MAGGIE M ADRIFT IN THE SEA OF FORTUITY (or "Chris & Divya's Excellent Adventure")

Dear friends and kinfolk,

    Here's an update of our journey to the Bahamas this year. For those of you who would rather skip hearing about various mechanical problems on boats, you can just go to the next to last paragraph. For the rest of you, prepare to begin a bewildering journey through the shifting sands of fortune.

    After having relatively few problems with the boat last year, this year we have had relatively quite a few. When we got to Georgia where the boat was stored on land, we discovered the boat full of mold and the bottom of the boat filled with water caused by the fact that an insect had built a grass nest inside the bilge pump discharge hose. It took a week just to clean the bilges and get rid of the mold which was everywhere in the boat. During this time we discovered that the engine wouldn't start and we had to remove and reinstall the starter motor which involved drilling and extracting a broken-off hardened steel bolt from the engine block located in a space only accessible by mice which don't make good bolt drillers. Once the engine did start, it operated erratically for reasons we were never able to precisely determine. One by one we turned on all the different systems in the boat, dreading that they might not be functioning again after a long and humid summer. Fortunately the refrigerator turned on. Fortunately the GPS turned on. Fortunately the instruments turned on. Very fortunately the toilet still seemed to flush. Unfortunately the pump that empties the toilet holding tank didn't turn on. Fortunately replacing a fuse fixed this. Fortunately the water pressure pump turned on, and on the day we left St Mary's Georgia, fortunately the engine started. The whole time we were in St Marys, the weather was hot and humid and the usual gnats showed up promptly every time you least expected them to. After two and a half weeks of stocking the boat with food and dealing with multiple and various other frustrating problems, we were once again wondering why on earth we were doing all this. The only mitigating factor during this time was the generous help and support of Roger and Terri who manage the boatyard and constantly bring a sense of humor and a positive outlook to otherwise greasy gnat-bitten and dejected and depressed boat owners. (A little aside here, it is a strange phenomenon that boats when they are on land seem to lose all their magic and beauty. They are often covered with dust and leaves, and seem to glaringly present you with more things to fix than you could possibly ever have time for. They smell strange and foreign and seem like grotesque and giant fibreglass coffins that only the certifiably insane would ever consider living in for six months. One finds oneself making endless trips to Walmart purchasing things like new dishtowels in the futile hope that these items might make the upcoming prison sentence more bearable. However, once the boat is finally in the water, it slowly begins to transform into a vehicle that has beauty and grace in its function as well as in its appearance and that it can take one to amazingly wonderful places. Whether this transformation takes place in the minds of the crew or in the soul of the boat, is impossible to know, but every year it seems to happen.)

    After the second day of going down the intercoastal waterway, the engine began operating normally and we have come to the tentative conclusion that it probably had water in the fuel system. For the next week we were accompanied down the waterway by our friend Harry in his boat, the Mud Duck, who was also en route to the Bahamas. We spent a few days in the wonderful city of St Augustine and had fine weather motoring, and sometimes even sailing, down the waterway to Miami.

    Then our reversals of fortune, began to reemerge. Unfortunately the shortwave radio started spontaneously shutting itself off a few minutes after being turned on just as we were getting ready to leave for the Bahamas. Fortunately, Chris took everything apart, put it back together and it started working again. Unfortunately it only worked for five minutes before it mysteriously turned itself off again. After repeating this procedure several times, sending us alternately into states of elation and dejection, we finally fixed the radio problem, well sort of - (it mysteriously turned itself off just the other day and just as mysteriously started working normally again a few hours later).

    Unfortunately just as we were out in the ocean south of Miami, our engine overheated due to the failure of a brand new water pump. Fortunately we had extra impellers onboard from the old pump. Unfortunately, the new pump didn't take the same parts as the old pump. Fortunately Chris had the old pump rebuilt last summer and he put that in the engine. Unfortunately the engine was still overheating even with the new-old pump installed. Fortunately after sailing into South Miami at night with no engine, we were able to determine that the coolant level was low and adding more coolant fixed the overheating problem. Fortunately there was an engine parts dealer for our engine in Miami and we were able to buy some spare parts for the new water pump. Unfortunately on the way back from buying the new parts, we left the owners manual to the engine on a bus.

    The next night we crossed the Gulf Stream and had a very rolly and bouncy crossing, at times making only 3-1/2 knots and at other times being terrified by large freighters and cruise ships coming within several hundred yards of us. Fortunately our engine did fine through the entire crossing. Unfortunately after ducking into some calm water behind a small island in the Bahama Banks the engine started overheating again. Fortunately this didn't happen in the Gulf Stream or we might have been whisked off to Bermuda. Fortunately we discovered the engine just needed more coolant. Unfortunately this meant there was a leak somewhere. Also unfortunately we couldn't see any leak which meant the leak was happening somehow inside the engine. Fortunately, the oil looked fine so we continued on our voyage and had some great sails through the Bahamas checking in at Morgans Bluff in Andros and having great weather for sailing and motoring southeast to Georgetown. When we got to Georgetown, Chris determined that although fortunately the engine oil looked good, he had unfortunately been checking the transmission oil all this time. Fortunately when he checked the actual engine oil it looked okay.

    We decided not to worry about the engine until after our friend Gary came and visited us for four days between Christmas and New Years. Fortunately Gary brought many delectable food items as well as his own culinary abilities and refinements. Fortunately, we were able to find a coolant system pressure tester in order to determine where the leak was. Unfortunately we found out that the leak was in something called the heat exchanger. Fortunately the heat exchanger is a replaceable part external to the engine and this diagnosis meant the engine didn't need major work like changing the head gasket. Unfortunately buying and having a new heat exchanger sent to the Bahamas cost about $700. However, fortunately, Chris was able to find and install a small heat exchanger that he found in a trailer full of junk in a boatyard somewhere south of Georgetown which fortunately has enabled us to generate electricity and to keep our refrigerator working while we wait for the new heat exchanger to arrive.

    This brings us to the present where we find ourselves in Georgetown anchored unfortunately in a 25 knot wind but fortunately anchored in good sand behind a beautiful island with a wonderful ocean beach a short walk across from where we are. Fortunately the wind is supposed to stop blowing so hard tomorrow. Our present strategy is to spend the next week or two trying to recouperate from our various reversals of fortune which have imbued in us a certain desire not to do anything with the boat so nothing else will break on it. Looming in the distant background however, is the vision of heading even further south this winter possibly to Puerto Rico if only we can successfully extract ourselves from the aforementioned bipolar fortunosity. We are sending this e-mail to various friends and family and letting you know that we are in good health and actually in very good spirits and would enjoy hearing from any of you.

    On a broader note, these last two months have also had other dimensions for us. Although it may seem from our descriptions like our travels involve a total focus on the mechanics of engines and the survival of the ever present weather, one sees a lot about oneself and about humanity in the process of immersing oneself in this. There is a spirit of generousity and a true willingness to help out among all the boaters one encounters in these travels and one is often touched by the concern and care of others. Also there are private times where after obsessing about one's boat problems for weeks the spirit erupts within one and brings one into contact with the beauty and warmth of these waters and into a sense of presence where suddenly the boat and all its difficulties turns into a very small thing and the presence of each moment becomes a wonderful gift.

    Just to clear up a confusing detail that may confront you, we have a different e-mail address on the boat, however our usual e-mail address gets forwarded to the boat, so either one of the addresses that may show up in your computer will get to us. Simply responding to any of our e-mails will work fine. Also we have a different satellite phone number where you can leave a message although e-mail is the best way to contact us and we actually check it more often than we do our phone messages. The new sat phone number is 254-241-7124.

Lots of love to all, Chris and Divya