The only thing running was our imagination

Wow, do I have things to talk about! First, I was going to go on and on about all the great times we had in Comox! It was such a great vibe and town. One morning there were at least a hundred kids fishing off the docks in a derby and we had a front row view. It was fantastic. We enjoyed it so much we stayed three nights. Also, I was going to talk about the huge fire we saw starting near Parksville. It is the largest wildfire on the island right now.

We wanted to be in Brentwood Bay by Monday, so we reluctantly cast our lines and had another great Strait of Georgia experience. It was a little rolly but we’ve definitely experienced worse. The wind picked up for a bit but it was forecasted to die down and it did, thankfully, because instead of regaling you with Comox tales – boy do I have a doozy! And it could have so very easily went the other way.

About 40 minutes from our destination, we started smelling diesel. We were making our way around a tug with a log boom and he had some black smoke coming out of his stack, we checked all our gauges, all is in order.. so we assumed we were smelling him. (oh, the lesson we have learned). As we were outside of Entrance Island, the smell was unmistakable and Jim quickly went down to check things out.

Downstairs, Jim is greeted with overwhelming fumes. Ooh. This is not good. He opened the engine room compartment and smoke billowed out. He got the engine shutdown. There is diesel fuel sprayed all over the engine compartment.

First order of business, we cannot let the bilge turn on and send this overboard – then our problems are magnified exponentially. So, we quickly get the pump together and some cans. That taken care of, the bilge pump is shut off.

Next, where is this fuel coming from and can Jim fix this himself? He quickly diagnosed a fuel injector line failure (this is a high pressure hose, so as our friend Paul put it, yah can’t put a piece of tape on that) We have A LOT of spare parts. But, of course, this is not one of them.

We have tow insurance (whew!) So I call for a tow. They collect our information; the tow company will contact me directly to let me know when he will be out. They want to know if we can throw an anchor out. We’re in 500 plus feet of water, so nope. Next order of business, where will be towed to? The closest town is Nanaimo, so I call the harbormaster there and explain our issue. He cleared a spot on the dock for us. Now it’s time to wait… in the middle of THREE ferry lanes. There are high speed ferries that go 30 plus knots and the huge BC ferries that go 20 knots. We hailed a couple of the captains letting them know we were dead in the water and we could not get out of their way. They said they would steer clear. The coast guard heard our conversation and hailed us on the radio to see if we need help. I let them know a tow was on the way, but what do we do about these ferries? They called the Transportation Dispatch and all the ferry captains were appraised of our situation.

Now we can relax somewhat. We are outside some very rocky islands and if we drift close we need to be prepared to spring into action with our dinghy and tow ourselves out of harms way while we wait. We feel very strongly that we had a divine hand of protection as we drifted away from the rocks and the ferry lanes, the wind died down and we just bobbed around for the almost 3 hours we waited for the tow. A whale kept us entertained for a bit.

The tow captain, Nick, was fantastic. We had a relaxing ride into Nanaimo. Outside the marina he repositioned himself to our side and brought us in without a hitch. We have some friendly neighbors and they were ready to help with lines.

Meanwhile, we have the BEST boating friends! They were full of encouragement and wished they were in the vicinity; as one put it, “we’d be there in a NY minute!”. They kept tabs on us until we were safe and sound at the marina in Nanaimo.

We’re here a couple of days for the repair. I’ll touch base when we are underway again.

Talk Soon.