Stupidity Squared

Stupidity Squared

Friday 31st may - Saturday 1st June, 2024

Our “bridle” seems to be doing a remarkably good job of holding Cotinga into the swells. However, it wasn’t enough to stop me getting seasick whilst I was in the dinghy trying to clean the waterline of the copious seaweed that seems to be growing there. I’ve always found this job to be a bit nauseating, even when I’m swimming in the water beside the boat, but by the time I had finished the starboard side I was feeling distinctly crummy. I now plan to clean the port side whilst on land! We decided to go shore and have lunch, which was a really good idea. I had blackened marlin with rice / vegetables and a side salad, which was excellent. Gloria had a ham and cheese panini that was a little lacking. Anyway, feeling much better, we spent the afternoon walking to the point of land at the south east side of the harbor. It was fun, relaxing and barely qualified as one of “Mike’s hikes”.

We pulled up anchor after breakfast this morning (Saturday) and started the final section of our journey to Clarkes Court Bay, where we will haul out on Tuesday. Yesterday Tasha referred to this as our “final resting place” … let’s hope not! Once out of Prickly Bay it was only 2 miles until we turned north into the Bay, but it was rough going. We were met by steep, short period waves and it was very bumpy. Needless to say, we made it safely and dropped anchor in a beautiful location just to the south of Petit Calivigny Point. The water is deep (35-40 feet) and we are expecting squalls over the next day or two, so we wanted to put out a 5:1 scope. For the first time in our cruising lives we used all of our chain (we think 150 ft) and about 50 feet of the 5/8 inch line that is spliced directly onto the chain. We were keen to see how the windlass would handle the line and transition between chain and line, and it turned out to work just fine. We attached a snubber to the line using a rolling hitch, which allowed us to take the tension of the windlass and connect the main anchor line to a cleat. But before I get too cocky about how well this went, read on …

Once settled, we got stuck right in to boat jobs. Gloria cleaning the aft (guest) cabin, whilst I tackled an oil change on our Yanmar engine. I started out thinking we should just change the oil, but after reading the recommended maintenance periods in the manual, I decided to replace the oil filter as well … and then figured whilst I’m at it, I may as well also replace the diesel fuel filter and water separator. It seemed to go well and towards the end of this project I boasted to Gloria that I had become so much better at these tasks over the years; less mess, fewer problems. I was on the last step, tightening up the new fuel filter, when I noticed the label on it said “oil filter”. “Oh no … you have got to be f….ing kidding me”. I realized this meant I must have replaced the old oil filter with a fuel filter. I had previously retrieved one of each sort of filter from our engine supply stash, and had inadvertently mixed up the two. 

In my defense I would like to argue that they do look remarkably alike; but the prosecution would point out that they are in fact clearly labeled “fuel filter” or “oil filter”, and that the overwhelming evidence proves that I am actually an idiot. How stupid can you get? Well apparently, even more so! Obviously I needed to put the correct filters in their place. However, I figured I had to drain the oil again, before removing the incorrect oil filter, or oil would spill everywhere. So that’s what I did, only to realize that there was no oil in the incorrect filter because I never turned the engine on and all the oil was in the sump. I wasted one oil filter, one fuel filter and 1 gallon of oil. Stupidity squared. Anyway, thanks goodness I spotted the mistake - that could have become really ugly. On the positive side our fuel system is looking clean and dry, a stark contrast to our experience in 2017-8. And there’s that cockiness again …! 

Mike

12 00.065 N; 61 43.649 W

The rocky south coast of Grenada, looking west from the point of land off Prickly Bay

From the same point looking east

A beautiful Frangipani tree. We had one of these plants in our conservatory in England ... it never had any flowers and most of the time it had no leaves; it resembled a the wooden handle of a broom!

The oil filter (bottom left) and fuel filter (top right) after the replacement saga

The water separators (Racor filters) in the fuel lines. Note we have two in parallel and can switch from one to other by turning the lever. The manifold on the left has the selector switch for diesel - main or forward tank, as well as the selector for diesel return. Did you know that a typical diesel engine uses only ~10% of the fuel that is pumped into the engine and returns ~90% to the tank?