It has indeed been a very long time since I have blogged. I wrote most of this back in Dec. (2023) and then we sailed from the island nation of Curaçao to discover not all of the Caribbean is internet equal. Now it is Leap Day 2024 and I have 1 week of internet available to the iPad to catch y’all up and there is a lot. So buckle up for a little wonder, a dose of fright with a few miracles sprinkled in and last but not least, a healthy dose of terror. WonderThe most exciting thing that happened in our first 4 months in Curacao was that we learned how to play Mexican Train Dominos. Yeehaw. We needed nothing other than the usual vagaries of every day boat life to bring a little balance to our lives. It was nice and boring and we managed to scratch a few jobs off the to-do list, little things like getting the autopilot ram fixed and the helm pump seals replaced and a few other smaller tasks. And then we got a little wonder and life will never be quite the same. Dois and I were on the quay having lattes after visiting the most expensive store on the island, Budget Marine (oh the irony of that name) to buy batteries and replenish our dwindling supply of power. My son and his lovely bride had sent some birthday love so we splurged and bought two batteries! Oh joy, we would be able to sleep through the night again, not have to get up and start the generator to replenish our power at 3am. It was also my birthday and In between sips of my iced latte I nearly choked when Dois asked me if I would like to call the rescue lady to ask if she would bring a puppy by the restaurant to consider as a new boat dog. I tried to stay calm, like he was asking me if I’d like another latte. I replied that that sounded like a nice idea and had her number ringing before he could change his mind. She showed up with a 3 lb, petrified poodle mix puppy. At 12 weeks old she was skin and bones and we would find out later how tick infested the little pupper really was. We named her Kaia (“Street” in Curacao). As she got healthier, we discovered her love of the wind and renamed her Windy which was more who she was and not a street dog anymore. She grew into her 10 lb self at 6 months of age and it wasn’t hard to see that she would be a life-long “little”. Perhaps a terrier poodle mix? Skipper is the true owner of the dog. He has enjoyed teaching her who the real boss is. He and Windy have developed a pseudo friendship that involves running side-by-side through the boat like a herd of turtles. Although they aren’t exactly cuddle buddies yet, anything is possible with a herd. Windy is amazingly agile and challenges Skipper often as she bounds all over the boat with complete confidence. She is not a water dog (yet) and looks like she has an ass full led when swimming, and needs her float coat to survive in 1 foot of water. But like most dogs, she loves herself a dinghy ride. A Dose of Fright and An Embarrasment of Miracles.The first week of December (2023), while getting the Ashika ready for the trip to the Panama Canal, we noticed an unusual noise coming from the galley sink drain. Dois investigated and found the thru-hull (a bronze fixture used to let water in or out of the boat) had failed. In an attempt to slow or stop the leak Dois pushed the valve handle and felt the fixture bend and crack open. The man was the picture of calm as he emerged from our engine room and said “we are in trouble, we could be sinking”. The bilge pump was keeping up with the amount of seawater coming in, but the fixture metal was very weak, if it had cracked open we would have had no chance keeping up with the inflow. He grabbed a wood plug, a large mallet and dove under the boat to try to plug the hole and stave off the ocean. Dois did all the sanding and most of the painting (of course I was Picasso), replaced the damaged thru-hull fitting and found a battery cable that had been left behind from a past battery replacement project. It was a live wire that had been delivering electricity to a small leak from the generator. That leak found a path to the thru-hull and hence, electrolysis ate up our bronze fixture. There was a pile of green slime in the bilge where the copper lug use to be. Bad things happen on the back of multiple failures. But Lady Luck only goes so far and it was pay-up day. We used our Panama Canal funds to haul out and repair the boat. Our spirits were low, disappointment was high. We focused on counting our blessings while planning a u-turn to go to Puerto Rico. We have gotten pretty good at turning on a dime and decided since P.R. was a part of the U.S. it might be helpful for getting parts and then we thought we would take another lap around the Caribbean from there, ending up in Curacao next May for another hurricane season. About a week later, Dois’ long time mates offered to help (again). If we wanted to come home, well then they would collaborate and make that happen. 180 degrees. Destination; the Panama Canal, Chica! And a Little Dose if Terror
Next stop: The Panama Canal. Paz.
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Williamstad, CuracaoWe have made a lot of progress in setting things right on Ashika… I meant Dois has made a lot of progress setting things right on Ashika. I’ve done my share of pink or purple jobs, but Dois is all over getting Ashika in working order. He set the generator right by finding another sneaky leak. He removed the hydraulic steering ram and found a shop that is replacing all the seals as soon as they get here from the States. He fixed the outboard giving us mobility again and he bought a compression sleeve and ankle brace for his injury and they seem to be helping reduce the swelling.. Win win win and win. What happens when we are winning so much? …How about a little boat accident? Being in a safe haven from hurricanes in a season that promises to be wild and woolly, is unquestionably great. Except we may have discovered one reason why there are so many sunken ships in our little safe harbor. The water ways here are brimming with tourist boats, party boats, fast boats, sailboats, sabots, jets skis, windsurfers, wing-surfers and swimmers. Thats why we like being off to ourselves in “Bottoms Up Bay”. But when a party boat full of inebriated partners with a sound system that bounced Kanye West off the East mountains tried to sink us. Dois went on deck to see why the music sounded so near; it was because there was a party boat headed right at us. He could see through the dancing partners on the foredeck to the helm where two guys were having a gab. Dois started yelling and waving his arms and the boat captain finally saw us and made a hard left. Not quite soon enough to miss us though. We are annoyed by having to clean up after an incapable Captain and boat owner who were earning money while scraping our boat, but decided to call it a win anyway. No dancers or sailors were harmed, we walked away a few cosmetic scrapes that we will eventually fix and Karma, God or the Force (as in Luke Skywalker) will balance the books.. After checking out “Mi Dushi” (meaning ironically; My Sweet) we decided to walk over the hill to check out the canons at the old Dutch fort. Nothing like a beautiful beach and incredible ruins for a change of mood. This is Fort Beekenburg, or what’s left of a 1703 Dutch stronghold with ramparts and canons and a tower with view to die for. It must have worked because Curaçao is still a Dutch colony today. The island of Curaçao is a desert Island with colorful parrots and parakeets flourishing among the lava rocks and cactus. There is a windsurf venue within walking or dinghy distance and temps are 85/85, water and air. Its humid and hot and we are well-suited for island life here. Vrede.Bequia, the GrenadinesSo we checked out of Bequia, a tiny island just barely south of St. Vincent, in the Grenadines. We were using this slice of tropical paradise to do a lot of nothing in pursuit of healing Dois’ foot injuries. It’s looking like healing may to take awhile and we’d really like to be closer to a doctor, so we decided a leisurely sail to Curaçao (ABC islands near Venezuela) seemed like a good idea. The path to Curaçao was said to be out of the hurricane belt and that’s not a small thing in this neck of the woods. Dois discovered he could not turn Ashika to port (what?! “That’s what I said Lauri, I cannot turn the boat left!”). Dois thought maybe we needed to add hydraulic fluid, of which we had none. Shades of the Mediterranean… Dois used a bottle of olive oil (while I quickly hid the coconut oil from Inspector Gadget). A few minutes later, we had no steerage at all. But Ashika smelled fine, like an Italian restaurant. Apparently the EVOO had bubbled out of the helm pump and simmered on the hot engine. (Update: Dois discovered later that the fill tube was cracked and the Olive oil likely just dripped right through.) But we had trouble finding the humor at the time. No steerage at the helm was terrifying. The wheel just spun. Dois, now in his Macgyver hat, had a plan B (and even a Plan C). First he cut the engine and raised the mizzen to better balance the boat with the Genoa, our large jib and the wind conditions. He added the wind-vane sail to the Hydrovane. There wasn’t much wind for the vane at the beginning of the trip, but now this wondrous piece of kit would come into its own and win us over all over again. It has it’s own rudder and steers by the wind via a sail. Even so… this night would be full of terrors. The weather was squally which meant wind from all ends of the compass. We were navigating around islands and freighters with only a wind-vane to steer the bus as the gusty winds tried to drive us towards boat eating reefs. We would adjust our path by tweaking the Hydrovane to steer us generally away from ruin. Ashika was responsive with the configuration and hit an all time record of 8.8 knots. That’s a whopping 10 mph! As the wind became more docile with daylight, Dois began working on the steering system by destroying our aft stateroom. It was a necessary evil as the hydraulic steering system and rudder post were under the bed. But it’s still a small boat with little extra room to store a mattress that’s not on the bed for the next four or more days, not to mention the boat version of box springs and all the bedding and pillows. Using a massive wrench to work the rudder post, he found that the “Ram” of the hydraulic system that moves Ashika rudder would not move to port (hence no left turns); the hydraulic Ram was jammed. We will not likely know what to do about that for a couple of weeks. Next he disconnected the ram and using the manly wrench again, he turned the post to see if the the rudder was jammed. It was not, thankfully, and that was a hole I am relieved we don’t have to go down. That would be a far bigger problem. So now Dois could work on plan C… just as soon as we could find the giant backup tiller and it’s attachment piece to install on to the rudder post. It’s a six foot long by 3 or 4 inches of teak with a massive 2’ x 5” steel bracket, much too big to lose in the belly of a small boat. It only took us 2 days to find. But then you don’t need an emergency tiller every day. The fourth night was brutal; nine to twelve foot waves boarded Ashika’s decks leaving us shell shocked and exhausted. The winds howled in the rigging and I was certain I could hear the chatter of my ancestors arguing among themselves. As I struggled to hear what they were saying, I was suddenly jerked awake by a violent rocking of the boat and items that had taken flight across the salon making a ruckus. Dois had decided to gybe the boat. Gybing is not easy in a storm even when systems are completely operable. But the new routine required one of us to go into the aft stateroom and untie the emergency tiller arrangement and turn the rudder slowly towards the new course, while another goes to to the stern deck to hand gybe the mizzen. Brutal on a heaving wet aft deck. Another person needs to run and jump in the cockpit and pull the staysail onto it’s new side, thus needing three people for the job. Dois did it by himself. 🎶 Hand gybe, hand gybe…doin that crazy hand gybe! 🎶 Apparently, when you store a laminated teak tiller in the bowels of a boat for 30 or 40 years, said tiller can delaminate during emergency use… causing an emergency. Luckily, Dois and I are experts in the exotic art of duct tape. We were now only 75 miles away from Curaçao. Unfortunately it was only 9am and that meant we would reach the entrance around midnight. So we had to slow down. We used up about half those miles to arrive 3 miles off the coast of Bonaire. I was reluctant to heave-to but we just didn’t have any better option. Dois backed the mizzen sail while I furled the staysail and wala! It was a pretty good option after all. We crabbed across the channel at about 1kt all night until Dois woke me up preparing the boat to make the final miles to Curaçao. It was 2am. I didn’t know he thought it was 5am and didn’t say anything because I wanted to beat the Saturday rush of tourist boats coming out of the narrow channel leading into Spanish Waters and our safe haven. We arrived close to 7am Saturday morning and were met by a crush of large Catamarans full of tourists that had no idea we were steering compromised and sleep deprived. We had been using the radio to warn others of our dilemma, but apparently nothing stops the path of commerce. Some got the message as I jumped out on deck and started waving my arms while others waved back as we backed off to start over. I don’t know if I can adequately draw a picture of the predicament we were in, but here I go; The emergency tiller fit onto the rudder post in the center of what is normally the aft stateroom. What was the thought process for designing an emergency tiller without thought or consideration for the need to see where the hell you are going with a 45’ (plus bowsprit) boat?? In doing a review of what went wrong in the first 2000 feet of a 1.5 mile path I offer these 4 critical elements:
Just as we came within 2 feet of running straight into a rock face, I managed a perfect reverse turn facing us back the way we came. As I was spinning the boat around into the obnoxious grey cloud I had created and noticed, thru the haze, a crowd had gathered at the Sandals resort across the channel to watch me as I yelled and spun. I must have looked stark raving mad because Dois could neither be seen nor heard. Apparently the manager got word of the spectacle going on outside his resort and called me on the VHF to offer his dock to seek safety at while he arranged for additional assistance. Dois is always a gentleman and would never accuse me of staging a mock rock attack just to get out of an unpleasant situation. But… he did wink at me as we changed positions and he miraculously maneuvered to the dock without further incident. In fairness, Dois wanted me to add here, that the dock resembled an airport runway and he used almost the entire length while dock workers chased Ashika to the end to catch our lines. The manager arranged for a boating company to come tow us to a safe anchorage. The main anchorages are very busy, so they towed us to one next to a lovely oil derrick. We would have the bay all to ourselves surrounded by boats that had sunk around the perimeter. But one thing we have learned over our years of being wandering Gypsies is that beggars cannot be choosers. The other thing we have learned is the Caribbean is chock full of kind and lovely people. peace.Wednesday June 21 2:30a. The first band of the storm was early. A heavy curtain of rain swept through the amphitheater of our anchorage. Mother Nature had set the stage and we, the audience, silently counted the seconds between the flash and the rumbling explosions confirming that it was coming our way. Lightening lit up the cabin followed by the deafening roar of nature’s sublime display. Skipper left my side to seek more protected shelter under the table leaving me considering doing the same.
Like a Prima Donna playing a mean girl, lightning came into the harbor raging, slamming all around us. Each thunderous bolt would percuss our humble boat as if a huge ball of energy had been rolled at us. I felt it in my chest. And then it was over as suddenly as it began. The rain stopped and the paparazzi retreated. We had survived the first assault. Then I remembered to breathe. We woke this morning to a new forecast; we were now ground zero for the eye of the storm. St. VincentWe sailed away from Rodney Bay on the island of St. Lucia but didn't make Vieux Fort at the bottom of the island until after dark. For those following in our tracks; do not try this at night. We missed an unlit, unmarked gigantic pillar in the bay by almost 20'. We chose our next stop at what sounded like the lesser of evils; Chateaubelair. St. Vincent has a dark and dangerous reputation, but we didn't entirely understand the situation. The name Chateaubelair brings up images of grand estates in wine country or the French Riviera. This island is one of the most impoverished places we have ever stopped. The bays on either side are famous for pirates. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning. We jumped off St. Lucia early on May 30, 2023 to cross the channel to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It was mostly the sailing we hope for; brisk, from a good direction with sun and puffy white clouds dancing overhead. Skipper wasn't thrilled. We had left the marina and his new friends; the resident cat population and worst of all; we were on a heel. It was a fairly short leap though and by 1pm we were in the lee of St. Vincent and looking for a place to drop the anchor by 2:00. We had eluded pirates, but it seemed we were to be visited by the Bad Luck Fairy and by 3:00, Dois was incapacitated. He was prepping the dinghy for a run to shore. He had perched the pump on the life raft for a better reach to add air before he dropped the dinghy down into the water. As he stomped on the pump it squirted off the raft like a pumpkin seed and down he went. He twisted his ankle and tore his Achilles tendon. But we wouldn't know that for another two weeks. Dois is nothing if not persistent. And he isn't like the rest of us; he feels no pain. Ok, he feels it and ignores it. Like I said, he's not like me. The next morning he launched the dinghy and we went to shore to check in. But no way was he ready to see a doctor. That would take a few more days of swelling and my constant, loving concern and the fact that his foot was not responding to his basic commands before he conceded and we headed (hobbled) to the local (harumph) hospital. Chateaubelair Hospital is at the top of a steep incline. Dois had to go up sideways. There was no other option, until the Ambulance came up behind us and honked at us. They were in a hurry, it was lunch time. We shuffled out of their way and fell in behind their exhaust. The hospital was as you see it below, no more, no less. Oh yea, it was less a doctor. There was only a nurse on duty and we waited while she did nothing. Eventually Dois took a seat and I waited in the only other chair witch was a stone bench outside. Still, no one acknowledged our presence. It was hot outside so I went back in to ask if we needed an appointment. The nurse rolled her eyes and rattled off something neither of us could understand. So I asked if we could see a doctor. There was no doctor today. So I asked if we could get an x-ray. She said no. And asked Dois what was the problem. Five minutes later we left, there would be no help here. We would have to go to the next Island. We waited until Dois' foot felt a bit better and set sail for Port Elizabeth on the island of Bequia. We arrived in Port Elizabeth on June 5th. Hurricane season had officially arrived on the 1st. We are pretty far south almost out of the hurricane belt and it was early in the season. But the Hospital here on Bequia was as bereft of doctors and x-ray machines as Chateaubelair was. They recommended we take a ferry to Kingstown on St. Vincent, so we did. It is bizarre to travel on a large boat AWAY from Ashika. My camera died on this trip but in the big picture (pun intended) it's just a thing. I'm hoping I can get it fixed. Dois got x-rays done and met with a doctor to help with diagnosis. Dois tore the tendon but did not sever it. Win. Nor did he suffer any fracture. Win Win. We have a hurricane coming our way. The weathermen verify how extremely unusual this is down here at this time of year. Apparently the extremely warm waters of climate change are to blame. But that doesn't help much. We were going to leave early this morning, but the hurricane picked up speed for an earlier arrival. Due to this and the volatility of the predicting sources, we decided to hunker down instead. If the Good Luck Fairies return, this is all a big nothing burger and will spin up north like the GFS (USA model) predicts. But all the rest of the models predict something like the following by ECMWF (European model). We think we're in an OK position. Send your Good Luck Fairies our way! PEAS
Rodney Bay, St. LuciaWe had arrived in balmy weather in the warm turquoise waters of the tropics. The sing song lilt of the St. Lucian’s Caribbean accent intensified our happy state of being in the islands of the Lesser Antilles. But just as you cannot run away from your problems, you cannot sail away from them either and we arrived with a list. Dois dove into it fixing two bilge pumps, the windvane bearing, two hoses on the generator and the starter solenoid the hoses had leaked on plaguing our TransAtlantic crossing. We patched dinghy leaks and ordered a fuel pump for the outboard motor from Florida. The new/used mainsail we picked up in Sicily was a good downwind sail for the crossing but did not handle upwind sailing well, and the sail to Panama would be a lot of that. A sailmaker at the marina quoted a very reasonable price to fix our old main that was botched in Greece, but as the work and time went by, he increased the price steadily… until it had doubled. There was no way out, so we would pick up the sail in a week, our next payday. We would make good use of the time addressing a few more housekeeping issues. I know what you’re all thinking. When are you going to visit the waterfall or the ruins or the museum? I had this discussion with a taxi driver on the way back from a provisioning run recently. He wanted to be our island tour guide. We are not tourists, I said. The thing about traveling for us is almost every waking hour and most of our sheckles go into 1 of 2 pots; the boat (of which is a small city of parts to maintain) or the life forms (food, medical, dental, optical etc.). There is not much left over for tourism. However we are looking forward to some time in the water soon. I worked on re-vitalizing the manual bilge pump. Dois installed the fuel pump on the outboard. I packed away winter clothes, etc. Dois worked on the starter as well as installing a new keyed ignition. The day arrived where we could get our sail out of hock. We had moved into the marina for a few days to work on the starter and we were anxious to move out of the confines of a marina and move down the Antilles island chain. We provisioned up again and were ready to leave the next morning. 8am we turned the key to start up the engine….errrrttt… that did not go well. The starter engaged the engine and then would not disengage. It whirred a horrendous noise and as long as the engine gets turned over, it feeds itself fuel and runs. The kill switch wouldn’t kill it, removing the fuse to the battery starter did nothing and the engine room started filling up with smoke. Dois grabbed a pillow and popped it over the air intake of the engine. Thwuup. That was the sound of the air intake sucking up the pillow. We are not sure if the starter burned up first or the engine died first (due to lack of air from pillow suffocation) but finally the crisis was limited to damage done and after it all; a burned-up starter. Our 40-yr-old-around-the-world-Perkins-tractor-engine survived again. It turned out the starter was rebuildable at a local automotive shop at a surprisingly reasonable cost; our very last dollars. We had come into the marina to work on the starter and now we were stuck there at a daily rate that was difficult to swallow and two weeks left until the next pay day. There we were; in paradise in a luxury marina for two weeks. We only lacked two things: a pool and money. We had plenty of Ashika jobs to keep us entertained. We had to re-sew the track slides on the repaired mainsail before installing on the mast. Then install batons and reefing lines. I made and installed rain deflectors on the cabin port-lights while Dois installed a new fuel pump on the dinghy outboard and changed its oil. It’s amazing how much junk we save because it may come in handy in a crisis. We cleaned and organized while justifying keeping the majority of the junk and watched YouTube News and Netflix shows on the Marina Wi-Fi. Again, finally, we got paid, took care of our marina bill and went to the market to re-provision. We are in the anchorage in St. Lucia as I write this, Dois has dinghied in to the Customs office to check out of this country. When he returns we’ll (hopefully… you just never know) pull the anchor and sail down to the southern end of this island to spend the night. Then leave for St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Woohoo! PeaCe
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Dois Brock and Lauri Hamilton Brock splashed our boat Ashika into the Pacific April 2017 for a Round the World Tour.
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