Feast Upon Waves: Sea Days, and Turtle Bay

Friday

So...Thursday was not such a fun day for me, due to the sea sick thing... but by Friday, I was golden! It was a beautiful day, we had such a nice time out at sea. The only bummer for us that day, was that we didn't get a glimpse of a single dolphin or whale. Neil says it was probably due to the fact that we were out in the middle of nowhere, and our depth was, at times, just under 8000 feet deep. At any rate, it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, and the wind picked up pretty good around noon, and we were able to sail the rest of the day, until late evening. We traveled at about 5-6 knots most of the way.

I look goofy, I know, but I hate losing my hats to the sea, AND I really hate those ties on my throat, so I wear them on my chin.

For dinner, I made those fish tacos I had mentioned before, and boy, were they good, worth the wait! We did four hour watches the whole trip over, (with the exception of that first day, when I was useless, as afore mentioned) Neil did the 8 am to noon, and the 4 pm to 8 pm, and the midnight to 4 am watches. I did the 4am to 8 am, noon to 4 pm, and then the 8 - midnight watches. If only I had a camera that took really great night photos, I would show you the BEST night of star gazing ever!

Saturday

They say, sailing is days and days of peaceful boredom, followed my moments of sheer terror!...today, would turn out to be....just one of those days! LOL

It started out with Neil waking up for his 8 am watch. Soon after he took over, after I made us breakfast, I looked out behind him, where we were towing our dinghy, and shouted "Hey, our dinghy is completely deflated!!" We couldn't believe our eyes! It was hard to see, but it looked like there might be a small hole or punture on the starboard stern pontoon. We of course had to wait until we would arrive in Turtle Bay to examine it further.

Around 4 pm, all of a sudden, I started to smell diesel off the starboard side, and just moments later, the engine stalled, then died entirely. This had happened once before on a trip with our sister and brother in law, and friends a few years back, so Neil went straight to what he thought the problem could be, the intake. Sure enough, when he looked inside, there was plenty of seaweed to make a salad, however, not enough that it was causing the engine to choke. So, he checked the fuel filter, and though it looked fairly clean, he decided to clean it out, just in case (and since we forgot to pick up a spare, before we left) Once Neil put everything back together, he turned the engine over, and it worked! It worked for about 30 minutes, then totally died again. Well, this left us with no other choice but to sail in to Turtle Bay, which would normally be fine and dandy, after all, we live on a “sail” boat. BUT…the predicament we found ourselves in, was that we still had, at that time, 15 miles to travel, and it was now 5:00 pm. In sailing terms, that’s roughly another 3-4 hours of sailing, before we reached our destination…AND…we would have to anchor in the dark, without a motor to help set the hook.

We had no other choice, we set sail, and thank goodness there was wind, and made our way for the bay. Fortunately, before the engine took a dive, we could see the mouth of the bay, so we had somewhat of an idea where to enter, plus we had our trusty new GPS unit.

What felt like a very LONG almost three hours later, we arrived at the mouth of the bay. It was a bit tricky at night, because the lights from town, and other boats, really make seeing in the dark, very difficult, and our nerves were a little on edge anyway. We had a shoal that we knew we had to watch out for, and was marked on the GPS, but it still is pretty scary to be looking at it in person, not really knowing if you’re going to miss it or not, for the blackness of the night. We also had the issue of needing to set an anchor, under sail/not motor, which we had never done before. Neil decided the best thing to do, once we decided on a location to anchor, was to haul in the jib sail, then point the boat directly into the wind, drop the anchor, then immediately drop the main sail, hoping the wind and current would pull the boat back enough to set the anchor.

It worked like a charm! My husband has always been a pretty smart fellow, but wow! He was my HERO! I was really terrified to do all this stuff in the dark, and he totally saved the day!

That’s it for Saturday. After setting the anchor, we came inside, tried calling the kids on skype (to no avail L) then headed to bed. We were both exhausted, especially since we both were feeling a little under the weather, that day (which I forgot to mention before)

Halleluiah we made it!!

Sunday

This is what we found ourselves in, when we woke up to see the daylight this morning…

LOL Lucky for us, our engine wouldn’t turn on anyway, so no fear of picking any up in the intake again. J Now that we were pro’s at this thing, we just hoisted the sails once again, and headed to the actual anchorage area of the bay. We set anchor once again, and VOILA! Here we are, safe and sound. We then had to see, up close, what had happened to our beloved “Plan B” (our dinghy) You wouldn’t believe it, if you didn’t see it, so we included the evidence…but, lo and behold, when we hoisted that girl out of the water, sure enough, the starboard stern pontoon, had been plum eaten by a shark!! Well, at least he/she took a nice big bite out of her! Notice the lovely triangular teeth marks in the rubber??

Yep, all I can say is…it’s a good thing we weren’t actually IN the dinghy! Just kidding though, we wouldn’t really be in the dinghy in open water anyway, it’s just our little putt putt to get us around when we’re in safe harbors…well, at least is WAS. L We took the rest of the day off, as a day of rest and recuperation, and had a very lovely time just enjoying the beautiful weather, and scenery. Tomorrow we head into town on “Last Resort” (our kayak) to see about getting a new fuel filter, and possibly an idea about whether or not “Plan B” can even be repaired?? Wish us luck!