It started a few days before departure, when the weather forecasts began to look favorable for an offshore passage from St. John to Grand Turk, a distance of about 420 miles. Suddenly George Cline, KP2G, our favorite weather forecaster for this area, was unable to get weather information for his forecasts. The main fiber-optics cable from Puerto Rico to the U.S. Virgin Islands had been cut, and that meant no Internet service for him. In addition to George's weather, we normally download text forecasts and weather faxes via e-mail. As if part of a great conspiracy, radio propagation suddenly made it very difficult to receive these long messages, and I spent hours on the computer just trying to get basic weather information. What we were able to get wasn't as detailed as the information we normally get from George, but it still looked perfect for our departure. We made the boat ready, and Cathy cooked lasagna, which was to be dinner for four nights at sea.
We raised the anchor at about 10:30 on Tuesday, 30 January, and started motoring out Coral Bay. We hadn't even gotten a mile from the anchorage when the autopilot quit working. We actually have two "autopilots" for Sovereign, an electrically driven Autohelm autopilot and a wind/wave driven Monitor windvane. It was the electric Autohelm that died. Normally on passage we use the Monitor, so the Autohelm should just be a backup. But if something happened to the Monitor, I didn't want to have to hand-steer the boat for hundreds of miles. We reluctantly turned back to the anchorage. At three miles total, it may have been our shortest passage ever.
Back at anchor, I pulled the autopilot apart and looked for the problem. Cathy went forward to avoid the barrage of "colorful metaphors" that accompanied the project. After fiddling around with everything for a while, I decided that the wires in the plug that connect the compass to the electronic "brain" had corroded and lost contact. I pulled the plug apart and found five wires, green with corrosion, crimped into little gold-plated pins in the connector. We had nothing like these special little pins on board, and to get new pins and a crimp tool might take weeks. We would certainly miss this weather window. Drastic action was called for. I decided to modify the crimp-type connectors so that we could solder the wires back on. I set up our power drill and loaded our tiniest drill bit into it. I lured Cathy out of the forward cabin and convinced her to hold the drill very steady as I carefully moved the pin onto the rotating drill bit, drilling a small cup into the end of each little pin. After soldering and putting everything back together, I got everything ready to take up into the cockpit to try it out.
On my way into the cockpit, I tripped on the dangling wires that connect all the autopilot components, and the autopilot compass went smashing down onto the cockpit sole. I picked up the compass housing and shook gently. I could hear that the internal sensor had broken loose and was rattling around in the case. I brought everything back down below. There were enough "colorful metaphors" now to make my own rainbow. It took another hour of fretting and sweating to get the compass sensor apart, repaired, and back together. I got everything ready to take up into the cockpit again, and this time I very, very carefully carried it into the cockpit. I plugged in the autopilot and turned it on. It seemed to be responding normally. Success!
Now three and a half hours after our first attempt, we got ready to get under way again. As I cranked the anchor rode in, a little ball of chain formed at the chain hole and stopped the windlass. "Is somebody trying to tell me something," I wondered? But since we're not superstitious, I just cleared the ball of chain and went on cranking.
We motor-sailed out Coral Bay, along the south coast of St. John, and up into Cruz Bay. The autopilot worked great. In Cruz Bay, we waited for a space to free up at the fuel dock and went alongside. We topped up our fuel tanks, paid, and prepared to depart. As we were getting ready to depart, a big car ferry blew its horn and started to leave his berth. We decided to wait for him. He pulled a few feet away from his berth, and then went back in. We decided not to wait for him. He blew his horn and started to depart again. We decided to wait for him. Apparently the ferry was having as much trouble starting his trip as we were having with ours. Fortunately, we're not superstitious.
Once the ferry cleared the area near the fuel dock, we started to leave. The dock hand, who was tired of this wait…don't wait…wait routine decided to "help" Sovereign's bow leave the dock a little quicker by pulling our stern in really tight. CRACK! The outboard motor that we store on the stern rail bashed into the concrete fuel dock. We couldn't see any damage, though a sound that severe has to have broken something. Oh well, there's not much we can do about it now. Lucky for us we're not superstitious.
Running wing-and-wing to the Turks and Caicos
We motored out
of Cruz Bay, raised the sails, and motorsailed through Middle Passage and
clear of the Virgin Islands. We killed the engine and engaged the
windvane. For the next three days we had a great sail. For
the first two days we were on starboard tack, broad reaching in east northeasterly
winds of 15 to 25 knots and six to eight foot seas. The last day
we had a dead run in 15-knot east-southeasterly winds, the sails wing-and-wing,
the whisker pole holding out the yankee. A big pod of dolphins swam
with us for a long time. We went up to the bow to watch and encourage
them. The spray from Sovereign's bow made little rainbows between the dolphins
and us. Later on we heard a big blowing sound, much larger than a
dolphin. Cathy was quick enough to look around and see the back of
a whale as it sounded.
The last day of our passage, we neared Grand Turk in the late afternoon. We cleared the northeastern reef and gybed onto a broad reach around the northern end of the island. We cleared the northwestern reef, and beat towards the anchorage. We dropped the sails and motored into the lee of Grand Turk Island. We had Grand Turk to the east sheltering us from the easterly winds, and a 180° view of ocean behind us. Just then the sun set. As we watched its upper limb hit the horizon, we were treated to a green flash. Many people consider the green flash, the end of a rainbow, and a dolphin dancing in your wake to be good luck. Gee, it's too bad we're not superstitious…
Smooth sailing,
Jim and Cathy