Plans change……

The hot sun made everything on the sailboat deck warm as I cast off from the dock at Antigua Yacht Club in Falmouth Harbour early on a Saturday morning in January. The forecast was for sunshine all day and winds out of the east at 15-20 knots…..like it is every day at this time of year in Antigua. It was 9AM and the plan was to sail to Jolly Harbour about 2 hours away. I was sailing solo as Ileana, my wife was arriving in 3 days from Toronto. Once I had motored out to sea and was clear of Falmouth Harbour, I headed into the wind. I put up the mainsail and jib, and was on my way heading downwind. The charts indicated there were some reefs off the southern tip of Antigua but it was possible to go between the reefs and the mainland. However, not being familiar with the passage, I sailed out about four miles off the mainland to clear the reefs before I headed north towards Jolly Harbour. It was a beautiful day. The warm breeze warmed my soul and it was great to be out in the water again.

I had returned to Antigua in mid January after the holidays so as get some work done on the boat before heading north to Sint Maarten. My bow thruster was not working, I needed to install a more powerful windlass to pull up my new heavy anchor, and I had been battling with a leak in my freshwater system for the past year and a half. The windlass was installed and working perfectly, the bow thruster engine was in bits in mechanics shop waiting for some brushings to be delivered from the manufacturer, and I had just spent another $1000 looking for the leak in the freshwater system with no success. The way the freshwater system works on a sailboat involves a pump that keeps the pressure in the fresh water lines. Every time the water is turned on, the pump kicks in and keeps pressure in the system. In my situation, the pump was cycling every 30 seconds so clearly there was a decrease in pressure in the fresh water system indicating there was a leak somewhere. I have had over 7 water leak experts go over the water system who all told me there was no leak that they could find.

Paul Dennis, one of the sailors that helped me bring the boat to Antigua suggested that I put in a series of shut off valves so I could isolate where the leak was located. That way, I could isolate the area and have a better idea where to concentrate the leak finding efforts. It could be anywhere there was a connection that drew water from the system. I thought it was very likely that the leak was in the washing machine and leaking out that way into the ocean. I was fortunate enough to find Wayne, an Antguan originally from Jamaica, who was willing to dismantle the washing machine looking for that pesky leak. He took one look at the washing machine and said there is no way the leak is coming from this machine. He put in a shutoff valve and confirmed that was the case. I then told him my sad story of how much I had been spending on trying to find this leak. He told me “John, I am not leaving this boat until we have fixed the leak.” He was true to his word. He then proceeded to tear the boat apart looking for the leak……

Just before I left for the Bahamas last year, I had installed a new water maker. I had not had a chance to test it out because the work was done at the end of the season in 2021 in Toronto. The boat was loaded on a truck and shipped to the East Coast to begin the journey to the Bahamas. I have been looking for the leak in the freshwater system since then. Wayne suggested that there was a problem with the solenoid in the water maker that was causing the it to be continuously flushed. The freshwater was getting flushed directly into the ocean. He then installed a shut off valve that I can open when I want to flush the water maker with fresh water. Problem solved…… at least until I try to tackle the defective watermaker…..

Ileana arrived in Antigua on Tuesday. I went to the airport to pick her up and we drove by taxi to Jolly Harbour Marina where the boat was docked. We were settling in nicely. Ileana was planning on working from the boat which required reliable Internet. There is a lot of discussion among the sailing community in the Caribbean about the value of Starlink. Starlink is the Internet system provided by satellites that were launched by Elon Musk. The concept is that you can get Internet anywhere in the world even hundreds of miles offshore. This is a huge advantage for keeping track of changes in the weather, and things that are happening in the world that might affect sailors. I ordered the system which involves a satellite dish, wiring, and a modem.

Our preliminary plans were to leave Antigua at the end of January. We would sail to St. Barts, and then on to Sint Maarten. We would then make our way to the Dominican Republic stopping in the British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and ending up in Samana, Dominican Republic sometime to March to go whale watching. This week, our friends, David and Aviva are vacationing at the Pineapple resort on the other side of Antigua. They contacted us and arrangements were made to meet for dinner one lovely evening at the Greek restaurant, Akropolis in Jolly Harbour.

We met for hors d’oeuvres and drinks on the boat before making our way to the restaurant. Although it’s a somewhat casual restaurant, we changed from our usual sailing attire of bare feet and actually put on shoes. In Ileana’s case, a lovely pair of stylish sandals. Just before leaving the boat for the restaurant, on her way down into the main salon, Ileana slipped on the companionway in her stylish sandals and slid all the way down to the bottom of the main salon. She laid crumpled at the bottom of the stairs. My first thought was that she was unconscious but fortunately, she did not hit her head and luckily was totally awake. She did, however, do some major damage to her foot and could not walk.

We were able to get some X-rays in St. Johns, the capital of Antigua and I sent the X-rays to one of my orthopedic friends in Toronto. He suggested that Ileana could probably get by without any surgery and having her foot immobilized in walking boot would probably be the best option. He did however mention that I should straighten out her toes. I should pull on them to better position the fractures. I was fairly confident that if I were to do this, it would probably be the last thing I do on this earth and I would suffer an untimely demise, similar to the agony I would put Ileana through by pulling on her deformed and painfully excruciating toes. The orthopedic surgeon in Antigua, did not have the same concerns and by using local anesthetic (which did not work very well) was able to reduce the fractures. The swelling is now beginning to settle down. We did get a lovely surprise from our friends David and Aviva, a bottle of red wine and some flowers!

One of the key components of sailing life is to do as little planning as possible. Many of the sailors that I am meeting along the way are very often not too certain which direction they are heading and when they might be heading there. It is not unusual to meet a sailor who is planning to head perhaps south within the next few days and find him in exactly the same location a month or two later not having gone anywhere during that time. There might be several reasons for this which may involve alcohol, women, or weather, but the sailors never seem terribly concerned when things don’t go as planned. They just seem to go with the flow and which ever way the winds of life blow, they’ll follow that route. Such is the case with Ileana and me. We are planning on staying in Jolly Harbour while the foot swelling goes down and Ileana remains immobilized. We will plan to head back to Toronto in the middle of February (where we will hopefully meet with a kinder, gentler orthopedic surgeon) and get some more x-rays to make sure the fractures are healing properly. As far as plans go, perhaps we’ll sail to Dominican Republic at the end of February. If not, I’ll see where we end up when we get there…….