THERE’S A HOLE IN MY ENGINE
Las Brisas de Amador anchorage, Panamá City, Panamá, Sunday, 02 August 2009

Even after eight years, boats sometimes remain a puzzle. After eight hours of motoring out to Pedro Gonzalez Island in The Perlas and burning up 1.5 gallons of SEA 40 diesel engine oil, we decided to return to Panamá City to have an apparent oil leak repaired. We had decided to sail the whole 35 Nm back. But in the end we were becalmed so often and even when the winds seemed to be blowing, they were weak, fluky and basically ‘noserlies’. For example, after four nights at anchor enjoying the peace and quiet – and even the torrential two-hour downpour one evening -, we decided it was time to get the problem looked after. We had recovered from our disappointment and horror at the imminent repair bills and thought we might as well get the bad news as quickly as possible. Kathleen’s mind was actively seeking alternatives to sailing to The Marquesas.

With a light W breeze, we put out of Pedro Gonzalez. After a few hours of gentle sailing and more views of breaching whales, the wind died completely. After drifting for a while, I decided to risk running the engine at low rpm to see if we could make a safe anchorage at Isla Chapera. Lister took us along at a reasonable 4 kts on flat seas, through the gap into the beautiful anchorage off a sandy beach. Isla Chapera is the island where the TV series “Survivor” is filmed, so you can imagine how picturesque it is.

At dawn the wind was from the E. We were now on a lee shore and chop was building up. But an easterly was ideal for getting to Panamá City. Soon we were underway. After clearing the channel, we turned off the engine and put up sails. Nothing spectacular as far as speed is concerned, perhaps, but at least we were sailing. Dawn was at 0530. The sky was clear except way up north over the ridge of mountains that provide the spine of the Isthmus of Panamá and attract daily thunder and lightening. The islands, because they are farther away from these heights, are noticeably drier.

By noon the wind- wait for it - had died to nothing. We were slatting around in the sloppy Pacific swells. By 1500 the surface of the water was like a mirror. We finally gave up hoping and just drifted, dozed and read books. Around 1830, just before dark, a breeze sprang up from the N or NNE and the boat suddenly began to move. Slowly at first, and then we were doing 3 and 4 kts. All things come to them that wait. The sunset is spectacular behind the thunderheads over the isthmus. The three-quarter moon is in a clear sky for the moment and the stars wink on. Mars is red near the horizon. The Big Dipper is to the N, the polar star still under the hills. The Southern Star is bleached out by the moonlight.

For two hours we sail in ideal nighttime conditions. At one point another light seems to be approaching us from ahead and to starboard. At first I think that it is a plane circling around for Tecumen Airport. Then I think it is a low star. At night you cannot judge depth or distances. Suddenly it is even with us and the light goes out. I assume, the skipper was saving battery power. We often sail at night without navigation lights if we expect no shipping or boats.

I take the first watch. As I said, it was ideal at the beginning. Then it began to cloud over, the wind began to shift around. We were sailing very close to the wind anyway and any change could easily back the jibsail. The electronic tiller pilot’s pug-in socket seemed loose and the power would go off regularly. More so, as the swells and waves began to build up. Totally frustrating to set the course and go back to my book and then have to jump to prevent everything backing. After a few hours of this, I deliberately backed the jib, hove to in light and fluky northerly breezes and gave up for the night. I left the masthead nav light on and went to bed. Kathleen looked out every half an hour. But we were a long way from the shipping lanes into the Canal and there was very little worry. Occasionally, we heard outboard motors in the distance: fishermen heading out to their drift nets or drug-runners heading to Colombia.

Dawn was another perfect morning. When I woke up at 0530, there was already a lovely NE breeze and it took but a moment to let the jib slide through to the port side and we were suddenly doing 3.5 kts. again to NW, almost on our rhumb line to the anchorage still some 22 Nm away. All my (under-my-breath) swearing the night before and loud resolves to either sink or sell the boat and become a monk were forgotten. We would be in the anchorage in PC by noon and have the motor fixed tout de suite.

As the morning progressed, the breeze got progressively weaker and by 1230, the wind had died once again completely. Obviously, we were dealing with land and sea breezes: the land heats up during the day and sucks in cooler air from the sea; at night, the water is warmer (especially after cooling rain showers onshore) and the breezes reverse and blow from the land out to sea. I was ready to risk the engine.

We had added 1.5 gallons of SAE 40 at Pedro Gonzalez, which brought the levels up to the mark. We had run the engine for 1.5 or 2 hours to get into and out of Isla Chapera. We would run the engine at medium speed and keep and eye on the temperature and oil pressure. Halfway to PC, I would stop the engine and check the actual oil level. We dropped the flapping headsails, sheeted the main in amidships as a steadying sail and off we went at about 3.5 kts.

The trip was totally uneventful. Lister purred away; she gets pretty warm anyway, but she never overheated. Ten miles out, I stopped and checked the oil level: no loss whatsoever. On we went, arriving and putting the anchor down in nearly exactly in the spot we left five days earlier. The awning was up and we were counting our blessings and trying to decide what to do.

Soon Roger and Jonathan, the father and son Bretons on two boats who we had met before, were calling on VHF to ask why we were back. Roger, a real old salt, says he had Lister engines for years on his 50-metre tuna boat. They are reliable and he knows how to fix them. He came over this morning to talk some more. He thinks we should just accept that we have a leaky engine for the moment, take along extra gallons of diesel-engine oil (but heavier stuff: SAE 50, for example); there are Listers all over The Marquesas, he says, that are used for power generation in the out-islands. So no problem getting Lister parts. The engine in his sailboat leaks like a sieve, he tells us. He just sails as much as possible and adds oil whenever needed. Anything that gets into the bilge he just pumps overboard periodically. (Hmm…!) That basically is the advice from Baltimore too; the advice from Atlanta is that the gods appear to be against us.

I don’t believe in the gods, frankly, and I still have confidence in the boat (despite my frustration with the winds and the tiller pilot overnight). We have had a lot of things fixed up and the incidence n the rocks of Taboga can be passed over as a one-off event (we hope). The tiller pilot can probably be fixed easily: it’s just a loose plug, after all. SAE 50 diesel-engine oil is plentiful here and we can buy it for $11.50 or $13.00 a US gallon. It’s much more expensive in French Polynesia. We would need lots of oil in case we have to work on the engine in The Marquesas or The Galapagos and drain the old oil to do so.

We would need at least a day to buy more perishables and a jug of diesel fuel to make up for what we used in the past week.

I think we should go. If nothing else, we can just stay in The Perlas. It’s much nicer than here.