Stuck in Philipsburg… Again

I know… I know… I assure you I am not complaining we are stuck in Philipsburg, at least we aren’t snowed-in in Ottawa and truly there are worse places to be stuck than Philipsburg, Sint Maarten. It is more the irony of the situation that every time we come to Philipsburg we seem to be stuck for almost a week. I guess this is cruising life, plans are written in sand and if anything, we must be flexible.

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When we left off in our blog post, Farewell Antigua… Hello Sint Maarten, we had lost a propeller. Yes, we literally lost one of the propellers and we were shocked. We had just made it through a twelve-hour sail from Antigua. Other than a couple of smaller sails in Antigua to test out our new sailboat this was the first time we really got to see what she could do. We were not disappointed as she maintained a great speed handled the swell with no issue. However, after dropping anchor in Sint Maarten, we decided the spot we had chosen was too “rolley” (there were too many waves making it in from the ocean rocking the boat, which makes it less comfortable for living) and we wanted to move to a more sheltered spot in the anchorage. We were trying to pick up the anchor again, I was upfront pulling up the anchor with the windless and Eryk was at the helm. I would point in the direction of the anchor chain, so Eryk could move the boat in the direction of the chain as I rolled it in. Well that’s what was supposed to happen, but he just didn’t seem to be following my direction, so I finally turned around to ask, “can you see where I am pointing” and he responded, “I do, but the boat isn’t reacting that way”. That’s when we realized we had a problem, the port side engine was running, but there was no power coming from it. I put on the anchor lock to protect the windless and we left the anchor where it was, it wasn’t an ideal location, but it really wasn’t too bad. Once the engines were shut down Eryk jumped in the water and when he surfaced reported, “we lost the propeller”! Now I am sure most of you are thinking, “how do you lose a propeller”? The answer we have come up with is… it just happens, and it happens to all makes and models.

Eryk got to exercise his new skill at locating objects on the ocean floor once again, but this time it was a lot easier as the water was crystal clear, with a beautiful sand bottom. He succeeded in finding the prop without much issue, but we were still missing the cone that fits on the end of the shaft and holds (or is supposed to hold) the propeller on.

Now one of the reasons we liked the concept of the catamaran is the built-in redundancy. Two hulls, mean two engines, with two props. It does mean maneuverability is reduced when you are only using one engine, as you can imagine trying to drive a boat with two hulls with an engine off to one side. However, we weren’t in a horrible predicament, so the next day we moved into a better spot in the anchorage. Regardless though, we didn’t want to move to another anchorage altogether until we had two fully functional engines, so the following Monday we made the trek to the French side of the Island by bus and found Caribe Diesel the local Volvo-Penta distributor to pick up a new cone to fit on to the propeller. They had the parts in stock, which was great.

Our time in Philipsburg was well spent as it is a cruise ship port, of which there can be up to five or six in port at one time. This makes Philipsburg a very busy and touristy destination, the water front is lined with beach chairs and umbrellas, shops, restaurants and bars. The kids were extremely happy as they got to do their Christmas shopping for one another, which gave them a good reason to explore each little shop looking for the perfect souvenirs. We even had the opportunity to take many walks with Roxy along the board walk. But, the favorite new pass time was cruise ship watching. Each morning the kids would report which cruise ships had arrived in port overnight, and each night they would see them off as they moved on to their next destination. They started researching the cruise ships they saw and apparently, we’ve seen the four biggest cruise ships in the world while here.  

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Weeks later, we have returned to Philipsburg, mainly because we liked the grocery store and wanted to provision heavily before we continued our sailing adventure. This time though, Eryk went to perform some routine maintenance and change the fuel filter, a seemingly simple task. However, the specialized hollow screw that bleeds fuel broke as he was tightening it. This means we needed to order a new screw and of course that is the one part that seems to be on backlog, so we are stuck again, this time waiting for a screw. What makes this even more ironic, I kid you not, a few hours after the screw incident, Eryk went for a swim and came up stating, “I wish I were kidding right now guys, but we lost the other prop”. Yes, we returned to Philipsburg and have lost the second prop!! After we lost the first prop, Eryk even checked the second prop to ensure it was secure. So, Eryk spent another couple of hours searching the ocean floor for the prop and the cone and this time came back with both. We still needed to visit Carib Diesel for the parts to reassemble the prop onto the shaft and ended up buying a new cone, and a new prop as the old one was well aged, and we wanted some redundancy. I don’t know if we will come up with the exact reason we lost yet another prop, but the experts at Carib Diesel seem to say that the old cones were not as well designed and had corrosion issues over time. Apparently, the newer prop cones have a better reputation for not falling off, so fingers crossed the situation is resolved. Also, just in case we run into this problem again we got an extra prop cone and we kept the old propeller as backup.

We are still waiting for the screw for the fuel filter, when we do get it we hope to resume our plan of exploring some of the nearby islands likely starting with Anguilla, maybe as early as next week. Until then, we get to continue to enjoy Philipsburg.

I guess the adage of cruising is just maintaining a boat in exotic locations is holding true so far.