One would think that the sailing gods had finished their business with us and would leave us humbly heading for home. I wish that were true.
Early the next morning, having finished our hard-won breakfast, Spice of Life lifted anchor and headed for Clifton Harbor to begin our customs adventure. The squalls of the night before had left the sea choppy and steep, and we elected to leave sails stowed and motor the short distance around the island.
It was only a couple of miles, what could go wrong?
Plenty.
As we rounded the island, our yacht was bouncing along in the chop, waves occasionally dousing the crew. Progress under engine power was slow. Without the sails, yachts tend to roll, and everyone aboard was getting uncomfortable (read: seasick). I was feeling a little extra vibration from the engine, and made a mental note to check it out when we reached harbor.
Suddenly, there was a noise that sounded like someone had dropped a bucket of bolts into the engine compartment. Spice of Life stopped in her tracks, engine revving. I quickly reached for the throttle and shut the engine down. Everyone jumped on deck to raise the sails.
With the northeast trades blowing stronger than usual, and a "lee shore" to the south of us, we really needed to get the boat moving, motor or not. With sails set, we were moving again, and again we could hear a griding noise from below decks. With Cathy at the helm, George and I went into the cabin and started removing engine covers to try to figure out what was going on.
Finally, after practically standing on our heads in the engine compartment, we could see the problem. The flange that attached the propeller shaft to the engine had broken off, and the propeller shaft was turning free with the motion of the boat through the water. Lucky for us, part of the flange remained on the propeller shaft, otherwise the shaft would've dropped completely out of the boat. This would've left a nice hole for the beautiful Caribbean Sea to join our personal belongings inside Spice of Life.
And we would've sunk.
Of course, this would've been entirely unacceptable to Cathy's doctor, who told her specifically not to get her nose wet.
After several minutes of propeller-shaft wrangling, we managed to pull the shaft back into place, wedging blocks of wood under it to make sure that it no longer turned, and that it stayed with the boat. We had, after all, developed an affection for our propeller and sincerely wanted to make sure that it stayed with us.
Okay, now what? This vacation was becoming a long series of crises. I was somewhat experienced in handling boats under sail alone, but getting a 43 foot boat into a coral reef infested harbor was another matter. We were going to need help getting Spice of Life into Clifton Harbor. I leaned on our waterlogged outboard to think.
Our charter company, Moorings, prides itself on customer service. They had even positioned a "sub-base" in Clifton Harbor. In this case, the Moorings sub-base turned out to be a leathery man living on a yacht at anchor. To us, his voice on the VHF sounded like the entire US Navy had been mobilized to come to our rescue. Within minutes he was alongside in a large rubber boat, and in a few more minutes he had tied his boat alongside ours, and was motoring us into Clifton. His speed and obvious experience impressed us all, but left us wondering: if he's so good at this, does it happen all the time?
Okay, now for a bit of nautical stuff. Clifton Harbor is fairly circular, and the upwind anchorage is on the north side. When you are anchoring a boat, you look for relatively shallow water (but not too shallow), a good bottom, and the absence of a "lee" shore. Lee shores are downwind of you - if your anchor loses grip, called "dragging", you find yourself, and your boat, on the beach. This breaks one of the three fundamental rules of sailing, which are:
Keep the people in the boat
Keep the water out of the boat
Keep the boat in the water
But I digress.
Clifton, being circular, can't help but be it's own lee shore. All you can do is your best job anchoring on the upwind side and hope for the best. Wherever we anchor, we usually drop the anchor upwind of where we want to be, let out lots of chain, then rev up the engine in reverse for a few seconds to see if the boat stays put. If it drags at all, we pick up the anchor and try again. I'm fairly anal about anchoring - we've been in places where we tried five times before I felt comfortable. It is usually several hours before the crew forgives me after such sessions.
Our Moorings savior, while being competent in every way, was also very busy. Once we got in the relative vicinity of the anchorage, he was anxious for us to drop anchor. We dropped two, one behind the other. Our inability to test our anchors by running the engine in reverse left me with a sense of anxiety, but there was nothing to be done.
Okay, now what? Our ordeal with the propeller had taken several hours. Travelling south that day was out of the question. The Moorings sub-base master borrowed one of our diving masks and jumped into the water to have a look, presumably to see if we had wrapped a line around the propeller. He declared it clear of ropes, but unreparable without taking the boat out of the water.
In Grenada, 90 miles away.
So, the options were:
Vacation stops here and we fly home
Moorings provides us with a new boat, which we would probably have to wait several days for.
We stay in Clifton Harbor for the rest of our lives. Sydney Dallas could teach us how to be boat boys.
None of us wanted to end our somewhat flawed adventure in paradise. After discussing strategy with the crew, I used our boat-phone to call the manager of the Moorings base in Grenada.
I guess news travels fast in the islands. Not only was he ready for the call, he already had a set of alternatives for us. Did we have any extra days to spend in the islands? Yes. Would we like to try to bring the boat back under sail only?
Ever see those cartoons where the person is trying to make a decision, all the while getting advice from a little devil on one shoulder and a little angel on the other? For me, there was a little macho guy on one side, and a cowering little wimp on the other. Motors are more than a "nice to have" in the reef strewn Caribbean. We would have to find another anchorage on the way down, and sailing to and from an anchorage with no engine power requires planning and skill. My little macho man chose that moment to start shouting in my ear. He sounded like a Marine drill sergeant.
I told the Moorings base manager that we would be delighted to return his boat to him.
He responded with, "Have fun, I'll see you in a couple of days." I guess his little macho man knew what my little macho man was going to say.
The plan was set. We would spend the night at anchor in Clifton Harbor, the next morning sail to Carriacou, clear customs, spend the night, and the following day sail the final leg to Grenada. Piece of cake.
Best I can tell, I didn't sleep at all that night. Sleeping at anchor for me is usually fitful at best, and this night I was racked with anxiety about our current anchoring situation and our upcoming trip the next day. Just to make things worse, we were again lashed by squalls, and I ended up sitting on the bow of the boat, in the rain, watching our anchor lines for signs of dragging.
It was a very tired skipper that presented ships papers to the customs authorities the following morning. Dutifully cleared from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, we returned to Spice of Life and prepared for our departure. The Moorings sub-base master traded us a good outboard for our waterlogged one.
We raised sail, picked up our anchors, and headed south.