Wednesday, December 5, 2012

What the heck!!!???

So Pam gets to go home to meet our new grand-daughter, Chevy Louise.  Glen stays behind to transition Blue Pearl to Al and Maria.

Air Canada trusted Al with a $130,000,000 AirBus 330 before he retired last week so we figure we can trust him to baby Blue Pearl while we go home for grandbabys at Christmas.  Maria took care of principal-Glen for 10 years in the school office - surprisingly successful at keeping him out of trouble.  They sail a C&C 44 at home in Vancouver but this is their first experience sailing in the Caribbean.

The moment Pam left everything went hell-west and crooked.  (Acadian phrase meaning disaster according to our friend Dorothy.)

We couldn't get the anchor up.  Turns out electrically challenged Glen forgot to connect up the windlass battery to the boat system.  Six weeks into our shake-down cruise the battery finally had enough.

Finally got the anchor up.  So off then to Honeymoon Bay on Water Island to plan our transition cruise.  Had a nice night, a visit to the Pueblo and Crown Bay grocery stores where Glen, once again, tried to guilt our new guests into buying a "thank-you" bottle of the $4999.95 bottle of wine they stock.  No gratitude!!!  We need richer friends.

Off we go to new adventures.  But first we have to get the anchor off the bottom.  Don't know what it got stuck on but it took motoring over it slowly to finally get it to release.  What would Pam have done???  What else is going to go wrong?

Onto Christmas Cove for a snorkel lunch and Francis Bay for a night anchorage.
Maria going Spotted Eagle Ray spotting
Eddy the Eagle... Ray

Al's art shot with his new underwater camera

So when did Barry Balmar the Regulator decide to go south?  We have a 140 amp alternator dying to charge our batteries but a regulator that is having "issues?"   Dang, that ain't good!

Glen read the Boy Scout book on marine regulators and found a "patch" that will get Maria and Al through their sojourn on the boat.  Al, the pilot, is not used to "patches" so we are crossing our fingers.

We wanted to check out the charging so we motored 4 miles to Cruz Bay to have a look.  Yan Diesel seems happy enough with the patched regulator so all is good.  Found a nice shoreside pub and spent a very happy Happy Hour there.
Checking out a different captain's seat

Getting ready to jump in

Cruise planning

Marooned on a USVI park pay station

Enjoying lunch with Iggy

Anyway, we are roaming around, hoping nothing else goes wrong.  We will spend our last night at a marina at Red Hook.  Then it is a taxi to the airport and the ride home for Glen!


6 comments:

  1. Is that the same regulator that already crapped out, then I replaced with a wrong model, which was then swapped out for the right one? What a pain!

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  2. We'll be at the airport waiting! Lucy will have plenty of giant smiles for you and Jackson will talk your ear off the whole way home!

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  3. This is so darn funny, at least from my view here in Miami. Cracked me up! Why is it that stuff breaks at the worst time? But....I know a good school secretary and if anyone can handle this it would be a school secretary and a wild man pilot! No worries here MON..go home and enjoy the family....they got it covered

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  4. Hey Guys :) We're at Virgin Gorda and picked up a transmission from "Blue Pearl" I don't think they could hear us (we were still in the boatyard) but if they heard the radio doing strange things - we were trying to DSC message them.

    We're now in the marina and waiting for Steph to arrive on the 23rd to start our trip to P.R. :) Hi to Maria and Al and watch out for that Glennnnn guy and his expensive wine tastes LOL :D
    Your Kolibrie Crew

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  5. :D We just left the Blue Pearl. Had sundowners with Al and Maria. Wonderful people and it was sooooo good to see the Blue Pearl again. Hope we get to see you two also! Hugs and Merry Christmas!

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    1. Glad you got to see our boat... now we've got to organize so you can see us! Hope to connect when we get back in the New Year. Happy to hear you are in the water and "cruise ready."

      Merry Christmas!

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