Friday, November 14, 2014

Stranded: A Tale of Feast or Famine

I am learning that sailing as a form of transportation is truly a lesson in "feast or famine". Please let me attempt to explain just what I mean...

Yesterday was such a lovely, enjoyable day. We anchored off La Punta de La Ventana, an unpopulated point and beach just southwest of the southern tip of Isla Cerralvo, across the Canal de Cerralvo (Cerralvo Channel), in 20 feet of crystal clear, blue water. Our location is 30 miles as the crow flies to La Paz, but more like 50 by boat, and God knows how far by road. (There aren't a LOT of roads out here.) We grabbed our mask, fin, and snorkels and swam to shore, walked the beach, and investigated a saltwater pond isolated from the ocean by a short strip of beach. The we returned to the boat and watched puffers, tangs, triggers, and angelfish swim under us. (Apparently, they like the shade our hull makes.) Idyllic. Since we were alone, we swam naked and showered off our swim platform. Perfect. The day was followed by a nice sunset, and amazingly, Brad discovered free internet (not password-protected like most wifi) from a place called Brazos Abiertos (Open Arms). It is slow but it gets the job done... eventually! We can't figure out where the signal is coming from, but we are eternally grateful! Thank you! Life doesn't get much better than this. A veritable feast indeed!

That was yesterday...

I think I mentioned the dichotomous situation that sailing sometimes presents, didn't I? Seriously, sometimes you are damned no matter WHAT you do. Murphy's Law, I guess. If you need to get to an anchorage or a marina before dark (due to the hazardous nature of the approach for instance), these are the most likely scenarios: (a) the wind is SO STRONG that you are afraid you will break the rigging so you decide to not even leave, or (b) the wind is just the right amount but is coming from directly upwind or downwind (which means if you try to sail you have to execute so many tacks that your VMG (velocity made good) is such that you won't make it to the destination in time), or (c) the wind is SO LIGHT that you have to motor at high speed (resulting in exorbitant fuel consumption) to get there.

On the other hand, if you have all the time in the world and have several anchorages to choose from and therefore want to sail regardless of wind direction, then naturally, there is NO WIND and either your engine dies or your transmission fails. And that, my friends, is where we find ourselves today, right now, right here, as I write this. (What else do I have to do at a time like this anyway, awaiting rescue?) The engine works fine, but the transmission and the propeller are not communicating. Catch my drift (literally)???

We had left our pretty anchorage not more than 15 minutes previously when the engine started lurching strangely. It took us a while to figure out that we had no propulsion since it didn't quit all at once. Luckily, we were in 60 feet of water so we deployed 200 feet of anchor rode to hold us while we diagnosed the problem. Brad pulled out our new hookah diving system and dove under the boat to make sure the propeller was soundly attached and not fouled. That was not the problem so much back and forth troubleshooting ensued wherein I would run below deck to the engine and watch the driveshaft turn while Brad rotated the prop followed by running back up to the back of the boat to discuss the next test. This went on for 20 minutes or more. After that, Brad got out of the water and went below to the engine and found a whole bunch of metal shavings under the driveshaft. Not good.

Then we start trying to call out. Big problem. My Mexican sim card is almost out of minutes. I manage to make one phone call to Steve, our boat outfitter, but of course I get voicemail. Aaargh! I get in a couple of text messages and one return call from Steve and then the phone goes dead. No more minutes. Brad's T-mobile phone has no service here. We are getting desperate. We are too far from the anchorage to pick up the wifi signal we had before. Brad digs the satellite phone out of our ditch bag (the abandon ship bag for when all hell breaks loose). He tries calling a couple of marinas in La Paz but either they can't hear him clearly or they can't understand his English or his Spanish. Very frustrating!

Meanwhile, I am busy trying to communicate with the outside world too, but via radio. Have I mentioned before that either (a) there are hundreds of boats around you and the subsequent radio chatter is overwhelming to the point where you feel like you are going to scream if just one more boat leaves an open mike? or (b) there are NO boats around and you are totally alone no matter how many times you call on the radio. And I do, over and over again. I try calling Andante and Mabrouka, two boats from Seattle who are also heading to La Paz and are large enough to tow us. Channel 16. Channel 22a. Channel 69. I do so at first about every five minutes and then later about once an hour, three times on each channel with only silence as a response. I even try three channels on the SSB in the hopes that Andante would have their SSB turned on. But to no avail. (Why oh why didn't we all stick together, I ask myself. Buddy-boating is comforting, especially when things go to shit!)

We are all alone, even though we can see people on the beach in the distance, they cannot help us
as (a) they don't speak English (and even though we DO speak Spanish, we can't understand their rapid-fire answers), (b) they are too far away to hear or be heard, (c) even if we could communicate with them, they don't have the resources to tow us fifty-plus miles to the safety and repair facilities of La Paz. I have also seen numerous boats heading south in the far distance, but I don't want to trouble them since they are going the wrong way.

Brad has a few bright ideas. The wind is now up to 10 knots so we sail back to the anchorage. Back to that awesome free wifi! Finally, something is going right! Brad also realizes we have free towing with our Falvey boat insurance, so then he called them via Skype using wifi. After numerous, numerous phone calls, the insurance hooked us up with Fernando, the general manager of a boatyard in La Paz. With our Skype account, we can call out but no one can call us back, so we are still having communications problems. After several hours, Brad's persistence pays off and he finally manages to add more minutes to my Mexican sim card using the wifi. Hallelujah! Countless back and forth calls ensue (especially due to the calls getting dropped so frequently. Gotta love Mexican cell service!).

As Brad continues to work the problem, I sit out on deck in the afternoon sun and write this. I'm trying NOT to think about how much these satellite phone calls are costing us, not to mention how much the towing charge and the repairs are going to be when it is all said and done. And I suppose the insurance company will raise our rates if for no other reason than the nuisance factor of us begging for help. Best not to think of that just now. I'm just hoping that no storms come along and cause us to drag anchor and run aground in this wide-open, exposed anchorage. Again, it's best not to think about that just now...

I've run out of water and creative juices, so it's time to go back in and get a status report...

After much gnashing of teeth (probably on both sides), Fernando comes by car to see our situation in person. Or tries to. It is dark now and he can't find us even though we have our boat lit up like a Christmas tree and we are the only boat in the bay. Brad spends over three hours trying to reel Fernando and his mechanic in. Fernando asks us to get our dinghy ready to come get him, so this keeps us occupied for a while since we have to take our dinghy off the roof. We wait. And wait. We eventually give up and hoist the dinghy back out of the water and get ready for bed. But wait! Someone on shore is flashing a light at us. Could it finally be them? It is! Kudos to Fernando for not throwing in the towel!

Brad retrieves them from shore and they come aboard and inspect the situation. The diagnosis: the key that secures the driveshaft to the transmission has disintegrated and the whole shaft has shifted backward about one quarter inch. The boat must be towed and hauled out for repairs and cannot be fixed at sea without elaborate and extremely expensive measures to prevent the boat from sinking while the driveshaft is realigned. It's now 10:00pm so nothing will get done tonight.

...

It is the next day now and despite numerous promises and phone calls, we are still without a tow. Fernando has offered to tow us in late afternoon and into the evening with an arrival time of about midnight. Not good. The insurance company and Brad would like to wait until early tomorrow but we don't know if the La Paz people will accept that. Still waiting...

8 comments:

  1. Now the insurance called back and dumped us. We are now on our own with weather coming in Sunday. I hope we are able to sail to a safe anchorage tomorrow. If not, we could lose the boat. Scary times!

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  2. Sorry to read about your troubles. Have you checked to see if the key maybe just fell out due to a loose coupler. You might find that it is sitting in the bilge under the coupler. Can you loosen the set screws on the coupler and realign the keyways in the shaft and coupler. A couple vise grips work well for grabbing the shaft and coupler to spin them. If you can get them aligned you can clean the key up with a file or if you don't have the key a screwdriver bit will sometimes fit in there. As a last resort you can tighten the set screw into the keyway if your coupler has set screws on the side. This will ruin the keyway but it might already be ruined. Of course this all depends on how easy your coupler is to get to. Good luck with the repairs.

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    Replies
    1. Eric, sounds like you know your way around these engines! Thanks so much for your advice. Our engine compartment configuration doesn't have any clearance so there's not a lot of room to work. And the key appears to have disintegrated. We are at a boatyard now and a mechanic will get a better look on Tuesday. I wish you could have been on the boat with us. You seem like a handy guy to have around. Again, thanks for the support!

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  3. Bloody Hell woman.........well, what can I say except be careful what you wish for, like a TRIP!!! thinking of you and Brad. At least you are in a safe place Lv, me

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  4. Yeah, Sue, I thought the same thing. While we were trying to get help for the first couple of days, I'm prey sure Brad was regretting his dream of sailing down here!

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  5. Brad and Gay,
    I'm an oil and gas landman, trying to contact you re: some mineral interest you own in Midland. Please contact me at 903-714-9104.

    Happy sailing!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Brad and Gay,
    I'm an oil and gas landman, trying to contact you re: some mineral interest you own in Midland. Please contact me at 903-714-9104.

    Happy sailing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brad will contact you when we have cell service again. It may be another week or so. Try emailing him directly: bradgibson@pobox.com. (Occasionally we get access to wifi.)

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