Monday 5th Februaury
Boca de Infierno
Puerto Rico
17 56.4 N
66 12.9 W
The black arm bands are out – the Colts won the Super bowl as we found out today.
As planned, depending on the weather forecast, this was the day that we were going to leave Salinas. Our plan was to first stage out to Boca de Infierno a trip of about 6 miles, early in the evening and then at around midnight set out to Puerto del Rey, about a further 40 miles away. This assumed that we would make use of the night lee winds. Our back up plan was to only do the staging and then wait for a better weather window. We began our day by doing a check that we had everything that we needed to make the trip. We then took the dink into the marina and walked to the internet café and read emails, uploaded the blog and rechecked the weather – yes we are becoming quite paranoid about it! The good news was that we thought we would be able to do the whole trip without having to stop some place else. After finishing at the internet cafe we went into the marina and exchanged a whole load of books then we went to the bar and had lunch before heading back out to our boat. We hauled the outboard on to it’s storage block and tied the dink down on the foredeck all ready for the trip and then we killed time defrosting our fridge and freezer – horrid job, reading and tidying things away until our departure time of 17.00hrs. We had planned to leave at 1700hrs so that we would be at anchor behind the reef at Boca De Infierno before the sun set. We started our engine, turned on the instruments and donned our head sets; Gerry headed to the anchor locker whilst I remained at the wheel, 3 or 4 swear words later (from Gerry not me) he returned to the cockpit, we had a problem – the windlass wouldn’t work. This is the motor that winds the anchor chain in and out and we really didn’t want to be pulling up the chain by hand each time we anchored. We switched everything back off and then set about trying to sort out the problem, it meant having to get to the underside of the anchor looker, through the V berth. Once again all the stuff we had stored on top of the V berth had to be relocated - the salon looked like a bomb had hit it again. Then Gerry began searching for the problem whilst I played hand maiden and handed bits of equipment to him and switched things on and off as asked. The problem was that the motor winding over temperature protection had failed preventing power reaching the controls, the fix was to bypass the over temperature protection. It took us an hour to get back to the point of leaving the harbour but this time we did it without any problem. After motoring for just on an hour we arrived at Boca de Infierno and dropped our anchor midway between 2 boats that were already at anchor there. I quickly threw together a meal and then we showered and hit the bed to grab a few hours sleep before taking off for the rest of the trip.
Puerto Rico
17 56.4 N
66 12.9 W
The black arm bands are out – the Colts won the Super bowl as we found out today.
As planned, depending on the weather forecast, this was the day that we were going to leave Salinas. Our plan was to first stage out to Boca de Infierno a trip of about 6 miles, early in the evening and then at around midnight set out to Puerto del Rey, about a further 40 miles away. This assumed that we would make use of the night lee winds. Our back up plan was to only do the staging and then wait for a better weather window. We began our day by doing a check that we had everything that we needed to make the trip. We then took the dink into the marina and walked to the internet café and read emails, uploaded the blog and rechecked the weather – yes we are becoming quite paranoid about it! The good news was that we thought we would be able to do the whole trip without having to stop some place else. After finishing at the internet cafe we went into the marina and exchanged a whole load of books then we went to the bar and had lunch before heading back out to our boat. We hauled the outboard on to it’s storage block and tied the dink down on the foredeck all ready for the trip and then we killed time defrosting our fridge and freezer – horrid job, reading and tidying things away until our departure time of 17.00hrs. We had planned to leave at 1700hrs so that we would be at anchor behind the reef at Boca De Infierno before the sun set. We started our engine, turned on the instruments and donned our head sets; Gerry headed to the anchor locker whilst I remained at the wheel, 3 or 4 swear words later (from Gerry not me) he returned to the cockpit, we had a problem – the windlass wouldn’t work. This is the motor that winds the anchor chain in and out and we really didn’t want to be pulling up the chain by hand each time we anchored. We switched everything back off and then set about trying to sort out the problem, it meant having to get to the underside of the anchor looker, through the V berth. Once again all the stuff we had stored on top of the V berth had to be relocated - the salon looked like a bomb had hit it again. Then Gerry began searching for the problem whilst I played hand maiden and handed bits of equipment to him and switched things on and off as asked. The problem was that the motor winding over temperature protection had failed preventing power reaching the controls, the fix was to bypass the over temperature protection. It took us an hour to get back to the point of leaving the harbour but this time we did it without any problem. After motoring for just on an hour we arrived at Boca de Infierno and dropped our anchor midway between 2 boats that were already at anchor there. I quickly threw together a meal and then we showered and hit the bed to grab a few hours sleep before taking off for the rest of the trip.
Labels: Puerto Rico
posted by SV Orpailleur at 4:06 p.m.
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