Privateer Bay

Our first sail was to Norman Island. We picked up a mooring in the lee of the island and were swimming in the deepest blue before even cutting the engine. Glorious, warm, deep blue sea. The boys were ecstatic and spent the rest of the day exploring the area underwater. Turtles, sharks, stingrays, lobsters, fish, coral and underwater caves were amoungst the delights to be observed below the surface.

Our first night on the boat was pleasant, disrupted only by banging of halyards and swinging of the boom - somewhat highlighting the amatuer cruisers we are.

The next morning, our soon-to-be-routine pre-breakfast engine start proved difficult. So difficult, in fact, the engine never started. Our minds raced back to the charter briefing; battery switches, ignition switches, choke, throttle. No dice. For the life of us, we could not get the thing to start. We had been given a spare battery but no chords to connect it. Such is island life. We tore the boat apart and pooled our brains and came up with nothing. Our emergency phone to the charter company was used on the first day.

To make matters worse, it was a Sunday and our mate Dave was at church with his family. Woops, sorry Dave. Dave took our apology and continued his morning at church and then lunch with his family, as any decent man would. He also took the family out on the boat for his afternoon rescue mission. Good on you Dave!

Much to our surprise, Dave managed to start the engine with a new battery and a few hits of the terminals with the back end of a crescent. How embarrassing. Somewhat dumbfounded at the simplicity of the solution, we thanked him and putted off the mooring and onwards to Peter Island. Little did we know this would be the first of many situations with which we bonded with our power source.

Peter offered shelter from the wind, but the swell was uncomfortable. Boys being boys we put up with it and enjoyed the teetering daylight with a swim and feed. Beautiful!

Now I know you'll guess it. Morning two engine start was no better success. Furthermore, yesterday's blue skies had faded to dark clouds and persistent showers, and a swinging breeze had made our anchorage indesirable and rather risky. We spent the morning unconvinced that the batteries were flat and conjured several solutions to gain maximum power for an engine start. With no success and an impending rocky outcrop to leeward, we opted for emergency phone call number two. Now Dave had already told us he didn't have a tender, and his only way of rescue was to use whichever charter boat was available at the time. Given our distance from the marina, one would expect Dave to be rather ticked off having to spend a good part of the day just getting out to us. Oh no, au contraire. He was delighted to see us! Or so it seemed! Hindsight tells me it was a nervous front but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

A fifth battery got the engine started. After a myriad of 'before and after' battery readings, engine starts and wiring scenarios we managed to convince Dave that it'd be best to have an electrician look at it. So we weighed anchor and motored into the sunset and impending darkness. The wind died off to nothing at dusk which made for a stunning return to a well lit Tortola.

The next day started with the electrician banging on the cabin window at 7am, unannounced. Dazed and disoriented I welcomed him aboard and roused the crew. He, like all Tortolans, seemed cheery and confident. He explained to us the situation, offered the solution and promised to return at midday with the missing parts.

Midday came and went and no sign of the electrician. Dave, who was already a little out of his depth, kindly offered us a car for the afternoon (to get us out of his hair). We obliged, and set off to explore Tortola and top up groceries. Upon return, our mate Dave was thrilled to see us. 'Look', he said, 'I'll show you. Everything is rrrrready to go.' He explained that the electrician had never returned and he'd dragged another yachtie from a nearby boat, who looked like he had some know-how, onto our boat to resolve the problem. The yachtie had disagreed with the electricians wiring and rewired the system for a third time and explained the issues to Dave. Unfortunately, after hearing Dave out, we were not convinced that we had resolved the fundamental problem being that the house batteries drained the starter batteries.

So we agreed on a solution and wired it accordingly, and Dave got us a third, brand new, 1000USD battery. We also requested a voltmeter and a spare starter battery so Dave will (hopefully) never have to rescue us again. We're now three days in and haven't spoken to Dave. Watch this space.

Jools has taken to the engineer's role like a duck to water, monitoring and recording our battery juice four hourly.

You might question why we don't just man up and use the sails. A valid question. The only problem is a fifty foot ship, loaded to the gunnels, takes a while to respond to a sail. Not easy when your moorings leave you four feet clear of the bottom and 15 yards clear of your neighbour, and the marina requires you to dance with the bottom to get to your slip. No thanks.

In case I made it sound like getting stranded in the BVIs was a bad thing, let me set the record straight with a few images...Read more