Good news, Bad news
25 January 2010 | Cambridge Key, Exumas
John and Cheryl
Cheryl's Notes:
What an adventure that we have had so far. If it were a movie, it might be "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." We left Warderick Wells on Wednesday, January 20. We had a beautiful sail down the Exuma Sound towards Cambridge Cay, also known as Little Bell Island. About mile outside the channel, our engine died. Dead as a doornail, and wouldn't start. John had sails up and we weren't in danger of running aground, but we having never been inside this harbor before, we didn't want to try to sail into it. We radioed Kumbaya that we had a dead engine and that we were trying to troubleshoot the problem. I proceeded to start to tear the engine cover off. If any of you know the layout of a Catalina 36, the front of the engine is under the companionway, and the back of the engine is under the aft berth. I had to pull out all of our storage bins full of our provisions, and pull up the mattress to get to the back of the engine where the fuel filter is. We were convinced that this was the problem.
In the time it took me to get to the engine, the calvary had arrived in dinghies to tow us in. We had George from Sunspot Baby lashed to the starboard side of the boat, and Arne of Scandia (with Bev along to help) tied to the port side, and Jack from Distant Star on the bow. It was suggested that John make sure that we could drop an anchor quickly, if we ran into trouble. He ran forward and found that the chain was jammed in the windlass, and wouldn't release. We ended up with Jerry from Kumbaya on board to pilot while John worked on the windlass. Long story short, we made it safely into the bay, and hooked up to the first available mooring ball. We changed the Raycor oil filter and bam, the engine started right off. First problem solved, now onto the next. We spent most of Saturday working on the windlass, John can tell that story.
We had a Happy Hour for all of the boats in the mooring field, and somehow our camera got wet in the bag. Now we have a digital camera that doesn't work. We tried drying it out and but we never got it to work again. We have our old digital camera on board, but it takes special lithium camera batteries, and we may not have any luck finding a new one when this one dies. Our picture taking days may be limited. If nothing else, we will have to buy disposable cameras, and have all of the pictures developed and put on CD's when we get home. It is possible that we might be able to buy a new camera in Georgetown when we get there.
The good part is that this is really paradise and everything is so blue and beautiful. We walked the paths to several beaches and met a bunch of new people. At one time, the only boats on moorings were all from Northwest Creek (Scandia, Grateful Attitudes, Kumbaya, Sunspot Baby and Leprechaun). We are looking forward to meeting many more new friends and exploring more islands and beaches.
John's Notes:
If you read Cheryl's notes above, it doesn't seem so bad. Well, except for the camera. That was the absolute best camera I have ever owned. We had taken about 3500 pictures with it and I sure hated to see it die.
As far as getting into the cut at Cambridge, it was a little more intense than Cheryl's notes would indicate. She didn't mention that there was a pretty significant swell running and about a 3 knot current against us. With all three dinghy's trying to push/pull us into the anchorage we were only making about a 1.4 knot progress. The fact that the support boats had different size outboards didn't help much. As we got closer to the very narrow cut that had to be navigated, George and Arne were about to run out of gas for their outboards. That in itself would not have been a big problem because I have plenty of gas aboard. What would have been a problem is that I have a 4-stroke outboard that uses straight gas while they have 2-stroke motors that use a mixture of oil and gas. To save time and space here, it's a good thing that they didn't run out of gas because it could have become really ugly at that point.
I have always known that our boat is a great sailing boat. I have come to the conclusion though that it is not a great boat for long range cruising. Living aboard and cruising in the states is fine because you do not have to have several months worth of provisions aboard at any one time. If you are like us, however, and do have several months worth of food and beverage aboard, all stored in your aft cabin (because there is no place else to store that much stuff). That means that in the event of an emergency with any of several thru hulls or engine problems, you have to totally take the aft cabin apart to get to anything. Not only is it a pain in the butt, it could pose a serious safety issue.
Our windless problem will probably continue to give my back problems until we get back to the states. After taking it apart about six times since we arrived in Cambridge, it looks like we at least need a $5.00 plastic bushing. Not sure that will fix the whole problem though. Looking at the faces of the upper and lower gypsy, it looks like they are pretty worn. That might be from having the chain jammed in them. That has happened several times in the last year. Not sure why though. In any event, I can get the chain to run freely through it, up or down. I just can't raises the anchor under power because the gypsy won't grab the chain. Maybe I will run into someone who knows something about a Maxwell vertical windless. Most of the other cruising boats have other makes and are larger. At least the motor and gears are ok. I think if I can get the correct parts I can fix it on my own.
Every day I am amazed at the people we meet. With few exceptions, cruisers have to be some of the best people you will ever meet and will do whatever they can to assist you. They know that if given the opportunity, you would do the same thing. Well, maybe not me personally. Most of the people who have cruised with us know that I am the type of cruiser that should not be allowed to be more than 10 miles from the nearest authorized dealer!
Met a new couple from Vero Beach, Jack and Evie, from Distant Star. What a fun couple. We had soooo much fun on their boat the other night that Cheryl's head was spinning by the time we got back to the boat.
Note to Glenn. We saw yet another Carpe Diem this week. This one was just slightly bigger than yours. Like maybe 120' more than yours.