BOUND FOR COSTA RICA III: REACHING ENSENADA NARANJO AND FUEL FILTERS
Ensenada Naranjo, Panamá, Wednesday, 09 December 2009

So, happy to be sailing again! I guess adventure means unpredictability, never knowing what’s going to happen next.

The coastline between Punta Mala and Ensenada Benao is plenty green and has some hills. There are still some large McCastles soon after Punta Mala. They are easily visible from one or two miles out. After Ensenada Benao it is still just as green. In fact, if anything it looks even lusher and more heavily forested. But, there’s almost a deserted coastline. Beyond the occasional thatched cabaña or tin-roofed shack, there are no signs of life whatsoever. And, with the possible exception of the little shelter-cove on the NE side of Punta Guanico some 10 Nm from Benao, there’s no place to stop for the next 40 Nm. But, what do we care! Leaving at dawn, the N wind picks up as the morning progresses, and we are pushing us along just fine. We should reach Ensenada Naranjo by dark.

This lasts until we are well around Morro de Puercos. From Benao westwards, the coastal landscape becomes much more rugged, with steep hills rising straight out of the sea and the hills getting steep as we go. Forty miles off we see one large wooded peak with a corona of clouds. These hills are now cutting off the nortos. At first the wind goes to fits and starts, the starts being quite strong as they are funnelled through the valleys. Within a couple of hours, however, the northerlies disappear altogether and we decide that, if we want to be at anchor tonight and not have to spend another night drifting around at sea only this time near a rocky and empty coast, we should abandon any idea about sailing teaching us patience or any of that sort of nonsense and just put on the engine. Let’s just get there! And anyway, it’s hot in the sun.

Things start off well enough. Our engine, repaired over so many weeks by Tom, responds immediately and off we go. When I come on watch a couple of hours later, wind and waves have sprung up from the SW and our speed has slowed down somewhat. Lister could only put out 19 ½ bhp when he was new some three and one-half decades ago. Have no idea what it is now. But, such an auxiliary motor was never actually designed for long motor cruises, but for getting into and out of harbours and setting anchors. It will push us along in flat waters at up to 5 knots. But let adverse winds, waves or currents appear and our forward speed is cut drastically. Does the engine sound a bit strained? I wonder about that oil seal we replaced. Will it hold? I see no sign of declining oil pressure or oil in the bilge. So, I guess it’s all right. Surely the slowness is due to an adverse current.

Whatever, that current is really becoming a nuisance. We begin calculating whether we shall make Ensenada Naranjo at all by nightfall. (By the way, “la naranja” is an orange and “el naranjo” is an orange tree). We would surely like that to happen. We discuss a bit about what to do if we don’t make it. The fallback plan is to head out onto the Pacific for sea room, and then heave to for the night. The waves and winds are at present light, and we wouldn’t likely roll around as much tonight. But, for the moment we shall stick to Plan A (Ensenada Naranjo) and see if we can make it before darkness closes in.

We have a basic rule never to enter unknown harbours in the dark. This rule is about to be put to the test once again. We keep looking at each other, hoping against hope that we can make it before dark. As we round Punta Mariato the hoped-for push as we bring the SW more on our port beam never materialises. The breeze is too weak and sailing not really an option if we want to make it. Our speed nevertheless seems to be diminishing all the time and I cannot coax any more out of Lister. It is going to be a tight race where every minute counts. We take in the sails on the run.

Still short by a couple of miles, the tropical sun plops into the flat distant sea at 1800 and the dusk thickens rapidly. The sky is largely cloudless although there are a couple of big dark rainclouds headed at us from Isla Cebaco some 20 Nm to the W. The half-moon won’t be up till midnight and wouldn’t in any case be of any benefit to us for a couple of hours after that. I get out flashlights and the plug-in spotlight and go forward to prepare the ground tackle in the bow. It must be 40o C down below: the engine is labouring full out and I apparently forgot to affix the bag that carries the heat off the engine and on up to the escape hole on the bridge. I also notice that the Whale Gusher bilge pump is not functioning. I wonder why? It’s too hot to get into the engine room now to do about all that anything.

We have a GPS waypoint that at least confirms to us that we have picked the right fold in the coastline for Ensenada Naranjo. And there is just enough residual light to guide us in and tuck us reasonably close to the rocky island where we drop the anchor in 32 feet of water at high tide. It is 1900 when we shut off the engine.

Have we broken one of our safety rules? 1900 is definitely 60 minutes past Civil Sunset, i.e., when the sun goes behind the horizon. But, on the other hand, it is still prior to Navigational Sunset, i.e., when all fifty-some-odd constellations can clearly be seen with the naked eye. (I think there is an Astronomical Sunset too, i.e., when there is sufficient darkness to view the distant stars.) With the naked eye we could still just see the outline of the rocky island and the hills behind the cove to the E, i.e., the darkest sector. But, it was nevertheless a near-run thing.

Pleased and relieved nevertheless that we are at anchor and nothing has gone amiss, we heat up the tomato vegetable soup that has been our mainstay for a couple of days and over dinner and a beer, discuss the engine. Just as we had been coming into the cove, I had asked Kathleen to put the engine into neutral so we could coast a bit. As soon as it was out of gear the engine began racing, and when it was back put it into forward or, later, reverse, it almost died on us. Only hastily returning to neutral prevented Lister from giving up the ghost altogether.

I guess I must be learning. Two years ago we learned from Carl on S/V Muk Tuk that this means one’s fuel filters are full of gunk and, under load, the diesel engine is getting insufficient fuel. Without that experience I would have been totally flummoxed tonight. And, not only knowing now what the reason for Lister’s straining and loss of performance all afternoon, but knowing also now how to cope with it allows me to get to sleep and develop a plan for the morning.

After a really good night’s sleep as we gently rock in the waves, and this morning after a cuppa, I get ready to deal with the ‘issues’. The first job is to get the hand-operated bilge pump working. For some reason it was not sucking. I pull it apart and clean everything and in half an hour it is working fine. Sometimes it sucks something up from the bilge and becomes clogged. The Whale Gusher 30 that we installed two years ago is heavy-duty in construction and large in capacity; it is also well designed for taking apart in a hurry at sea. Within half an hour I have the bilge dried out.

Now to the fuel filters. I had added two jugs (10 gallons) of diesel fuel to top up the starboard (i.e., larger) tank before we left for Las Perlas. I recall being a little suspicious of the fuel at the time. I had bought it months ago at La Boca gas station in Balboa, and it had been standing on the deck in the sun. The fuel’s colour was quite dark and at the bottom of the jug there was some sticky, gummy bits and there was sediment in the filter cum funnel that I always use to refuel. I was made even more nervous when I re-filled the two jugs I had emptied into the tank at different and more-frequented gas station in Panamá City. That batch of fuel had a nice yellow colour.

A quick search through the vertical lockers in the fo’c’sle by Kathleen reveals the stash of Racor filters. She had brought them back with her from the U.S.A. last year. At $24 a pop (they were the same price in Ecuador, surprisingly) they are expensive little devils. I decide to be cautious. Since I only poured bad fuel into the starboard tank, the port tank got nothing and still had good levels. The port tank is after all where all unused fuel in a cycle returns (a diesel engine does not burn all the fuel injected into each piston during each flash cycle and return-fuel lines take the excess back to a tank). An inspection of the filters will surely reveal whether both tanks are contaminated, thinks I. The starboard filter does look pretty gunky while the portside filter actually looks quite clean. I decide therefore to run only on diesel fuel from the port tank. I replace both primary filters anyway but turn off the taps from the starboard tank. Because the port filter appears relatively clean and because the fuel there is constantly being recycled and re-filtered through the engine, it should be the cleaner fuel, right? By only running on one tank, I save fuel filters in case I need to change them frequently. We are unlikely to use the engine excessively and anyway I still have ten gallons of clean fuel on deck.

By noon the filter changes are complete and I can devote myself to a nap and then to making bread and cooking meatless borscht. Shortly before sunset we are overtaken by a huge rain squall. We go like nymphs on deck to shower (it’s a picture, isn’t?), and to collect water off the sun awning. Later, the whole-wheat bread looks great and tastes even better as we cut off crusts to stuff ravenously in our mouths. Fresh and hot! In the absence of butter we spread just a tiny bit of mayonnaise on the bread; it seems almost like butter. The hearty beetroot soup is eaten with gusto that evening as well. Afterwards we settle down to watch a DVD. Dinner and a movie! What more can you want? It was a high-action film based in New York City called Conspiracy Theory. Even the Twin Towers were there. It starred Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts. Strange to be transported to the streets of Manhattan and a government conspiracy and, when the movie finishes, suddenly you are back in total darkness without an electric light anywhere in sight outside and so dark you cannot see the shore two hundred metres away.

As I fall asleep I wonder how I shall get rid of the 40 gallons or so of contaminated fuel in the starboard tank or whether I can drain the tank and rehabilitate the fuel, I also wonder if my theory about running on just the port tank is a good one. The last thing I hear before dozing off is the distant roar of surfs crashing on some rocks a half mile away and the occasional roar of howler monkeys in the nearby tangle of tropical vegetation at the sandy beach about two hundred yards away.