S/V Felix update, at Davis Harbor Marina, Eleuthera 24°44’16” N 76°14’3″ W
We’re leaving tomorrow for the big stretch all the way to USVI. So I’ll condense Nov 30 – Dec 2 as best I can!
November 30
With both fixed engines, we were finally able to leave Spanish Wells. Early morning and we said goodbye to great memories, newfound friends, and the best stolen Internet service I’ve ever gotten on a boat.
One thing I’ll definitely miss in Spanish Wells is that mysterious raggedy “linksys” connection we hacked into while anchored. We were skypeing and FaceTiming and uploading videos on YouTube… put Comcast to shame. Even Captn made a speed test on his computer and it was as fast as he gets it in Fort Lauderdale!
To whoever owns that modem, my heartfelt thank you in the name of all the crew. Thanks for letting us partake in your bandwidth.
We were headed to Tarpum Bay, to anchor for the night and wait out the crazy winds that were hindering us from getting to Rum Cay. We soon found that the winds wouldn’t be our only problem. Alas, it turned out that Felix was not done testing Capt Kevin’s problem-solving abilities! But more on that later.
We reached Tarpum Settlement Bay under some rough seas and strong winds.
We anchored out there alone as the sun set. I like these situations – lone boat in the anchorage, watching sunsets and listening to music. That’s one of the best parts of sailing IMO.
We were expecting a rolly night, so I set up an anchor alarm at our GP-33 gps to get some peace of mind. I later learned by reading the manual that one actually needs to do a bunch of redundant stuff to set that alarm (creating a waypoint at your location, telling the GPS to “go to” it, and THEN setting the alarm). Knowing this, I now know the alarm I set was not working at all. Oops…
December 1
Nevertheless, it all went well through the night! The following morning had us stay put as the winds were just blowing merciless over 25kts, and would not allow us to make it to Rum Cay without putting ourselves and the boat through an unnecessary beating.
We tried to run the Watermaker to fill our port water tank which was empty. The watermaker requires the generator to be on as well. In the first minutes of operation, both the generator and the watermaker malfunctioned! Nice!
Capt. Kevin solved the “High pressure fault” problem on the watermaker by tightening up the first intake of salt water inside the watermaker berth, which was loose and wobbly. It ended up being quite simple, thankfully.
Of course we couldn’t test if that had solved the problem yet, as the generator had to be running for that! So we checked everywhere for a fuel obstruction that could explain the generator just failing out of a sudden.
under the couch in the living room
under the port side bed
Oh yeah, meanwhile Gesa baked a cake
While digging around the boat, Capt. had the suspicion that the problem was the Port fuel pump, which was not pumping strong enough to send diesel all the way to the front, to the generator. I looked at the pump we had and remembered that it was actually a gift from an “anchorage buddy” back when Felix was FatBoy. Knowing that our pump was having problems, he just left it on our stern one morning and took off. “The kindness of strangers,” as Capt. Kevin says it. And this is also something we’ve been experiencing left and right here in the Bahamas.
Anyway, I texted my dad about the pump – “remember that gift? it seems to be broken” – and he answered that he had bought and EXTRA fuel pump and stashed it under the sofa with the spares. We looked for it immediately, replaced it, and bingo. All problems solved! Then we ate cake.
Before we went to bed, we decided to try to use the washer/dryer, which had been miraculously “healed” after MarineTech said they forgot to fix it. But now that we’re out and about, guess what? It’s not working.
Go Capt!
This time he wasn’t able to find the problem. We decided it was not a big enough problem to stress over, and went to bed. As many know by now, this machine is cursed. No wonder it just decided to *poof* on us.
For December 2, I’ll translate a report written by Gesa in German to her family and friends. But now it’s too late and I’m sleepy. Will do that tomorrow before we depart.
Felix out!
Marco, Gesa and Kevin