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With NAOMI all ready to sail out for our first test run, everything stowed, all but two lines off, the engine warmed up, the wind out of the SE and every one ready, I put her into reverse, there was a slight bang and then the engine ran free. It seems that we have exploded the gear box, or the coupling in between the gear box and the engine. We all froze, all this work up in smoke and in a matter of seconds (this is getting to be a tendency). We were all in shock for a few minutes. When we got our wits back, Esa convinced the Indian lady with the local snack bar to put all our perishables in her cooler for the weekend, I got Mel, the ex owner over, we called the mechanic who said he would stop by tomorrow, I finished wiring the AIS antennas, Jorgen took a nap... For the moment we don’t know anything really. Our weather window is tight, we now have a week to get out of here, before hurricane season. We are basically ready to go... We just got back from dinner and a few pina colatas. If this had happened at sea and we could still charge out batteries i would have continued. Here in a harbor it is difficult to just leave with the engine in pieces, though I am seriously tempted to get us towed out into the bay and...
The day after, the guys went to the beach at 08:00, the mechanic to stopped by around 1000, hard to say how bad, hard to say when it will be fixed, hard to say what caused it, hard to say. Not much else to do about it so I cut my finger nails, read some for the first time here, ripped out some obscolete instruments... I’m sweating profuselly but the heat is bothering me even less than when we arrived.
We pulled the engine forward into the cabin, black oil, green coolant, water - it is amazing how much of these engines is liquid, we build them in our image. We found bits and pieces of aluminum cast bell housing and some other adaptor piece in between the engine and the gear box. I rigged a hoist and lifted the 50 kg gear box out of the cabin and onto the dock to be inspected. We then drove around in Ricky’s car looking for parts - the passanger door busted and something wrong with the starter so we never switched off the motor. We haven’t found them yet. It’s now evening the heat is dissipating, I took a shower because i couldn’t think anymore i was so dirty. The cabin is still covered with engine - we’ll see what happens tomorrow. The good news is that the trade winds have shifted into the NE for the next few days so we are better off here anyhow. Of course the best way to see all this is as part of the experience, discover engine time, learn what a bell housing is, check out the beautiful evening light, finish the wiring, eat some more king fish... but sometimes the experience is extra intense. I’m down to wearing one pair of shorts (wash out in the bathroom sick with hand soap drip dry on the life lines once every 4 or 5 days), two t-shirts (wash one every night) and my crocks. The rest I haven’t touched. Sweat and dust in paradise. Message to my loves : we will not leave before calling you xxxx p
There is a lot to fret about, but frankly, at this hour we are in paradise: sitting in the cockpit the cool breeze from the SE boats rolling at anchor. Jorgen is reading about corruption in Sweden, Juha is trying to replicate an intricate knot out of a book, Esa has gone off somewhere presumably to the showers. And which restaurant do we hit tonight ??? The broken engine parts have been ordered and should be here from 3 to 5 days (hard to know how long they will sit around in customs, hard to know if the mechanic will do the job ASAP, hard to know much of anything). We are all in good spirits, doing the fine tuning, rewiring, oiling...
We just got back from our worse meal ever, like really bad. depressingly bad. It is rare that i walk out of bad movies, less rare that i walk out of bad plays, but to not eat when I’m really hungry - that is extremely rare. Well we got there tonight. So bad that I left half my plate, lost my appetite and contemplated revenge. Good food is essential when adapting the zen or stoic attitude under the strain of broken-engine-frustration. Good food permits one to go with the flow. Imagine an over cooked hamburger so over cooked it was tasteless, probably micro waved to death, on a cold store bought bun with a dab of store bought pesto sauce (it was called «Vespa basil burger») (this was an italian style harbor bar and grill). The fries were as undercooked as the burger was over zapped - frozen fries micro zapped and very mealy... Unfortunately i didn’t attempt a taste of Jorgen’s Lasagna, or Juha’s Penne primaverra salad so I can’t expound on the qualities of the pasta. Esa and i were supposed to split the fries and his salad but after a try he quickly finished off his side, and didn’t try a second fry - I don’t blame him. Tomorrow, day one of the 3 to 5 days, I will eat only bananas. I forgot to mention that we haven’t had any electricity in NAOMI since they pulled the engine, so we all walk around with headlamps while inside - miner style. I have mine on right now so I can go brush my teeth. I have been sending pictures but they seem to have gotten lost in cyberspace. xxx p
Waiting, waiting, waiting... and waiting some more. We rented a car yesterday and drove across Trinidad to a postcard like beach: long smooth sand, palm trees, the reef far out, small waves on the beach..., bought a bag of mangos that were the best I’ve ever tasted, ate terrible hamburgers in a very funky roadside shack, and got home late. I expected to find NAOMI sunk or gone or in cinders but she was still there bobbing in her slip waiting, waiting just like us. Modern times permit us to «track» our Fedex shipment so we can wait with information, but it doesn’t reduce the stress. News from up north is that the very deep low I’ve been tracking (doing some tracking myself) hit Bermuda and a lot of big boats lost rigs. We weren’t planning on being anywhere near there, but that was the low I was hoping to use to mess up the Bermuda high and get us across lower down. The boys have been great. Juha and Esa are working their ass off to make our life easier and exciting at the same time. Just got back from customs at Crewsend, putted over in our zodiac and got the pieces that we finally tracked using the conventional telephone method. So tomorrow I hope to get this boat back under power. The sky is black with the first clouds of our stay, and rain. We must be catching the tail end of the front that hit Bermuda yesterday.
Sunday morning, we swung the transmission on board and down into the cabin with halyards yesterday, positioning the engine with blocks from the deck and maneuvered the engine and transmission together. We went out looking for a replacement for the bent engine mount last night but came up with a corroded monster that we weren’t able to clean up. For the moment we are surrounded by tools and a partly assembled Perkins.... life goes on. No wind this morning so we brought the main up and marked it’s halyard for the reefs. Some seems to have stolen our trusty dock mat that served also for our yoga mat, or maybe it just flew away. Jorgen has read about 46 trash detective novels and might have to go cold turkey soon - finish, russian, norwegian and french are the choice of recycled books in the laundry room. The Boat Doctor never showed today - testing us. So we brought up the main and marked the reef points, did some more rewiring, cleaned the deck... threw out some more rotting food from the now warm fridge. If this keeps on I might even start reading and thinking I’m on vacation.
Just back from dinner with Mel and Jane, the last owners of NAOMI, at 75 they are still sailing the high seas, just the two of them. I started the day at 06:00 with some push ups in the cockpit, while waiting for the mechanic to get here (hoping he would show up, wondering what I would do if he didn’t) he came at around 08:00 and we were at it till 20:00. It was one long day with the mechanic ailing from kidney stones and his assistant and i doing much of the work up to our elbows in sea water and engine oil, nuts and bolts, metal straps, hoses... Through all of this I feel more confident with my crew, they have been helpful and patient. We have another couple of hours to do tomorrow morning on the engine. We are now on the count down - ETD is for Wednesday morning... We have to replace the fresh food that has since been eaten or rotted, go to customs and immigration, fill a mountain of jerry cans with diesel and water, check out the weather and get the hell out of here. Our worldly experience of the Caribbean has been limited to a square kilometer, peopled by odd characters from odd places, displaced souls in a dusty yard, in a sea of petroleum and crab shells. We have sort of gotten used to this trailer park life.
After some gasket gunk to exhaust elbow, we started up the engine, took up the dock lines and headed out of the pass. Nothing broke, almost no weird noises, not an impressive amount power, but a beautiful day. After half an hour of motoring, we have no speedo, the auto pilot seems to work, the wind instruments sort of. We hoisted the main and the 95% and pushed her for all she was work in 10kts of wind in on the flat bay. It was great to put the muscle into the winch, lean into the wind, find the right heal angle and feel the power. I would have brought up the 135% but the mechanic and his assistant were along for the ride on a tight schedule. Later in the day under piles of junk being moved from one side of the boat to the other, and food, and water and tools and rusty anchor chain... we found we couldn’t light the stove and traced the problem to a ground wire the mechanic had left hanging - man we have got to get out of here while we are still in one piece. For the past 3 weeks I have had to listen and find ways to fix a steady stream of problems. Tomorrow morning we take on 400 liters of fuel, some fishing gear, do the formalities at customs and 12:00 is the right time to leave no? xxx p
Full tanks of water plus 4 20 liter cans, full tank of fuel plus 10 20 liter cans stowed fore in the fore cabin and under the cockpit, all food on board, a moment of hesitation, a moment of disbelief, a last look around, a bit of lunch, try to remember the forgotten, fend off the fear that another breakdown... Naomi is heavy, I don’t know her, can’t gage her inertia, am timid with the throttle, never really sailed her. We motor out into the Chagaramas harbor, turn west and then north through the pass in light winds. Entrada Point @ 1500, raise the main with one reef, open the 95% genoa and cut the engine. For a moment we are engulfed in silence and then we are hit by a 18 knots of Trade wind pressure and a 1.5 meter sea, we fall all over our selves adjusting sails, the nose dives into the waves as we pick up speed, we are soon covered in spray, the deck is awash, news comes up from below that it is raining in the for cabin as well as in the clothes lockers (no one seems to have listened to me about packing in garbage bags)... we are off at last but there is no time to enjoy the moment, we are soon pounding along in a boat we don’t know how to sail and there are just too many problems to deal with at once. But it is beautiful!
