Well, it seems the passage from the BVI to Sint Maarten (i.e. the Dutch side) was yet again to offer challenges to us.  The forecast was for rather light east to southeasterly winds so we expected to have to motor quite a bit of the way to make headway into the wind.

We set off from Virgin Gorda around 1:30pm on Tuesday in bright sunshine with a lovely light breeze so we had a very pleasant gentle sail past Necker Island but decided to motor-sail after about an hour or so when the wind dropped off Pajaros Point, the most easterly point of Virgin Gorda.  All was going well until about 2 hours later when we noticed the revs on the engine were dropping. A quick check of the throttle cable didn’t reveal any issues so we immediately suspected a problem with the fuel and cut the engine.  Back to sailing in the very light (~8 knot) breeze while Howard set to changing the first fuel filter, which sure enough had a lot of gunk in it.  He also drained a substantial amount of water from it and some from the second (2 micron) filter.  We should state here that we had tried, unsuccessfully, to have our fuel polished while we were in Sopers Hole, prior to filling up the aft tank with about 50 gallons.  We also knew that the filters had been replaced immediately prior to us purchasing the boat.  The problem was that he couldn’t remove the second filter and could not bleed the fuel lines using the manual priming pump; it just didn’t want to suck fuel through the system, no matter what he tried.  So, we then had to decide whether or not to continue the passage.  Given the benign forecast, we decided to continue but conserved our energy consumption (by turning off the freezer, hand-steering instead of using the autopilot, turning off the chart plotter and some of the displays, etc) as much as possible in case the generator also ran into problems. By 1am, we were about 40 nm into our trip, albeit somewhat south of the rhumb line.  We made slow but steady progress overnight and were teased in the morning with some spells of 10+ knots and even up to 18 knots but it didn’t last so all afternoon we just wallowed around on the lumpy seas, trying desperately to keep the boat pointing in the right direction!  It was clear we would be spending another night at sea….  Eventually the wind filled in and we even reduced sail a bit for both comfort during the 20+ knot squalls and to ensure we didn’t arrive before daybreak.  The path to Sint Maarten became clearly marked by the numerous cruise ships arriving in Phillipsberg around dawn.

We had a good breeze for our approach to Simpson Bay so we rolled in the genoa to slow us down and had to make a quick decision where to drop the anchor, given our limited manoeverability under mainsail alone.  We anchored on the south side (the less rolly side) of the bay between a large motor cruiser and an Oyster with our fingers crossed we weren’t too close to either.  It looked OK initially until the motor cruiser started to swing when it was a bit close for comfort.  However, without an engine we couldn’t raise the anchor so after a quick shower and a bite of breakfast, we decided to go ashore, check in and try to find a mechanic to help us with the engine.  We accomplished all of the above as well as make contact with our friends, Kim and Mahrnez all within a couple of hours but when we returned to the boat with the mechanic, clearly we were too close to the motor cruiser.  Fortunately they were understanding, had put out large fenders and even had one of the deckhands come onboard to help me (Hope) pull up a bit of chain so I could release the snubber and then let out some more to give a bit more distance between us while Howard and the mechanic sorted out the engine.  All very stressful but at least there wasn’t any damage to either boat.

The Yanmar mechanic managed to clear the fuel line and prime the system in short order so was gone in less than an hour, although he initially also thought that the priming pump was misbehaving. But, of course the engine again died as soon as he left.  This time, Howard repeated all the steps and got it going again so we were then able to move the boat to a better spot, away from other boats but unfortunately on the rolly (north) side of the bay.  We had made it safely so celebrations were in order with Kim, Mahrnez and their son, Dillon onboard Timing for bubbly and shrimp (which had been slowly defrosting and needed to be eaten but hit the spot).  I conked out for the night soon thereafter but poor Howard had trouble sleeping in the rolly conditions.

The next morning we confirmed a slip reservation at Lagoon Marina and checked out the route there within the lagoon to avoid the many shallows.  Kim kindly agreed to help us into our slip using his dinghy as we knew the wind would push us and we had very little space to manoever near the slip.  We did go aground just in front of the slip but soon managed to wiggle out of the mud and back safely into the slip.  Those real French croissants and coffee went down a treat on Sunday morning!image