Sailing Alchemy

When we are at anchor, Gretchen and I have developed a ritual of sorts. It starts whenever the cats, usually Hawkeye, starts his efforts to wake Gretchen up, so he can be fed. He walks over her, meows, and generally makes a nuisence of himself until he gets the desired results. If it is taking too long, Radar will join in.

So Gretchen feeds them, and gets back into bed. This happens sometime around 5:30-6:00am. Then, one or both of us gets up at 6:30am to turn on the Ham radio and tune it to Chris Parker’s weather broadcast. In the Bahamas and the carribean, Chris is the weather God. We write down the forecast in a composition book. At the same time, we put on some hot water and make coffee. After 44 years,  I have started to drink coffee, something as a kid I said I would never do. I will also put some shorts on and tilt the solar panel around, if I did not do it the night before.

The last part of the morning ritual is to check in on the Cruisheimer’s net at 8:30am. This allows us to tell other boats where we are, and hear where other boats are, are heading, etc. It also lets us call for other boats and talk to them if we want to.  It is like a moderated party line. Speaking of which, it is almost 8:30, time to go!

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We have not posted her for a few weeks. Just like life in the “Real” world, time often moves quickly, even when moving slowly. Things that we want to do take precidence over things that we should do, and so, the blog goes stale.

We have had a bit of excitement aboard Alchemy, while on the mooring at Shroud Cay, about a week ago. I (Chris) woke up at about 2am, to the smell of burning plastic. I must have been dreaming before awakening, as I thought it was something external to the boat at first. But as I awakened more completely, I knew it was coming from aboard Alchemy. I got out of bed, and first checked the Ampere meter, which was showing more amps being drawn than it should have been in the middle of the night. I got a flashlight out, and when I turned that on, I could see a light mist of smoke in the cabin. Shit.

At that time, Gretchen woke up, and we went into emergency mode. I had already turned off the power to the boat, we opened up the hatches completely, and I started looking for the source of the smell and smoke.

Meanwhile, Gretchen got the cat’s carrier out, put them into it, and got them out into the dingy. She then left me (in a smoldering boat, she joked later) and took them over to Cupcake for safekeeping. I asked her later how she got them over the lifelines and into the boat, and she told me I just did it – had to.

The smell was strong, and my stomach started hurting very badly, so I would spend some time tearing through compartments, and then going out the companionway to get some fresh air. My thoughts were dark, thinking we may loose the boat, even though the smoke was very thin, and no open flames were found. We emptied the aft cabin, and then checked the batteries. No problems there. The smell was coming from the aft portion of the boat, no doubt, but where? It was quite windy, so the wind generator was turning briskly. I turned the stop switch to off, tied up the blades, and then turn the switch to disconnect. The smoke was getting thinner, the smell less pervasive. After a time, I was convinced that it was something to do with the wind generator, as it had not been that windy for quite some time, and we figured that some of the wiring, somewhere, had worn through enough to short out.

The cabin was livable once more, but the mystery not solved. We retrieved the cats, I got some sleep, Gretchen declared that she could not, so when stayed up. In retrospect, I would not be surprised that I breathed a bit of Carbon Monoxide, I did feel VERY tired, and my stomach was very painful.

In the morning, we started to trace the wind gen wires that were not accessible or easily seen at night, and found no damage. The engine compartment continued to smell badly, so Gretchen was spending some time looking more closely in there. She found some plastic wire loom that was partially melted, and asked me to look at it. It was then that I got a good look with the help of daylight and a flashlight at the area aft of the alternator, there was definitely something going on there. I could see that the cable going from the alternator to the batteries was charred for the first five inches out of the alternator. Bingo. So I disconnected that on the battery end, and then later, we pulled the alternator out, as it is VERY tight on that side of the engine, and it is almost impossible to see the back of the engine.

The back of the alternator has a plastic cover, and it was melted badly where the cable had been. There were also some smaller wires that had corroded connectors. More troubling was the fact that it was wet all over there, it was clear that water was the culprit, and had caused a short. I pulled the spare alternator that came with the boat. It was double bagged, and I had never gotten around to looking at it. As luck would have it, or more precisely because of the forethought of Tom, the previous owner, it was an identical alternator, so it would be a plug and play swap, more or less. I cut off the cancerous burned cable, with the intention of reusing that cable, but Tom aboard Mahalo has a slightly longer piece in his spares, with one cable lug already attached ? we soldered another end on, and were back in business. Well, except it looked like the drip was coming either from the head gasket, or the head itself. Not good. Not good at all. There was a leak back there. So we started the engine, and the alternator was running fine, and the leak was just visible dripping right aft of it. So we mostly sailed from Shroud to Warderick Cay, the Exuma Park HQ, only using the motor at the end of the run to get into the narrow mooring field at the park. At the park, Bruce, a single hander aboard Zingara who volunteers at the park, came over and help diagnose. He has the idential engine, andin his boat, and even in his previous boat. He asked a bunch of questions, and based on my answers, he thought it was unlikely that it was a cracked head or leaking gasket. Whew. We narrowed it down to either the seawater pipe leading from the heat exchanger (cools the engine like a radiator) to the exhaust manifold, or the water temperature sensor. We were on a mooring ball, and knew we needed to enjoy what the park had to offer ? hiking, great views, and some very good snorkeling. So we did just that, and put off the exploratory surgery needed to make a final diagnosis. I was dreading the work, because I thought we would need to remove the alternator again, which also meant moving the fresh water pump as well. And empting the entire lazarette, which holds a bunch of sails, cleaning supplies, boat supplies, etc.

As it turned out, we were able to ID the leak, it WAS the seawater pipe ? the water was salty, and if it was the sensor, it would have been fresh. We had some spare pipes, but I did not know if we had THAT spare pipe. I dug them out (finding just about anything on a boat involves digging) and WAHOO, we had a spare, lightly used one. The swap went much faster and easier that I thought, I did it from the lazerette, and with the help of Gretchen, I was able to get it done in about one and a half hours. And the leak was gone!!!

This was one of those times when it is clear that our fellow cruisers are some amazingly helpful, friendly people. I got advice both from other boats via the Cruisers Net on the HF radio, boats that were near and far; specific help from George on Sunpot Baby and Bruce aboard Zingara, Tom on Mahalo for the cable, and Doug and Betts aboard Arwin Evenstar, still back in New Bern. They sold us, cheaply I might add, the pipes for the engine before we even left.

Whew, that was long, more fun, stuff will follow, I promise.

My last blog entry was Thanksgiving day sitting at a dock in Wrightsville Beach, NC. I had no idea what I was in for, or what the next two months would bring. It has been an adventure. There is a lot to write about. It is 7:30 in the morning and we are anchored off of Highborne Cay (pronounded ?key), in the Exumas. The sun is rising in the sky and the morning dew is slowly drying off the deck. To our port side s/v Cupcake is anchored. We buddy boated with them a short jaunt yesterday from Allen’s Cay. They are from Maine and are cruising for six months with their thirteen year old son and three year old, almost four year old daughter. They are a lot of fun. Last night?s festivities included a walk on a beautiful beach on Highborne and meeting up with friends on m/v Radiance who pulled us off the sand bar in Bimini. We had all cleared Customs and Immigration in Bimini, so we had met there. We had not had a chance to get to know “the Cupcakes” until we were in Allen?s. m/v Raydiance had taken a slip so we met them at the Highborne marina and had sundowners at a picnic table with them overlooking beautiful sport fishing yachts and gorgeous sailing vessels. We enjoyed the banter back and forth of an attorney on a break, and a newly retired judge. It is a rarity that you ever learn what a cruisers former, or present career is, but in this case the s/v Cupcake and m/v Radiance had already divulged their titles. I just had to smile to myself, a retired judge and his wife had been our first contact in the Bahamas helping us out of a bind. It is great to finally have made it to the Bahamas. The very rhythm of our lives has changed so much. We awake every morning no later than 6:20 a.m. so that we can tune in on the SSB radio and listen to weather guru, Chris Parker, in anticipation of planning our routes and figure out safe havens during heavy winds. We go to bed early, when the sun goes down, so do my eyelids. Our just reward has been a couple beautiful afternoons of snorkeling at Allen’s Cay with new friends. I have literally felt every bit of our passage, ushered in with our first outside run from Southport to Charleston in the night, has been punctuated by at least one epic hurdle to get through. I shared this with the s/v Cupcakes and I was so grateful they agreed?Jonathan, the Father aboard, likened each of the passages to get here to the movie “The Princess Bride” where great challenges must be overcome?big rats analogous to coral heads?you get the idea. Blog entries to follow include crossing the infamous Gulfstream, crossing the Great Bahama Bank from Bimini and then through the Northwest Channel at 9:30 p.m. at night with the Northwest Channel light not lit (the Bank has average depths of 20 feet the Tongue of the Ocean on the other side of the NW Channel light drops to depths of in the thousands in the matter of minutes), and then crossing the Yellow Bank from Nassau having only studied pictures of coral heads but not actually seeing one in real life. Definitely experiences rich with moments of complete angst and amazement. We will make our way to Norman?s Cay today. We anchored last night on the outside of Highborne Cay, with a Southeast wind, there was a lot of wave motion until of course about 6 a.m. this morning when it was time to officially wake up, then the waves settled right down as well as the wind, and the cats. Cruising so far has been an amazing adventure, but no vacation. Keeping a boat?s systems running, taking care of all needs of the crew, cleaning, cooking, making water, planning the next day?s journey is a constant necessity and a job in and of itself. Chris and I have learned so much in such a short period of time, and the lessons I am sure, will keep on coming. The word ?satisfying? is the best word I can come up with at the moment to describe our adventure so far. It has been physically and mentally demanding but at the end of the day it leaves one with a great sense of accomplishment surrounded by wonder of the beauty all around, of the water and sea life here, as well as the people we have come in contact with so far in the cruising community. It has been similar to living a prayer, and for this I say, ?Amen?? – Gretchen

Yesterday Morning we woke to a pleasant day in Nassau, anchored off of a Yoga retreat on the south shore of Pleasure Island. After listening to the Cruisheimer’s Net on the SSB, we found ourselves dragging anchor, rather rapidly. The holding in Nassau is notorious for being poor, so this was not a surprise. We re-anchored, but the set was not so great, so we went across the bay to try the “Main” anchorage. When there, we saw Quadrille, Fred and Bernice, who where weighing anchor to go to Allens Cay, our next stop. We quiclky thought it over, and decided to tag along with them. They are a really nice couple from Montana, on a Westerly Conway. We have a big place in our hearts for Westerlys.

We took a course that was south enough to avoid most of the coaral heads of the Yellow Bank, while not entering the White bank. Sort of threading the needle. Most boats just go over the Yellow banks, and keep a watch for the coaral. This was perhaps a safer route, but longer, adding at least two hours to the trip. We arrived at about 5:30, about 15 minutes from sunset.

Dina and Myron aboard Hold Fast answered our call when Gretchen asked for any boats in the Allens Cay anchorage that could tell us how things looked there. When we arrived, they came over on their dink and gave us some advice on shallow areas, and came aboard for a bit to visit. The anchoring here is great, it set immediately, and now we are going to go see the Iguanas. Yes, I said Iguanas!! There are hundreds of them on Pine Cay here.

We made it to Nassau, arriving a about 700AM, with a bit of a wait for the cruise ships and a cargo vessel to all get in. I think we will be going to Allen’s Cay next, in a few days. We are anchored right off of a Yoga retreat – they were out under their vernada doing poses as the sun set tonight.

We tried over at the “main” anchorage next before the bridge, but the bottom was grass, and it was too shallow, we might have been aground at low tide, it was too close to tell. Much better here, 20 ft depth, and sand – dug right in.

The boats we crossed with were Living Well (hunter 420)with Steve and Mary Ann, and Midori (PDQ 32) with Brian and Lynn. LW had radar, so they could see the light at the NW passage, which was out. We arrived there about 9:30pm. We motored the whole way – the wind even clocked around back to the nose when we got through the channel ;<. It was on the nose almost the entire way.

There was a bit of fun tying up to get fuel before we anchored. We pulled up close to the dock, and Gretchen passed the dock hand a spring line. He tied it off, but with about 15 feet of slack. Then she handed him a bow line, which after a few seconds, he haded back to her??? Twice? In the meantime, the current had caught the boat and the spring was now stretched fully, with no other lines to the boat. We finally sorted it out. The only thing we can figure out is that the dock hand tought when she said that she needed the bow line, he meant that she wanted it back. Very odd!