Saved by the Bell, Bobby Bell that is.

With a bit of trepidation, we started the diesels, cast our lines and headed for the most easterly coast of the Dominican Republic at Punta Cana, 169 miles away.

July 7, 7 AM, 704 hours.

The wind was still blowing as hard as it was for the past three days but we had to go. Exiting the marina we were back in 6 to 8 footers in our face and we knew from weather reports that the waves should calm down just a bit about 70 or so miles down the coast. As our luck would have it, just as the waves started to diminish to 3 to 5 footers the starboard engine quit. What now? Bad diesel fuel? Did we run over something? What? We tried to start the engine but it wouldn’t turn over. Noticing that the voltage was very low again on the starboard engine we pushed the parallel switch and the engine sprung to life. Still not quite grasping what was happening yet, we tentatively pushed the shifter into gear and accelerated to 1800 RPM. Everything seemed fine for another half hour when suddenly the engine quit again. We tried to restart it, nothing doing. Pushed the parallel switch, nothing doing. What now. The voltage was still low but reading around 10 volts. Bobby and I discussed our options. Should we start the converter and charge the batteries risking damaging the only good alternator? Bobby had taken all the batteries out the day before and cleaned all the connections before reseating them. Obviously the alternator that he removed from the circuit wasn’t the cause of losing power. Could we have a shorted battery dragging the others down? Well there was only one way to find out. Bobby back to the very sweaty, very dirty bilge while rolling about in a sea that I struggled against wind and wave to keep on our bow with the single engine. Bobby disconnected all the batteries and checked each voltage. Back on the bridge he had good news and bad news. They were all reading around 10 volts but none was shorted or dragging the others down as we expected. What else, it must be that the converter which he had to replace earlier in the trip wasn’t fully charging the batteries. Bobby fortunately remembered he had a jumper cable still on the boat that our dear friend Howie had brought to the boat when we needed it one morning to get the genny running before we went out fishing. Maybe we could use that to jump from the genny battery and get the engine started. Bobby reconnected the batteries and we tried the engine but that didn’t work either. Next we said ok we obviously don’t have enough power to crank over that diesel. We’ll just have to jump from the other bank of batteries. Bobby connected the jumper to the other bank and I tried the starter. A little better but as soon as it turned a little it would just click. Thinking about it a bit, we decided that the jumper cable was not sufficient to carry the amperage that would be needed to start the engine. Here’s what we need to do. Bobby disconnected the bank of batteries from the engine and house and attached the jumper cable from the port bank of batteries to the starboard bank of batteries so that the alternator could charge the run down batteries. For the next two hours we ran on one engine while the batteries were hopefully charging. Watching our fuel deplete I asked Bobby if he had a fuel transfer switch or a manual switch in the bilge. He had neither, great, we needed to calculate if we have enough fuel in just the port tank to get us to Punta Cana. If we did have enough we would be going in on fumes. There was only one port that might have fuel between here and there but it was risky as it was also quite a bit out of the way. Well, we decided if we can’t get the other engine started we’ll just have to find a way to transfer fuel form the starboard tank to the port tank. The idea of not getting into port until after midnight was not very appealing at all.

After two hours of letting the batteries charge we decided to try it. We’ll reconnect the batteries to the engine but totally remove them from the house circuit. We tried the engine again and this time it sprang to life in a heartbeat. Yeah ! We left things exactly as they were and headed to port at a decent speed. Much to our amazement, although we did not want to jinx ourselves by acknowledging it, the batteries did not lose their charge for the rest of the trip and in fact the voltage never went below the point that it was at when we finished charging them. Obviously keeping the house circuit off was key to keeping up the batteries although we could not see and still cannot see any current being demanded by the house when everything is off. Perhaps if the alternator was working this wouldn’t be an issue.

Well we finally made port that evening but we were too late to have the dockmaster unlock power so they let us run the genny all night. We checked in with customs and had a bite to eat at the restaurant at the stern of our boat.

The next morning we had much to do so we decided to stay in port since we couldn’t get an early start. We gave the boat it’s first bath since Boston. Bobby checked a few things in the bilge and found that the water tank shifted again but not as bad so he repositioned and refastened that as well as tighten a small oil leak and a small exhaust leak that he had noticed the day before. We had dinner at the restaurant again, and since we were the only customers at this very nice restaurant we got into a great conversation about life for the people who reside in the Dominican Republic. We learned some very interesting things that I won’t go into here, but let me tell you that their life is hard and their wages are extremely low. Ask me sometime and you might be amazed at what you hear.

Restaurant
Conversation with our waiter..


This is only one tiny area of this very big place but no people !