So it is the breaking of the fellowship

Well, I am still in Coos Bay/Charleston. La Mouette and Ivy left on Saturday 10/10 for Crescent City California. Both boats had decided to hank on storm jibs, as the wind was supposed to be a tad fresher then either had experienced before, and once we got out past the river bar it became obvious it was the good choice. We both headed out about four miles before turning south, and now with the wind from behind we were making great speed. When I was able to throttle down the engine and eventually put the it in neutral all the time maintaining 6.5 kts, I hailed La Mouette, thinking it would be a good time to power down the engines and finally do some real sailing. The response I got was a bit jarring “Well, actually our engine died about 5 minutes ago” Jon said.

“….?!” I asked, then after a moment I was able to get out “Please Explain?” Jon said that there had been some noise coming from the engine compartment, and when they got the compartment opened, their motor said “SCREEEEEEEEEEEEECH” and then went quiet and had nothing more to say. Jon said he and Kyle had just been discussing their options, and I told him to let me know what they came up with. After about 20 minutes, I got a hail and they were still undecided, but leaning towards going on, and what was my thought on the matter. This is when the big coward in me reared it’s head, and I said “I think we should go back”.

Even though we probably could have made it to Crescent City, I did not like the idea of having such a big issue crop up so early in our trip. Also there was due a storm on Monday, and if we did not keep a good pace, we might have been caught out in it. Even so, I felt uncomfortable as this was not technically my issue, and I felt a bit as if I was treading on sovereign territory, but as soon as I mentioned my feelings, we all agreed to head back to Coos Bay.

Of course this meant beating into the wind, and the lumpy seas made it no better. I paid the price for not having changed into my foul weather gear, and was immediately soaked to the bone. When I radioed over to Jon and mentioned that Ivy may not have the power to tow La Mouette in, and a call to the Coast Guard might not be a miss, Jon said they had Vessel Assist Insurance and I suddenly felt a great deal better about the whole situation. La Mouette received a few scratches from rafting to the Vessel Assist boat, but all in all we both made it back in unscathed.

After two weeks of diagnosis and troubleshooting La Mouette’s engine has been officially pronounced dead, so it is the breaking of the fellowship. I am very sad to lose La Mouette as a buddy boat, but I feel Ivy and I will meet up with her, Jon and Kyle again.

A word about Crabvolk. Granted there is precious little to do here in Charleston so it is easy to see the attraction to dock crabbing, with the promise of free food. The Crabvolk show up at about 5am with their beer-stocked coolers, 1970’s vintage patio chairs, crab traps and cookers; and homestead whole swatches of the visitors dock. Most do not get that a dock is not a sidewalk, and refuse to make way for any unfortunate enough to need to traverse the minefield of seaweed, gull and dog droppings, and ex-crab parts. Also, they seem genuinely surprised that people might be sleeping, but obviously are not too seriously traumatized by it, as they go right back to screaming, laughing and yelling their off color jokes to their friends at the other end of the dock. It’s always most festive when they bring their children who seem to really love the whole ‘killing things’ aspect, and squeal in delight if they find something to torture a bit before it passes. Unfortunately they cannot crab twenty-four hours a day, and usually quiet down well before 1am.

Just trying to keep the spirits up!

Randy

S/V Ivy

Advertisement

Explore posts in the same categories: 1