Living on a Sailboat exploring the world
Luperón, Dominican Republic is likely not a place you have heard of unless you sail. This is a messy, crazy, friendly town and there are lots of reasons we are loving Luperón .
Luperón Harbor, where we have been moored since Friday, is known as the best hurricane hole in the Caribbean. Even if the wind is howling at sea, it is relatively calm in the anchorage. We are sleeping very well with barely any movement at night.
We waited a long time for this. Without a working autopilot, we struggle to do long trips on board Sava. The crossing from Turks and Caicos to any island south is longer than a day. Which is why we hired Jeff to fly down from Florida to accompany us to our next destination. Our luck still being bad, as soon as we tried to leave, the engine conked. By the time we had a new part shipped from Florida, cleared through customs and replaced the engine, it was almost one week from when we originally tried to do the crossing.
In that week, the winds were mostly from the north and not too strong. All those days we were sitting in Provo waiting for the part, the weather was perfect for the trip. And then the part came. And we looked at the weather again. If we didn’t leave on Wednesday, we were going to be stuck for another week. We didn’t want to do that, and we weren’t going to pay Jeff for another week of waiting either. Rather than the 250 or so knots to Puerto Rico, we decided to make a smaller jump of 145 nm to Luperón, Dominican Republic. On Wednesday April 3rd, at around 6pm, we made our exit from the lovely Turks and Caicos.
Proof again not to make plans on a sailboat came this week in Provo, Turks and Caicos. We brought Captain Jeff on board on Wednesday and were ready to go for our passage to Puerto Rico. Provisions were in, boat was clean, we were ready. It wasn’t to be: the engine conked out on our way to the fuel dock and we are stuck outside of Provo, Turks and Caicos.
We hadn’t even left the island. An hour in, heading to a marina to fill up the water and the fuel for the journey, I smelled burning. I mentioned it and Jeff saw smoke. Brian turned off the engine and we went down below to check out the damage. Based on our history, we tried adding coolant. Then turned the engine on and looked. It looked like we needed a water pump.
After sourcing a pump from the U.S., we think it will be here on Tuesday. Maybe we will get out on Wednesday. But I know better than to make any plans!
Continue reading “Stuck Outside of Provo”
