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So we set off yesterday afternoon, amidst a flurry of loading up, and lots of good wishes from family and friends, who stood on the docks and waved farewell to us. About 45 minutes into the trip (under motor) we encountered a hiccup. It seems that in the thrashing that we took on Tuesday, something worked itself loose in the coolant system for the engine, and uh oh, we had to shut the engine down while we tried to sort the issue out. On the good news front… an excuse to sail! so up went all three of our sails, and we were off finally underway in the way that a sailboat should be!! A beautiful and quiet sight!
We made good time in a nice beam reach almost all the way down to the Cape Cod bay. Mark took the first shift at the helm, relieved by Lynne, while Brian worked on sorting out the engine issue. As we came into the bay, we ultimately made the decision that the engine repair was going to require more than a quick fix, we needed to replace two bolts in the coolant system and that we really should minimize running our engine (which is required to go through the CC Canal). That said, we decided to hunker down for the evening off of Sconnset Beach (I’ll double check the name in the AM), and dropped our shiny new Bruce anchor. We all kicked back and tucked in for the night for some shut eye, snug as snug can be with all of our blankets!
We woke up in the AM to sleet (yuck) and sludge on the deck. After a little more fiddling with the engine, we decided that we had to put in and get some parts. A phone call to my good friend (and our savior) Bill H. who was willing to drive down from his place in Kingston and shuttle us around to the hardware store and all the way to Hyannis to the marine supply store. The stop and quick meal at IHOP doesn’t even begin to repay Bill for all of his help. (I owe you one!)
Upon our (very damp) return to the boat, and speedy fairwells and hearty thanks to Bill at docksides since it was pouring buckets, Mark went to work on repairing the coolant system, while Brian worked on the computer system and the VHF and I worked on continuing to find homes for all of the stuff we’d brought aboard in the last 36 hours.
Success! Mark has fixed the engine system! and it’s now running smoothly and without leaks! Brian’s gotten rid of the kink in the VHF, and I’ve managed to seal up the leaky window (thanks to Jay’s Silly Putty solution) and managed to stow away much more of our posessions.
Now it’s off to bed for the night, as we’ll likely be leaving around noon tomorrow with the tide, however Mark is going to get up and check to see how the weather and wind is looking for the potential window at 2 AM tonight…. to try to make some time out of this cold weather.
More in the next few days, when we have access again to update.