The Saga continues

We left Lindbergh Bay and moved to Caneel Bay on the north coast of St. Johns Island. The north coast is a National Park and there are moorings set up so you don't anchor. The moorings are $15.00 per night and we stayed in Caneel Bay for 3 days. The weather is gorgeous with 85 degree days and mid 70's nights. There is almost always a sea breeze so it is very comfortable.

On day two Kathleen and I dingied into Cruz Bay which is a small town just around the point of our mooring.

On Day three we moved to Francis Bay which is a little more protected from the east as the winds were causing the anchorage in Caneel Bay to become a little rolly. We picked up a mooring and settled down for a few days of sun and beach.

Our next move was to American Yacht Harbor in Red Hook where Kathleen was able to pick up her medication and we were able to do some laundry and take a good long shower with plenty of hot water, what joy!

The next morning we left the dock headed for the Coral Bay on the south side of St John. I should say now that we have been noticing that our engine has been smoking and before we left I checked the oil and there the oil level was higher

than I remember when I last added oil. As we were leaving Pillsbury Sound the engine suddenly made a LOT of smoke ( Kathleen thought we were on fire) and the engine raced to about 5000 rpm for a few seconds. I immediately throttled back, put the

transmission in neutral and after what seemed like hours but was actually about 10 seconds the engine throttled back to normal idle. I then made sail for the nearest anchorage and as I was coming in to Rendezvous Bay a major rain storm came through and it was difficult to see the boats at anchor. We made it to anchor and shut the engine down and

collapsed from an overload of adrenalin and nerves.Rendezvous Bay is a beautiful location and the water is crystal clear> I could watch the anchor drop all the way to the bottom in 25 feet of

water. We will stay here at least a day and try to decide what to do. I guess if you are going to have problems like this there are worse places to have them in.

The next morning we tried to call Yanmar service but could not get through as there seemed to be no cellular service to the south side of St. John. We decided to up anchor under sail and move to Lindbergh Bay in St Thomas where we knew we could get cellular service. As we were sailing I got the brilliant idea to call Deaton's and see if I could

charlotte amalie, cruise ship

talk to a Diesel Mechanic and get an idea of what I was looking at and if they could recommend an authorized Yanmar service center in St Thomas. I talked to Gary at Deaton's and he said it soundedlike injectors or maybe the fuel lift pump

I called and talked to Fred the service manager
and he recommended I bring my injectors in and they could shop test them and rebuild them if necessary. I removed the injectors and dingied them to Offshore. To make a long story short the technician said that he had never seen a worse set of injectors One of them was just oozing diesel instead
caneel bay

of atomizing it and the other three were not much better. After they rebuilt and calibrated the injectors I returned to the boat and reinstalled them and the engine is running as good as new and no smoke! For the last week I was having nightmares of being without an engine and having to sail the Mona Passage with no engine. The only problem we have now is that the engine stop switch isn't working. After starting the engine to test it I had to stop the air supply to the engine to shut it off. Oh well, you know what they say “cruising is just doing boat maintenance in exotic locales”.





















rendevous bay