Marsh Harbour-Georgetown, 2/16-18/2010, Part I



Hi, all,

We left you after a large variety of both frustrating and rewarding refits
and upgrades accomplished by a massive buying trip to the US afforded by a
surprise visit to family over the holiday season.

Well equipped, we set about learning how to use our new chartplotter and GPS
combination, verified all the new installations, and set to waiting for a
good weather window.

Weather windows, particularly in the Caribbean, drive passage planning, as
going at one time versus another can make all the difference in your comfort
and safety levels. We'd expected to leave just after February arrived, but
one after another promising window slammed shut by the time it had arrived.

"By the time it had arrived" means that the forecast for a future time
turned against us. Either wind levels or direction, or, significantly, wave
height, caused us to wait for what looked like a better time in the future.
Unfortunately for our earlier arrival (than what actually happened), each
time the interval to that future time elapsed, 4 different times, we were
all
pumped up and ready to go in a day or two only to have Chris Parker, our
weather guru, in his daily morning forecasts, shoot us down.

In Marsh Harbour, we were blessed with three different open (available to
anyone) sites to which we could successfully connect our WiFi (internet
connection) system described in a prior log. The most reliable, in terms of
availability and data throughput (the amount of data directly determines how
long it takes to take a web page to load, for example), was 11 miles away,
and the other two were, respectively, by measurement on our charts, 6 and 8
miles away. Those who have struggled to find an available signal as they
travel can appreciate the magnitude of that achievement. We routinely get
the jaw-dropping routine when other cruisers ask if we can find internet,
as, even with some of the recently developed more sensitive antennas and
higher powered transmitters for WiFi, most can't exceed a couple of miles'
performance.

So, with generally good connectivity, we also took advantage of several
sites which could give us an advance look at wind and waves in our area.
Each time an approaching weather window bore closer, we'd scrutinize our
available sources. And, as above, each time, we'd disappointedly confirm
our suspicions with Chris.

Finally, the day arrived when the wind and waves were tolerable, and we got
ready to leave, confirming that conditions were tolerable for our passage
with Chris Parker. The sea state would be barely OK for Lydia, who, if she
had her druthers, would have lots of wind with no waves. However, out in
the open Atlantic ocean, there were lots of big swells left over from all
the fronts which had marched through, one after the other. None the less,
it was the best we'd find, so we took advantage of the opening and left.
First, however, we listened to the morning net as we were getting ready to
fuel.

You'll recall that the morning net is akin to a party line, where traffic is
directed by an "operator" ("net control," in actual name). The first of the
segments on all the morning nets, wherever they may be, is weather, and this
was no exception. A specific to the Abacos, of which Marsh Harbour's island
is one, is the passage reports. With all the small islands between Marsh
Harbour's Great Abaco and the Atlantic, you can only get to open water in a
few places, called passages.

Our preferred passage would have been North Man-O-War, being the closest,
but it was a mess, not recommeded even for the freighters which serve Marsh
Harbour. We'd already made contingency plans for that, however, as the last
passage from Great Abaco, opposite Little Harbour, was sheltered in the
prevailing winds. Unfortunately for our departure timing, it required a
long, zig-zag, sail down the inside of the Sea of Abaco, on which more
later. Not a biggie, we had plenty of time in our scheduling, so we made for
the fuel dock to take on water, gasoline and diesel.

You'll recall that we made our first fuel filter change ever recently, made
easier by my dual-filter setup. When you remove a filter, of necessity, it
brings some fuel with it, and, to boot, this particular filter housing had
no fuel above the intake/output holes, located low in the housing. As the
housing has to be full of diesel fuel when you seal it, you have to get that
fuel from somewhere. Fortunately, my fuel polishing setup has valves at the
bottom of the fairly large tubes, and I took the old Gatorade bottle I keep
for such events, put it under the valve of the already-filtered
tube (there are two in series, the first being a larger media, taking out
the "big chunks"), and drained a bit into it. Over several times of small
drainings into the Gatorade bottle (didn't want to have leftovers!), I
filled that container, and sealed it up again.

So, off we go to start it, which takes a while, surprisingly, especially
since it's running off the other filter housing at this point (the one we
switched to when the first one finally clogged after more than 1000 hours).
Troubleshooting along, I have a look in the new housing, and, surprisingly,
it's low, too. Same song, different verse, I fill it up and go again. All
seems well enough. Meanwhile, though, to refill the tube in the polisher
I've taken some from, I run the polisher pump, sucking fuel through the two
filters in series. Hmmm. Seems to be taking a long time to get up to
pressure. However, it eventually does, and all seems well. All this was
done days before our departure, however...

Like so many things in our boating world, though, it's, again, "Not so fast,
Bucko!" We motor off our anchor to wend our way through the shallows
leading to the fuel dock, arriving a little after 7:30 when we think we'll
find them open. Somewhat to our surprise, when we hail them to announce our
arrival, nobody answers. Ah, well, no biggie, we can dock this 40,000 pound
behemoth anywhere, any-how, by ourselves, and we'll just tie up and wait.
However, and very fortunately for us, exactly as Lydia was about to put a
line over a piling, as I was reversing to bring in the stern, the engine
died. Well! That's a surprise. No problem, we'll just restart. No such
luck. We hurriedly throw a line over a piling, snub it, and Flying Pig
stops her forward movement. Good thing, too, cuz it's pretty crowded where
we are, and throwing out the anchor would not necessarily have prevented us
from finding another boat's part with one of ours!.

Anyway, the boat's secured, and, especially as nobody's bothered to answer,
I set about trying to find out why it is we're not running any more. An
inspection of the fuel filters reveals the one we're running on to be very
low, again. Much head scratching, and knowing that diesels run on fuel
suctioned to the high pressure pump, I conclude we must have a leak in the
intake line somewhere.

Much tracing and testing of connections later, we've found nothing
suspicious. Running the fuel polisher delivers a constant stream of
polished fuel back to the tank, so, as the polisher's supply lines are
shared with the engine, as are the return lines (diesels don't use all the
fuel pumped to each cylinder, and there's a return line for the unused
fuel). I concluded, after not having found any leaks, that the air in the
fuel polisher's canister must have found its way to the engine's filter
housing by suction. Out comes the gatorade bottle and we fill it up again.
But wait...

The engine starts again after bleeding (the process which gets the air out
of the lines to each cylinder), something I'm getting very proficient at
doing! Hokay, no problem. In the meantime, we've put out a call to ask if,
for some reason, Harbour View is closed, they not having responde to our
hails. Turns out they don't open until 9. As it's almost 9, we have a cup
of coffee and call them. Sure enough, they're there, and will be right out.

Out comes the attendant, but we've got ourselves on the wrong end of the
dock to allow the water hose to work. In the meantime, the wind has picked
up, and there's no way we'll walk it around. No problem, I'll do some
back-and-filling, required, by this time, as the wind's picked up and has us
pinned to the dock, to bring us back. Oops... The engine dies again.
Raggasnagglegiggafratz!!!!

We reluctantly let the attendant know that it will be a while until we can
figure out what's going on. Another round of fuel filter checking, and,
again, the housing is empty. WHAT'S GOING ON HERE??? Well, we won't find
out before we refill them, so I go, yet again, to the far side of the engine
room, fetch the Gatorade bottle, and prepare to refill the fuel canisters.

But wait! My T-Bar tightening handle is loose! I've forgotten to tighten
it up after the last fuel refills. That would certainly allow air to make
it to the filter housing, right? So, refill, and, this time, I remember to
tighten the handle on the polisher tube. Another bleeding sequence, and the
engine again starts. Having gotten all shipshape again, we call the
attendant, and attempt to back the boat up the dock. However, by this time
the wind has built even more, and, pinned to the dock, I can't get the stern
far enough out to make any headway, as our prop-walk pulls the stern back to
the dock, aided by the wind pushing against us. No problem, we'll go
around, and come in at the other end of the dock, he sez confidently.

We have about two boat-lengths past the end of the dock before we're in one
of the marina's slips. Except that it's occupied by a boat whose bow sticks
out substantially, and the wind will blow us down the aisle between the
marina slips. However, I edge off the dock, and, as soon as we're past
center, give a right-rudder hard throttle to push the stern out (but which
pushes the nose in and closer to the other boats!), and, as quickly as our
momentum will allow us to - by the time I'm finished with the first
reverse - I throw the rudder hard over left and hit reverse. That pulls our
stern to the right while we back. A couple of those forward-left,
back-right's and we were in position to continue our left turn out of the
space between the slips and return to the dock.

All went entirely uneventfully there, other than that we were pleased to see
that our relatively profligate use of water from our leaving our dock space
where we'd kept Flying Pig during our trip to the states, knowing we'd be
refilling soon, amounted to an average of only 5 gallons a day. When we
don't have ready access to water, our use would be far more conservative,
but, even so, we felt very happy that we'd managed on that little.

Well, I see our adventure has gone on (and on!), as usual, so, since we're
now fueled, gassed and watered, we'll leave you here.

See you next time - Stay Tuned...

L8R

Skip and crew

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

"Believe me, my young friend, there is *nothing*-absolutely nothing-half so
much worth doing as simply messing, messing-about-in-boats; messing about in
boats-or *with* boats.
In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's
the charm of it.
Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your
destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get
anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in
particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and
you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."

Hi, Wayne, and list,

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
Skip,

I think we all appreciate your efforts in creating these chronicles
but there are a couple of things about this one that bother me a great
deal.

1. Why was fueling and watering left to the last minute before
departure? You knew you were ready to go and would eventually get a
weather window.

Simple enough - we wanted to be full, particularly of water, as Georgetown
is a jug-it location for us, when we left. Further, the timing was such
that we would wind up being early, as it was. Just a matter of choice.
There was no hurry (aka last-minute) involved - just convenience of timing.


2. Why did you take the filter change so casually, especially after 3
years? Filter changes, even when carefully performed, are subject to
various mishaps. You really need to check the engine out very
carefully before getting into a "do or die" situation like heading
into a crowded dock.

The filter change was intended to be casual - that's why I bothered to make
a dual filter setup. It wasn't that filter which was involved, in any
event. All the checks were, ostensibly, done beforehand, as the engine had
performed perfectly after the "change" - that being the valve shift-over -
and, as **** happens, always, that, somewhat, being defined as an
unexpected, negative development, anyway, this qualifies as such an
incident.


3. Why the insistence on doing George Town in one big hop? There are
many good places to stop along the way.

Ya, and we discussed those. A 44 hour passage hardly qualifies as a big
deal (at least for us, these days - perhaps, at an earlier day, it might
have). To make those stops would have involved two channels that we'd
rather not deal with if we didn't have to, particularly, again, as we'd have
arrived before daylight.

We had, indeed, had our departure not been delayed as much as it was,
between our refit and weather windows, discussed hopping down via Normans
and Staniel Cays. However, see above, and, we want to mosey southward from
here before taking our time moving north as the weather warms. We'll catch
those other locations as we come north, our expectation being that we'll be
in the Bahamas for a year (from entry).

Then (the plan at the moment; of course, plans change, so we aren't setting
it in concrete) we'll head south again, leaving GT in early December, to
catch the fronts which will make the Thorny Path a bit less nettlesome as we
ease on down. Unlike some in our acquaintance, particularly since we don't
expect to be back in the Bahamas, let alone the US, in this boat, anyway,
we'll not "hurry" down to the EC, instead, perhaps, taking a year or two to
get there, enjoying all the lovely places in between as we go. So, we
elected to do it in one jump rather than spend several weeks playing along
the way.


4. Why didn't you know the hours of the fuel dock? You had been in
Marsh Harbor quite a while and could have asked anyone on the VHF net
or stopped by in the dinghy.

Well, of course, we thought we did. However, that was a product of having
checked, much earlier, and misremembering the other two. Thinking back on
it, I'd attempted to hail that one, and, failing that, raised the other two,
both of which are 7:30 opening times, but didn't reach this one. That was in
the middle of the day, FWIW. And, also FWIW, that's the same place I'd
gotten gasoline the entire time we were there. Their 4PM closing time was
consistent with a 7:30 opening time, so I didn't double-check.

So, in the end, we parked on a dock which wasn't open, rather than tying up
one of the other two which WAS open :{))


My verdict is too many mistakes, perhaps taken too casually. You know
better than anyone that you really can't afford another major
incident. The goal should be zero defects.


:{)) Yah, but then, who would all of you'se shoot at? I've (as you've
seen, of course) always been able to laugh at myself, even at the risk of
being second guessed and armchair quarterbacked. What we encountered is no
more than, as one of our sister ships describes it, the daily crisis.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for the rest of the report. We aren't finished yet
:{))

L8R

Skip


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to
make it come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in
its hand
(Richard Bach)

On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 07:53:48 -0500, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

The filter change was intended to be casual - that's why I bothered to make
a dual filter setup. It wasn't that filter which was involved, in any
event. All the checks were, ostensibly, done beforehand, as the engine had
performed perfectly after the "change" - that being the valve shift-over -
and, as **** happens, always, that, somewhat, being defined as an
unexpected, negative development, anyway, this qualifies as such an
incident.

At the risk of sounding overly preachy, you need to start thinking
like the owner and mechanic of a single engine aircraft.

Regards,

Wayne B
(currently in Martinique)