Monthly Archives: December 2013

Blue water and turtles.

Lazy boat day. Sunning on the bow after Christine pancake breakfast.

Trying not to burn, so trying to practice moderation, so mixed in some boat projects.

Lots of bunggies on board, some of them needed some love. The ones that hold the sail to the cars had long lost their stretch, I had replaced the real bad ones over time, now they are all nice and blue and new. Sail bag needed some bungie on the aft side, so took the opportunity to pull the boom over and let the solar panels get as much sun as possible today to minimize our electric charging needs. Seems like in good sun this morning we are making 10p back every hour, not too bad, but when we need to make some water and such, the water maker will run on the solar too, but is happier with more electricity. Happier meaming makes more water faster with more electricity.

Just killing time, watching super yachts and rentals come and go in this normally serene bay.

Dodge the mega yacht

Wayne was doing so well at staying onboard on these trips.

After church Christine secured some wifi, and booked a flight to LA for after we return, we returned to the boat to see if Wayne was awake, he held down the fort quite well in the morning. Our plan was to hike to the last fort we could see, and make a break for Columbier bay where is normally pretty empty. With this many boats in Gustavia we had a back up plan to return if there was too many boats over here.

On the way over, its only 7 miles, just just motored and made some water and electricity while dodging mega yacht after mega yacht, one was even unloading a 50 foot sailboat as we went past. Shesh, we will have photos to share when we get back in a wifi zone, over here there is zero, zilch, nada, nothing but it is crowded. We lucked into a ball that was open so we stayed, the winds are howling with gusts to near 30knots. Watched our bridle that connects us to the mooring ball and it wasn’t playing too nice, might have worn through, so we re-rigged it with another shackle to make it metal on metal. Still making some electricity and checking the water levels.

Noticed we weren’t making as much electricity with the water maker running, seemed odd, kicked the engine up to 1000 rpm in neutral, and we started making some positive ground.

Another check of the water, we were making water to the port tank, but lets check starboard again too. Damn, if it wasn’t empty and the bilge was running again, grrrr. shut off the pressure pump before it was totally empty, but still read zero. Checked the engine room, and sure enough it was sloshing around in there. Looking over the side, the water was being pumped out. This time the hose came off with both clamps I had installed. Hmmm… This fix today was to chop a couple inches off and use a wrench on the hose clamps, hoping that a fresh part of the hose will hold better. That little water pump, surely is only putting out 5psi, it shouldn’t be pushing off the hose clamps, butt left the engine running and made a 1/4 tank of water so we can shower on the starboard side, we’ll run the little generator tomorrow and top up both tanks and batteries while we hike the beach and mountain in front of us.

Tuna and smashers and peas for dinner, even busted out the wassabe sauce we bought to lure the tuna onboard. Wind was howling, and swirling all night, some Donald drinks and few games of dominos, watching the stars and out go the lights.