Traveling Team Fischer

Greetings! Last time we posted was almost three years ago, and we had recently purchased an older sailboat to start the water chapter of our adventures. We found a slip at a nice little marina, which ended up being our temporary home for almost three years. We had a place to make sure Dulcinea would be functioning at her best again before casting off lines. We also had amazing neighbors eager to share their knowledge, experience, and tips on where to find great deals on items for the boat.

Then international borders were closing, even for those just sailing through an island nation’s waters.  So we decided to stay put and keep plugging away at projects, including many of the cosmetic items we were going to work on “in a bay of an island out there”.  One of the first critical projects was to protect the sails from the unforgiving sun, so I had to up my sewing game fast.  Dulcinea now has a new cover for the stay sail, sail pack for the main sail, and new sacrificial cloth on the jib.  With the left over Sunbrella fabric, she also has handrail and winch covers, as well as a few mounted pouches for miscellaneous items we wanted to keep out of the sun.  A big project that scared me for sure, but the price tag of paying someone else to do it was even more frightening.  Interesting how the right fear can be a great motivator.

Something I was excited to do, but also a little afraid of doing, was making the crossing to the Bahamas. I think a certain amount of fear can be good. It motivates you to make sure you are paying attention to the task at hand, that you are doing your homework, and that you aren’t going to get complacent about it. So our first crossing attempt. It is one thing to talk about your dream, but when you are finally able to take that first leap, you quickly learn what you’re made of and what you can or can’t handle.

This little story is from the ugly files, not the highlight reels. Everything started out great. We anchored in our favorite spot the night before we left, and set our alarms for 3 AM so we could start to navigate through the maze of lobster traps towards the gulf stream by 4 AM.  We had a favorable weather window, and were excited to finally start our journey.

Once out of the lobster trap gauntlet, we shut off the engine and enjoyed a beautiful sail. The forecast we looked at grossly understated the waves, and we quickly learned that we hadn’t quite secured everything as well as we thought we did. Luckily, we only lost the paddles for the kayak and paddle board, as well as the fin for the paddle board.  Annoying, yes.  But easy to replace.  The boat handled beautifully, hubby handled everything awesomely, unfortunately I caught a face full of diesel exhaust fumes and then motion sickness had me.  My sweet hubby had to sail most of this journey on his own.  I could only provide short breaks before needing to lie down again.  No fun for anyone.

Then we lost our wind.  It had been moving and fading all day, and finally settled into a whisper of a breeze.  No worries, we’ll just start the engine, right. Nope.  Engine wouldn’t start.  So now we are adrift in water thousands of feet deep, being pushed north in the gulf stream.  Then to add insult to injury, it started to rain as we watched the sun getting lower and lower in the horizon. It would be dark soon.  We contacted our boat towing service, and they wouldn’t come get us until we had a confirmed location for them to tow us.  We could not get any marina to answer our calls in that area, as it was close to quitting time.  Yes, we’d been traveling for 12+ hours at this point.  Yes, we were a little scared, but mainly irritated.  We had done everything we knew to do to be safe, even paying for towing insurance, and they wouldn’t come save us from drifting to Canada.  There were angry tears.  Ultimately, the decision was made to be towed back to our home marina, since we knew our slip was still available for another week or so.  Another 12 hours later, we were again anchored at our favorite spot, as it was low tide, and that meant we could not make it through the entrance of the canal.  We had one more tow at 7:30 the next morning.  Until then, we set the alarm  to go off in a few hours and were asleep before our heads hit our pillows.  It took us more than 24 hours to end up right were we started.  

The next morning we were towed the final stretch home, secured all lines, took showers, and went back to bed.  We wondered if the engine was repairable, or if we would have to get a new one.  If the boat needed a new engine, we were not sure we could continue with our dream.  We also had a dead starting battery, and non functioning DC to DC charger, but those would be easy and fairly inexpensive to remedy.  The engine was the scariest part in this equation that would have to wait for morning to address. I didn’t take many pictures of this experience. A couple of the tow boat hero from afar, but all you can see is a little red light in a sea of darkness. I honestly thought we’d be more freaked out in this kind of scenario. Instead, we snapped into “what needs to be done” mode, and just focused on that. I didn’t tell my Mom about it until we were home and safe. Even then, I left out details. At the very least, she will have words for me when she reads this. She will probably also add us to another prayer list.

We have loved our marina family pretty much from the day we moved in. The day we were towed back to our slip, we loved them even more. A new neighbor was something of a diesel engine expert, and he was able to guide us into not only how to fix it, but also ways to keep it from hydro-locking again in the future. So once again, we were waiting for new parts to arrive, while repairs and adjustments were made. We were taking this learning opportunity seriously, and were driven to make sure our next attempt would be a success.

I even started to try some self talk to train my brain into believing diesel exhaust smelled like success, that I liked it, and it would not make me feel ill. And stocked up on a variety of motion sickness remedies, just in case.