We start the day in Savannah (Tetor) bay, with some school work. So now everyone is in a great mood. We head out of the bay at around 10, winding back through the reef. The skies are a little clearer today, making it easier to read the depths. We are treating ourselves to a stay at the Scrub Island Resort/Marina. Its a brand new development that just opened a couple of months ago. With pools, waterslides, a swim up bar, and health club it will be quite a different experience than we’ve had the last couple of months. There is absolutely no wind as we motor away from virgin Gorda. I have never seen the water so flat and calm. (of course the calm water shows more debris, and the water looks a little less inviting.
About half way there, Tracy hears the stbd engine suddenly increase. She is pulling back on the throttle as the alarm starts sounding. We are over temp, and we quickly shut it down. My worst fear for the last couple of days is that an engine would blow up and we would be stuck dealing with that through the rest of our charter and likely beyond. I climb into the engine room and find the belt for the water pump shredded. We find some spare belts, and rather than try to dock with one engine I start trying to replace it. The belt is not exactly the same, and it is a struggle to get on. We are now between Marina Cay and Scrub Island, so we grab a ball at MC while I make the last attempts to get the belt on, before deciding that the new belt is not going work. It is miserably hot, with no air moving at all, and the engine room is like an oven. Scrub Island has no parts or service yet, so I run in to Marina Cay to check there. No luck, but the steer me to ‘Frenchy’, the ferry boat driver that just pulled in. He speaks in something of a cross between French and English, and after rummaging through his supply shed, I can understand enough to know that he has no belt, and the only place to get one would be back in Road Town. With that info, I go back out to Seabbatical and call David George to see if he can get us a belt. We are in luck, he is available and will meet us in Trellis Bay this afternoon. While not thrilled with the idea of going back to Trellis for a third time, this is going to be the best solution. As we start up the port engine to motor the short distance over to Trellis, it starts to rain. As we drop the mooring pennant, the port transmission starts its usual rumbling and vibration. It does this occasionally, and we need to shift it in and out of gear a couple of times to get it to smooth out. It first did this when getting a ball in Soper’s Hole way back at the beginning of the cruise. Ironically, we had only the one engine that time as well. So we are off the ball, the rain is now pouring down, and the port engine refuses to cooperate. The boat will not handle with one engine until we get some speed up, so I have no choice but to keep pushing it, while quickly shifting it in and out of gear. Now its the worst I have ever heard it. We finally have enough speed where I can maneuver through the moored boats, around the reef, and into open water. Once in the clear, we finally get the gears synced up properly and smoothly (and slowly) motor the couple of miles into trellis. Its still raining, and of course the wind has come up – right on the nose. Tracy thinks she spots a dolphin jump, which we take as a good omen.
We get in to Trellis, and grab a mooring ball without problem. The rain has mostly stopped, but it every few minutes we get a little more falling. We call Scrub Island Marina and push our reservation back a day, and wait for David to come with the new belt. During one of the breaks in the rain, we go ashore just to get off the boat for a little while. David calls while we are on shore, so I leave Tracy and the kids, and run down to that end of the bay to pick him up and take him out to the boat. He has a belt that looks like a good match. While he works on that, I run back into shore to pick up the crew. They weren’t really ready to go back out to the boat, just waving hello. So we do what you do when in the Caribbean – sit down at De Loose Mongoose beach bar and have a Carib. (she even brings out a bowl of popcorn for Noah) Soon I see David out of the engine room, so I go out to see if he needs anything. He has it all done. The new belt works and we are all set. I drop David off at the far dock, and then go back to the Mongoose. The kitchen doesn’t open until 6:30, so its back out to the boat. The rain is done, but like our last trip to Trellis, everything is still soaked and seems like it will never dry. We are sitting in the cockpit when Delaina fumbles the chapstick and it bounces towards the back of the boat. I spring into action to save it, of course the wet deck is like a sheet of ice. Whoooops! My feet go flying in the air, I take one hard bounce and slide the remaining few feet right off the back of the boat. Thankfully, there are no silly charterers around to see this as I crawl out of the water and take my 5th shower of the day.
Noah has talked non-stop about the great Mahi sandwich he got at De Loose Mongoose on our very first day, so we head back in for dinner. Guess what he orders – chicken nuggets. Sometimes I just don’t get it. Back at the boat we discover that Delaina’s head has overflowed. We pump it out, making sure its properly set to dry. It seems ok, but later in the night Delaina wakes to find it overflowing again. There seems to be a disturbing pattern of things starting to break down.
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