We were launched on Wednesday noon with a few difficulties that caused lots of stress. We unplugged the air conditioner, said goodbye to Internet, and the boatyard workers proceeded to get Cat Tales into the trailer to haul her to the boat lift at the dock. It started raining pretty hard and while the workers ran for their rain coats, of course, ours were onboard the boat and out of reach. No problem in the heat around here, there's no chance of freezing! As Cat Tales was transferred from the giant trailer to the straps of the travel lift, they told us that the tide was turning and we'd have to be careful of the turbulence in the slip while being lowered into the water. Once lowered, but still being held by ropes managed by the four handlers, Laurie started the engines. The starboard engine refused to spit cooling water out the pipe, and the handlers started yelling suggestions and encouragement. As we shut it down to check things out, the port engine quit. So stressful. We had jury-rigged water to both engines, and had run them both on the hard to ensure there were no problems. Even further to that, Laurie had taken all parts of the cooling systems apart and had replaced the pump impellers, so there was not an inkling of what could go wrong. Finally, Laurie decided that only higher rpms would get the water running, started the engine, and gunned it in nutral. Finally, water showed up in the starboard exhaust. A third effort on the port engine, and it began working properly. Our handlers threw the ropes at us, and we motored clear of the haul out, soaking wet and a little stressed. As we were approaching a mooring in the middle of the crowded bay, the port engine quit again. Then the starboard engine quit. With no jib bent onto the furling, and a high wind pushing us towards expensive yachts, our day was going horribly wrong. We managed to get one engine running again and headed out into the bay far away from other boats we might damage by hitting. Laurie went through his trouble-shooting for a half hour while we drifted, then discovered that the port engine fuel hose at the tank had a bad clamp and had to be replaced. He went through the bleeding process and the engine would start and run. No problems reappeared with the other. We then headed to the customs dock and informed them that we would be leaving the bay temporarily and would be over in a bay at Monos Island. It's close enough to hear the morning net on the marine radio, complete with their weather reports and it's far enough away from most of the crime.
So, here we sit on Friday evening at Monos Island where there are a few small cottages on the shore and the water is pea green with more garbage floating than you'd ever care to see! We haven't been brave enough to take a swim and more than likely won't bother before we get up to Grenada. The weather is still very rainy and squally with no hopes of letting up until next week some time. The amount of rain we have seen in the last few days is just simply more than we could believe, even after the outrageous flooding that occurred in New Brunswick a few short weeks ago. We can't even leave the boat, as there is no real shore to land on and a couple of nasty looking dogs protecting the cottages.
We have an appointment on Monday morning with Echo Tech who worked on our watermaker. It isn't performing as promised and is only making 8 gallons an hour instead of the 12 to 15 they promised. With the upgrade in motor for the device, we have to run our engines in order to make water, which is an unwelcome switch from the past. We wouldn't mind so much if the promised output was reached and we only had to make water every 4 days instead of every second day.
We have both picked out books and in between doing chores, we are reading and doing sudoku puzzles. It's a bit boring here with nobody to play with, but it's fairly safe.
Our plan is to try to get out of Trinidad sometime mid next week and hopefully will be traveling with Sue and Maurice from s/v Strider
We'll try to get this blog out in the morning by Ham Radio, which will renew my skills in that unpleasant task, so if you can read this, then I was successful!
