Suck it Murphy

You’ve heard it before.  “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”.   Well, yesterday proves that is even more true on a sailboat.  We’d been stuck in West Palm Beach for the last two weeks, which is exactly two weeks longer than we planned on being there.   Weather is what weather is, and we ended up at anchor waiting for a window resembling something less than “The Perfect Storm” to cross over for our last hurrah in the Bahamas.  We finally got the window after celebrating Christmas with the rest of the sailboats stranded in the middle of Lake Worth.

Knowing that diesel prices are quite a bit higher down island, we pulled up anchor the day before leaving to head to a marina to fill up our tanks.  After two weeks of digging deeper and deeper into the mud, our anchor was none too happy when we tried to pull it up.  In fact, it refused.  What should have been an easy in and out turned into a back and forth battle trying to wiggle it out of its cocoon.  We finally got it up, but in the process our windlass (the anchor puller upper) slowed to a near halt, and the hinges holding the anchor locker got so bent that it would no longer close.  Oh, and the hose that we use to spray the mud off sprung a leak, spewing our hard earned fresh water all over the place.

Once the anchor was finally up, we were able to make our way to the marina.  Normally, I would use the chartplotter (the big tablet looking screen at the helm) to see what the depth was along the way, but Murphy had other plans.  Some sort of gremlin had gotten into the plotter in the last two weeks, and it was now stuck in an endless cycle of rebooting, rendering it useless.  Using our backup charts on the phone (rule number 1 of boating:  always have backups), we were able to get to the marina and back without grounding.  Whew.

Once re-anchored for the night, it was time to debug.  While I  hammered the anchor locker hinges to get the cover to close again, Meredith applied some rescue tape to the leaky hose.   Next up was the chartplotter.  Believing the issue to be moisture, I directed a fan to blow on the back of the unit.  Of course, that required me to remove the galley (kitchen) cabinets to access the back of the screen.

No luck.  After hours of fan drying, the plotter was still stuck in a reboot cycle.  I put on my old software engineer hat for some good old fashioned debugging.  Just before each crash, I saw a message stating that the memory card was full, so I thought I would start there.   I removed both cards, and bingo the plotter started up!  Of course, the memory cards are what actually holds the charts, so what was left was a screen that only showed the general shape of the water.  Not gonna cut it for an ocean crossing or channel navigation.  I played around by removing one card at a time, and figured out that only one of them was bad.  Luckily, the good one contained the charts we needed for the Bahamas, so we were all set.   

Feeling rather proud of myself, I decided to relax and take advantage of the clear skies and record some drone footage of our anchorage.   I had lost my last drone to the water a few months back (expensive mistake), and am now extremely careful about what conditions I am willing to fly in, so I hadn’t been able to fly while in West Palm yet because of the winds. Now the sky was clear and still, and I would have no problem.  I positioned the drone for take off, and headed straight up to position for the shot.

Then, the drone fell out of the sky.  Full battery.  No wind.  Perfect conditions.   Fell like a rock into the water, never to be seen again.   Murphy!!!   I was disappointed, but relieved that I had decided to get “flyaway” protection for this drone after the last incident.  It was, as I sipped a cold consolation beer, that I learned that I still had to pay several hundred dollars for the privilege of replacement.  ugh.

We headed to bed early confident that we had resolved all of our issues, had thoroughly satisfied Murphy’s law, and would have a worry free cruise the next day.  We woke up at 5:30 so that we could get underway before sunrise, make the crossing, and make landfall in time to clear customs before it closed.  The chartplotter booted right up while I warmed up the engines and Meredith got the anchor all set to pull up.  Ready Mere?  Ready Greg!

Um.  Greg.  The anchor isn’t coming up.  

Our poor windlass that over exerted itself the day before decided to go on strike.   Luckily (luckily?) that had happened once before, and we knew that if we used the dinghy winch handle to tighten the windlass gear, we’d be good.  Don’t ask how we figured that one out, but it worked again.  Without further ado, we were on our way!  Meredith used the flood light to light up the channel buoys that our chartplotter showed along our route.  We had an encounter with a similar buoy eight months prior in Fort Pierce, and were in no hurry to have a repeat performance.  As long as the chartplotter showed us where to look, we would be all good. Good thing the chartplotter was working again.

Then the chartplotter crashed.  It was still dark, and we were headed up a narrow and unforgiving channel with no chartplotter.  I had no time to mess around with it, so we had to make do without it.  That meant no depth sounder (which displays on the plotter), and using our phone charts to see where we were.

Then the phone charts stopped working.   It just froze in our previous position, and didn’t update as we moved.  Looks like we’re doing this the old fashioned way.   Somehow we made it out without hitting bottom, and the sun started rising as we entered the main channel.  As we passed Peanut Island, we could see Cinderella (the boat that caused all the problems in the recent storm) crashed on shore.  Auspicious start.

The anticipated waves didn’t look too bad, and the wind was forecast to come from the West.   Quick lesson: Wind direction is important heading to the Bahamas because of the Gulf stream.  The Gulf Stream is like a 35 mile wide river of current flowing north.  If you have winds coming from the north, the wind, waves, and gulf stream will get in a nasty kerfuffle and the sea becomes a washing machine.  As our friend Jamie likes to say “it will be sporty”.  So, we were excited to have a forecast of westerly winds.

We got out into the open ocean, and were pushed along by a stiff Northerly wind.  So much for the prediction of West winds.  Sigh.  Once we entered the Gulf Stream, science took over and served up eight foot (on occasion) waves that battled with the current.  Conditions were indeed sporty, but the crew had now developed sea legs and motion sickness was kept to a mere two pukes.  Things were bumpy at the helm, but not too worrisome as our auto pilot kept us on a constant course to our destination in West End (Bahamas).

Then the auto pilot went out.  Oh well, that happens during big waves sometimes.  We just needed to press a couple of buttons to get it back on track.  Easy peasy. Nope.  It went out again.  And again.  And again.  We finally gave up and hand steered Twig through the waves.  Well, we tried to hand steer…but the steering went out.  Well, to be fair, that’s dramatic.  It didn’t completely go out, but it was extremely hard to turn the wheel.  Likely something had gotten caught in the rudder or gears, which is probably what caused the autopilot failure as well.  Looks like we’re steering the rest of the way the old fashioned way too.

Exhausted from steering against the waves for eight hours, we finally made our first sighting of the Bahamian coast.  West End is pretty easy to get into, but you have to be careful of shallow areas.  Normally we would rely on our chart plotter, but the only way I had been able to get it going again was to remove both memory cards…which meant no charts showing expected depths, or even any channel markings.  The only real function it was serving at this point was to show the output of our depth sounder, which showed how much water we had under the boat.  As long as we had those readings, we should be fine navigating into the harbor.

Then the depth sounder went out.  Suck it Murphy.  Now we’re doing it the really really old fashioned way…pure faith in the channel markers.  The channel markers in this case were jagged rock walls, so there was little room for failure.  No worries, we made it into the small basin outside of the marina using pure grit, and were told to wait there for our slip assignment.  I could almost taste the cracked conch and cold beer….we were here!

We waited.  And waited.  As you recall, our steering was on the struggle bus, so we used our engines to keep our position against the current in the basin.  A catamaran can be steered this way easily because of opposing forces of the two propellers.  It’s a bit like steering a shopping cart by pushing the side opposite of the way you want to turn.  As long as you have two engines, you’re good to go.

Then one of the engines went out.  No, I’m not kidding.   Luckily it started right back up, so it was only momentary stress.  Whew.   

While we patiently awaited our slip assignment, an 80 foot power yacht was nice enough to cut in front of us and demand their slip ahead of us.  The marina was nice enough to oblige them, so we got a chance to exercise patience and continue waiting in the basin.   The only real issue was that it was now getting late, and we might not be able to clear customs before they close.  If that happened, nobody would be allowed to leave the boat until morning.

After the marina got Lucky Seven (the 80 footer) settled, they called and let us know they were standing by waiting to help us with our lines to guide us in.  That is, until we got a bit closer and it became clear to everybody around us that there was no way we were gonna fit into the slip they had assigned us.  Back to the basin to await a new assignment.   I think they took pity on us after this, and gave us an easy to dock spot right next to the customs office.

Finally all docked and tied up.  We made it!   Mr dockhand sir, where is the power hook up?   Oh, it’s over there.  Two boat lengths away.   Our shore power cord is only about one and a half boat lengths long, so it looks like we’re relying on the solar panels for our stay instead.   At least we’re in the sunny Bahamas!  Except that it is going to rain for the next three days, so it looks like we’ll be using the generator instead. 

I was able to quickly get in and out of customs and clear us into the country before they closed for the day, and we all put on our suits and headed for the beach bar.  We had been entertaining ourselves underway by fantasizing about the delights that we were all craving from the poolside bar.  Cracked conch for me, a club sandwich for Jade, and burgers for everybody else.

Except that the beach bar kitchen was now closed.  Suck it Murphy.