Broke Down on the High Seas

After a week of installing all of our Raymarine instruments I am now ready to calibrate the new auto pilot. It is a real simple procedure involving a couple of 360 degree turns then some S turns. No big deal. So we leave the safety of our slip Wednesday 10/14/09 to do our sea trial. About 5 minutes out of the slip and we lose our starboard engine. We can't put the boat back in the slip with just one engine so we continue to head out to the Galveston Bay. Jen drives while I go below to fix the engine. We go all the way out in the middle of the bay, close to the Houston Ship Channel, (about two hours) and then the port engine dies. So here we are out in the middle of the bay, a dead ship, and then to add insult to injury we didn't have either of the dinghies. We were only planning on being gone for 3 hours. (Where have I heard that before?! It was only going to be a three hour tour.) So we drop anchor and I continue to work on the engines, 3 hours later and still no luck. So now we have to decide 'Do we want to sleep out in the bay?' or 'Do we pull up the sails and head back to our marina?'. We elect to head back. Since we weren't planning on sailing we had to pull all the sail covers off adding about 20 minutes to the job. There is not much wind, which is why we chose today to do the calibrations, but there should be enough to get us close to home. Once we get to the Kemah Boardwalk we flag down Mark, a very helpful and friendly boater, who gives Jen a ride back to our marina. So now I am alone on board trying to sail the channel, good thing that it is a slow day and there are not a whole bunch of boats out. I make it about a mile from our marina with no mishaps when the sun fades over the horizon and the wind quits, now I am truly a dead ship. Then out of the blue here comes Bill, another helpful and friendly boater who just happens to be the official towboat for the sailing regattas! So Bill offers to tow me into our marina an offer I gladly accept. So as Bill is pulling me here comes Jen in the dinghy. Perfect timing. Bill tows me to the bayou right behind our slip where I throw anchor as Jen pulls up to take me and Sissy to shore.

Thursday 10/15/09.

We wake up bright and early and begin work on the engines. After an exhausting series of troubleshooting I finally determine that the starboard engine has a failed fuel pump. So after a trip to the hardware store I jury rig an electric pump, bleed all the lines, and cross my fingers. Varoom the starboard engine is now running smoothly! Now on to the port engine -bleed the lines and it is running as well, but then it only runs for about 10 minutes then dies. So I determine that it's fuel pump is failing as well. What are the odds? So I splice it into the jury rigged electric pump and everything is working great. We load the dinghy up (we learned our lesson) and head back out to do some maneuvers to make sure everything runs smoothly before trying to pull into our slip. So after two days of nonstop work in the engine room we return from our three hour tour hungry and exhausted. However on the bright side, other than the engines failing the rest of the boat performed flawlessly.

We found out this weekend that our neighbors thought we were out practicing being boaters.

Gee thanks guys! I guess that you are laughing at us after all. Karma is such a Bitch!