visit
.
We drained the port tank by opening the tap in the bathroom, but still the water was rising again. We turned over the steering to Cpt morgan again, and emptied the bilge, that was almost full, again, Now we drained the starboard tank and at last the level in the bilge stayed low.

The crisis had begun in the dark at 5am and it wasn't until late morning that we felt we had things sorted and headed for Casa de Campo where we could solve the mystery of how our fresh water was leaking. Maybe a bad connection, a hole in a pipe, tomorrow we would find the problem, but in the safety of Casa de Campo Marina, not out here on passage.

At least we knew there wasn't a hole in the boat, which of course had been my first thought, and why I panicked a little.

The seas stayed calm and we made it to Casa de Campo at about 3pm, guided in by two chaps in a dingy that led us to our berth at H52, and another moment of panic.
(continued by Jackie)
Now it was my time to panic! Casa de Campo is the Monaco of the Dominican Republic and as we hobby-horsed our way past the channel markers, in suddenly rough seas, to meet our guides in the dingy, the millions, perhaps billions of dollars-worth of boats appeared.

It seems to have fallen to me to steer us into, or out of, trouble so I followed the guides religiously, although it was hard to see them right in front of me, over the top of our dingy which was strapped onto the cabin roof. Colin called out their position as I edged forward at a little under 3 knots.
Our guides indicated that fenders should be on our starboard side so Colin busied himself to get Picars ready for the concrete dock whilst I hoped that my conversation with the harbour master had been understood.
Whilst most boats were 'med-moored', that is to say reversed in, I had specifically requested a side-to or bow-to dock as Picaroon is difficult to steer in reverse and, to make things even more difficult, our monitor windvane steering is on the stern. As we approached pier H, on the far side of the marina basin, I could see that my instructions had not got through and the waiting dockhands were expecting me to reverse which meant the fenders were on the wrong side. I tried to get Colin's attention as he dashed about looking for mooring warps, slowing the boat down with bursts of reverse. In the end I had to resort to dashing forward and tapping Colin on the shoulder to explain what was going on. There followed much gesticulating whilst I struggled with a six-point turn and Colin moved the fenders to the other side.
With very little sea-room, I managed to turn around without hitting a multi-million dollar gin palace and nervously started to approach the concrete dock, bow first.

Our guides in the dingy were on hand to help, as well as about four other dockhands and the harbour master watching as I crept forward. It seemed to be going well but just at the last minute a strong gust of wind came from our port side and pushed Picars sideways so we were a long way from the finger-pier. As usual, we didn't have the right warps ready and there were a few minutes of sheer chaos as a dockhand jumped aboard and grabbed a warp to sling over the side and other ropes were thrown to the waiting team on shore.
Although we are short of warps (that's the big ropes we used to tie up to the dock), Colin has a system, or sorts, for which warps go where and it was not going well as the lads just grabbed anything that came their way and together they struggled to pull Picars closer to the concrete so we could disembark. A senior dock-hand who seemed to be the team leader, eventually used his common-sense and rearranged the warps to make the job easier and we were stopped; engine off; big hug, my heart-rate slowed and my knees stopped shaking.

A right old Carry on Casa de Campo!!!!