Day 21 of the 1st Voyage: In which the Strait of Georgia plays nice, but the diesel doesn’t.

It started out nice. We had a five and one half hour passage to make to Campbell River, the rendezvous point for the gang going up to Alaska, and couldn’t have asked for a better day, especially in the Strait of Georgia. Wind on the nose meant motoring only, but wind speeds under 10 knots and a clear sky made for a smooth ride—quite a difference from the day before. Here we were gliding through the water at a steady 8 knots, admiring the mountains, marveling at the sea, and still not seeing one damn orca. Would it kill them to make an appearance? What, do we have to buy a ticket? And then it happened. It had happened before—but only in one other place. Each time we passed Point No Point in Puget Sound, the engine would rev down, then back up, then down, then up, and then it was fine. No one could give us an explanation, so we chalked it up to “funny currents”. It then happened a few other times in the past three weeks, but only sporadically and generally when two bodies of water were converging. But here we were in the Strait of Georgia—the only body of water in sight—and although it is notorious for fast currents, you wouldn’t call them funny (at least not to their face). And yet it became more frequent: rev down, rev up, rev down, rev up, rev way down, pause for effect, and rev back up. It turned into a cruel game: hum along nicely for 45 minutes or so; start feeling confident that it was just a passing thing; feel the diesel decelerate; get a sick feeling in the stomach in a will-it-or-won’t-it-die way, then relief when it accelerates back up to speed. And then our worst fear was realized: it revved down, down, down, and died. And here we were bobbing around in a vast body of water with no harbor or town in sight. I don’t recall now what we were all thinking. I don’t even recall any swearing (which is unusual for this crew). I do remember the Captain calmly asking me to get on the VHF and contact S/V Latitudes, crewed by a couple we met the night before in False Harbor and currently the only other boat in our line of sight. After I explained that we were dead in the water, they very graciously turned around and headed back towards us to extend any help they could. As luck would have it, the Captain was able to get the engine started again and we spent the longest two hours of our lives chugging toward Campbell River, willing the engine not to die just yet, knowing that the closer we could get, the lower the tow bill would be. But we did make it to Campbell River, we did get to a marina, and we did execute one of our lesser dockings (thanks, dude in the power boat, for popping open another beer and watching us fight the wind and current to get tied down instead of getting off your lazy butt and helping). But I don’t think we were prepared for what happened next…

Note to David Moore: We were really hoping we wouldn’t need the diesel mechanics book you sent us, but we’re glad you did. Thanks!