That Sinking Feeling

The morning sun was just beginning to make a showing across the dark night sky, dusting the mooring field of Wallilabou Bay in purples and pinks. Headset on, engine warm, we whispered through pulling up the anchor in the pre-dawn light. The air was still.

Minerva anchored and tied stern-to-a-tree next to the mooring field in Wallilabou Bay, St. Vincent 

The boat boy that had agreed to come out at this ridiculous hour was quietly floating alongside Minerva on his busted up paddle board, his two small dogs sitting on the board with him, looking up curiously at Chloe. He had freed us from the shore and I had just stowed the really long stern line.

The air was still and eventually all of the anchor chain made it back onto the boat, the echoes of the chain through the gypsy the only noise in the bay. I secured the anchor. Lance put the boat in forward gear and then... KERTHACK WHAM THUD THUD THUD. Minerva shuddered. The birds took flight.

Lance slipped Minerva out of gear and popped open the engine compartment and reported over the headset "We're taking on water. Lots of it".

Sure enough. The shaft had somehow shifted away from its rightful place and water was spewing in.

Like a caped superhero, Lance leapt onto the warm engine and started to wrestle the shaft into its rightful place. There are normally 4 bolts holding it into place, now there was only one but he found the missing 3 in the bilge. I slipped past him and opened the tool compartments to produce the tools that we needed as he shouted his list. I was handing him the last socket wrench and a big rubber mallet when the wind popped up. It was sudden and strong, and blowing us down into the mooring field where the other boats slumbered. Of course, it would have been helpful if it had been blowing us out to sea, but what fun would that be?

In Wallilabou Bay, it's deep all the way up to shore. We had dropped our hook originally in 70 feet of water and then backed in, had a boat boy tie our stern line to a tree on shore that was about 50 ft away. Now we were at least 200 feet from shore and the water under the boat was at least 90 ft deep. I dropped the hook, pulled out all the dock lines and deployed the fenders on the downwind side. The boat boy was still hanging around on his paddle board, I handed him the longest line and while he paddled to shore with it I extended our stern line by tying one knot after another as fast as I could; 6 lines later we were tied to a new tree on shore and no longer a threat to the other boats.

Re-stowing the line locker post-disaster

By then Lance had 3 of the 4 bolts back on. The 4th just wouldn't go. We caught our breath while timing the slow leak, then tentatively fired up the engine and put her in gear. There was a small shimmy, and the pace of the small leak held steady. We put her in reverse. Smoother, no leak. We had an appointment to keep with the government vet for Chloe's clearance (hence the reason for starting the venture at such a ridiculous hour), the wind was good to sail us there and the leak had slowed to a trickle so we re-released the stern line, paid the boat boy a bonus, and made our way to St Lucia. We set an hourly alarm to count pumps with the manual bilge pump, and after 6 hours of checking agreed it was not leaking worse than before.

It was hours after we were underway before we really noticed the burns Lance had received from his engine hug. Open wounds. Not too serious and easily treatable but best to avoid contact with tropical seawater until healed. So no diving in St Lucia for us.

Pigeon Island near Deshais, Guadalupe is home to Jacques Cousteau's national park

Martinique, Guadalupe, and St. Martin followed. Eventually Lance was able to get the 4th bolt on but it fought him all the way and didn't feel like it was happy there. We monitored the situation regularly and while the leaking remained minimal and steady the new prop shimmy was unsetting. We decided to get professional help before heading across the open Caribbean sea or into the lonely Bahamas.  A damaged prop or propshaft could mean a haulout and a potentially lengthy or expensive repair and we started strategizing our options this close to hurricane season.

Our good friend Ton was in St Maarten and dropped by, and much to our relief pointed out that the part that was damaged is meant to be sacrificial, its job is to protect the engine from prop or shaft shenanigans, and the bolts were simply loose. So it did its job but gave its life. In a rare stroke of luck the replacement part was readily available at the local chandlery. The shaft was not damaged. One beer and an hour later, Minerva was back to 100%.

The sacrificial part. It's clearly visible why the bolts didn't want to happily go back in place.

We are once again free to roam. And it's time to high-tail it out of the hurricane zone. We are still undecided in which direction we will go, but are definitely feeling the need to get moving to somewhere safe for the season.

Curacao, Desert Island Hurricane Hideout

Curacao has been a lovely place to hide Minerva from hurricanes. It's a desert island of just over 170 square miles, and from our protected latitude under the hurricane belt we've witnessed several gnarly storms pass by harmlessly to the North of us.

The Queen Emma bridge between Punda and Otrabanda swings open on a raft of small boats. The bridgetender gives a very short alert before starting motion and pedestrians are often caught by surprise when it opens or closes while they are in the process of walking across it.

The island is just large and modern enough to offer up most everything we need. There's been a refreshing diversity of snorkeling, restaurants, groceries, and boat supplies. We were quickly welcomed into the cruising community and after we moved into the marina we formed our own sub-community there and freely shared rides to events and markets, tools, and windfalls such as the night we split the giant tuna the local fishermen gave us when they couldn't find a way to stuff it into their cooler. That fish fed several cruisers on A dock that week.

Much of Willemstad is covered in murals and this is one of my favorites.

We imagined we'd be doing lots of scuba diving off the boat when we got here, but the tanks haven't escaped their locker much. Mostly it's a logistical issue. Moving the boat requires permission from the government and a small fee paid each time, getting to the government office is a hassle. The diving is not where the boat is, which means loading the gear into the car or hitching rides with others for long dinghy slogs, and there always seems to be something else to distract us from making all that effort. Someday we'll anchor Minerva where the diving is and fall off the boat and dive there. Wherever that is.

We found respite from the heat in regular snorkeling trips and afternoon cooldown swims at the local beach. Adding this to our routine became something we looked forward to each afternoon.

This is a Chi Chi - proud, strong, Caribbean. There are several around the island and each one is different depending on the artists' interpretation of what these words mean to them. This one is in downtown Punda close to the Queen Emma bridge and is certainly the most colorful one we've discovered. There is a beautiful Chi Chi in delicate Danish blues at the local Sandals resort but the security guards there are quite tenacious about making sure nobody photographs her. Maybe she's camera shy.

We arrived with a long To Do list for Minerva, and tackled it with fervor, making every effort to balance out the laptop work with the boat work and a healthy dose of fun. The ungodly heat definitely threw a wrench in the schedule though, carving out hours in the middle of the day that defy any action at all aside from laying on the floor and just trying to breathe. Although we didn't get everything done, we did get the important things done. A dive boat captain in Monterey once told me "it's not IF something on the boat is broken, it's WHICH of the broken items needs to be most urgently fixed that is the real question." Wise words from an experienced captain I respect; I put the rest of the To Do sticky notes away for another day and will do my best to suppress the shame of not conquering it all before departing.

Typical Dutch architecture in Punda. The locals tell us if the building has a red roof you are wealthy, if the building has a black roof you are ridiculously wealthy. We can only presume because it means you can afford the air conditioning bill that goes with a black roof. Or, in the days before air conditioning, you could afford a posse to follow you around waving giant fans.

Curacao was once inhabited by Native Americans, then Spaniards, then the Dutch and only became a fully independent self-governing nation in 2015. Most locals can trace their family lineage back to sailors or slaves or some combination thereof and the echoes of all these influences are still prevalent in the local architecture, language, clothing, dance and cuisine. I  am fascinated by the colorful hair wraps, and was about to select one to tuck my long hair into on windy days when I was informed there is a whole host of reasons that is inappropriate, not the least of which is that the color of the wraps and they way they are tied is an unspoken language developed over hundreds of years, mostly signaling that I am looking for male companionship and, well... I am far too uninformed to wade into all that miscommunication. So no pretty hair wrap for me.

Another great mural in Willemstad

Just this week the weather has turned from hot and dry to hot and occasionally raining cats and dogs. This is the cue that hurricane season is coming to an end and it's time to plan our escape. The marina and anchorage are becoming emptier as boats left last month for Columbia, Panama, and Venezuela and this month are leaving for destinations North. Our plan is to sail North in mid-November, shooting for St. Martin but remaining flexible to fall back to St. Croix, Puerto Rico or Dominican Republic if the wind and waves are too much to comfortably greet head-on. Since we are under no schedule constraints for this next leg and the destination is less important than the journey we can afford to be picky when selecting our weather window. This time we'll be sailing across the Caribbean Sea with a buddy boat so the 500+ mile ride will be less lonely. Friends await our arrival on the other side.

We intend to see the rest of the Caribbean islands in a clockwise fashion over the winter. We have seen the British and US Virgin Islands, everything East and South of that will be new territory for us. So much exploring to do.

The Winter 2023-24 lineup