Day 166, Year 7: More About Friends
Date: Sunday, April 22, 2012
Weather: Rain All Day
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, MA
The rain started last night and it is still continuing. Sometime it comes as a drizzle and other times as a downpour, but in some form it has persisted for almost 24 hours and is predicted to continue tomorrow. It will be Tuesday before we see sunny skies again. We need to start removing the old caulk from the port deck, but we also have some inside jobs to do and those will take priority tomorrow.
Mark worked today and late this afternoon I went into Falmouth for the Woods Hole Daycare Cooperative (WHDCC) Fundraiser at Liam MacGuire’s Pub. The Cooperative is the school that Sam and Jonah attend and Heather is in charge of fundraising, so Heather and Oliver spent the entire afternoon there. Jed had taken Sam and Jonah home for naps so only Heather and Oliver were there when I arrived. There was live music that was very loud, but Oliver slept right through it all. There was a silent auction and lots of raffle items. I don’t know how much money was raised, but a good time was had by all. I picked Mark up from work and brought him back to the Pub and then we all went back to Heather and Jed’s for Indian take-out. This was my last meal until Tuesday afternoon as I have to start fasting for a Tuesday morning colonoscopy. Yuck! No fun at all, but I certainly know the importance of having these routine tests done. So I shall not complain.
In last night’s log I wrote about hearing from sailing friends, and then this morning we got an email from Jean-Pierre and Colette of Safina. These are our French Canadian friends that we sailed with in the South Pacific and then from Australia to Malaysia. We hadn’t heard from them for a few months and it was great to get an update. They have been in Hong Kong and their email recounted their very tense sail from Hong Kong to Malaysia. I’ll copy their account here, but first just want to say how very glad we are they made it to Malaysia safely. Here’s their story.
“We had a memorable 12 days passage from Hong Kong to Malaysia. As you know, we have only five days autonomy in fuel. The three first days from Hong Kong were easy sailing and then we were nine days without any wind. The sea was smooth. After five days, we were running out of fuel. The weather report and the grib file were forecasting no wind for several days and a low pressure area east of Philippines coming in our direction that could be a TS or a Typhoon! This was a serious situation. We didn’t want to be a sitting duck waiting for the storm. (This LPA became later a typhoon category 1.) We had to make a decision, waiting for the wind and get caught in the depression or else. We finally decided to ask for assistance as we had to leave this region. We issued a pan pan. At our great surprise, a cargo answered and agreed to give us some fuel. We approached it and went aside without difficulties. They gave us 8 jerrycans of fuel . We were very grateful. By the time we finished, it was dark and we were very late for the watch routine.
So the next day, we start pouring the fuel in the tank. The fuel was black. J.P. smelled it and said it was diesel. We could not believe the cargo would give bad fuel after going thru all that trouble to assist us. J.P. called another cargo and told the officer about the fuel. The second mate said it was contaminated fuel. He had spoken to his engineer who said to avoid loading the engine. We would have engine damages but less if the load is low. So we did two knots all night.
During the night, the engine started to knock. In the morning, we decided to ask for help again. At six o’clock we called on the VHF and three cargo ships answered. Two of them were too far away, but a big tanker which was 7 nm ahead turned around and came to us. We got another 160 liters but this time good fuel. They did not want to pick up the bad fuel; so we ended up having 22 jugs on the deck. The day wasn’t over, we had to pump out the bad fuel from the tank, flush it with the new fuel, pump out again and then fill out the tank with the good fuel. We were ready to go at noon. We were very impressed with the cargo ships as we never thought they would be so helpful. They are very professional.
We were so happy to arrive at Puteri Marina. On our way we found two fishermen to whom we gave 11 jugs of contaminated fuel. They were very happy as their boats use this type of fuel. The cruising life brings you all kind of adventure but as we are getting older it seems to be more difficult than before.”
