Where There is Yin, There is Also Yang: Conception Island and Clarence Town

Where there is Yin, there is Yang. Where there is good, there is bad. Chinese philosophy believes that these contrary forces are actually complementary and interconnected; that they give rise to each other. This is probably true for most things in life, but it is especially true for sailing. For each wonderful day we get to lounge on a pristine white sandy beach, we also have days of frustrating boat maintenance that make us want to throw in the towel. Our first two legs after Georgetown are a perfect example of the boat life Yin and Yang.

The Yin: Sailing to Conception Island

Our 7.5 hour sail to Conception Island was tranquil. We had waited for the perfect weather window to leave Georgetown and the day couldn’t have been better. We were even able to shut off the engine and make great time with just the wind in our sails. Sailing can be so peaceful with the sun on your face and the sound of water rushing by your hull.

So far, we’ve done more motoring than sailing on this adventure. You can sail any direction, EXCEPT directly into the wind. Because the trade winds blow from the east/southeast, most of the time we are traveling directly into the wind. Not only can crashing straight into the waves be uncomfortable, but it also makes it impossible to put sails up. It is for this reason the trek from Florida to the Virgin Islands has been named the “Thorny Path to Windward”. But from Georgetown to Conception Island, we were traveling NORTHeast for a change and it was magnificent.

We dropped anchor only 100 feet from a pristine white sand beach on the west side of the island around 3:00pm. It was nice to anchor so close to shore. For once, walking the dogs would be a breeze. Hell, if we really wanted to, we could just toss them off the boat and watch them swim to shore. We played on the beach for the remainder of the afternoon and then returned to the boat for dinner, drinks, and a sunset view. Life was good.

The next day we finally busted out the dive hookah and dove the reef on the north side of the island. There was a ridiculous number of coral heads lined up and full of colorful creatures for us to explore. We were looking for one creature in particular—L-O-B-S-T-E-R. We came home empty handed, but it was still fun to snorkel such a beautiful area.

After we cleaned up, we took a ride in the dinghy to the nearby creek through the mangroves, where we saw hundreds of turtle heads popping up out of the water. They would come up for air, then head right back down again. It resembled a giant game of WHACK-A-MOLE.

We returned to the boat to course plan for our trip to Rum Cay the next day. The weather forecast was calling for 15-20kt winds. We knew it would be a little rough, but Rum Cay was only 4 hours away. We could handle it. That’s when I realized that the marina on Rum Cay was CLOSED. It has actually been closed since before last year’s hurricane. With the marina closed and hurricane Joaquin wiping out the other services on the island, we would not be able to get fuel or water in Rum Cay. This was alarming because we did not have enough fuel to make it to our next stop, Mayaguana. Our options became 1) return to Georgetown, or 2) head further south to Clarence Town on Long Island. Not wanting to depart from Chicken Harbor twice, we chose option 2.

The Yang: Sailing to Clarence Town

As wonderful as our sail to Conception Island had been, our sail to Clarence Town was the exact opposite. The 3-5 foot seas we saw when we left the anchorage grew into 8 foot seas. Once again we were traveling directly into the wind, our bow smashing into the waves. Kairos was bucking and rearing as our hull crashed back to the water surface after each surge.

The safety gear came out: life jackets, personal locator beacons, dog life jackets, and dog tethers. With the pups secured on the cockpit floor, Rob and I braced ourselves for a long 9 hour day.

Not even 2 hours into our trip, we heard the dreaded sound of our engine RPMs dropping. A few minutes later our engine had completely shut off. By now, we are no longer strangers to fuel supply issues. There was the incident in Marathon when we had to call Boat US for a tow. We also changed filters near Chub Cay and again in Nassau. We were going through fuel filters so quickly, we purchased a whole new filter housing set up so we could swap out our current system for a more readily available Racor system.

However, after researching and reading the Boat Galley’s post on this topic, we were convinced that the problem wasn’t particulate in our fuel. We believed that we had a leak somewhere in the vacuum side of the fuel supply line and air was getting into the system. Fuel supply issues can be notoriously difficult to diagnosis and resolve. Once “fixed”, the only way to test the solution is to run the motor for a long period. Not to mention that there could be multiple issues. Maybe it’s both an air leak and particulate fouling. Maybe there are multiple air leaks. Our engine died four times during our 9 hour trip. One thing was certain—we had an issue that needed to be resolved.

We quickly realized that there was no need to change the filter out. We could bleed the system and run for a couple of hours before it would shut down again. Under pleasant conditions, this may have not been as big of an issue, but we didn’t have pleasant conditions. Each time the engine would die, we’d let out the jib, turn 90 degrees off our route, and set our autopilot. With the boat under full sail, Rob and I could then go down below to bleed the engine. The last place you want to be in rolling conditions is below deck. We were both getting nauseas and couldn’t stand to be down there more than a few minutes at a time. We’d go through the routine of bleeding the fuel line. I manned the mechanical fuel pump while Rob cracked open the bleeder nut. As soon as the task was complete, we rushed upstairs for some fresh air and relief.

By the time we reached Clarence Town, we were banged up, exhausted, and defeated. As if the sailing gods wanted one last laugh at us, it started to rain as we were trying to scope out the anchorage. It was such a relief when we finally dropped our anchor. It was a long, long day, but we were safe and finally resting. Then we noticed the sailboat behind us in the channel had run aground. We couldn’t believe it. They were just behind us. As bad as our day was, it looked like theirs was worse. Luckily a VERY large mega-yacht was able to help them off the reef. As we were getting the boat settled for the night, the rain let up and a full rainbow appeared across our gorgeous anchorage—reminding us that if you want to see a rainbow, you have to deal with a little rain.

While we were in Clarence Town, we removed our filter housing and filter and replaced it with a Racor system. We have since run 20 hours on our engine with no issues. My guess is that there was a leak in the filter housing or coalescer. We know better than to assume it’s completely fixed, but it’s certainly better.

Like Rum Cay, Clarence Town was also severely damaged by hurricane Joaquin. Many homes, the grocery store, the co-op, and the school were flattened. The town is trying to rebuild, but progress is slow. The town’s children have been relocated to other settlements to attend school. A town without children sounds incredibly sad, but the locals we talked to were pretty optimistic. “Sure the hurricane destroyed so much. But these things are just materials that can be replaced. No one lost their life. No one lost a limb. In a way we were lucky”. The Yin and the Yang.