Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Cave Cay Marina, Bahamas
25.54.467N
76.16.305W


I don’t know how to tell you about today.  It started like any other day.  I got up about 5:30am and turned on the garden.  Dale got up about 6am and ate breakfast.  He had already checked out the engines the night before, so about 6:15am we hoisted anchor and headed for Cave Cay Cut to leave the protection of the island lees and head out into the ocean to make the final leg to Georgetown. 


We entered the cut without any problems but about half way through, our port engine slowed and then quit.  Dale had gone in to turn on the radio to listen to the weather and ran to the engine to see what was going on.  By the time he was back up, the starboard engine quit.  I immediately started to hoist our main to get us the rest of the way through the cut.  When he returned, we both worked on getting our two sails up and point us away from the islands and breakers on either side of us.  Nerve racking would be an understatement.  As he worked on the engines, first replacing the filters, I tried to keep the sails full of wind and get us as far from the things that would cause us damage.  The wind would blow from 8-11kts from the south (on the nose for where we wanted to go) and we really weren’t going anywhere as the current was trying to take us back into the cut, so I tried to put up the Code Zero and take down the jib.  That didn’t work either as the wind was too far forward for it to fill properly. 


Dale could get first one engine started and then the other but within a minute, they would both shut down again.  Each time, I tried to get us further away.  One thing that we had heard about and had actually practiced in our home waters in the St. John’s River was getting this boat out of “irons.”  It’s almost impossible and today proved no different but I kept trying, as did Dale working on the fuel lines leading to the engines.  We finally made the decision that we could do nothing more where we were, so we radioed Cave Cay Marina to let them know that we were going to try to make it back and into their facility to make repairs.  This meant returning through the cut under sail. 


We decided that the best way would be to lower the dinghy and use what propulsion it could give us to help us along.  However, being in the ocean, even one that is calm, comes with swells that make deploying the dinghy problematic.  We were able to lower it but with the swells, it would cause it to bash into one side of the Palace and then the other.  Dale was finally able to get the plug (that keeps the water out) back in and then the engine started but a line that secures the dinghy to the Palace tangled with others on the Palace, so we’re both attacking it from different directions trying to free it.  Then, one of the pontoons on the dinghy, kept losing air, so he dug out the pump and tried to inflate it.  Talk about everything going south at the same moment!


In the meantime, he’s directed me to turn us back towards the cut, which I’d done.  However, we were getting closer and closer to the reef again and I start screaming bloody murder through the headphones that he’s better get moving as he’s still not ready to tie to the side to help guide us through.  Now that I’ve got the boat beam to the wind and she picks up speed.  Dale said that he had a hard time catching back up to us once he did let go.  Somehow, he catches us, ties on just in time to go through the cut. 


We squirt through the cut doing 8 kts and back into the protected waters.  Now, we have to take down the sails and guide the Palace through a narrow channel into the Marina. Dale climbs back on board and we accomplish this without too much drama.  He scrambles back into the dink and powers up but instead of pushing us along, it now seems to be pulling us to his side.   No matter how much I try to steer differently, so I’m screaming more power to see if it will straighten us out.  It works and we thread the channel and turn to approach the Marina. 


I have us perfectly alined with the slip they are directing us to when Dale tells me to dig out the fenders and lines.  What?  Crap!  So, I go running forward and start digging through the lockers to find said lines and fenders.  Somehow through the grace of God, I get the lines attached and with Dale still powering with the dinghy, return to the helm to turn us back toward the Marina and into a slip.  “Shark” catches our lines, hooks a cleat and slows us down.  “Good Morning” he says, I look down at the time, its 9:15am; it seems like mid-day. 


We’re both drained and I’ll admit it, at the height of all of the excitement, I was ready to throw in the towel.  Now that we’re securely tied to a pier, things don’t seem to be that bad.  Until I start thinking about going through that cut again.  I’m not looking forward to that.  I think I’m gun shy now.   


Dale, of course, is working on finding out why our fuel lines are clogged.  “Shark” the local man working at the marina (and the nicest guy ever) as brought him an air compressor so that he can blow whatever is in there back far enough to start running the fuel polisher; whatever is in there is blocking that too.  I encouraged him that once it’s clear, to run the fuel polisher for the next 2 days as we’ve elected to stay here until the big blow, goes by.  This is not a full service marina, so Dale will have to do all of the work himself.  That’s OK.  We have electricity, fuel if we need it, free laundry, WiFi, and when it works, free water. 


In the meantime, after a quick lunch, Dale digs out the collapsible wagon we have, and I walk up the hill to the shower area to fill our 5 gallon water jerry can and then back down again.  I forget how many times I did this as I lost count after 8; I’m thinking 10 or 11 but at least I was doing something that made me feel useful until about 5pm and the sun started setting.  Each time I’d bring down a jerry can of water, I would connect it to the main halyard and Dale would hoist it back into the cockpit and syphon the water from the can into the tank.  We did this because, bless his heart, when he checked various gauges, we went from ¾ of tank yesterday to ¼ of a tank today.   He found that the hot water hose had fallen off, sprayed into the high pressure pump mixing water into the oil, so now he has to change the oil in that as well.  What else can possibly go wrong?  I don’t even want to think about it!