You know what
a mulligan is, right? It’s when your first attempt at something goes unexpectedly
awry so you get to try it again in anticipation of a better outcome. Basically,
it’s a do-over. We don’t get mulligans anymore.
After you’ve had two or three or twenty, your mulligan rights get
revoked. We no longer get do-overs; we just get do-agains. As in, “Swell, the
engine died…again; or great, the transmission blew a seal…again; or, awesome, this
thing that has always worked has decided not to work just when we need it most…again.” Yet despite our track record, we really
thought this was our moment. This would be the time when everything would go in
our favor. So when the inevitable happened, the disbelief was profound—a punch
in the gut that sent us to our knees.
We don’t get
mulligans. We get Kerrigans.
So what went
wrong? Well, first off…let’s talk about
what went right. To say that this was
the best prepared we’ve ever been for a passage would be an understatement.
Over a month before our departure window, we printed out a list of everything
that needed to be done and posted it in a conspicuous place in our cabin so
that it stared/slapped us in the face every day and twice on Sundays. It ran
the gamut from oil changes and systems checks to provisioning and stowing
charts—a full two pages of to-dos—and damned if we didn’t cross every item off
the list. We even took the boat out of the slip and put her through her paces,
running up and down the estuary testing gears, speeds, temperatures, and loads.
We wanted to leave the last week of March but ended up pushing that out two
weeks for an optimal bar crossing. And then, just for good measure, we talked
our friends into going with us because we were so sure we’d have the perfect
cruising experience that we wanted to share it with fellow
Boaters-With-Engine-Troubles to prove to all of us that it could be done.
We were set
to depart on April 15th, but I woke up nauseas, head-achey, and
loathe to get out of bed so we opted to wait until the next day so I could get some
rest. At the time, I chalked it up to multiple days of toiling in the extremely
high heat and humidity, not enough sleep, and pre-voyage jitters. An excessive
amount of drinking due to all the going away parties that we threw/were thrown
for us probably didn’t help. But looking back it was probably a premonition.
Kind of how animals can predict earthquakes before they happen, maybe I’ve
developed a sixth sense that things are about to go terribly wrong. Or maybe
it’s just because things always go terribly
wrong. But at any rate, we pushed off around noon on the 16th,
rendezvoused with the pilot boat, made it over the bar safely and in one piece,
and turned the pointy end toward Mexico. With no wind to sail, we settled in at
a motoring speed of about 7 knots and there wasn’t much to be done except sit
back, look for fishing pangas and long lines, and contemplate the 30-hour
voyage ahead. And for four hours, it was awesome. Until the engine died. And
then it wasn’t so awesome.
We put out
the sails, but the light afternoon winds did us no favors and our speed dropped
down to an excruciating three knots. So
the decision had to be made…do we cut our losses, turn back, and hope we can
get the engine working long enough to get us back over the bar? Or do we push
forward, hope for some wind, and pray that the Mexican navy can tow us into
Marina Chiapas should it come to that? I think had we been anywhere near the half-way
point, we would have gone with the latter, but four hours after leaving Bahia
del Sol we were barely out of the state of La Paz, let alone the country of El
Salvador. Because here’s the sucky part of boating. It’s amazingly, incredibly,
agonizingly slow. Even on the good days. One knot is roughly equivalent to 1.15
mph. When the engine is working, it’ll hum along nicely at 7-8 knots which,
given wind/wave/water resistance coupled with the gross tonnage of the boat and
all that other physics stuff, is considered quite a good speed until you
realize that you’ve been chugging along for four hours and you’ve only gone 25
freaking miles.
Had there
been wind in the forecast, we probably would have just said “screw it” and kept
going, but the forecast called for winds of 2 mph. Two. Miles. Per. Hour. I’m
pretty sure Otter farts with more velocity than that. And here’s another sucky
thing about boating. When you have no means of propulsion to flatten out the
ride, you’re at the mercy of the waves and the swell and all the up and down
and bob and sway and side to side that comes with it. And if you were already a
little unsettled to begin with (like I was), it’s very easy to get seasick
(like I did), and that just adds to the fun quotient right there. Because why
be depressed when you can be queasy and lethargic as well. It made the most sense to turn around, so
that’s what we did. And because no good deed goes unpunished, our reduced speed
meant that it would now take over eight hours to go back those 25 freaking
miles.
It was close
to midnight by the time we got to the “anchorage” which is in quotes because
it’s not really an anchorage so much an okay-ish place to set an anchor while
you wait for the next bar crossing opportunity which in our case was the
following afternoon. The last time we were in this “anchorage” we had just come
off one of our more hellish journeys and no sooner had we set anchor than we
were met by a panga full of mechanics to slap a Band-Aid on the engine so that
we could at least get over the bar and into the safety of the estuary. Amongst
all the people and commotion, I hadn’t realized how roly-poly the anchorage was
then, but I sure got to experience it now—over twelve hours of bobbing and
weaving and swaying in the heat and humidity and not a breeze to be found.
Because why be depressed, queasy, and lethargic, when you can be miserably hot
as well.
Now on a
positive note, the engine had decided to work again. A couple hours in to our
return trip the night before, we tried the engine and it turned over and for a
split second we thought about turning around and heading to Mexico after all,
but we erred on the side of caution which was a good thing because
approximately four hours later, it died again. Out came the sails and down went
our speed. A couple hours later, as we approached the anchorage, we tried the
engine again and it started right up so at least setting the anchor was easy. It
started again the next day after having been off all night. We were starting to
see a pattern. But at least it was working now for this, our third time across
the bar. The first time—going in—was totally anticlimactic. Of course, after
the voyage we’d had, we could have ended up on the beach and it would have been
the least of our many ordeals. The second time—going out—was a bit more of a
ride as we got on a pretty good outgoing tide and surfed our way out at a
blistering 14 knots. This third time was
a bit more dramatic. Just as we were making our approach, we got caught by a
big wave that got up under our stern, buried the bow deep into the water, and
then swung us hard to starboard while surfing the wave at over 15 knots. It was
such a sharp veer that at first I thought the Captain was aborting the
crossing, but he stayed calm, corrected our course, and got us over the bar in
one piece.
By now, you’ve
probably figured out that this bar is not something to be taken lightly, and
you’d be right. We’ve been over plenty of bars. Most were straightforward, a
couple were on the scary side. You hit them at the right time—some at high
tide, some at slack—and in the right conditions, and you generally don’t have
any problems. This one, however, requires “local knowledge” which is an ominous
term describing anything that will kick your ass unless you were born, raised,
and reside within 100 yards of said obstacle. This bar shifts and changes on a
daily basis and is subject to the tides, swells, waves, and whims of the
Pacific Ocean, so you must be guided in by a pilot boat that gives you instructions
over the VHF in terms of where to steer, when to throttle, and what’s coming up
behind you. And if you’re really lucky, they take your picture while you’re
doing it…
This
is us being pushed SIDEWAYS toward the bar. If they’d had a telephoto lens,
you’d see four people, one dog, two cats, and a small child with “Oh Shit!”
looks on their faces. All except the Captain. His just says, “Screw this. Nicaragua is just down the coast. I hear it's nice.”
Overall though,
we were lucky. Some things went flying down below when our bow went down, but
nothing was broken. We’ve seen other boats come in with broken stanchions, bent
davits, loose rigging, and overwrought gears. Some didn’t close hatches before
they came over and ended up with more water in their boat than under it. One couple was towing their dinghy (big no-no)
and it overturned and got ripped up on the way in. And in one heartbreaking
case, a rogue wave came down on top of a catamaran, swamping the cockpit, and
flattening a little dog before a second wave lifted him up and out. Despite an
exhaustive search of the surrounding beaches, he was never found. Now obviously
these are not the norm and most just experience a high-speed surfing sensation,
but the potential for hazard is there and must be respected.
Tail tucked
firmly between legs, we limped back into the marina where friends gathered to
grab lines, Leo was on hand with extra-strong welcome back beverages, and the
Port Captain was there to record our arrival. The Immigration Officer also met
us on the dock. Why? Because our visas had expired the day we left and as we
had not made it out of the country, we were now officially illegal aliens.
Because why be depressed, queasy, lethargic, and overheated when you can run
afoul of a country’s immigration policy as well?
Back at his
office, he went into a lengthy discourse in Spanish regarding our situation in
which the only words I caught were “problema”, “mucho problema”, and “penalizacion”
with a look on his face that could only mean a very large fine. But this mess
was our own doing, and we were quite willing to (literally) pay the
consequences. We asked him how big of a fine and he very sheepishly said, “$11.43…
por persona.” And then immediately winced as if he was fully expecting one of
us to throw a chair at him. But we’re calm, and thinking “Okay, $11.43 per
person per day. Even if it takes us a month to repair the engine, we’re looking
at about a thousand dollars. That’s cheaper than flying out of the country,
especially since it was Easter week and flights would be difficult to find and
ten times more expensive even if something was available.” And that’s when he
clarified that no, the fine was $11.43…regardless of how many days we overstay
our visa accompanied by a look that said, “I can’t believe you’d think that of
us. We’re not total monsters. And thank you for not chucking a chair at me.” This
was confirmed by others we spoke to (the one-time fine of $11.43, not the chair
chucking.) Of course, rules and regulations change as frequently as the honchos
in many of these government agencies, so I guess we’ll find out when we attempt
to leave again.
In the
meantime, we think we identified the problem with the engine and once again,
it’s related to fuel delivery. The fact that the engine would run perfectly
fine for four hours then quit, only to start up again after a couple of hours
and run for another four, got us to thinking that there must be a small air leak
in the fuel line. How I understand it is that air gets in the hoses, gets
caught somewhere, slowly forms a bubble, fuel can’t get around it, the engine
starves, the engines quits, the engine cools down, the bubble dissipates, fuel
gets through, the engine works, lather, rinse, repeat. It makes sense, right? And when the Captain
found some dodgy fittings that were absolutely letting air in, it just seemed
to validate the theory.
So the
engine was fixed and has been tested twice (the first time for 15 hours in gear
while tied securely to the dock and a second time for four hours tied loosely
to the dock and maybe in gear but who knows because we lost all those brain
cells from huffing in diesel fumes from the first go-round.) We’ve been ready
to go since mid-May. Yet here it is June, and we’re still here. Why? That damn
bar. Bad weather on the other side of the fricking globe has wrought havoc all
the way over here in the form of huge waves and swell that effectively closed
the bar. Because despite thousands and thousands of leagues across vast
expanses of ocean dotted with myriad land masses between here and there, a
storm in Indonesia means there’s no leaving an estuary in El Salvador. And
perhaps we’re taking it all too personally, but when you’ve been someplace for a
really long time and all your previous plans to leave have been thwarted and
you’re so ready to go you can taste it, it’s quite disheartening to hear things
like, “The bar has never been closed for this long! It’s gotta be some sort of
record!” and you begin to wonder who you screwed over in another life. And what
were you doing in Indonesia in the first place?
And that
brings us to now in what feels like Day 2,743 of the “Great Wait” in which the
boat sits in a perpetual state of readiness…nothing has been unstowed; boxes
and bins are still tucked away or crammed Jenga-like into cabin corners; bungie
cords are at the ready to secure moving items; passports and paperwork are near
at hand; and any foodstuffs eaten or provisions used are immediately replenished.
We don’t venture too far from the boat—a reprovisioning trip to San Salvador or
a jaunt up the coast to Cadejo in La Libertad is as far as we like to go because
you never know when the time will come and the next favorable bar crossing
window will not catch us unawares. We are resolved to be within two hours of
shoving off at any given time. So if the storms on the other side of the world
suddenly subsided, the swell settled down, and the bar became calm, we would be
ready in the time it would take for the Immigration Officer to come down to the
marina, collect his $11.43 per person, and wave us off with his white hanky.
At this
point it seems weird—to me at least—that we’re so anxious to leave when we know
what’s waiting for us out there. But I think deep down it’s more that we are determined
to make it back to Barra and whether we motor, sail, bob, limp, or tow
ourselves with our own dinghy, we will get there. Something will inevitably
happen…it always does, but better to get back out there and let it do what it’s
going to do rather than sit here and fret. Because we’ve been “ready” for a
long time and we’ve been stuck in “set” for what seems like ages. It’s time to “go”
and do it again. The big question is
when. And who knows? It could be tomorrow…
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