Day Five

Very sorry for intermittent communication. The wifi/internet access is sporadic.

Guess what we’re back in St Peter Port, Guernsey. You may be saying to your self ‘What do you mean back? Didn't know you'd left.’ Well we did this morning at around 8.00 am. We set off on the fifty mile sail to Treguier, on the Northern coast of Brittany. Things were going well, until we reached the bottom of Guernsey, when white smoke/steam, neither of which you want to see, started pouring from the back of the boat – the exhaust. What the xxxx! Turned engine off, turned around and started sailing back to Guernsey – now glad of the SW wind.

Quick read of the very handy engine maintenance book, revealed white stuff probably meant one of two things, wet fuel or something to do with the head gasket. Whatever it certainly required an engineer, which you'd think in a place like SPP which is full to the brim with boats of all shapes and sizes, wouldn't be too difficult to find. That wasn't the case, so,after five or six phone calls we were ecstatic to find Bobby, who turned out to be brilliant. Having first told us the usual causes of this problem, the most likely being the cylinder head gasket (expensive!), Bobby, looked a little further and identified the problem as being lack of cooling water flowing through the engine. We hadn't spotted it as water was still coming out of the exhaust, which it’s meant to do on a boat and there weren’t any signs of the engine over heating. However, Bobby, was petty certain there wasn't enough water flowing and it was only because we'd spotted the steam so quickly that we hadn't overheated. Sure enough further tests proved his theory. We had a blockage in the water system that cools the engine. It also became clear that the blockage wasn't in the indoor part of the system, which we can get to easily, but further down the line i.e. underneath the boat, probably a ‘foreign item’ wrapped around the engine water inlet. So, what now? Our hearts sank a bit. It could mean having to organise a very expensive diver to dive down to clear the system? Diving down isn't something you really want to try yourself, particularly not in a marina where the water is probably not too clean, not to mention the possibility of getting zapped by electrical current. And, underneath the boat is a surprisingly long way down without proper equipment - we've tried in the past! When we lost the propeller outside Cherbourg!

Fortunately, once again Bobby came to the rescue. He noticed that, although it wasn't connected to anything, we still had the old water cooling system intact from our previous engine and within the space of half an hour he had inserted a few new tubes, a few jubilee clips and, low and behold, water was/is flowing round the engine again and vigorously pumping out of the exhaust. A huge relief. The only problem now being it’s 2 pm and we’ve missed the tide. This means another night in Guernsey. A little disappointing as we will be two nights behind schedule.

PS - having just listened to the weather forecast for Tuesday, for up to force 7 SW wind and heavy rain, two nights has now turned into three.