The Close of another adventure
This was a wonderful season spent in the Bahamas. As Captain Ron says, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen out there. Well it has happen out there. We have always thought that Serena Rose as her own spirit, and I think she showed us that on our way home.
Once Kevin and I decided to return back to the states a little earlier than planned, things started to happen. Monday, April 8th, we had been watching the weather for several days and decided today would be a great time to start back. This decision was made over breakfast. About an hour later, I was doing dishes and Kevin was up on deck. I notice the fresh water pump was going off about every three minutes and yelled on deck to see if Kevin was using any water. He was just far enough away that I didn’t understand what he was saying. He said no to the water usage, so I looked around on the boat to see if maybe a faucet was left on. Nothing was on so I turned off the water pump. Kevin then yelled for me to turn the pump off, I stated it was off and he then yelled at me again to turn it off. So I thought he was saying to turn it on. I did as I was told and listen to the pump going on and off for about twenty minutes and then thought this is nuts and turned it back off, just as Kevin was coming down stairs. So yes I got yelled at again. He went to look in the engine room and could see we had a crack on the top portion of the hot water heater. So after fiddling with it for about an hour he finally disconnected the water line to the tank and made a continual loop, so we could use the water and not have it running out of the tank. Later that day we started our journey home and sailed to Crab Cay at Fishers point.
The following morning we had a wonderful sail to Little Sail Cay Rock, by mid afternoon the winds were 25 knots and gusting higher out of the SW, so we anchored at Little Sail Cay. Once again we checked the weather and decided to head out in the morning for the edge of the bank. It looks like our weather window is shifting and we need to cross on Thursday and not Friday. So once again Serena Rose protest and our micro convection oven just stopped and about five minutes later the Electra San stopped flushing ( this is the pump that flushes our head). I said to Kevin that Serena Rose is mad we are leaving early and luckily things usually happen in threes, so we should be good the rest of the trip. Boy was I wrong.
Wednesday morning we head out to White Sand Ridge on the outer bank of the Bahamas. The winds are 25 knots out of the west and were are motoring straight into it. The weather shows it should settle down this evening to about 7 knots and the seas should also go from 5 foot, down to 1-2 foot. We will anchor on the bank for the evening and leave early in the morning to cross to Florida. We anchored about 8 mile from the edge of the bank around 5pm and had dinner. The seas and wind never did settle and about 1:30 in the morning after neither of us had been able to sleep, we pulled anchor.
Thursday morning around 5:30 just before sun rise and 48 miles from the coast of Florida, the engine starts losing power and then dies. I had just come off watch and jumped out of bed and went up to the pilot house. The only sail we had up was the stay sail and the winds were 10 knots out of the west with 4-5 foot seas. Kevin thought it was maybe the fuel was to low in the tank, so he tried switching tanks and then pulling fuel from one tank to another, that maybe the fuel line was cracked and air was getting in. Well none of these worked and the best we could do was to get the engine started and at full throttle we were lucky to get 4 kts out of her. We raised all the sails and I was able to hold a course for home, sailing at maybe 3 knots as long as the winds hold. We would keep starting the engine and it would run for about 10 minutes at a time. Then we started to get a lot of blowback from the exhaust into the pilot house and the main cabin. Once we arrived home, we found it was not blow back, but the exhaust hose had cracked and the exhaust was blowing in the engine room. It was not safe to be in the cabin so we both stated top side. After many hours of doing this we were finally in range to be heard on the radio calling Tow Boat for assistance. We were heard first by Port St. Lucie and they relayed a message to Ft. Pierce. This was around 12:30 in the afternoon and 25 miles off the coast off Florida. The Ft. Pierce Tow Boat reached us at 18 miles off shore and started the tow. Once we reached US waters at 12 mile off shore, the Coast Guard decided to board us, while under tow, to do a safety inspection. This I’m sure was bull. They stated that all vessels coming from the Bahamas are being stopped. So once we passed the inspection and they searched the boat, we continued on our way. We finally made it into our slip at 4:30pm with a little help from our friends and neighbors in the marina. So this ends our adventure for this year. We are now ordering new parts and fixing everything that has broke. The Engine is still an issue, but this will also be resolved. Farewell for now and happy sailing my friends.
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