Culebra Continued

The sun is out and we are making electricity!!!  30+ amps/hour, NET!  Zowie!

Cat 3 Irene is over Eleuthra and Rum Cay Bahamas with TS winds out 225 miles...look out FL as even a near miss is going to be WET if not windy.  Keep an eye on Wunderground.com's blog by Dr. Masters.  He seems to have one of the best handles on it.  Good luck and keep thinking NORTH today and tomorrow and then EAST for the weekend.

Culebra, Puerto Rico

When we saw that Tropical Depression Irene was headed our way, we decided to bug to Culebra. We were still on one engine as I was unable to get the injector tubes connected, even though Fernando: The Boat Doctor had put the "new" injector pump and left the hook-up for ich. Irene was supposedly headed below St. Croix to our SE, then NE from there to the western tip of Puerto Rico and on to the W towards Hispaniola. Culebra is ENE of Fajardo and seemed to be a good place to hide out. Well as you know, the predicted course was just an intelligent guess and the ichtbay did her own thing and turned north faster than expected. Once we saw that we headed for the mangroves where our friend Jim Alimi on Zoya catamaran guided us to a shallow, narrow arm where we nosed in to a stand of mangrove roots. One small, shallow-draft sloop, Meander, beat us in and another sloop and a "stink pot" trawler, Mombo. , followed behind. We pulled the anchor into the root system and tied on five more lines to the larger trunks. From the beams and stern cleats we tied four more lines to more mangrove trunks. After lashing the sail to the boom and adding two more lines to augment the mail sheet, I spread the jib lines out to the mid-beam cleats to prevent the jib from moving. All of this took about three mosquito-less, dry hours in cooling breezes…man, what unbelievable luck. The only hard part was pumping the heads with the sulfur laden mangrove water. On reflection and further discussions with Jim, we should have put our no less than double the amount of lines we did: minimum of 20. Thankfully it turned out OK with the highest wind gusts in the early hours of Monday, 8/22/11, at 44 kph 67 feet above us. Down where we were snuggled in I doubt it got above 25 kph: a great spot with a hill to the E of us. Heavy rain filled but didn't swamp our new dingy. Dewey on Culebra 1.5 miles W of us saw sustained 67 kph winds, lost power, telephones, and water all due to poor planning and engineering: typical Puerto Rican as I'm told. Even the Post Office closed down for two days. What happened to "Neither rain, nor snow, nor dark of night…"? We came out to the lake in front of our canal unscathed at 3 pm (high tide) on Monday and anchored in the higher, cooling breezes, but still sheltered from the E and S winds and waves. On Tuesday we moved one bay closer to the entrance of Bahia Ensenada and across from Dakity where we normally hook up to a mooring ball. Still a little breezy and rough from Irene's bands: she's over Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas now! Huge! Monster! Hope she doesn't pull any more pranks and turn W again and hit FL.

One of the things we got done in the mangroves was to hook up the pressure and return lines to the injectors on the port engine. Hallelujah the engine started. BUT, the injectors leak so we can only maintain about 1,500 rpms. BUT, again, we can maneuver!!! What a wonderful feeling to be back in almost complete control.

We'll hang here under cloudy , wet skies 'till Thursday to hopefully pick up our mail and packages. Then back to SunBay in Fajardo to have The Boat Doctor remedy the leaking injectors, Papo install an injector on the outboard, and have the old injector pump rebuilt for a spare. So, come one, come all starting next Monday when we'll be in San Juan for a pickup: we gots da space.

Fajardo and Salinas, Puerto Rico

Over the past month we have had both daughters (sans husbands, unfortunately),  four grand kids, and Kathy and Lee Maidenberg (dear friends from Clearwater, FL) stay with us.  Kathy and Lee had the pleasure of riding out tropical storm Emily at Yobos just E of Salinas.  Lee was most helpful helping me survey the nooks and crannies for a snug hiding spot in the mangroves. Thankfully we didn't have to "repair" to them and the skeeters as Emily never quite got up to speed as she passed to the S and W of us.  One early morning of high winds and torrential rains and she was gone over Hispaniola.  We made it to the bioluminescent bay at Las Carobas near Fajardo with Aimee and the g-children, and Mosquito Lagoon, Viequez with Marnie and the boys. Now that's a sight to be seen: light blue "fire" as you cut through the water with hand or paddle.  The boys had to try peeing, but without success as the dinoflagilates were under the surface a few inches.

Our port engine has been out the whole time.  We finally believe it is the injector pump that needs to be rebuilt.  I have been trying to get out, but have had to tap and spray (Blaster: it really works, but slowly) because of the corrosion caused by the raw water pump's (it's situated over the engine so when it failed several years ago, it sprayed the entire engine with sea water) failure.  Anyway I'm down to one more nut which should come off this morning.  Then I'll put in a pump I got with the purchase from the local Volvo dealer of another engine for its parts.  We HOPE this will do the trick.  The Boat Doctor, Fernando, has been immensely helpful through all of this.

So hear we sit at SunBay Marina monitoring the weather every morning watching the waves pour off Africa waiting for the engine to be fixed and debating whether nor not to flee back to Salinas and Yobos, a days sail (10 hours) S and W of Fajardo.  It rains on and off so we have the AC going at night in our cabin and endure the heat in the salon as we button up periodically.  Truly is isn't as big a deal as I make it sound.

Oh, let me bring you up to date on the dingy.  After a call to West Marine HQ in California I got not only satisfaction but a new, upgraded RIB 350 for a nominal price.  Yes, it comes with a five year warranty which should outlast the glue as, yes, it is still a Zodiac.  Much better boat which is a foot longer with a seat, oars and oarlocks, and a forward, built-in locker.  Only downside is the self-bailer which leaks like a sieve.  I'll call WM to see what their "fix" is.  I must say that when HQ learned what was going on, they stepped up and did the right thing without any hesitation.  Let's hear it for West Marine and Port Supply!