One Adrenaline-Filled Shopping Trip!

Hey guys,

We would like to give you a quick update on our two issues: You probably remember that our skin fitting of the engine raw water intake moved while we attempted to change the seacock in the water, which then created a leak.

In the process of that, we also snapped off the stern tube gland fitting that cools the shaft. This was a blessing in disguise though as this part must have been completely corroded, and if we would have not realized this way it would have probably sunk our boat!

Last time we updated you that we will sail to Tyrell Bay in Carriacou, because we doubted this could be fixed while the boat is in the water. Everyone told us, there will be no way around it.

Well, on the way to Carriacou the leak on the raw water intake stopped. We believe this happened due to the flexing of the fiberglass in the waves (maybe? This is our best guess). So, the skin fitting must have gone back into place.

But we were still left with the stern gland that had snapped off. We decided that we would no longer have to haul out, if we could fix the stern gland. However, for this we had to block the water from coming into the shaft via the cutlass bearing. We looked online for the best solution and we found out that kid's playdoh is the best option. Who would have known?

In order to do this repair which could potentially take days, we looked for a calm place with clear water and we could not find that in Carriacou.

So, instead, we sailed to Ronde Island, a deserted island with crystal-clear waters. And in case we had an emergency the travel lift is only 15 miles away. We also carry bilge pumps capable of pumping out 8K gallons of water in an hour.

We seemed to have thought of everything, and we realized we needed at least 5-6 days to complete the repair. That meant we needed to get some provisions because on Ronde Island you will find nothing but tree boas. 🐍

Saturday we quickly sailed to Grenada (Sauteurs), which is only 6 miles south of this anchorage and we managed to get food (and cat food) for around a week.

Yet, on the way back - and here we go - this is what happened:

The wind was on our nose and we did not want to sail through the small opening between the south side of Ronde Island and the nearby rocks called "The sisters".

So, Enrique said: "I am just going to bear away a little bit, with the wind on the beam and also the sail will be more comfortable."

At that time, I did not check the charts so I thought we will be fine. - After all, he is the captain, no?

After a couple of hours sailing in the pitch black, with no moon, and we could barely see our hands, Enrique asked me: "Why is there a restriction zone right in front of us?"

At that point, he had the charts zoomed in all the way, and did not notice, but when he zoomed out he realized we were meters away from an absolute no-entry zone!

We were about to sail right over an active underwater volcano: Kick 'em Jenny.

That meant we had to quickly adjust the sails but this brought us even further from reaching our anchorage.

We started rimming the edge of the no-entry zone, but as time passed Enrique started to panic, and with every odd noise he kept asking me: "Did you hear that?!"

For 3 painful hours, we kept tacking, making slow progress, and all the while Enrique was getting more freaked out while I googled just how active this volcano was. Probably not the best idea to do that.

He kept asking me how safe it was to sail just on the edge of the entry-restricted zone, but he did not like my answer as I told him that somebody probably just drew this on the chart. After all, we were already sailing inside the red alert caution zone.

When we were halfway through, and the moon started coming out I swear I could see him sweating. 😅🌖

I am not sure why he was panicking because we already spent a couple of days at the anchorage, and it is situated only just outside of the red alert zone. 🤔🙈

At the moment we are still here and we have done a loooot of progress on our repair. We will update you about it shortly in our next post.

Lots of love ⛵💙🥰

Enrique and Sarah

P.S. I feel for Enrique as he has been telling me since our time in Italy “I want to get away from volcanoes!” Poor guy, now we are here for at least a week, without even a working engine.... so I said: "Chill out, at least we got tree boas on this island." 🐍😜