I woke up at 6am to help a friend do some varnish work on his boat. He mentioned a weather window that just opened for Aruba. Colombia to Aruba is a “beat”, nearly 400 miles against the wind and current. It’s rated as one of the top 5 worst passages to do. I was thinking about heading to Jamaica/Cuba just to eliminate this sail. However, with the recent hurricane that passed through, the winds changed and so did the current. We had a window of about 2 days before normal weather patterns resumed.
At noon, I was having a beer with some friends and they informed me they were going to take the window and leave. I decided at that point I’d better do the same as windows like this don’t happen too often. I contacted immigration, got my Zarpe, topped off diesel, hit the grocery store and had the bottom of the boat cleaned. At 5pm, I was pulling anchor, setting out for possibly the worse sail I’ll ever do.
Everything was going fine until 2am the first night. My autopilot, recently fixed after the lightening strike, went on the blink. I started to hand-steer and thought about my options. I have a “wind vane” that can steer my boat if the wind is right but knowing that I’d be motoring most of the way with little to no wind, I knew that I’d be steering by hand most of the way. 350 miles by hand, doing about 5 miles an hour makes for a long, long 3 days. I called the other 2 boats that I was traveling with and informed them of my situation. At that point, I decided to go for it. Getting my autopilot fixed in Colombia was not an option, thus I’d need to go back to Colon. If I did that, I’d never make the Eastern Caribbean this year. So, with that said, I grabbed my ankles and decided to proceed. In the meantime, I was working desperately on the autopilot. 4am, after disconnecting everything and power cycling the thing, it came back online! I was back in business and had a beer to celebrate.
The next night, about 3am, the engine died. I figured it was bad fuel (water or air in the lines). I quickly set the sails and was able to maintain my course surprisingly well. I decided to wait until sunrise to tackle the engine. Reason….give the engine time to cool as well as gain some natural light from the sun. I once again called the other two boats and told them I may be sailing the whole way which would turn a 3 day trip into a 6-7 day trip (but at least I wouldn’t be hand-steering!). At 7am, after being up for 48hrs straight, I changed all filters and bled the engine. I couldn’t get the fuel to the filter so I completely removed the bleed screw. I just sat there and watched, waiting for diesel to appear. Finally, it spouted out. I went to put the screw back in and dropped it! It went..plunk plunk splash….right into the bilge. On some boats, you can retrieve items from the bilge. On my boat, it’s a one-way trip…nothing returns. Now I did it. It’s a British engine so I new the threads would be metric. I dug through all my bolts and screws and found one! I took some measurements and dug out the hacksaw. In 15 minutes, I had a new screw and was back in business. I was able to bleed out the engine and fire her up. Time for another beer!
That afternoon, a little bird flew down below. I chased him out 3 times but failed to see him go in the final time. I went down below and found bird crap all over my settee! I threw a towel over the little sh!t and gave him a proper burial at sea. About an hour later, a big dove like looking bird was catching a ride on my bimini. He too left a mark so I chased him off. He returned to my dodger without my knowledge and shortly thereafter, I had a nice steamer fall on my shoulder. He too joined his friend in a proper sea burial. Basically, I just grabbed him with my hand and threw him as hard as I could into the ocean. The world is down 2 birds but Dan is only 90 miles out of Aruba. That’s when the weather window closed.
We had about 20kts on the nose and I was making about 3nm/hour. Basically, turtles were waving to me as they passed me. I got into Aruba around 4pm, checked into the country, dropped the anchor and had cocktails on a friend’s boat. I was out by 8pm, didn’t wake up until 10am the next day. From here, I’m off to Bon Aire, then going to make the last, long passage up to Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands, basically as far East as I can sail.
Finally, I woke up this morning and my batteries were surprisingly low. I’ve been having fridge issues but thought I had the leak fixed in Colombia. I guess not. It ran all day and night and couldn’t maintain temperature. I’m heading out to the boat now to see if I can find the leak. In the meantime, it’s a bag of ice and a cooler to hold me over. Note to self: Next boat, save some more cash and buy a newer boat!
Dan
Monday, October 20, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Colombia
After a few weeks in the San Blas, it is time to go. If Erin was still on board, I certainly could have hung out in the San Blas for a lot longer! It was beautiful but a bit quiet for only one person on the boat. Dave on m/v Jenny and I plan on buddy boating over to Colombia but before we do, we’ll get some snorkeling and spear fishing in.
Spear fishing…my new addiction! Dave and I ran into another cruiser who spear-fished for just about his whole life. We went out with him for the morning and I nailed my first fish! Sharks were around so you had to be a little cautious. They’re not any harm to you but if you’re holding a dead fish in your hand underwater, well…..enough said. You keep the dinghy near by and if you get one, you get the fish up and into the boat as quickly as possible. I was down around 30 feet and a brown grouper swam right at me. I held my breath (joke) and pulled the trigger. Got him right behind the gills. It was so violent but fun, only wish he was a little bigger!
Dave and I threw him on the grill that night and I found my new favorite fish to eat. White, flakey…perfect with a little lime and a cold beer. We pulled anchor on the 29th and decided it was time to make the 200 mile passage to Colombia.
Colombia, back in the day, was known for pirates and violence. In the past 5 years, it cleaned up (well at least Cartegena) and is now a favorite stop for cruisers. From there, boats hop off to one of 3 main destinations: The ABC Islands, Jamaica or back towards the Canal and up to Bocas del Toro and then Belize/etc. I plan on the ABC route but just like I’ve been running it for the last year, I’ll decide when I get there. I really need to start planning on how I’m going to leave this lifestyle. Although I have another season of cruising, I need to decide where to bring my boat for the next hurricane season. At that point, I’ll most likely be selling her and with today’s market in the US, not sure if that’ll be the spot. A lot of Europeans are buying boats in the Caribbean and taking them across the Atlantic, making the most of the Euro and low dollar. We’ll see…tomorrow’s a different day.
It’s 1:00am and I’m about 60nm’s out from Colombia. My ETA is about 9am. We plan on anchoring outside of Cartagena, scoping out some local anchorages that cruisers retreat to when they want to get away from the city. Plus, you don’t swim inside the bay so many take their boats out once every 2 weeks to swim and clean the bottom. Anyway, I’m going back topside to have a look. I lost my radar during the lightening strike and I’m truly missing it. Dave gave me a 2hr head start this morning, leaving him about 5 miles ahead of me now. He’s been giving me updates on the SSB regarding traffic as my VHF doesn’t’ reach out that far. Lost that antennae as well during the storm. Hopefully, I can fix that in Cartagena but I have a feeling the radar may need to wait until I get somewhere that carries such items. Anyway, I’ll write more later!
Dan
Spear fishing…my new addiction! Dave and I ran into another cruiser who spear-fished for just about his whole life. We went out with him for the morning and I nailed my first fish! Sharks were around so you had to be a little cautious. They’re not any harm to you but if you’re holding a dead fish in your hand underwater, well…..enough said. You keep the dinghy near by and if you get one, you get the fish up and into the boat as quickly as possible. I was down around 30 feet and a brown grouper swam right at me. I held my breath (joke) and pulled the trigger. Got him right behind the gills. It was so violent but fun, only wish he was a little bigger!
Dave and I threw him on the grill that night and I found my new favorite fish to eat. White, flakey…perfect with a little lime and a cold beer. We pulled anchor on the 29th and decided it was time to make the 200 mile passage to Colombia.
Colombia, back in the day, was known for pirates and violence. In the past 5 years, it cleaned up (well at least Cartegena) and is now a favorite stop for cruisers. From there, boats hop off to one of 3 main destinations: The ABC Islands, Jamaica or back towards the Canal and up to Bocas del Toro and then Belize/etc. I plan on the ABC route but just like I’ve been running it for the last year, I’ll decide when I get there. I really need to start planning on how I’m going to leave this lifestyle. Although I have another season of cruising, I need to decide where to bring my boat for the next hurricane season. At that point, I’ll most likely be selling her and with today’s market in the US, not sure if that’ll be the spot. A lot of Europeans are buying boats in the Caribbean and taking them across the Atlantic, making the most of the Euro and low dollar. We’ll see…tomorrow’s a different day.
It’s 1:00am and I’m about 60nm’s out from Colombia. My ETA is about 9am. We plan on anchoring outside of Cartagena, scoping out some local anchorages that cruisers retreat to when they want to get away from the city. Plus, you don’t swim inside the bay so many take their boats out once every 2 weeks to swim and clean the bottom. Anyway, I’m going back topside to have a look. I lost my radar during the lightening strike and I’m truly missing it. Dave gave me a 2hr head start this morning, leaving him about 5 miles ahead of me now. He’s been giving me updates on the SSB regarding traffic as my VHF doesn’t’ reach out that far. Lost that antennae as well during the storm. Hopefully, I can fix that in Cartagena but I have a feeling the radar may need to wait until I get somewhere that carries such items. Anyway, I’ll write more later!
Dan
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