Misfortune in Vanuatu

Friday, May 18th – Megan’s birthday.  She is 31 years old.  During our hike the previous day, Kai had arranged with our guide to trade some of our fish for an island fruit platter for breakfast to surprise Megan.  He is up early and off to the island with the dinghy.  He returns despondently with a well shaken platter saying that the solo dinghy trip was not a good idea.  Oh, well, it’s the thought that counts.  It may not look as good as it did, but it still tasted good. 

They return 4 hours later with no fish.  Megan, who had been sitting in the boat the whole time, is cold to the core.  “Poor thing,” we think.  The Captain is a bit put out at their inconsideration in leaving us without a dinghy for half the day, but he says nothing.  Later, we are surprised to learn of Kai’s method of spear fishing.  He free dives to about 70 feet, lays down on a shelf and waits for a curious fish to swim within striking distance of his spear.  The First Mate had thought the spear killed the fish, but no, Kai must wrestle the thing to the surface or somewhere near so he can then dispatch it with his knife.  What does Megan do this whole time?  She sits in the dinghy.  When it coasts out of range, she starts up the engine and motors nearer to where Kai may surface.  That’s her job.  Sit, coast and start up the engine.   “B-o-r-i-n-g,” things The First Mate, and cold, too, as Megan’s shivers attest.

Saturday, May 19th – The day dawns better than yesterday, but the forecast is not great.  Continued bluster and rain is to be expected.  Kai again requests the dinghy for spear fishing to which The Captain agrees.  Kai is intent on spearing fish to bring to the feast that the islanders on Mystery Island are putting on for us tonight.  They are off surprisingly early.  Later that morning, John and Lyn from Windflower invite us over for coffee, but since we do not have our dinghy, they pick us up and take us to their boat.  With the cruise ship gone today, we all decide to try snorkeling the reef off Mystery Island.  Kai and Megan have gone completely out of sight to where there is a steep drop-off that Kai is sure is loaded with fish.  Three hours have gone by without the return of our dinghy, but after yesterday’s tardiness, we are not concerned.  John tows us out to the reef in the Sea Cow, the unflattering name The Captain has given our inflatable kayak

Upon our return to Avante, we find 2 badly shaken crew with a story of how the new outboard engine had refused to start for Megan.  By the time Kai realized that she was in trouble and swam to the dinghy, they were already barreling down on the reef in heavy winds and seas that had sprung up “suddenly out of nowhere.”  Kai was unable to get the outboard started quickly, and they tried to row the dinghy away from the reef.  The dinghy comes with a set of oars, but it does not row easily, especially into wind and seas.  Desperately, they each grabbed an oar and tried paddling the dinghy.   They got into some breaking seas near the reef and got hit by several large waves.  The dinghy was swamped, and the brand new outboard got a salt water bath. Fortunately, they were finally able to swim and paddle their way ashore, but they were stranded several miles up the coast. They were finally rescued when a local boat spotted them and towed them and the dinghy all the way back to Avante.  

It is a relief that they are back safe, but as The Captain surveys the damage, he is dismayed.  His brand new engine is full of salt water and will not start.  The metal bottom of the dinghy is buckled and beginning to separate from the rubber inflatable sides, and though thankfully there is no leaking yet, its useable life has clearly been shortened.  To add insult to injury, over half the large tank of gas we have for the dinghy has been used.  The Captain estimates that 2 weeks’ worth of dinghy gas used up in 2 days!  Kai and Megan make no comment on the wasted gas.  They had not noted it and failed to take into account that the next available gas is not until we reach Port Vila.  As experienced cruisers know and all serious crew should know, one never takes anything (fuel, weather, engines working, etc) for granted out here.

The Captain has little time to try to repair our new engine, as we are due on Mystery Island for the Feast.  He quickly does what he can to try to get the salt water out of it, but he cannot get it to start.  John on Windflower is no dummy. He learned of our crew’s mishap when he towed us and the Sea Cow back to Avante earlier and fully realizes that the outboard is likely to need a lot of work before it will run again.  He radios out to all boats to see if any need a ride to Mystery Island. Embarrassingly, Avante must respond in the positive.  Two dinghies are dispatched to Avante to take all four of us ashore.  Off we go.  The weather holds true to form and blusters in a rain shower as we dinghy into the island.  Crashing into the waves, we are all wet by the time we arrive on shore, but hey, it’s the tropics.  We soon dry.

Our crew tell all who will listen their death-defying tale and receive sympathetic murmurs.  What they do not realize is that their listeners later catch up with The First Mate.  Echoing her own thoughts, she hears the following comments from these experienced blue-water cruisers:  “They had no business being out there.”  “Weren’t they aware of the weather?”  “Sounds like she flooded the engine.”  “Whatever was he thinking?”  “He could have gotten them both killed.” 

This feast is an experiment of sorts for the islanders.  Their dream is to hold feasts like this for other cruising yachts.  They offer us a speech from the Chief, a lengthy prayer from the minister, dances by the children, Kava for all and plenty of food.  It is heart-warming, but as we have unhappily discovered throughout the Pacific, our taste buds are just not refined enough to appreciate island food.  The roasted pig is indeed the best “feast” pig we have ever tasted, but if one is thinking of a succulent pork roast with cracklings, forget it!  Fresh out of an underground oven is a huge, uniformly grey mountain of fish parts and unrecognizable root vegetables.   After a mouthful of bones, The First Mate retreats to several beautiful platters of pamplemouse and papaya.  There she enjoys Mother Nature’s bounty and feasts to her heart’s content with juice dribbling down chin and fingers.  She tops off her dinner with fresh coconut juice while The Captain swigs his beer.

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Anchored, The Captain immediately turns his attention to the outboard motor.  His old Yamaha engine had been bought in the States and built to California emission standards which meant that it would only accept the purest, most unadulterated fuel without stuttering to a stop.  He never had to touch the outboard for the first several years while we were in the USA and Canada. Unfortunately, high quality fuel is not available in Mexico or many of the Pacific islands, and so, during the last several years, he had learned all about that engine.  He could take that motor apart with his eyes closed.  This brand new outboard is different, and he does not yet know his way in and around it. 

The propane gas to our stove has stopped flowing, and this is added to The Captain’s list of chores.  It is probably the solenoid valve which is not any easy fix, and unless we want a totally microwaved dinner, it must be fixed by dinnertime. The First Mate is heart-broken to see her Captain so encumbered.

The Captain finally gets the outboard engine running.  He couldn’t believe the amount of salt water that was in the carburetor!  After several hours of work, the outboard takes coaxing to start, stalls readily and does not like running at lower revs.  It is even less reliable than what we had with the old engine.  A reliable dinghy and outboard are essential to cruisers.  Now we are restricted to short trips only and have to be prepared to row.  The Captain is disconsolate.  He had just spent $2,000 on a brand new 2-cycle engine so we would not have this problem!  This make and model engine has an excellent reputation for reliability, but a salt water soaking is a real engine killer.

Monday, May 21st – We are all eager to go ashore and explore Tanna, but there is a lot of maintenance work to be done.   The propane solenoid has been bypassed until we can get another one, but the salt water wash down pump has failed again. It is time to install our new spare pump. The biggest problem by far, however, is the outboard which is barely running.  Though Kai offers to help, The Captain can tell it is half-hearted.  Fixing things on boats is just not his interest nor skill, especially when there are new reefs and beaches to explore.  We had not expected 2 adults, who had already had experience as working crew and who said their dream was running a mega-yacht for an owner one day, to be so lacking in the ability to see what needs to be done on a sailboat. Given what they said about their dreams and their abilities, we had not expected them to be so deficient in the skills to fix things, and we were amazed at their total lack of interest in learning. 

Though The Captain realizes that today’s maintenance tasks are basically one-man jobs, it would have been nice if one of the crew could have at least started the work on one of those tasks.  Instead, after some quick boat cleanup duties, our crew is waiting to be taken ashore for the day, which The Captain does and then returns to take apart and clean the outboard engine for a second time.  A few of the other cruisers drop by to offer him suggestions or help, for all recognize the mess we are now in.  Though these outboard engines are designed to run on salt water, they are not designed to have salt-water baths.  Who knows where a salt water crystal could be lodged now and blocking operation?  What wire part has been compromised by the corrosive salt?  Where to start?  The Captain meticulously plods along, taking part after part apart, cleaning everything as he goes and soaking them in WD-40.  Put back together, it is working better, but it is not back to normal.  It will need still more work and even with that, will probably never work well again.

Tonight is the volcano visit night.  We are due on shore at 3:30 and will not return from the volcano until early evening.  We hear that the only known restaurant ashore is the “yacht club.”  Our friend Steve has advised all of us cruisers that we will not get fat eating there.  Those who ate there after the previous night’s volcano trip got to split one chicken among 7 people.  Steve was at the end of the line and got “ half the back and the tail.”  It was decided earlier in the morning that we and our crew will return to Avante after the trip and have dinner aboard.  While The Captain works, The First Mate prepares dinner.

The Captain is tied up with the wash down pump until the last minute.  He had thought that installing our spare would be an easy job, but as usual there were complications.  He was not going to replace that badly designed pump with another from the same manufacturer, so some adjustments had to be made for the new pump. He gets the new pump installed, and as he is testing it, he is surprised to see Kai swimming back to the boat.  Our crew were going to meet us ashore for the volcano trip.  Kai needs the dinghy to go back ashore to get Megan.  “By the way,” he tells the First Mate, “our plans have changed.”  Kai and Megan had found a small restaurant near the beach earlier in the day and will not be returning to Avante as planned for the dinner that The First Mate has prepared.  When The First Mate tells Kai that it would have been nice to know this earlier so she did not defrost more of our precious meat than needed, he flares and accuses her of treating them like children.

By the time Kai returns with Megan and everyone is ready, we are late.  Racing to shore, the engine sputters to a stop and will not start.  We have to row the last 50 yards.  The First Mate is in tears over The Captain’s distress.

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What a unique experience! We are glad we saw this, but certainly not eager for a repeat show. Following our friends, Jan and Jack from Anthem, because in the haste of leaving we had forgotten our flashlights, we gingerly weave our way back down to the trucks.  Back on Avante, we tell our crew that the plans are to leave tomorrow morning for an overnight passage to Mele Bay on Efate Island.

Tuesday, May 22nd – 0700 – The Captain and The First Mate are up, generator running, cappuccinos made and doing the things necessary to prepare the boat for an overnight passage.  The First Mate is making today’s breakfast, lunch and dinner.  The Captain is securing the boat.

0800 – Our crew emerge from their cabin with towels and shower articles in hand.  They are going to take a swim off the aft end of the boat.  Sensing (one would hope) The Captain’s surprise, Kai makes short work of it and is up helping within 20 minutes.  Megan returns to her cabin.

0920 – Megan reemerges from her cabin for what?  To do what?  The First Mate is not sure.  Telling her that she does not want her to take this as (heaven forbid) a criticism, but if they ever expect to qualify as paid crew, they definitely need to be more attuned to the boat’s schedule and hours.  Showing up less than 2 hours prior to a departure for an overnight passage when The Captain has already been up and working for over 2 hours is not going to win her praise.  Her response:  we had not told her there was anything to do and she had to put away all the stuff in their own cabin.  This is from someone who has already done a 1,000nm passage with us, has been on the boat for 3 weeks by now and who says she wants to be part of a team that runs a luxury yacht for an absentee owner one day?  We are supposedly treating them like children?  The First Mate shakes her head and sets her to work vacuuming and dusting which the place glaringly needs.

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IT WILL NOT START!  We cannot launch off from the beach to row because, unable to make headway against the wind and current, we would be out to sea in no time.  Fortunately, it is low tide, and there is a shallow bridge of land between Hideaway Island and Efate Island.  If we drag the dinghy across to Efate so that it is roughly lined up with Avante, we can use the wind and current to our advantage as we row out to Avante. 

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If he can somehow get it to start by by-passing the lower revs, the engine will run fairly well at the higher revs, and if we don’t mind making crash landings onto any beach, dock or other boat, we’re set to go!  Maybe, but we both know this is not going to work.  Somehow, we have to get this engine repaired or buy another new one.

Deciding that he’s done enough for one day, we “start and stop, go and stall” our way to shore to see if we can find The Cascades, a series of waterfalls and pools that has been described as spectacular.  We find them only to discover that they have been turned into a tourist trap.  For $20.00 per person, there’s rock music blaring, a pavilion selling pizza, and a natural-looking pool created amongst the rocks. All of this is set in a truly beautiful setting.  We decide that this would be something to do in the morning, maybe with a group of friends, make a day of it, but not at 4:00 in the afternoon.  Definitely, this looks to be a full day visit or at least a few hours — or maybe not at all.

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Wednesday, May 23rd – We will be heading into Port Vila with the high tide this morning.  There are 2 reefs that must be crossed on the way into the anchorage, and according to the charts, at low tide Avante’s 9-foot draft will scrape.  Even at high tide, we could have a problem.  Once over the reefs, a cable line runs right across the harbor which we will have to go under, and, according to the charts, it is just about the same height as Avante’s 75-foot mast.  “No problem,” says our valiant Rally leader, John.

It is a mere 6 miles into Port Vila, and we are up early to catch the high tide at 0900.  The Captain had told the crew that once in the quiet of the harbor and tied to a mooring ball, he wants to hoist the sail and then fold it neatly before putting the sail cover on it.  To The Captain’s surprise, Kai suggests that in the calm anchorage at Mele Bay, they do it now.  Both Kai and Megan are up, dressed and ready to get about this task.  As The Captain notes later, this was the first time that either had thought ahead to the needs of the boat and taken the initiative in doing anything other than cooking and fishing.  He was amused but figured it was because both were eager to get ashore to get on the internet once we reached Port Vila.

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We next hear from “Boris”, Yacht World’s newest employee (aka: John from Windflower) who tells us that he has checked the depths across the reefs.  Conscientious, John was not going to rest on his claim of “Don’t worry”.  He told us exactly how far from the markers to motor and what to expect in depth.   We clear over each reef with depths of 12 feet and 11 feet respectively.  With the overhead cable, as long as we stay closer to shore and away from the downward sloping middle section, we will have plenty of room.  We are over and under and quickly tied to our mooring ball.

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Returning to Avante,The Captain has not one but two critical components to work on, both essential for cruising:  the Yamaha outboard and the B&G Autopilot.  The First Mate does not remember ever seeing The Captain so depressed.  He has had to do an incredible amount of maintenance work since returning to the boat in April.  He had looked forward to the challenge of the electronics upgrade, and that is all working perfectly. But having to repair our brand new outboard is heartbreaking. He bought the new one to end his non-stop work on temperamental outboards, and our new engine had run perfectly until it got soaked in salt water. Although he has learned how to fix things on Avante and takes a certain degree of satisfaction out of keeping the boat well maintained, he does not really enjoy doing the work.  Who would?

Port Vila is the end of our trip with Kai and Megan.  They came to us as two 30-year old adults with a stated goal of working as full-time crew on a luxury yacht. Their dream, they told us, was to eventually be hired to run a yacht for an owner who was not on the boat full time and used it as a vacation retreat. They were eager to add the experience of crewing on a J/160, whose record as a high-performance boat with complex systems would be a boost to their resume. They had already crewed on a mega-yacht for several months.  Kai had run a sailing enterprise in California.  Megan had been a sales rep. for a large medical company with extensive world-wide travel. They had taken their preliminary licensing courses which would be required if they were to attain their dream.  Compared to the usual run of wannabe crew one sees around the Pacific, these two appeared capable, intelligent and goal-oriented.  We were happy to help them along and agreed to take them on as far as Port Vila.  We told them that we would welcome any amount of involvement they wanted to have in the running and maintenance of the boat.  Do what would be expected of paid crew, and we would be delighted to give them a letter of recommendation to show to future employers.

It was nice to have two extra watch standers for the passage, and we enjoyed the first part of our trip with them.  The dinghy incident, however, created a real strain on our relationship.   They had damaged our dinghy and ruined the engine which were going to seriously impact our ability to continue cruising this year as planned.  They had apologized but adamantly refused any responsibility and had offered and done little to help fix the situation.  If they could not help fix the engine, then look around the boat and find other things to do.  As anyone who has cruised knows, there is always work to do on a boat, and most of it starts when you drop anchor.  As The Captain says, “The Boat comes first, not the play,” and anyone desiring to get on as crew should buy into that or find something else to do.   These two wanted to play as soon as we dropped anchor. There were other things they could have done to help show they were concerned about what they had done.  Something as simple as replenishing the expended fuel would have gone a long way toward showing The Captain that they were not blasé about our predicament.   He had made no secret about his disapproval of their unconscionable use of fuel.  A gas station was less than a block from the dinghy dock on shore.  The Port Vila Yamaha dealer was just up the hill.  They could have checked out the place to see about taking the engine there for repair.   Anything they could have done to show us they were truly sorry and understood what they were now putting us through would have helped to soften the situation, but they did nothing.

The issue came to a head during a dinghy run to again ferry them ashore.  The Captain was busy, so the First Mate was given the task.  She had hated the old outboard, been delighted with the new outboard, and now was distraught to have an unreliable outboard again.  Sure enough it stalled.  Tempers flared, and The First Mate was shocked to hear Kai and Megan continue to hotly disclaim any responsibility for the outboard problem.  Their near drowning had been caused by our outboard which had failed to restart for Megan.  She had not flooded the thing! It was compounded by the weather which they maintained had come up unexpectedly, even though it had been forecast for the day.  They had done nothing wrong.  If the outboard had run properly, there would have been no incident.  “It’s not our fault.  We did nothing wrong” were just not sentences she expected to hear from mature adults, and the First Mate said so.  After this exchange, it was mutually agreed that Kai and Megan would leave Avante and move ashore that day.

The following day The Captain took apart the outboard for the fourth time.  We had learned that there was a local Yamaha dealer but had heard that their service was hit and miss.  One unlucky customer told us that their poor work had cost him $900 to correct at the next major port – hardly a recommendation.  This fourth time, The Captain did nothing new.  He disassembled the pieces soaked them in WD-40 and let them dry.  However, when he put them back together, the engine ran better than it had since the incident.  It started easily and ran at low speeds.  Maybe there is hope.  Our highly reliable brand new outboard is certainly history, but maybe this repaired one can get us through this season.

Unfortunately, the boat gremlins had not finished with us.  The very next day the aft head off the guest cabin failed to work properly.  Several times during the past week, the Captain had heard the Vacuflush head continuing to run after one of our crew had used it.  When it again failed to shut off automatically, The Captain began to troubleshoot.  Because the various components of the aft head are barely accessible, this turned into a major project taking almost two days to fix.  As far as The Captain was concerned, this was “one shitty job.”  Had there been any maintenance service available, this would surely have been contracted out, but out here, you are on your own.  The cause of the problem turned out to be a badly calcified discharge line which had become blocked with the heavy use of the past several weeks.

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