Hi Friends,
John and I made a promise to ourselves when we decided to start this blog that we would be authentic with our followers. We had no idea how to run a blog (and we still don't, but we are learning every day!) What we did know is that we did not want to be the type of content creators who only shared the most beautifully curated content. Nope. Owning a boat is messy y'all. And since you are along for the ride, the least we could do is be transparent and share what happens behind the curtain. But beware, sometimes it's a hotmess back here. (I know...my Texas is showing).
Y'all already know that we're still in our first year learning curve, so we are going to have some mishaps, we expect that. What we did not expect, however, was that we would lose multiple systems, at the same time, at night, while we were out at anchor. Buy a boat they said...it will be fun they said. And who exactly is "they" anyway? Some day, I'd like to sit down and have a serious conversation with "they"!
So here's the story. It was your typical gorgeous day in Golfito, the water in the big bay of the Golfo Dulce was exceptionally beautiful and we were on the hunt for an anchorage to spend the night. We took our time slowly cruising the shoreline while watching the dolphins and false killer whale mamas with their babies. The ever-playful dolphins came right up to the boat, entertaining us with their antics while the whales stayed a bit further off. Storms were brewing all around us but nothing so big that we were very concerned, it was just par for the course during the rainy season in Costa Rica. If the rain got too heavy we would just move to the lower helm station to stay dry, no big deal. Nevertheless, we kept one eye on the radar and the other on the sky.
After cruising for a bit we found a cove that looked like a perfect place to drop anchor. The water looked so inviting, and being avid swimmers, we were anxious to take a dip and cool off before the afternoon storms hit. We dropped anchor and after (multiple) attempts, we got lucky and it bit. We had struggled with anchoring many times. The ocean floor is sandy and quickly drops off, so you can drop your anchor in 25 feet of water and then quickly realize that you have dragged just a few feet and are now at a depth of 90+ feet, so there's a lot of trial and error. After we set the anchor alarm and decided that we were holding, we dove in the water and relaxed in our swim chairs while Bentley kept a close eye on us from the swim platform to make sure we didn't get eaten by a croc. The water was gorgeous and while we relaxed and cooled off, we took in the views and talked about how blessed we are to get to live this life.
There is something about being at anchor that brings on great sleep. Maybe it's the sounds of the water lapping against the fiberglass, or the gentle rocking of the boat, but it puts me to sleep every time. When I woke up from my "nap" I noticed two things. It was dark outside and John was sitting next to me on the couch with a look of concern on his face. As soon as I sat up, he said, "We have to head back, we busted a hose on the generator and it is spewing salt water into the generator room". Before I could even process, much less respond, he said; "I turned the second generator on and it is leaking even worse than the first one, I think it's the seal on the water pump". It took a moment for my sleep-addled brain to process his words. "We are taking on water?!" What does that even mean? We're sinking?! There are not enough exclamation points to properly convey my alarm.
John answered my rapid-fire questions calmly, as per usual. No, we were not in fact sinking, but we needed to move quickly, and we would, possibly, be cruising back to the marina "dark", in the dark, meaning no GPS, no auto-pilot, no lights. Nada. Nothing. Buy a boat they said...it will be fun, they said...
With that, we went into high gear and started to prepare to head out. John went through the normal process to start the engines and as luck would have it, the starboard engine would not start. He went to the upper helm on the bridge and again, nothing. Next, he went down to the engine room and hit the start button there, and to our pleasant surprise, it fired right up.
We each went about getting things ready and as we met up at the lower helm station, we heard a loud grinding noise that made us stop and stare at each other, but neither of us knew where the sound came from. I was worried that we had dragged our anchor and gone aground, but a glance at the anchor alarm showed everything was fine. John ran up to the bow to check the anchor chain, and while he was there I noticed that the distant lights of Porto Jimenez were directly in front of us, but they were moving fairly quickly meaning that we were in a counter-clockwise spin. I shouted for John and then I hit the bow thruster against our spin, but nothing. If at all possible, we were only gaining momentum.
John shut both engines down from the controls at the lower helm and after a few tense moments, we started to slow considerably. It was dark and eerily quiet and it was completely disorienting for both of us. It was so difficult to know which direction we were facing. But what scared us the most was that neither of us felt that we were starting to spin, and even worse, we had no idea why.
After we stopped moving completely, we were able to start the engines again but then realized that we had no steering control at the lower helm. John checked the controls up on the bridge and hallelujah! they worked. We knew that there were some shallow reef areas nearby and we wanted to be sure we had use of the chart plotter to help us navigate through those spots in the dark, so we turned on generator one, started back to the marina, and hoped for the best.
Thankfully, the cruise back to the little bay was pretty uneventful. John made frequent checks of the leaky hose on the generator while I stayed up at the bridge controls with the ever-faithful Bentley by my side. When we turned into the little bay, with our marina in sight, we shut the autopilot off and John went below to start prepping the lines and fenders. As I was following the navigation lights in the channel, we lost steering again. I pulled back on the throttles, put the gears into neutral, and waited for John to come back up. He put us back into gear and again, nothing. No steering at all. By sheer luck, we heard the autopilot "whirring" (I don't know how else the describe the sound) and realized that even though the main autopilot had been shut off, the second unit was still on and was overriding the manual steering. We shut it off and had control again.
It was disorienting trying to navigate after that, the lights at the marina fuel dock and the restaurant looked like the lights on the dock and it was hard to know which way to go. It's crazy to think that an area that we are so familiar with seemed like unchartered territory at that moment. I am sure it was a mixture of adrenaline, fear, and whatever other emotions we were feeling at the time. John had the controls and was cool as a cucumber as he approached the dock, spun our girl around, backed right up into the slip, and made it on the first attempt. It was about 10:00 pm and I had never been so happy to see one of the line handlers standing there waiting to help us secure the boat. There are so many great things we love about our marina, but the line handlers are at the top of our list.
Marina Bahia Golfito (our marina) at night, is so pretty with all of the lights
Diagnosing our steering problem:
We have a hynautic system, meaning when you move the gears on the bridge controls, they will also move the controls of the lower helm. This type of system requires bleeding the air and leveling the controls out before starting the engines. How we missed this crucial step when we cruised 2,200+ nautical miles from Florida to Costa Rica is a complete mystery to both of us. So in plain speak, when John attempted to start the starboard engine and it wouldn't start, it was because of the safety feature that John unknowingly overrode when he did a manual start from the engine room. Because the hynautic gear shifter was not leveled out, the starboard engine was actually in gear when we started the engine manually, therefore, putting us into a spin. We did not know all of this until we had our engineer come aboard the following day. He took one look at the controls in the lower helm and said "You have air in your system and it needs to be bled". Thank goodness we have surrounded ourselves with talented people to help us through this learning curve.
Dealing with the generators was fairly straightforward, but unfortunately, the generator room is about 4 feet tall. John is 6'4", I'll let you do the math. Buy a boat, they said. It will be fun, they said...
But in all seriousness, even with our rookie mishaps, elevated heart rates, adrenaline rushes, and major imposter syndrome, we would not change this life for anything. So, in the meantime, we will just muddle through the learning curve, and continue to be grateful for our engineers, mechanics, and fellow boaters who help us along while we just #keeponswimming
Until next time...
Cheers!
-John & Benita
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