Unexcused Absences

February 11 – February 19, 2016. Once the weather finally settled down, we left South Staniel Cay to check out an anchorage off Sampson Cay we missed on our way south a few weeks ago. A few hours after we arrived, David and Barbara of Cookie dropped anchor next to us.

Like many islands in the central Exumas, Sampson is incredibly beautiful. Broccoli-green hills that rise out of the most insane turquoise waters, little cays that dot the horizon, great snorkeling, protected anchorages, mega-yachts with their armadas of jetskis – well, we could do without those, but I guess we can’t have everything.

Our anchorage off Sampson Cay

Cookie had a dinner date with their friends anchored the next island up, and we had to leave the next morning for a meeting at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club to review some projects we’ve been working on for them, so we didn’t get to visit with David and Barbara, but I’m sure we’ll see them again soon. Other than Cookie, our little 43-foot Gulfstar didn’t really fit in to this neighborhood; next to us was a 130-foot Westport Yacht named W, and a mile away was the dark blue hull of the 248-foot Lürssen Northern Star. There was one other mega-yacht but I never got its name.

“Miss A” with the super-yachts; left-to-right, “Northern Star”, unknown, and “W”

These mega-yachts are pretty absurd. The Northern Star holds 52,000 gallons of diesel fuel. The cost to fill the fuel tanks is more than the cost of our entire boat, plus all our upgrades and repairs. She is as wide (44 feet) as we are long, and her generators provide over a mega-watt of electricity – enough power about 750 average US homes. And she can be yours to charter for a little over $700,000 per week (plus expenses). The movie The Graduate got it wrong; the future wasn’t “plastics,” the future was “lobsters.” The owner of Northern Star founded the largest lobster wholesaler in the world back in the 1970’s.

A closer look at “Northern Star”

Our 45-minute drive over to Staniel the next day was a bit more exciting than it should have been. Soon after we started, I noticed the starboard engine oil pressure was dropping. Normally, oil pressure drops all at once, due either to loss of oil or something breaking. But in this case the pressure just steadily ticked downwards.

Just as I was approaching the Yacht Club dock, the oil pressure warning buzzer went off. I had to shut down the starboard motor immediately, to avoid permanent damage to the engine. Now, our boat, like most twin-screw boats, has very limited maneuvering capability with only one engine. In fact, without the starboard engine, she will only turn to the right. So here we were, in tight quarters, with almost no maneuverability. In a crosswind. And current. Surrounded by million-dollar boats. Miss Adventure has nothing if not a sense for the dramatic.

But I backed her out of the tight spot she was in, and we motored around to the east side of Thunderball Grotto, where we could drop anchor in relative peace and tranquility away from other boats. Leaving the engine problems for later, we hopped in the dinghy and went ashore for our meeting.

The dinghy beach at Staniel Cay Yacht Club

The owners led us up to their new office in a crow’s nest on top of the bar. While the views are amazing, and the vantage point lets them see everything going on at the property, I imagine it will have a negative impact on productivity because, well, they can see everything going on at the property.

That evening we walked across the island to Crow’s Nest, the oldest house on Staniel Cay’s eastern ridge. Heather met the owners (Glenn and Pam) at the Wednesday morning yoga class, and they had invited us up to their house for happy hour. We also met their daughter, Laura, who is working on a master’s degree in Brazil but was home studying for a few weeks.

The next morning I set to work diagnosing the starboard engine low-oil-pressure problem. I pulled the dipstick, expecting to find an empty oil pan, and instead discovered too much oil. There are only three fluids that could get into the oil pan, besides oil; salt water, coolant, or diesel fuel. I turned on my oil pump to extract some oil, and discovered that the extra fluid was diesel fuel – a full gallon extra.

Now, as I said earlier, I’m no expert in diesel engines, but a lot of excess fluid in the oil is not good for so many reasons that I won’t bother listing them here. I hit the internet, which knows most things, and saw that a likely cause of fuel in the oil pan is from a leak in the diesel lift pump. The pump attaches to the side of the engine, with an arm sticking inside to engage a cam. If the pump leaks (at least with the Perkins engine), the fuel runs down into the oil pan. And as the concentration of fuel increased, the viscosity dropped, which caused the engine’s oil pump to loose efficiency, which caused the pressure drop that I witnessed.

Anchored off of the Yacht Club

To test my theory I removed the lift pump from the port engine and installed it on the starboard engine. The good news is that I was able to confirm that the lift pump was the problem; I ran the starboard engine for two hours and no additional fluid appeared in the oil pan. The bad news is that I still had only one engine working, although now with the starboard engine I could turn to the left, just not to the right.

With the port engine out of service, I decided to take it all the way out of service by removing the starter motor, which had been giving me intermittent problems since our fall cruise on the Intra-Coastal Waterway. Now was as good a time as any to attempt to fix it. Of course I did work in some fun; with all the winter wind I’ve had some nice windsurfing sessions.

Taking a break from my engine-room duties

Fortunately, Staniel Cay is served by Watermakers Air, which just happens to be a client of ours, so I ordered two new lift pumps from Trans Atlantic Diesel plus a new “bendix” for the starter motor (didn’t even know I owned a “bendix”, much less two of them) and had the parts sent to the Watermakers hangar in Fort Lauderdale. Then, it was time to try to get onto the dock at the Yacht Club. With all the pending mechanical work, plus my big birthday coming up, I wanted to be tied to land rather than hanging on our anchor.

Scrubbing the hull in shallow water

But first, while we were anchored on the shallow sandbar across from the Yacht Club we took advantage and scrubbed the hull of all the sea salad that had accumulated since the Chesapeake back in Octdober. Then, during a lull in the wind, and at close to slack tide, we got the anchor up and motored over to the dock. Fortunately I could do the entire maneuver making only left turns, and we got tied up with no problem. The less the other boat owners knew about someone driving a 40-year-old trawler with limited maneuverability (and a suspect engine) among their million dollar boats, the better.

“Miss Adventure” docked at Staniel Cay

As a bonus, Brian and Susan of Good Morning Vietnam showed up that afternoon, and anchored opposite the docks on the patch of sand to the south-west of Thunderball Grotto. We invited Glenn, Pam, and Laura (the folks who live in Crow’s Nest), along with the crew of the good ship GMV, over to happy hour onboard Miss Adventure. They were all curious to learn about the lift pump leaking diesel into the oil pan (OK, just the guys were curious), since both Glenn and Brian were somewhat familiar with diesel engines but had never heard of this problem.

Brian and Susan, Pam and Glenn, Laura, and K & H

The next day was my big birthday, nominally the whole reason we bought this boat and traveled to the Bahamas. I have been telling anyone who would listen that my hope for my 50th birthday was to spend it on my own boat, docked at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club. Which, technically, I did. What I failed to specify was that I also wanted to be out snorkeling or kayaking or socializing at the Yacht Club bar, and not buried in the engine room the entire day trying to coax two 40-year-old engines back to life. But that’s exactly where I spent my birthday.

50th birthday in the engine room

Drew helping with the starter

The disassembled starter

Birthday dinner at the Yacht Club

The good news was that I got the new lift pumps installed, and our friends Drew and Sharon of Z-Raye showed up that afternoon, so by quittin’ time I had reason to celebrate. The six of us (the crews of Z-Raye, Good Morning Vietnam, and Miss Adventure), had dinner reservations at the Yacht Club, and Susan brought along a bottle of Veuve Cliquot Champagne to celebrate. She even made me a delicious birthday cake, which was a very nice surprise.

“Miss A” parked among the expensive boats at the Yacht Club

The following day we all snorkeled the southern tip of the small island between Staniel and Big Major Spot, then took a short hike / real estate tour along the ridge. Some new houses are going in at the north end of the ridge, so this year may be the end of this nice hiking trail on the east side of Staniel Cay.

Trumpetfish

The ocean-side of Staniel

Drew hunting (unsuccessfully) for lobster and lionfish

I also, with the help of both Drew and some good people who work for the Yacht Club, got the port starter motor disassembled and replaced the mysterious “bendix” that was the cause of so much angst and anxiety over the past few months.

That afternoon and evening there was a killer beach party at Pirates Beach, Big Major Spot, where we were joined by Drew and Sharon (Z-Raye) and met Mike and Sherri of Pura Vida, Rick and Betsy of Traveler, plus a bunch of other folks. Unfortunately Brian and Susan, they told us later, made the mistake of sitting down once they got back to their boat after the snorkel and hike, and they quickly lost motivation to make the long dinghy ride over to Big Major for the party.

Big party at Big Major Spot

With a successful end to our week at Staniel Cay (replacing the lift pumps, fixing the starter, and celebrating my birthday), we plan to head back north to see some more places in the northern Exumas we missed in our rush to get south a few weeks ago.

Bahamas 2016 Cruise – Central Exumas 2

• Engine Hours: 6
• Generator Hours: 48
• Miles Traveled: 28
• Marina and Mooring Fees: $0

Bahamas 2016 Cruise – Total Numbers

• Engine Hours: 79
• Generator Hours: 127
• Miles Traveled: 478
• Marina and Mooring Fees: $1,110 (includes one month of parking on Grand Bahama during the holidays)

Bahamas 2016 Cruise – Central Exumas 2

Sunset off Staniel Cay with “Good Morning Vietnam”

As our anchor chain drags on the bottom, it stirs up tasty bits for the fish to nibble

“Miss Adventure” off Sampson Cay

Flame-tongue snails

A large porcupinefish

Another sunset view of “Good Morning Vietnam”