Grenada celebrates Thanksgiving October 25, so we followed custom. We had two Thanksgiving dinners, one on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, at our friends Doug and Wendy’s boat, from Ottawa. We were joined by Becky and Dudley from Florida. Wendy cooked a ham on her BBQ. We had scalloped potatoes, veggies, pumpkin soup and all the trimmings. It was a great feast; we all drank way too much wine, with resulting headaches the next day. We went around the table, and everyone said what they had to be thankful for, the list was long. Last weekend, we had Doug and Wendy over to our boat. I cooked a large turkey breast, and we had mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberries and all the trimmings. I made pumpkin pies from scratch, including the crust. They were the best I have ever had.
Life has been moving along at warp speed. I can’t believe we have been in Grenada for almost three months. We are still at Port Louis in St. Georges. We have been busy sorting out and repairing issues with the boat, mainly our engine and generator. Greg sent an email to his buddy Bruce from First Air in Yellowknife, detailing the repairs. Here is what he had to say...
Two months ago I went to start the big old Mercedes engine and it burnt out the fuse on the starter circuit. After checking out the starter I found out it was OK. "SHIT". The engine was ceased. Pulled out all eight of the fuel injectors and found salt water in #5 and #7 cylinders. Not good. You know me as a little bull headed and maybe stubborn. Well the engine room isn't that big and hot. Pulled the intake and exhaust manifolds off and found out that the cause of the water was that the siphon brake on the Port lift muffler was dirty and not working as designed.
Problem was the result that with a 3/4 in drive and a Johnson bar on a plate I made up for the front of the engine along with a 6 ton bottle jack on it she would not budge. So plan B. I took of the heads for 5&7 and made up blocks of wood to try and press them loose with a half inch steal plate (scrounged) and using 4 head bolts. Plan C, the cylinders. As soon as I found the salt I started the process of soaking them with a mixture of trial and error with diesel fuel, automatic trans fluid ,WD40, PB Blaster, On Off hull cleaner ,and whatever else I could find. As the problem cylinders were on the port side I had to crawl over the generator to work on them. This was a real pain in the ass, since we had to have the generator running so I had lights and Carol had refrigeration. This also made it noisy and very hot.
Now plan C was a trial of getting a local antiquated machine shop to turn down a large piece of steel I found at a construction site, a large chunk of thick wall pipe. The pistons are 5 inches in diameter. The 2 pieces I had made up were 4 3/4 in by 5 1/2 and one 8 3/4 long. The stroke sequence on the engine dictated that the 2 different lengths were required. Also had another 1/2 in plate made up so I could stack them up to make a 1 inch plate to push down on the thick wall pipe, I would push on one and switch to push on the other. I cut a .006 feeler guage on an angle so to scrape around the sides of each piston as far down as I could go.
I spent a week doing that, from 07:00 a.m. to around 3 or 4 each day. Patience finally paid off and she moved about a 1/16 of an inch. I knew I had her beat then. The next 2 weeks were spent working back and forth. Some days I got to move them a 1/4 of an inch, scraping ,cleaning, pushing ,jacking, sweating, taking #6 head off for access, (swearing).
Then the diesel generator died. We really didn't need that. Shore power here is 440 or 220 60 Hz. Our boat is 110 50Hz. You remember the little Honda Generator we had on Slim Pickins? Well we sold it in Yellowknife. Off to Island Water World and they had one left. St. George’s, Grenada isn't the most consumer friendly place. If you see something you need, you better buy it quick or it will be gone.
I rigged up a cord to run into the shore power on the boat. Only problem was the Honda didn't have enough juice to run the big inverter charger on the boat, so I had a small 110 10 amp trickle charger clamped on the big 8D batteries one at a time. I had to change them often since the boat is 24 volt and there are 4 8D's, paralled and series since they are 12 volts each. Battery access is under the floor in the engine room where I crawl across to work on the engine.
The Kohler diesel generator had salt water in her closed cooling system. I took the exhaust manifold and heat exchanger apart. Inside the heat exchanger you could see some of the little pipes were rotted away so the salt water mixed into the fresh circulating water. The thermostat was crudded up so the high temp switch shut down the engine. Kohler in Wisconsin sent parts to Ft Lauderdale, Florida. RPM Diesel took 2 weeks to send me parts.
Back to Miss Mercedes. More cleaning , pushing, scraping, soaking, and I finally got her to spin on the starter. In the meantime I had the injectors sent out to get cleaned. The local shop here said only 2 were any good. I said check them again and get back to me. RPM Diesel said that they had to come from Chicago and would cost $350.US each. The next day the local guy said the injectors were OK. Go figure. I took the valves out of the heads, cleaned them up and put her all back together. Not enough battery to spin the Mercedes, to bleed the air out of the injector pump or injectors.
Back to Miss Kohler. The engine room is 3 1/2 ft., the exhaust system is on the other side next to the fuel tanks. Uncomfortable and awkward. I got parts all installed and got her running. The refrigeration was working and batteries charging, life is good. Two days later she stops. SHIT. Back when we were coming across the north coast of the Domican Republic and then across the Mona Passage to Puerto Rico, we had a little water leak in and slosh through the salon and rain into the engine room. Actually a shit load of water.
So now, after a day or two of trouble shooting and going through wiring diagrams, I found a faulty circuit breaker inside a control panel. It was salt water corroded. I hotwired it with an inline 10 amp fuse. Miss Kohler runs again, full batteries. I spent another day soaked in diesel, bleeding air out of the system along with Mal. He is a cruiser from Australia, and a boat builder. He came over once in a while and provided inspiration and hope for me and my projects. In one day, both the generator and engine were running again.
Needless to say throughout all this, my crew's morale was an all time low. I was known as the Engine Room Troll as I only came out to eat and sleep. Friends of ours, Opus who are anchored in Prickly Bay on the south side of the island knew I was looking for a little sailing dingy for the boys and they had found one. They sent us the info and Carol and the boys went and checked it out. As it turned out, the sellers were coming in to Port Louis where we are the next day, so they delivered it. The boys are having a blast.
Now I have the Mercedes and the Kohler engines running like they are supposed to.
In the next week or so we are going to take our advanced open water diving course. All 4 of us are doing it. I need a break. My mother says that I have the patience of Job.
Well, that is our life for the last two months in a nutshell. While Greg worked away in the engine room, the boys did their school work and helped out bringing tools and whatever was needed to the engine room. Dylan and I ran errands for Greg as needed, usually scooting around in the dinghy. I cooked like a mad fiend in the galley, which is my “happy place”. As I have always worked full time, I have never really had the luxury of time to cook meals. Now I am on the internet, digging up recipes, and trying out all the lovely fresh vegetables and herbs available to us here in Grenada. Greg and the boys are completely thrilled of course, and it has meant a lot to Greg to have a nice meal at the end of his day of hell in the dungeon. It was a challenge though, as I had no refrigeration for about a month. I cleaned out the freezer completely and it sat empty. The fridge became a cold room, just to keep ketchup and condiments etc. A large cooler bag became my fridge. A fresh bag of ice every day kept the necessities cool, and I had to shop for fresh meat on a daily basis. You make do though, and we made it work. The other challenge was with cooking. Because my microwave/convection oven (yes I am spoiled!) draws too much power to use with the little Honda generator, I had to rely on the gas stove and oven. The glitch there was when our battery power went below 20 amps, the electronic gizmo that controls the release of the gas to the stove would not work. So we always had to watch the guage, and in between his work in the engine room, Greg had to ensure the batteries were charging properly. At the time, cooking gave me something to focus on, as I felt so completely helpless in being able to do anything for Greg, other than run errands and bring tools to the engine room. So I cooked for him, and gave him lots of hugs (after he showered!) and love and support. We have never been closer.
While all this was happening in the engine room, Brett started to have pain in his left leg again, very similar to what he had when he had his bone infection last year. After a few days, I took him to the doctor with all the paperwork and the last set of x-rays we had done. The doctor examined him, and noticed he had no reflexes in his left leg. Given Brett’s history, he recommended an MRI. He got his secretary on the phone, we barely had time to have lunch, and we were over having the test at 1:30 that same afternoon. Yes, it is true. Can you believe it? A Grenadian who earned his doctor’s degree in the U.S. decided when he came back to Grenada that they really needed an MRI and Cat Scan here, so he brought them in. They are in two trailers located in downtown St. George’s. It was quite something. We walked through a gravelled, rough looking parking lot, dodging chickens that were running around, and walked up stairs into the trailer. We were suddenly transported into the next century! We were greeted by electronics, computers, and the quiet hum of air conditioning. So Brett had his MRI, and we had the results on Monday. It was only a torn tendon in his left hip. He had slipped and fallen a few days before the pain began, but thought nothing of it at the time. The pain was so similar to what he endured last year, we immediately thought the worst. You cannot imagine our complete relief. He was put on Celebrex for a month, and had to rest to let it heal. He is now back to normal. We were so amazed too that not only was an MRI available here, but that we had an appointment the very same day as the doctor’s visit. We were so very thankful! To top it off, we only had to wait over the weekend to have the results. With the waits for tests, etc. in Canada, we were completely blown away by the service offered here.
Now that life has settled down back to normal, we are making a list of everything that needs to be done on the boat before we leave Grenada. A list of everything that we had planned to do in the last three months, before the engine and generator went south. We will do what we can in the next two weeks, and then plan to head west to the ABC islands. We are going to go to Bonaire from here. It is approximately 400 miles west, the trip will take us about 2-1/2 days. We will provision well here before we leave. We plan on doing some diving in Bonaire, it is reputed to be one of the best spots in the world. From there we will check out Aruba and Curacao, and then head for Panama. We will go through the canal and then cruise the coast and head for Mexico. Hurricane season is the same there, as it is here, June to November, so we should have plenty of time.
I’ve attached some photos for you. There is a boat, a beautiful 82 foot Oyster across the dock from us. He was up his 100 foot mast and took some amazing photos of the boys sailing and of the grounds. They are wonderful people and have been a great source of support and encouragement to us, along with so many cruisers we have befriended here.
We love to hear from you, keep those emails and pictures coming. We will email again before we set sail from Grenada.
Love and hugs from the Dutch Dreamers,
Captain Greg, Galley Wench Carol, First Mate Dylan, and Navigator and Tech Support Brett
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