Hi All

We are getting our bearings in Sri Lanka. I have been addressing boat fuel issues and this morning I changed out the engine saltwater pump and realized I had the incorrect rebuild kit for the old oil leaking one which is made different from the one I replaced it with and had bought the kit for. Marlin, the “go to man” outside the gate has the old one along with one of my engine fuel filters to see if he can find replacements for me.

I have been polishing (filtering) the 400 gallons of fuel in the main tank since we arrived and have drained at least one gallon of sludge out of the filter housing. I’ll bet I’ll make it a point to never leave port without making sure we have clean fuel.

Last night there was more drama as we attempted to start the gen-set. It would run for a little while and then cut off. Knowing I had fuel issues I changed the Racor and the engine filter but it still would run for a few minutes and then cut off. I noticed the oil pressure gauge needle and the temperature gauge needle were flickering back and forth in time with each other. I had not noticed this before.

I decided it was the auto shut off stopping the engine. I sent off an email to Barb at Hatton Marine in Seattle where I had bought spares for the gen-set and main engine describing what was happening. At 1:00 AM I got up to check my email and she said the problem is easy to fix. Find a 10mm bolt on the side of the gen-set with wires going to it and tighten it up. I couldn’t believe it could be that simple but when I did fine the bolt it was extremely loose and the wires were ground wires. I tightened it and the gen-set ran perfectly.

We are attached to a very flimsy plastic dock. It is the equivalent of tying the reins of a horse to a horseshoe. I’m afraid Dora Mac is going to wonder off like the horse would invariably do. If we can get moved to a concrete pier when some of the boats leave we may leave Dora Mac for some inland traveling. Just because we did not plan to stop here does not mean we cannot enjoy some of the sights.

10.5 hours ahead of Eastern Time

Hello all,

  This is a bit more about our passage from Rebak Marina, Malaysia to Galle, Sri Lanka.

Passage to Sri Lanka

We had lots of wind, waves, swells. We had fuel problems that caused engine problems which kept shutting down the engine. We had autopilot issues and we were already relying on our secondary autopilot because the primary never even made it to the start of the trip. We had to cruise around to and fro and hither and yon, east and west, north and south, all to avoid going directly where we wanted to go and into the path of the storm. Thankfully we had Randal’s brain to contend with all of the boat issues and friends Nick Spence, Bob Silvers, and Bill Kimley to give us weather reports and offer other suggestions about boat problems. We also maintained contact with other cruisers during the morning radio report where cruisers call into a pre-agreed upon single side band radio channel and share information about location, weather and such. Randal never gave up though at times he was very discouraged and only once did I see him really worried. At that moment I was less worried than he because though he may have lost faith in himself for that moment, I never did. As the passage continued and we seemed to just wait for the next problem to occur, I started to realize just how well Randal knew the boat and its systems and how they all work. And as the weather calmed, so did our fears. We even got a bit bored…but bored is great! We love bored.

The trip definitely had its lows, and far too many of them. But there were a few bright spots too. We had dolphin visits twice and saw a sea turtle float past. We had our first radio call from a huge tanker to us. He was behind us following the same course as we and wanted to let us know that he would pass on our port because passing on our starboard would put him too close to a tanker that was to the right of us. That took place in the middle of the night on my watch

Our wonderful AIS Automatic Identification System showing boat traffic in the shipping channel.

Doramac is circled in Red. Huge cargo and tanker ships are shown as triangles. One has just passed us and one south of us is pointing to go behind us heading north. As we left Langkawi for Cochin we had to pass through busy shipping channels. Very soon we altered course to take us north of most traffic.

Our COG Course over ground is 272 degrees on a compass. The tanker Polaris Leader coming up in back of us at about 17 Knots had a COG of 272 degrees or very close to that. The overtaking vessel is the one responsible to avoid collision though everyone truly is responsible. There is a line sung by Sancho Panza in the musical Don Quixote that goes something like this. “Whether the hammer hits the jug or the jug hits the hammer, it’s not going to be good for the jug.” We’re the small jug out here. But the Captain of the Polaris Leader politely called us and asked if we were towing something, probably because our speed was only 7 knots. We said no, that we were a small pleasure boat. Randal, who I had just awaken from his off-watch sleep, asked the Captain to pass on our starboard. But because of the other boat on our starboard, the Captain asked to pass on our port. Asked ! Everyone tries to stay polite. And with the variety of accents speaking English, the language of the sea as well as the air, it can be a bit tricky. The Captain had called us on our VHF radio over channel 16, “designated as the international Distress, Urgency, Safety, and Calling radio telephony channel”. One interesting thing I just read is that Channel 16 only allows one person to speak at a time. You hold down a button then speak. To hear you must release the button. That way you can’t be speaking over each other and making the situation even more complicated. Once you make contact on 16 one party suggests an alternate channel like 69 or 17 and you move there to free up channel 16. It’s actually all very sensible. Every now and then some bored soul will get on channel 16 and sing what sounds like a very drunk rendition of a love song in the language of his country. Channel 16 is a “line of sight” channel which means that you have to be within a certain distance of the other vessel. That keeps the traffic on 16 manageable in small areas around the world. If everyone could use it anywhere, that wouldn’t work at all.

AIS on our chart plotter.

If you put the curser over a ship symbol, you get basic info like the ship’s speed 14.3 k; how close it will get 1.114 nm, and when it will get to that ‘closest point of approach” 00h15m33s.

Full AIS information is also available.

The length of big ships is given in nautical miles! The width of this tanker is 194 ft. Ours is 14.9’. Our draught is 6’ and this ship’s is 61! Our ‘closest point of approach” CPA was 1.119nm and that was to be in 15 minutes. It was going to KR YOS where ever that is and it was underway using its engine. The Captain of the Polaris Leader could call us because we transmit AIS info that shows our name and location.

Ruth “freakin “scared! January 9^th, 10:45 am

Not a flattering photo, but a picture is worth 1,000 more words.

Journal entry. “ 2:15 pm. Just showered for the first time! That was the plan for this morning. French toast and showers. But we had engine issues from and oil leak so Randal had to work from about 9 am until 1:20pm when we restarted the engine. Really scary! Luckily we are now north of the shipping lanes – Randal had decided to move us away from the traffic last night- so we didn’t have ships to contend with as we floated around in the current, no longer under power and practically stationary at .9k.” I had gotten really scared because nothing seemed to be fixing the fuel leak, the problem, and you can’t continue with a fuel leak in the engine room. And Randal looked really distressed and that scared me even more. Ultimately Randal decided to by-pass the leaking fuel polishing system inserting a hose instead. This fixed that problem though somewhat dirty fuel was still and is still a problem.

Starting my rest time at 7:30 pm.

Randal and I slept in the cockpit so we would be easily available if needed during the night watches. I woke Randal a few times with questions about passing vessels and he woke me once when we had an engine issue and he had to work on the engine while I kept watch. That involved turning off the engine and turning on the genset to generate power to keep our navigation lights on to keep us visible. Then when the engine was working again the genset was turned off. In all of our years cruising we’ve never had engine problems.

A beautiful sunset with our Seahorse flag flapping in the slight wind.

There were a few lovely times too with a sunset like this and visits from dolphins to reassure us.

Night Watch schedule:

7:30 to 10:30 Randal 10:30 to 1:30 Ru 1:30 to 4:30 Randal 4:30 until after breakfast mid-morning Ru Then I would take a nap. As we moved further west our watches started later but I was still trying to go to sleep too early so really only slept well after my first watch because I was exhausted. During the really bad weather spells caused from miles away by the storm, we would roll and bounce so sleeping always generated odd dreams involving some type of vehicle and water and odd images. During the roughest weather, and before we deployed our stabilizing fish, it felt as if you were on a carousel, roller coaster, and tilt-a-world all at the same time. And you know when you’re on a plane and hit turbulence? This was like that too, only the voice told you that the turbulence would last for days and you had to take turns driving the plane!

Randal’s niece Tammy, during her visit with us last March, had written a message we’d put into this bottle and then had forgotten to toss it overboard. I added a message and on the outside wrote our location and website.

My message in the bottle about to be tossed into the Indian Ocean January 14^th.

You can see the weather has calmed. I even managed to do 3 loads of laundry because Randal made water with our water maker and we were sparing on the showers. Also during the stormy days no one really wanted to eat so there were few dishes to wash. Randal was too seasick and I was too scared. During the worst days, the only time I wasn’t so scared was when I was sitting right next to Randal holding on to him. When I had to sit in the help chair just 4 feet away, I had to tell myself that I could and had to do it and Randal was really just right there. I was ready early on to hail a passing freighter and abandon ship. REALLY! Sadly, our friend Keith on Bacchus had to do just that. He was further into the storm and his steering and electronics stopped working and the boat was taking on water. He and his two crew were picked up by a freighter that had been called and were taken to the port of the freighter’s destination in Malaysia. The boat was left at sea….. Other boats got battered and several were towed into Galle with engine or other issues so the fact that we made it in on our own power is all because of CAPTAIN RANDAL NEVER GIVING UP!!! It’s amazing what he knows about all of the systems.

I was able to make French Toast one morning!

And I actually could paint a picture in my journal of Randal at the helm.

We had problems from the morning we left until….well, ask a cruiser and the answer is that there are always boat problems. That’s why you carry “a boatload” of spares! Yesterday evening Randal went to recharge our batteries and the Genset wouldn’t work. The temperature and oil pressure gages were jumping around and the automatic shut down switch kept shutting it down. (Thankfully it did work while we were at sea and had to turn off the engine all those times!) Last night, about 7 pm our time Randal emailed a company in Seattle where he had bought lots of Genset and John Deere spare parts in November of 2006. Barb, the clerk had been so helpful that Randal had brought her some flowers. Luckily Barb is still there and this is her reply to the email which Randal read about 1 am our time. “I spoke with our electrician. The problem is easy to fix. If you look at the genset from the engine end, there is a 10 mm bolt on the lower right side of the J box. That bolt holds a bundle of wires. Just tighten the bolt and everything should be fine. Happy Cruising! Barb, Hatton Marine, Seattle. About 6:30am this morning Randal tightened the bolt and we now have a working Genset. “How on earth did he know that?” Randal kept saying to me. Because you told him all of the information he needed to make the right diagnosis, I said. Without a working Genset we would have to run our big engine to recharge the batteries or have no power and no lights, frig, etc. To me the sound of an engine no longer sounds like noise, it sounds like music.

Ru

Doramac