Plan "B"

After being somewhat overwhelmed by the number of boat issues, we decided to research what resources there were in Nassau. The answer was, some but, maybe, not enough. We then looked at Ft. Lauderdale where there are an abundance of choices and alternatives. So, Plan “B” became getting to Ft. Lauderdale, some 125nm away; Nassau was less than 40nm.

We were not concerned about the engine, since the weather forecast all indicated favorable winds for heading west. At 0720 on Easter Sunday we got underway and had the sails up and the motor off as soon as we cleared the last channel marker, headed for the NW Channel.

The sailing wasn’t great but it was good enough to make 4 knots, a manageable speed for the task at hand. When we hit the tidal bore to cross onto the Grand Bahamas Bank the current was against us so we had to turn on the engine. The boat just labored to make headway, sometimes only standing still. After an hour of going nowhere, I decided to turn the boat around and see how we were going with the current. No change; it was not the current, at this point at least. Then the incandescent light bulb went off. I had cleaned some Sargasso seaweed from the propeller while we were Chub Cay. I did not think that seaweed could be a problem but decided to run the engine in reverse at maximum RPM’s. A miracle! Whatever was clogging the prop unwound itself in reverse and we had a working boat again.

Not too soon after that the weather arrived, a squall line which we could not avoid, XM weather calling them severe storms; we could only get to the edge instead of getting hit full blast with high winds, hail and rain. Not really a problem but we took the sails in as a precautionary measure, which meant more motoring, not part of Plan “B.”

Once we cleared the storms, we hit dead calm, literally no air movement of any kind. Oops, more motoring when the object of the exercise is not to use the motor for fear of another intermittent problem and shut down. And where are the weather guys who predicted such favorable winds? I've made some bad weather decisions on when to leave. This was absolutely the worst; everything was the pure reverse of what I thought it would be.

Some time, late Sunday afternoon, we discovered two stow-a-ways on board. Atticus the finch along with his daughter Scout. Where they came from is hard to figure since the boat was about 40 miles from the nearest land. Unsurprisingly, these two were hunting flying insects; very surprising was that they were finding bugs to eat, even so far from land. The other thing that was weird was that they would fly away from the boat, sit on the water for a moment before returning to the boat. They left well before we were near any dry land. The boat as an aviary is a new concept.

After a hard night we arrived at the edge of the Bahamas with the Florida Straits and the Gulf Stream between us and Ft. Lauderdale. We have been in and around the Gulf Stream a little bit but this was the first direct crossing we had made. We had to cross 40 miles east to west and had 17 miles we could allow the current to push us north. It seemed simple, maybe that's why I screwed the pooch so badly. When the dust had settled we were 23 miles north and had to claw back those six miles; this cost us a couple of hours. I'm not sure what we should have done differently, but I'll think about it for a while.

The small ray of good news was that the jerry-rigged expansion tank actually worked for the 36 hour trip. En route we added a cable zip tie which I think allows us to compete for at least a Honorable Mention at the next Rube Goldberg convention. The hard fact is that without this we would not have been able to get the boat underway; had it failed en route we would have been dead in the water at least as far as the motor was concerned. The one on the left is the DIY version. It was, in its former life a bottle of Soft Scrub which happened to have had the perfect inside diameter opening.

The engine itself worked flawlessly, it never faltered or failed. We were very nervous about this and never ran the above 2,200 RPM's in deference to the 2,400 RPM's we ran to cross the banks. This is another conundrum: How to identify and fix a problem that happens maybe happens only once or once in a while. After careful observation of the engine underway, the middle fuel injector is leaking fuel this may or may not be causing a problem.

We came into Port Everglades after 1900 having been underway for almost 36 hours. It struck me that in the past eight days we had made three overnight runs, maybe too many for older folks, now that Carol is, in fact, 65. Maybe it was fatigue, maybe just plain inattention, but we (read the pilot, moi) had two boat handling disasters in about ten minutes, the first almost putting us hard against the piling of a bridge while waiting for it to open ... very strong tide and wind, then repeating the problem trying to get into a slip. No style points for me, but no damage done except to my pride.

Now that we are secure, we'll start to work on Plan "C", whatever that may be. The trip has not ended, but the pleasure portion has. So, we'll leave all of that dull stuff out of the blog and save it for next year, if there is a boating next year.

Carol & Russ aboard the Ziveli