For the Love of a Good Mechanic

Over our last weeks in Providencia, amidst ongoing varnishing and engine maintenance, Catalina Harbor turned Scandinavian. We were joined by three Swedish sailboats, and one Norwegian -- and made some great new friends. First came the Norwegian ship Athena, with Esbon, Eva and Tomas aboard, followed by Swedish ship Liv-1, with Peter, Benedicte, Filipa and Emil. Later, Swedish ketch Evening Song, with Kris, Kathrin and Noa, arrived. While Benedicte was at the masthead of Liv-1 one morning repairing the navigation light, she snapped this cool birds-eye photo of Sea Quill far, far below in the harbor.

(Photo courtesy: Liv-1)

Soon the Swedish school ship Gunilla -- an impressive, 3-masted, square-rigged ship, arrived in the harbor. Here's Liv-1 in the foreground, with Gunilla behind.

Forty Swedish high school students, plus a dozen or so adult teachers and crew, sail Gunilla across the Atlantic and around the Caribbean over the course of a school year. All of the students are top-notch, as spaces on the school ship are highly competitive. The chief mechanic and a mate paid a visit to Sea Quill in their very fast, very orange jet-propulsion tender. With Peter of Liv-1 also visiting, we had a bona fide Swedish men's' convention on board, for a few minutes at least. Apart from the friendly visit, we were grateful to Gunilla's chief mechanic for arriving just in time to help Ulf tap and rethread an aluminum casing on our engine.

Gustav, a student on Gunilla, who hopes to get his sea captain's license and become a professional sea captain, kindly invited us aboard, and gave us a great tour of Gunilla. Ulf was proud to see products from Hellberg, his old company, in Gunilla's well-stocked machine room.

Gunilla is highly traditional in many ways, even down to how the square sails are set from on high. We're glad that we don't have to set the sails on Sea Quill this way.

But Gunilla is also a testing ground for state-of-the-art equipment that is anything but traditional. Here's a jet ski type man-overboard craft that they are currently testing for the Swedish sea rescue organization, Svenska Sjoraddningen.

Walking around the 17km loop of Providencia one day, we met Mark Whittaker, who invited us to see his land. On a steep hill overlooking the west shore, Mark has landscaped a park-like environment of lawns, paths, and flowers, surrounding graceful old trees.

The several houses on the property were all designed and built without paper plans; Mark works directly from his head to his hands. Artistry and sensitivity to the characteristics of the landscape are apparent in the details. His stone house, at the highest point of the hill, seems to have grown on the spot organically, it conforms so naturally to the mountain. The various rooms, each with it's own natural focal point, emanate off open-air corridors that wind novely, yet apparently naturally, up the hill.

Taking in the view from an unfinished room at the top of the house, a work in progress:

Further along on a Providencia walk, we saw these beautifully painted tiles:

Eva was a good walking companion, and new friend, while Athena was in harbor:

Meanwhile, on our fair ship... we had been waiting for weeks for the replacement water pump for our Yanmar engine to arrive. It had been shipped via UPS from the United States to Providencia. UPS took the job -- and our $100, of course -- but the package failed to arrive. We were able to track it as far as Bogota, but no further. We began calling UPS offices in Colombia. Our package was sitting in the UPS office in San Andres, an island 50 nautical miles from Providencia. Jen called that office and was kindly told that San Andres was the end of the line. UPS couldn't, or wouldn't, send it any further... could we swing by to pick it up? Ironically, it was our second such experience with UPS. A year earlier, in New York, UPS had lost our wind vane (a $3500 piece of equipment). They delivered to the wrong address, and took a signature from the wrong person, then refused to investigate any further. For almost a month, we begged UPS to re-open the case or take responsibility for the loss; when our wind vane finally resurfaced, several weeks later, UPS offered no explanation or apology. Well, back to the story of our water pump.... Bernardo Bush, the marine agent in Providencia, called a friend in San Andres, who drove to the UPS office, claimed our package for us, drove it to the docks and put it on the San Andres-Providencia supply ship. UPS: 0, Network of helpful friends: 1. (For the record, Fedex made a complete -- albeit slow -- delivery from the U.S. to Providencia, as promised.) End of digression.

With the new, correct, water pump in our hands, half of our engine problem was fixed. The other half involved the alternator which was still not charging the batteries. Anxious to move on, we decided to leave without the engine charging. If we could conserve energy carefully-- using the handheld GPS and wind vane, rather than the autopilot and main GPS, we figured we would be fine on solar and wind-power alone. If the wind should drop below 12-15 knots, or veer too far north, and if we needed to transmit on the radio long, or use our navigation or spreader lights often, we would have some trouble.

We checked out of Colombia and made preparations to leave first thing in the morning. Everything was stowed, bread and soup were made, the dingy was tied down on deck, the sail covers were off. Ulf turned the key in the ignition to drive up on the anchor, and nothing happened. Nothing at all. The starter, or the solenoid, or the cables, or something else -- was broken now.

After two full days of trying to solve the problem, we had nothing to show for it. We had traced the issue to around the starter, but in trying to clean and trouble shoot the starter, we had managed to break the weld points inside. Defeated, and more than a little frustrated, we put the dinghy back in the water and went to shore to check back in to Colombia. We needed help. Hearing about our problems, friends and acquaintances in town all began to mention the mysterious word, "Bing."

"Talk to Bing" they all said, "Bing can fix any engine."

Finally, Marelise, the wonderfully warm chef and owner of the restaurant on the main corner, introduced us to Bing, who happens to be her father-in-law. Along with Bing, we met his sons, Bing Jr. (Marelise's husband), Balthazar, and Barnaby, as well as Marelise and Bing Jr's daughters, Josia and Luisa. Suddenly, the whole friendly family seemed invested in helping us to fix our engine. We felt so relieved.

Bing Senior and Barnaby certainly know their way around any engine. Barnaby repaired our broken starter expertly, then came to Sea Quill to put everything back in order. After the starter was reattached and working, Barnaby quickly isolated our real problem in the relay. He returned with a new relay, and helpful diagrams for us to use later, and just like that, we had a working engine again. Then he moved on to the alternator, which was not showing any charge. He cleaned the alternator of a thick salt-encrustation, replaced it, and had it showing a charge again. But the batteries still would not charge. Barnaby then examined the cables minutely, and isolated the problem to the battery regulator.

We were in one piece again -- with a working engine, and a defined problem. We were so grateful to Barnaby and Bing for their excellent work, and very reasonable prices. It was such a gift to find excellent mechanics so far from the mainland. Here is their contact information, for any mechanical work you may need while in Providencia: Bing and Barnaby Suarez, Tel. 514-8039, bingsuares1@hotmail.com. We cannot recommend them highly enough.

Digression # 2 ... and the moral of this story -- besides the golden value of a great mechanic -- is this: do not let little problems turn into big problems. Our problems had all begun months back with a slightly leaking water pump, which had gotten gradually worse while we jury-rigged and tried to find replacement parts in the offshore islands, while continuing to use our engine. We should have stopped motoring altogether and fixed the problem immediately and properly. While motor-sailing on a heel, leaking salt-water had been splashing on the v-belts, where it was deflected up and onto the engine and the hundreds of cables -- so much that we experienced a cumulative, massive breakdown of a dozen systems on the boat -- all due to progressive salt-water corrosion that occurred quite rapidly from the worsening water pump leak.

Finally, we were ready to go -- really ready. And the weather forecast was perfect for the passage to Panama... 10-15 knots from the east, low seas of 4-6 feet, for the next three days. We said our goodbyes and check out of the country for the second time. We both held our breath when Ulf turned the ignition. This time, the Yanmar roared into life and we were finally up and off our anchor.

Sailing out of Catalina Harbor, the massive Morgan's Head Rock, named for Pirate Henry Morgan, is framed by the tall palm trees of Catalina Island:

A last sight of Providencia, over Ulf's shoulder: