It's always a concern to leave Trinidad for such a long trip after the boat has been laid up for 6 months. Although we do everything thing we can to refresh seals, hoses etc etc, you never know what you might miss until it happens, and it COULD potentially happen out there in the 'big ocean' with no land in sight. Andreas of s/v Aphrodite tells us that last year his engine quit just outside the channel on the way out of Trinidad. Since he couldn't get back in with only sails, he decided to sail to Grenada. He made radio calls outside of Prickly Bay in the dark and some dear soul came out and towed him in with their dinghy. He found out that his fuel had developed a large cloud of algae and it had clogged the feed to the engine.
Last night, after 16 hours on the water but out of the major chop but in the dead of night, Maurice and Sue's engine sputtered to a halt. Maurice identified the problem of a clogged fuel filter, did a quick change while standing on his head and continued the last 30 minutes to set the anchor safely outside of St. George's Bay. We could have responded to their call for help, but they managed to get the situation under control without assistance. We're all so glad to be here this morning without incident!
We have yet to get to shore today to clear customs and immigration. Laurie is busy putting our Trinidad and Tobago dollars away and digging out his Eastern Caribbean dollars (EC), we divide by 2.5 to get the exchange. Laurie and I are both stiff and sore from hanging on yesterday and he mentioned this morning that it is a bad day to switch to half and half coffee!
All for now.
Dawn and Laurie
