Babies!

I'm writing this on the 4th of November 2024.  I will back date the entry to 30th August 2022 for continuity.  Quite a lot has happened since our last post; Covid, moving out of London and down to Wiltshire -however bigger than all that is the arrival of these two:

Introducing Jozefina and Theodore, two big reasons why time on Bumblebee and even posting about her has become near impossible!  In the is photo Zefi is 2 years old and Theodore is just 6 months. The only way we could contemplate seeing Bumblebee was to rent a villa near the marina at Santa Eularia with our friends Peter, Mills and Paulina and ask Robin and Lily to sail over on Bumblebee from the mainland. We also had Amy, our nanny with us to lighten the load.

Flying with small kids is exhausting but it was great to touch down back in Ibiza after all the madness of Covid.

We collected our hire car and drove 45 mins or so to Can Dimitri -our beautiful home in the hills for the next ten days.

On day one we visited Las Salinas and had lunch by the beach. We witnessed a yacht similar to Bumblebee break through the line of swim buoys and drift right up onto the rocky shore where it was tossed about by the waves. We thought it was abandoned until a naked man leapt up on deck from below and tried in vain to prevent disaster. 

We met up with Robin and Lily on our second day. I was a bit nervous for their crossing to Ibiza as Bumblebee had been stationary for 3 years of babies and pandemic except for a short trip to the nearby port for a lift out and bottom clean by a hired mechanic.

They arrived safely and enjoyed a few days anchoring around the local bays. The boat looked great on the outside but inside there was trouble brewing.  We had a berth booked for ten days at Santa Eularia but spent most of our time exploring the island by car with the babies and our friends, as well as making the most of our lovely pool.  We've got some priceless photos and videos of the kids but they are naked half the time so I'll be careful what I expose to the world wide web!

On the way over to Ibiza Robin realised the boat was taking on water and we narrowed it down to a couple of sources. One was the seal at the back of the impeller housing.  I had a vague memory of this happening before and used this helpful blog to cast my mind back to setting sail from Greece years earlier when the same problem appeared and the solution was found. A trip the the chandlery and all was well. The other ingress was more substantial and harder to rectify.

We also noticed a blackening of the green engine paint. I hoped this might just be dust from a belt on it's way out... sadly it wasn't.  Here are some pics of us all having a lovely time before I go into the problems we were about to face.

Jozefina and Theodore had their first experience of Bumblebee, albeit safely tied up in the marina. They didn't seam too fussed!  We went out for a couple of short day sails but couldn't leave the kids for too long.  Down below we were still taking on water -quite a lot of salt water.  It turned out the mechanic who moved the boat a few weeks earlier hadn't opened the seacock that lubricates the prop shaft with seawater. This had damaged the seal and meant water entered whenever the propeller turned.  The only fix was to lift the boat, decouple the shaft from the gear box and replace the seal. This is something I did when we first bought Bumblebee so I knew what was involved but any job like this is eye-wateringly expensive on the islands.

This was not the only issue we were dealing with. The black sooty buildup, hot engine compartment and gassy fumes confirmed there was an internal exhaust leak.  Looking back at these photos I remember replacing the air filter as it had disintegrated.  Obviously that wasn't going to fix the problem.  We found a Volvo Penta mechanic and had them inspect the boat.  They discovered the exhaust was leaking from the elbow of the heat exchanger which was corroded and needed replacing. The internal exhaust pipe was also leaking.  He advised we best not move the boat but that was not an option -she had to get back to her home berth in Valencia and we also had to get home.  I explained that I would allow no-one to spend extended time below amongst the fumes and he begrudgingly agreed that we might just manage the 12 hours back to the mainland without catastrophe.  We still had a few days to enjoy our holiday before Peter and Mills had to leave and Julia and Amy would fly back with the babies at which time I would return on Bumblebee with Paulina.

We had a few classic Ibiza days -eating, swimming, exploring etc... wonderful stuff!  We met up with John and hatched a plan to sail around the island to St Antonio, as a suitable setting off point. John's friends Jack aka Captain Jack volunteered to help Paulina and myself with the crossing.  We had fantastic conditions as we circumnavigated and pulled into one of our favourite calas for a dip at half way.  The engine problems were not going away but also easy enough to ignore for the time being.

We had our final dinner by Sunset Asharam and the next morning set sail for Valencia.

The wind picked up and we had favourable currents so made good time. The most extraordinary thing happened as we were half way into the trip. A whale appeared beside us, seeming to almost doze on the surface but clearly a whale of some sort with great blasts of breath from it's blowhole.  We think it might be a humpback whale but were unaware they could be expected in the Med -either way we were totally awestruck by this remarkable encounter.

Soon followed by a school of dolphins!

We made it to Valencia as the sun was setting. Jack had been good company on the crossing, as had Paulina until sea-sickness struck hard and she was in a miserable state.  Even back on shore she felt awful and we desperately tried to find an open tapas bar to get some food inside her.  We all stayed on the boat that night and very early the following morning Paulina caught a flight home and Jack caught the ferry back to Ibiza.  I had been insistent on all of us staying on deck for the crossing to avoid the fumes below.  I was avoiding thoughts of the water we were taking on during the passage as there was little I could do about it. While under sail I kept the engine in reverse and this reduced the seepage through the shaft seal. The bilge was not straining hard so I left any inspections until the following morning.  The engine was quite dirty and sooty as could be expected.  I used our large oil pump to remove a quantity of seawater from from the engine sump,  battery trays and a few other awkward spots.  I did a thorough rinse and deep clean of all traces of salt and satisfied myself that no water was entering now the prop shaft was still.  I would go on to find a fantastic mechanic called Joaquin who replaced, fixed and cleaned the heat exchanger and many other parts of the engine and prop assembly.

I was now alone with the monstrous task of tidying, cleaning, packing away and leaving Bumblebee for an unknown length of time.  With the kids so young, I wasn't sure when we would be back.  I made an early start by taking down the sails at very first light when the air was still and the heat was manageable.  Then I spent the day working through my list of chores:

By the end of the day I had things under control and waved goodbye to a squeaky clean Bumblebee.

This felt like a very well deserved beer.