Traveling Senior Citizens: Karen's Notes: Glorious Day After Choppy Seas in Sir Francis Drake Channel

   We had a brief shower during the night. The drill is that each person secures the hatches in their cabin. This becomes an automatic responsive action as soon as the rain hits one's face.
   Shortly after 9 a.m., Roy and I went ashore to purchase 3 gallons of water and a loaf of bread. Back on the boat, we prepared for departure and hoisted the main while on the mooring.
   Leaving Great Harbour, we had out both sails but dropped them as we approached Great Thatch. The wind was gusting over 30 kts. so we motored past Soper's Hole and headed towards Norman Island. About fifteen minutes through the cut, our right engine started to squeal and then died. A cat has two engines and we had enough power. We contacted TMM by the boat's cell phone and arranged for a chase boat to meet us at The Bight.

No time to snorkel at The Indians

   Once we were on our mooring, we had a lunch of leftover pork tenderloin, grilled chicken and whatever else we needed to consume. Shortly thereafter, Roy, Sallie and I went snorkeling. Taya decided to rest and enjoy some quiet time with her book. The snorkeling was quite successful as we spotted a large Hawkbill turtle. I don't want to brag too much about the snorkeling in our special spot in The Bight because I don't want anyone else to discover it. We saw the TMM chase boat approaching and quickly swam back to the boat.

   The starboard engine is located under the aft bed so the mattress was removed. The TMM crew descended into "the black hole" to attack the problem. It turned out to be a belt and the engine was repaired within a short time. We also found a hidden circuit breaker and were finally able to get the generator running again.

   Sallie wanted to snorkel again and we entered the water shortly after 4 p.m. This time, we saw a very large spotted eagle ray. Oh, my! This has been a great day!