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Larry's LogThe next morning, Saturday, I got up a little early and tried listening to some of the morning weather nets but couldn't make out what was being said, although I did hear that Hurricane Frances, now up in Florida, was really beating them up. Later in the morning I went over to Survival to put fuel from the jerry jugs into the tank for Judy, picked up the rum we were buying from her and then went back and ran the engine and watermaker for a while. We were going to get water from the water delivery boat that afternoon but I needed to run the watermaker to keep the membrane in shape. We went in to have lunch at Jak's with Tom and Steph in the early afternoon and also picked up our laundry from Juan. The water delivery boat came by just as we were about to leave so we took on about 200 liters of water and went in to meet them. We also dropped off more garbage (no place to put it in La Tortuga) and went back to the boat. Back at the boat, we took the engine off the dinghy and generally prepared the boat to leave tomorrow. We didn't get the dinghy on deck but did hoist it out of the water. Tom and Steph came over later for drinks so we visited with them again for a bit - I hope we get to see them again before the end of the year. It was now Sunday morning. As we say, cruising plans were made to change, and so ours did. We were all set to leave this morning but Hurricane Ivan changed that. The hurricane is still very far away from us but it started pretty far south out in the Atlantic and is not tracking to the north as quickly as we had hoped so we decided to stay in Porlamar another day to see what happens. We could leave quickly and go to Laguna Grande and be perfectly safe there as it's completely enclosed and another 50 miles to the south. However, we felt that if Mima and Survival need to move, they would need our help. So we stayed another day to see what develops. I went over to Mima in the morning to talk to Tom about it and we heard the latest forecast, which, if unchanged, would bring the storm to a little over 200 miles away. That means we would probably get some wind but certainly not hurricane or storm force winds. But, to be on the safe side, we'll listen again tonight and see if the track changes. Usually they go further north but hurricanes are always unpredictable. I tried to get more weather via Winlink but was unsuccessful during the early afternoon. Just before the HAM weather net at 4:30, we hoisted the dinghy on deck although I didn't tie it down and left it up so we could get some breeze down the forward hatch. After listening at 4:30, it seemed the hurricane was tracking somewhat more to the west-northwest and both Tom and I calculated the closest point of approach at least 185 nautical miles, which put us at least 60 miles further than the 34 knot wind radius. We would listen again later in the day but it seemed just fine at 5pm. Diane and I went over to Mima after that and we all discussed it. We agreed that Porlamar seemed to be in no danger of even 30 knots so we felt pretty comfortable, although we all would definitely listen again at 8pm. We went back to Destiny around 7 and Diane made dinner of nice lomito (steak) wrapped in bacon. We listened again at 8pm but couldn't hear much and what we did hear was the same report from 5pm, so we'll just have to wait until tomorrow for more information. Monday I got up early today and heard the weather from Eric in Trinidad. Ivan had tracked more to the west and was behaving strangely, even for a hurricane - the eye had seemed to split in 2 parts. He was also warning that it was tracking more south that the models forecast originally. We decided to leave and go to Laguna Grande. I spoke to Mima and they agreed and so did Judy on Survival (although she didn't have much choice if she wanted to stay with us). We got ready and Tom and Steph picked us up and brought us to Survival so we could get her 2 anchors up and get underway quickly since Survival was the slowest boat (old engine). Tom and I managed to get the anchors up with some difficulty since there was no windlass but Judy, Steph and Diane were underway by about 9. Tom then dropped me off at Destiny and I got underway about 15 minutes later. Tom and I could single-hand the boats but we knew Judy needed extra help. Since Tom had to bring his dinghy engine on board, although he towed his dinghy, Mima was also underway about 15 minutes later. As I left, I went by Global Ombaka to let Fred know what we were doing and then followed Survival out. We were initially going to Cubagua; we thought we would stop there for the night since we couldn't make Laguna Grande starting so late and since Survival could only make about 4.5 knots. At first we thought we would go to Mochima, a beautiful park with a small town but with a reputation for some security issues, but after the 'girls' talked about it, 'we' decided to go to Laguna Grande after all. However, we then saw that Coche was closer to the Golfo de Cariaco entrance, so we went there instead of Cubagua. Tom went in first and anchored then I went and anchored about 30 yards inshore of him. Judy came in and anchored behind and somewhat between us so the three boats were in a triangle. Tom got his dinghy engine back on and picked me up and we went over to Survival. We were immediately given Spike, Judy's dog, and we had Clem, Tom's and Steph's dog with us so we brought them into the beach - they hadn't been ashore yet today. We brought the dog's back and we each went to our respective boats and relaxed a bit. We got together later again and decided to leave for Laguna Grande later in the evening. After listening to the latest weather report, it appeared if we waited for morning, there was a good likelihood that we'd get hit with some increasing winds and since the whole purpose was to avoid that, we decided to leave around 9pm. As in the morning, Tom and I would get the anchor up on Survival and then he would drop me off. We ran the drill again - Tom and Steph picked Diane and me up at 9 and Tom and I got Survival's anchor up. Judy, Steph and Diane started out and Tom dropped me off and I was underway at 9:45. Tom was heading out by 10. Since his engine is so much larger than either Destiny's or Survival's, he easily caught up. We did however, stay together the entire trip, and it was pretty uneventful, except for Tom who had to deal with a broken hose clamp on the engine. Salt water had gotten everywhere inside the engine room but he had it fixed within 15 minutes and was motoring with us again very shortly. We got to the entrance of Laguna Grande at about 7am the next morning and I dropped the anchor a little after 7:30. It was an excellent trip. It was now Tuesday, September 07, and after anchoring, we tried to sleep a bit but I just couldn't. I stayed in bed for a while but then got up when it looked like rain. I got up just in time to close the hatches. It was about 11:30. The lagoon we were all in was fairly small but held all 4 boats with no problem. There had been a boat in the easternmost lagoon already but it was small and there was still plenty of room. The wind was all around and the rain started light but increased as time went on. I had anchored in somewhat deeper water than the rest because I was unsure about the depth in the further reaches of the lagoon. As a result, I was closer to Survival than was comfortable, especially since there might be some higher winds later. So, after it stopped raining, around 1pm, Diane went with Steph to sound the lagoon beyond where we were anchored and found plenty of water. While they explored, I started raising the anchor to clean the chain with the wash down hose - the mud there was particularly sticky, in this case a very desirable characteristic. When Diane got back, I finished raising the anchor to the bow and she piloted the boat to the spot they had pointed to. Steph stayed there in the dinghy to show me the spot as well. I re-anchored in 14 feet of water with 80 feet of chain and a 66-pound anchor, in a mangrove anchorage surrounded on all sides by large hills - we would certainly be safe here. A little after we finished re-anchoring, it started to rain again and it lasted for several hours, an advanced feeder band I think. At times, it rained so hard I couldn't see the hills at the sides of the lagoon. The wind was only up to 15 knots at times but generally lighter although it was from all over, blowing the boats in various directions. Since it was usually very dry here, the runoff from the hills was quite amazing, turning the water very red. Of course, there was lots of floating debris as well, including amazingly, intact dirt clods that must have slid into the water on top of the running water. It continued to rain all afternoon, although not quite as hard after the first 60-90 minutes. This was definitely from Ivan. We had heard the weather report poorly after we arrived but made out that the forecast for Margarita, where we had just left, was for up to 30-40 knots winds, that would clock around from the northeast, north, northwest, west, and finally southwest, before returning to south and southeast. Porlamar was not the place to be in such conditions. We were all very glad that we had made the decision to leave and left when we did. Actually, we beat the hurricane by only a few hours. The trip up the Golfo de Cariaco would have been much harder at noon rather than 6 hours earlier. The rain let up for some of the afternoon but started again in the evening. By then, there were 6 boats in our little lagoon, with still some room though. I got up once overnight as it started to rain hard again at about 10pm but there was just 10 to 15 knots of breeze. Everything seemed to be just fine but I slept on the main cabin settee for a while until it appeared that was the worst it would get and then went back to bed. I woke up again at 5 am and saw the moon and some stars - so I went back to sleep. We both got up around 8 and although cloudy, there was no wind at all. We couldn't hear the weather but Tom and Steph stopped by after walking the dogs and said they heard that Ivan's track was still 280 degrees; it had also intensified to category 4 and had stalled for a while near the islands of Los Testigos. These were small Venezuelan islands that were very pretty - hopefully nobody died there in the small town or the village. They also said the island of La Blanquilla experienced hurricane force winds - there was a small town there as well. The island groups of Los Roques, Las Aves and the ABCs were probably getting pounded. At least we were all fine. The next morning we woke up to a pretty nice day. After we had breakfast, Tom picked me up and we went to Survival to see if we could figure out what the noise was that the girls heard on the way to Laguna Grande. Engine access was pretty good and as soon as I opened one side of the engine compartment, I saw very quickly that it was the belt for their engine driven refrigeration and raw water pump. The problem was that the belt had twisted around and was almost worn through. The reason it did that was because the bearing on the idler pulley had jammed, cocked the pulley out of alignment and pulled the belt out of line. Since Tom had worked on the engine with David before, he took over and removed the pulley. Judy helped us look for a replacement pulley but there was no spare. We had to fix it since it not only ran the refrigeration compressor but also the raw water pump, so the boat couldn't move without it. We managed to remove the old bearing, now useless, and looked for some kind of replacement but couldn't find anything like it so we resorted to some 'creative engineering.' After looking for a part that could be 'machined' a little, we settled on a 3/8 inch chrome-plated bronze through hull since by filing down the threaded portion, the pulley would slide over it. We put it in an electric drill and filed down the threads enough so that it would fit in the center hole of the pulley. We then cut off the hose section and did the same thing so that we could jam it into the other side of the part we had just inserted since the 'drainage' hole was a different diameter on one side. We then put that in a makeshift press, using a large bolt, washers and a nut tightened with 2 wrenches, and squeezed the pieces so that they would really be pressed in and wouldn't slip later in service. Anyway, after several hours of work, we got it to the point where a new bronze 'bushing' was inserted in the pulley. We had already found what we thought was the new belt but after putting the pulley back on, the belt wouldn't fit over the pulleys, from the crankshaft to the refrigeration to the idler to the water pump. Tom tried loosening the water pump but it didn't help. We then looked more closely at the old one and looked for some other belts. It turned out that the belt we tried was not like the original so we found one like that and it worked fine. Tom then retightened the water pump, put tension on the idler pulley and we tried running the engine. After some more adjustments, it seemed to work OK. We heard a squeak that was probably from the new 'bushing' rubbing on the shaft of the bolt holding it - there were ball bearings before and we could only grease it - but as a temporary fix, it was pretty good. At least it would get the boat back to Porlamar where Tom could find a replacement for the pulley and bearing. The belt would also need to be replaced since it was really undersized for the power load on it. We had started this project at 10am and finished at almost 6 pm. Tom brought me back to the boat and Diane and I just had dinner and relaxed the rest of the evening. I had wanted to launch the dinghy but it would wait until tomorrow. Diane had listened to the weather during the day and found out that Grenada had been hit very hard - the eye had gone along the southern tip. There was a lot of damage and the bays on the south end that were so popular with cruisers were very bad with many boats wrecked. Our friend Mo (Maureen) had been there, at least as far as we knew, so Diane tried to get any information on her but couldn't find out anything. She was a 70 year old singlehander on a small Downeast 32 named Motu and had been cruising in the Caribbean for over 20 years. Diane also heard that the government of the ABCs had issued a hurricane warning, as did Venezuela for the northern coast and Columbia for the north peninsula. We hoped that our favorite cruising spots would still be there once we finally managed to go. Thursday was finally a lazy day. We launched the dinghy in the morning and went over to Mima for brunch around 10. Steph made pancakes (an omelet for Diane) and we had a very nice time visiting with them. Diane and I went on a little dinghy exploration later. There were now only 9 boats in all of Laguna Grande now, including the 4 boats in our lagoon. There had been up to 20 boats taking shelter in Laguna Grande in its entirety, not very much for so large a bay. This is a natural hurricane hole and probably 100 or more boats could fit in here with no problem at all. We finally heard how Porlamar fared. They got up to 40 knots of wind and a 6 - 8 foot surge. Waves were breaking over boats closer to shore. Three boats that dragged onto the beach there and some others had problems, unfortunately one of them our friend Fred on Global Omaka. He dragged and hit a steel boat that was near him. There was some damage but nothing to prevent him from sailing. Later on, we got an email from our friend Joe in Annapolis. He was a good friend of Mo's. She and her dog were OK but unfortunately, the boat was in a marina on the southern end where Hurricane Ivan made a direct hit and had sunk. It was a sad end to her cruising life. Ironically enough, we had first met Mo in Laguna Grande 2 years ago. Tom and Steph came over for dinner later and we had a good dinner and a nice time talking for a few hours. |