Our Last Season – Part 1

When we left the boat in St. Lucia in May 2024 to spend hurricane season at home in Nova Scotia, Douglas was ready to move back to land permanently. He wanted to be closer to our family and friends, and live in a house that didn’t need constant maintenance. I agreed that it wasn’t the right life for us. It had not given us the freedom that we had hoped for, given how stuck you are to the boat in remote places. On the other hand, I would have happily sailed between Grenada and Puerto Rico for the rest of my life. We made the decision to sell the boat in St. Lucia. Although we found a buyer right away, that didn’t work out, so we stored the boat on the hard in St. Lucia for the season. 

In November we found ourselves flying back to St. Lucia to get the boat in the water and take her north to sell in Florida. I was happy for the extra season. Douglas wasn’t thrilled with having to spend more time sailing before starting the next chapter in our lives. We decided to compromise and do the trip as quickly as we could, while taking the time to stop at a few islands we had missed on the way down. 

We found the boat in very good shape after her summer of storage, or so we thought. We took advantage of having her out of the water to change the cutlass bearing and do a few other projects. Then we spent a few days getting her all back together before she was splashed on November 22nd. The boat yard was amazing; very professional and very well organized. When our turn came to get in the water, they gave us all the time we needed to make sure the motor was running well, and everything was tight and right. All good! We left the well.

As we were motoring over to the dock 3 minutes later, Douglas went forward to put a bow line on. The motor died! I tried to restart it, nothing. I yelled to Doug, he ran below, checking fuel lines and whatever else he does in these situations. He yelled for me to try to start it again. It turned over, but it would not catch. He couldn’t find an immediate fix, so came up to assess our options. We could drop anchor, but there were some underwater cables in the area. We could sail out of the bay, but the sails were still sitting down below. Our best option was a tow to the dock. 

I started blowing our air horn and calling the marina on VHF. Both got a response, but it was a guy in a dinghy that got there first and was able to push us to the end of a T dock. The marina sent out a boat with a professional captain and they arrived just as we were getting to the dock. They helped us get it tied up. We gave the dinghy captain a case of beer and gave $20 bucks to the marina captain. All in all, much cheaper than a tow boat. 

Once the boat was tied up safely, Douglas got to work figuring out the problem. As it turned out, half of our fuel tank was filled with water. After more consultation with fuel companies and mechanics, it seems that by filling our fuel tank, we had overfilled it for summer conditions. So as the temperatures got hotter the fuel expanded and loosened our fuel cap allowing water to come in and fuel to escape from the vent. Apparently it happens from time to time and the yards tell people to only fill your tank ⅔ of the way. No one had told us, but now we know. 

This put a big wrench in our plans of leaving St. Lucia in a few days, and confirmed to Douglas that he was done with the sailing life. We had a fuel company come to the dock and pump out all of our fuel into barrels to be recycled. Then we had to replace and clean all the lines and filters. What a job. Needless to say, by the time everything was back together and sea worthy, we were happy to leave St. Lucia. We were a  week behind schedule and feeling the pressure to get moving.