Chinook Arch

Answer: You don't. We are unexpectedly back home in Calgary due to a leaky boat. Last Thursday was Alex's birthday and since we needed to buy propane and groceries anyway we decided to rent a car and take Alex and Giselle on a tour of the rest of the island of Virgin Gorda. We all had a really great day visiting 3 national parks (including The Baths and the old copper mine) and had a nice lunch at the Coppermine Cafe with spectacular views of Sir Francis Drake Channel as well as many of the Virgin Islands. We returned to the boat in time for dinner and then I took Alex, Giselle and Jonas back to shore in the dinghy to their hotel room. I was tired from the day and went to bed early. While getting ready for bed I noticed that the bilge pump had come on twice in a short period. When I mentioned this to Dawn she said that she had also noticed the bilge pump light came on when she was cooking dinner. It had been raining that day and a small amount of rain can sometimes come down through the mast and into the bilge so I thought nothing of it and went to bed early. Dawn stayed up reading and watching the bilge pump light. It was coming on regularly and often (too often to blame it on the rain that had stopped many hours previously). She decided to time the occurrences and found out that the bilge pump was coming on every 5 minutes almost like clockwork. An hour after I had fallen asleep she woke me with the news. This was obviously caused by a leak in the hull! I checked all the through hull fittings and everything seemed ok there. I decided that the only thing that we could do was to wait out the night and dive the hull in the morning to assess the situation. The problem is that if the pump fails or the float switch in the bilge gets stuck the boat would eventually fill with water and we would find ourselves at the bottom of the bay. Since neither of us could sleep now anyway we both stayed awake babysitting the bilge pump. Eventually one or the other of us would nod off and the other would stand watch. This continued all night.

Next morning I dove the hull and found a large crack in the fibreglass on the leading edge of the keel where it joins the hull. Ours is an encapsulated keel so there is not supposed to be any crack there. We previously had some hull repairs done in this area in North Carolina when we bought the boat in 2003. Obviously these hull repairs failed for no apparent reason (other than faulty workmanship) 9 years later. We went to shore and informed Giselle and Alex of our problems. We told them that they would have to spend the last 2 days of their vacation without us as we needed to sail the boat down to Spanish Town to have the boat hauled and the damages assessed. The trip down took us 2.5 hours and we were fortunate that the Virgin Harbour Yacht Harbour boat yard agreed to haul us on an emergency basis even though they had a full day booked for the Travellift. Once on the hard, I had Geoff Cook from The Workbench take a look at the crack. He said that it needed to be ground out, left to dry for the summer and then they would effect the repairs in September. Our sailing season had come to an abrupt halt. We spent the next 3 days getting the boat ready for its stay on the hard during hurricane season. We left Virgin Gorda for Roadtown, Tortola on Tuesday and delivered the genoa to a sailmaker (Doyle Sails) for repairs to the stitching that they would do over the summer months. We then took a ferry to St. Thomas, USVI and spent the night there. Our flights back home started at 0800 and we arrived back home in Calgary at 2300 hrs local time.

So that's it for the sailing this year. We did manage to get in 2.5 months and had 3 groups of friends and family join us over that time. We had a wonderful season even though it was shorter than usual. I thank God that nothing more serious occurred and that all ended well. We will have to take a hit to the sailing budget to pay for the repairs but no one was injured and the boat will be in prime shape to begin the next sailing season in January 2013.

Gerry

It's not often that you witness or experience an injury threatening or property damaging event but 4 in one day? In the space of 24 hours last Saturday I witnessed the following events:

1. At around 11:00 AM I was lying down with my 17 month old grandson Jonas for his morning nap when Dawn called me urgently to the cockpit. There was a man in the water near our boat who was swimming frantically to avoid an empty dinghy that was circling him. I quickly jumped into our dinghy to help. By the time I got to his boat he was already aboard but his dinghy was still running in circles by itself while the wind was pushing it towards shore. I continued on to capture his wayward dinghy and disable the engine. I then towed it back to his boat. The man was white as a sheet and a bit incoherent, in an obvious panic. He was not used to operating a dinghy and had been ashore with his other crew members. He wanted to return to the boat but as the others were not ready to do so the captain told him to take the dinghy back to the boat and return to pick up the rest of the crew latter. He got back to the boat ok but had difficulty in approaching and attaching to the boat alone in the high winds. He left the dinghy engine in gear while running up the stern of the boat and tried to climb aboard. Needless to say he fell in the water as the dinghy got pushed off by the winds and waves. He initially tried to climb back aboard but could not do so in a moving dinghy. Luckily he was able to avoid the propeller and managed to get back to the boat although he was not a strong swimmer. I towed him and his dinghy back to shore to the safety of his captain and crew.

2. After a nice dinner on board with Giselle, Alex and Jonas we were relaxing in the cockpit enjoying the evening when Dawn spotted something white float by. As it was dark we could not quite make out what it was but it looked like a cooler. The winds were still high and it was floating towards shore. Again I jumped into the dinghy and retrieved a large cooler half full of beer and melted ice. I asked Alex to join me and we would try to find the owner of the cooler in the mooring field ahead of us. There wasn't anyone aboard the boats immediately ahead of ours so we continued on to the marina. We pulled up to the dinghy dock and unloaded the cooler on the stone wall. We then proceeded to walk the dock to find the owner. What we did find was a 21 ft. sports fishing boat  with Puerto Rican registry capsized on its side and still tied to the dock. It was smashing into the dock and damaging the finger pier. Alex and I checked carefully with a flashlight to make sure that there wasn't anyone caught under the craft or between the boat and the dock. The marina office was closed so we went to the restaurant and asked the Maitre D' to call the marina manager. The marina manager (Nick) arrived within 10 minutes and seemed at a loss as to what to do. I suggested to him that we had no choice but to release the dock lines and let the boat sink unless he wanted to let the boat damage his dock further. He agreed and we released the lines but the boat did not sink. Rather it turtled upside down still floating with the forward hull above the water. The winds and waves pushed the boat under the finger pier where the boat was attacking the finger mercilessly from below as each wave lifted it up. We then managed to pull on the dock lines and free the boat out from under the dock. I offered to get my dinghy and tow it away from the dock. I did not think to ask Alex to join me as I ran for the dinghy dock and started my dinghy. I got over to where the boat was partially submerged and tied a line to the bow. It was difficult to steer the dinghy while holding on to the line alone but I did manage to pull it out and away from the dock and toward shore. Nick asked me to try to tow it to shore and beach it but I reached a point where I could not make any further progress. The boat had a stainless steel bimini-like structure that is also used for fishing. This part of the boat along with the 2 large engines on the stern was obviously deep in the water and aground. By this time another boater had arrived with her dinghy (larger and more powerful engine than mine) with a crew member aboard and offered to take over. Since the boat was aground they were not any more successful that I was in trying to get it closer to shore where the boat could have been tied off. I returned to the dock and suggested to Nick that he take it out to a mooring and tie it off semi- submerged. Nick said that he did not want to chance that the boat would not last the night and would sink at the mooring. At this point I was tired and decided that we had done enough to help so Alex and I got into the dinghy and returned to our boat. A few minutes later we saw the other boater and Nick towing the boat to a nearby mooring. Luckily no one was injured in this incident but there would have been substantial property damage to the boat and its engines.

3. The next morning I went ashore as usual to pick up Giselle, Alex and Jonas to bring them over to the boat for breakfast on the boat (they were staying in a hotel room). Giselle had decided to do some laundry at the marina laundromat before heading over to the boat. I offered to take Jonas for a walk around the hotel premises while she attended to her laundry. I took Jonas and walked over to the swimming pool and Alex joined us. We were standing by the pool when all of a sudden a small pickup truck slid by on its side on the hill just above us. Apparently the worker had parked the vehicle on the crest of the hill. He claimed that he had engaged the hand brake but that it had failed. Maybe he did and maybe he didn't but the result was that the truck started to move down the hill on its own with no one in it. It climbed a retaining wall on one side and flipped over on its side. It had enough momentum to slide further down the hill on its side where it came to rest just above us. Thankfully no one was injured but there was some damage to the side of the truck.

4. Once we got to our boat we saw the Dive BVI dive boat towing a sailboat over to a mooring near us. Alex was taking dive lessons later in the day so he asked them what had happened. Apparently the boat was anchored about a mile off just inside a reef with a rocky lee shore astern of them. Their engine would not start and the anchor was dragging. They were in danger of washing up on the rocks so they called a Mayday alert. We did not have our VHF turned on so we were not aware of their plight. Luckily the dive shop was open and was monitoring channel 16 so disaster was averted.

All this occurred within a 24 hour period. We have previously witnessed or been involved in several safety incidents during our sailing adventures but I never would have guessed that we could experienced or witnessed 4 such events in one day. Hopefully there will be no more such excitement for the rest of this sailing season. We've already experienced more than our share this season and all in one day.

Gerry

We just bid adieu to Lorne and Maria who joined us on our boat for 6 days. We had a great time with them spending 3 nights at Norman's Bight and then sailing north to Leverick Bay, North Sound, Virgin Gorda. At Normans we hiked the trails in the morning and Lorne and Maria enjoyed lounging on the beautiful sandy beach in front of Pirate's Bight pub/restaurant. At Leverick Bay we took them to see the Michael Beans Happy ARRRRR pirate show. He is a great entertainer and we all had a great time. We also went to Saba Rock for happy hour and dinner.

This is just a quick update to let you know what we have been doing lately. Tomorrow Dawn and I will sail down to Sopper's Hole at the west end of Tortola where we will check out of the BVI after spending the night on a mooring there. From Sopers we will sail to St Thomas, USVI where we will be buying boat parts and provisioning. We will be spending most of next week visiting the beautiful bays of St John, USVI. Over 75% of St John is a national park and the waters are protected as a marine park. The snorkeling there is great. During this time we will not have WIFI coverage but I may send a quick update to the blog from our Globalstar satellite phone.

We hope that all family and friends back in Canada and the US are healthy and staying warm this winter.

We have been anchored off Prickly Pear Island in North Sound, Virgin Gorda for just over 1 week. We are within a short dinghy ride to Saba Rock Resort, Bitter End Resort and Biras Creek Resort. Also we are close to a picture perfect beach and bar on Prickly Pear called the Sandbox. We have used the time here to chill out and to get some work done on Chinook Arch. The wood work on deck and in the cockpit needed work and we had a small list of minor repairs to attend to. The work is not too demanding so we have had time to go for hikes on the trails in and around Bitter End and Biras Creek. We also like to spend time in the hammock at the Bitter End and of course there is always happy hour at Saba Rock ($2.50 for your choice of rum punch, painkillers or a Heineken). The days just seem to melt away here.

Our friends Lorne and Maria are joining us on January 29 so we will pick them up at Trellis Bay at Beef Island (just a short walk from the dinghy dock to the airport). They will be aboard for 5 days. We are hoping that the weather is better for them than it has been lately. Not that we are complaining but we have had some good blows and more rain than normal. It is always nice when we can promise postcard picture quality sunny days for our guests but alas ... it is not always so. No matter, there is much to do and see regardless.

We have been anchored near a very stately motor yacht named Blue Guitar (home port London and flying a British flag). She was flying a burgee with a blue guitar on it but suddenly the burgee was lowered. I speculated to Dawn that it may be owned by Eric Clapton and Dawn remarked that if so, they probably flew the burgee when he was aboard. I looked it up on line and there are as many comments that it does in fact belong to Clapton as denials that it does not. Whatever! We neither saw him nor heard him play his guitar so what does it matter?

We will be leaving this spot for Marina Cay on Thursday. I am having problems uploading photos due to our poor WIFI reception here. Maybe next post I will have something for you.

Gerry