Our boat is an electric/diesel hybrid. You can find some information about that in earlier blog entries. The diesel part of this equation is a diesel generator that runs from time to time in order to charge the batteries. Everything else runs off of battery power.

On this particular day, the diesel generator had started up. What we did not know at the time was that we had something blocking the raw water flow which cools the system. As a consequence of this blockage, there was insufficient water flow and the system got excessively hot. This resulted in one of the exhaust elbows blowing off and releasing exhaust and water into one of our engine rooms.

It was fairly obvious to see and even to correct the immediate problem of the resecuring the exhaust elbow. However the water that had sprayed in the engine room had sprayed on the controller for one of our electrical engines. As you can well imagine, water and electricity do not mix very well. The circuit breaker popped with a loud bang, followed by sparks and smoke. Not exactly what you want to see and hear.

I resecured the exhaust elbow and we attempted to continue. Regretfully, we did not know about the blockage yet. As a result, the exhaust system built up pressure and blew a hole in the exhaust hose. At this point, I began to realize that the problem was more than a loose connection on an elbow. I cleared the blockage and we started out again. However, what I did not know at the time was that we now had an impeller in the water pump that was in pieces as a result of the problems. Therefore we still did not have the water flow needed.

Finally, we headed back to the marina as we were unable to resolve the problems underway. Although heading back sounds simple, we had already checked out of the country. Therefore we had a real paperwork issue in trying to come back. Thanks to the help of Jose at Marina Paraiso, we were able to resolve this with relatively little pain.

We secured the assistance of David (on-site mechanic at Marina Paraiso) to take a look at our generator problems. David quickly discerned the problems, replaced the impeller, and fixed the exhaust. However we still had one of the electric engines down due to the water spraying initially. I called Dave Tether (Electric Marine Propulsion). Dave suggested that we try a little bit of swapping components with the other engine to narrow down what exactly was bad at this point.

Praise God! It turns out that the only bad component was a large capacitor. We attempted to locate a replacement capacitor in Cancun – without success. I then called back and arranged for a new capacitor from the manufacturer (thanks to Shawn w/Electric Marine Propulsion). The part was shipped out and should arrive here in a few days.

In the meantime, the weather changed. We are experiencing strong winds and high seas with a series of fronts rolling through the area. In fact, there are a number of Cruisers stuck here waiting on an appropriate weather window to continue their journey. Some of them are headed north and back to the states while others are headed south like us. Some of them have just arrived from the Rio Dulce which is where we are headed. It has been great getting to know everyone and hearing about our destination.

Well, that is enough for now. I will make another post soon.

We took some time to explore and do some shopping in Cancun. We went to Home Depot and picked up a few items. We then went to a part of town where they have the Marine parts stores, in search for a replacement anchor light – ours had burned out. Regretfully no one had it stock.

Cancun is a very touristy place with all that means. It was more expensive than other parts of Mexico. There was also a real dichotomy between the high-end tourist resorts and the rest of the town. In many ways, this dichotomy creates bigger extremes then would otherwise be true. The resort area was really out of the world. Correspondingly, the local areas were worse than we saw in other parts of Mexico.

We traveled on down to Playa del Carmen. Playa (as the locals call it) likes to consider itself the hub of Mayan Riviera and works to live up to that. It is not as touristy as Cancun nor does it suffer as much from the converse. It is easy to travel from here to any of the areas attractions.

We ate lunch in Playa on our way down and dinner on our way back up. The prices were better than Cancun although not as good as Isla Mujeres. We would have liked more time to explore Playa.

From there we continued heading south to a Mayan archeological site (and local community) known as Tulum. This is the only known Mayan site actually on the coast. It was amazingly beautiful, situated up on a cliff side overlooking the Caribbean.

On our way to the site, we actually missed the turn off from the main highway and made the next turn instead. Our mistake took us to the local beach community of Tulum. Someone described this as being the best coastline in Mexico. It was a really amazing drive and a unique vista of life there.

This exploration of the Mayan Riviera made for a long, whirlwind of a day. We thoroughly enjoyed it and would have enjoyed even more time to explore. I highly recommend this area to anyone who has the opportunity. Having said that, I also recommend that you get outside the main touristy areas and see what the rest of the area has to offer.

While attempting to anchor, the high winds blew us aground at one end of the bay and so we spent our first night in Mexico stuck on a sandy bottom. Saturday morning, two sailors from the Mexican Navy base here came by and quickly towed us off into deeper water. After thanking the sailors, we called Marina Paraiso and headed over to tie up.

This marina has been a real Godsend. We had communicated with Thomas (marina owner) prior to our arrival. He had been very helpful in assisting us and making recommendations prior to our arrival. The Mexican Port Captain expects a document known as a Zarpe for international arrivals. This is normally issued by countries upon departure and required upon arrival at the next country. However, the U.S. does not issue a Zarpe. This has created extra hassle for some arriving Americans.

Thomas went to the Port Captain before our U.S. departure and got them to agree to accept a notarized crew list instead. His intercession was just the beginning of being a most gracious host.

We had heard many stories about how difficult it was to check into Mexico – especially on a weekend (not just difficult but expensive as well). In fact, many guides had recommended using an agent to check in.

Jose, with Marina Paraiso, assisted us with getting checked in. He even went out and brought both the Health and Immigration folks back to the boat for our check in. He then took us to the Port Captain’s office to complete the check in process. Due in part to his recommendation, we ultimately paid only $37 to complete the check in process. This is significantly less than we anticipated. We completed the process in only a couple of hours whereas we had heard stories that it took as long as two days to check in to Mexico.

In addition, Jose assisted us in making a few minor repairs. He climbed our mast to rerun the spinnaker line that had come down. He took us, on the Marina golf cart, for a guided tour of Isla Mujeres – pointing out the local church, the market, recommended restaurants, etc.

In spite of all this service, Marina Paraiso is the least expensive marina on the island. We have been blessed here and I believe that we now have friends here. I unreservedly recommend Thomas, Jose, and Marina Paraiso to anyone headed this way.

Saturday afternoon, Janice and I borrowed the marina golf cart and went exploring. We went grocery shopping and then we went to eat a late lunch/early dinner. We ate at a little restaurant right on the beach. It was a beautiful setting for observing God’s beauty in the natural surroundings. It was also a great setting for watching people.

We had a dinner of fried crab in garlic sauce that was absolutely wonderful. Janice said that she had never had anything like it before. In spite of the great food, we only spent about $11 total for both of us.

On Sunday morning, we attended the church service at the local church. It looked to me like the church would seat approximately 500 people however we seemed to have closer to 700 people – standing room only. Luckily, Janice and I arrived early enough to get a seat.

One of the things that stood out, for both of us, was the large number of children. We really enjoyed the children. There were children of all ages throughout the church. In fact, the singing was led by a small group of young girls – to the accompaniment of a guitar. We particularly enjoyed the singing. The service was somewhat liturgical and was a blessing none the less. You could see the spirit moving through the congregation.

After church, we had lunch at another beach restaurant. I had fried shrimp while Janice had fried calamari. Once again we were strategically placed to observe the beauty of the island and to enjoy our Sabbath.

Tomorrow we will be exploring some of the Mexico mainland. More later …

For the next two nights, we experienced rough and confused seas along with a consistent 25 knots of wind. This made for a very tough trip with much bouncing around. Bob Gould became very sick and then, just to top things off, they blew out their mainsail on Nakhodka.

Late on Friday night, we decided to head for Key West. We all could use a respite – especially Bob Gould. Of course, they also needed to see what could be done for their sails. Around 1:30 am on Saturday morning, Janice and I tied up at a fuel dock in Key West.

Later Saturday morning (after about 4 hours sleep), we refueled the boat and proceeded to dock at the Key West Bight Marina. Upon checking the weather, we determined that the fierce winds and seas would settle down to a much more calm state by Monday. Therefore we decided to spend the weekend in Key West.

We ate lunch at Alonzo’s on Saturday and experienced a good meal along with an island power outage. They got the power back on within about half an hour. On Sunday, we walked to Glad Tidings Community Church. Pastor Ernie DeLoach, a former missionary, welcomed us. Janice and I felt a real connection to Pastor Ernie. The church had a dynamic praise and worship time followed by a guest missionary speaker from Ecuador. The missionary was very good and we very much enjoyed the service.

On Monday morning, about 7:00 am, Janice and I departed from Key West to continue our trip to Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Bob and Tonya decided that they would head back to Fort Myers Beach to heal up and to see about repairs. We will sorely miss Bob and Tonya. They have been good friends and a real blessing to us.

As forecasted, the winds and seas were much calmer. If anything, they were too calm and we made only about 2 knots of speed as we headed south towards the coast of Cuba. It took us twice as long to cross as we had anticipated. One positive aspect was crossing the Gulf Stream. We had heard many tales about crossing the Gulf Stream and how difficult and rough it could be. Praise God; our crossing was completely uneventful. In fact, the seas were so calm that we could hardly even tell when we were crossing the Stream.

We then proceeded along the north coast of Cuba. The winds remained light and correspondingly our speed remained low. It was at this point, that we decided to try out our spinnaker. For those of you who are not familiar, a spinnaker is an extra large sail that is flown forward of the boat. It is an ideal sail for light winds due, in part, to its size. We had never flown our spinnaker and were not completely sure we knew how. However we managed and next thing you knew, we were flying it.

The spinnaker almost doubled our speed so that we were now doing about 4 knots – still slower than the 5 knots average that I used in planning the trip. We flew the spinnaker for the next day and half at which point the shackle holding the top of the spinnaker separated from the line holding it. The spinnaker fell overboard (still attached by the tack line) and became wrapped up in the propeller.

We stopped the boat and I had to dive overboard (and under the boat) to free the spinnaker from the prop. After doing so, Janice and I had to wrestle to haul the spinnaker back on board before we could continue. Finally after our unscheduled stop, we continued albeit at a slower speed – about 3 knots at this time. We will have to repair the line and rerun it up the mast prior to being able to use the spinnaker again.

We left Cuba behind and began the next leg – the crossing to Mexico. We experienced more wind and waves as we crossed the Yucatan Channel than we had since the first two nights out of Fort Myers Beach. The wind was with us but the current was against us. We ran into a storm around 4:00 am on Friday morning. We were getting thrown around pretty good for a few hours. This was probably an outer band for Hurricane Paloma.

We ultimately arrived in Isla Mujeres on Friday, November 7th around 8:30 pm – more than a week after we had originally set out. We were ready to finally get there and bring this part of our journey to a close. We will spend a short time here and then continue our trip further south on toward Guatemala.

God blessed us with an enjoyable sail. It was quiet and calm – for the most part. The moonlight over the water was something to see and who can describe the sunrises and sunsets. Much of the time the water depth under the boat was more than a mile and the water was a beautiful deep dark blue.

We occasionally shared the seas with large container ships and even on a couple of occasions with cruise liners. Often the dolphins would come out to play around the boat. They would jump and dive, running alongside the boat. Sometimes they would dive under and start all over again on the other side.

Well – that is enough for now. God blessed us on our first voyage – our Gulf crossing.

In the meantime, as work on the boat and other preparations draw toward completion, God has opened the door for a few last minute blessings.

On September 30th, we were able to go to the Holy Land Experience in Orlando with Beach Baptist. This was a great experience. They have what is purported to be the largest indoor model of Jerusalem in the world. The model is of Jerusalem as of 66 A.D. I have read the Bible stories as well as many other sources about various events in and around Jerusalem. Now to see the model really brought to life these stories. Seeing the locations for these various events helped to put things into real perspective.

They have other exhibits and performances at The Holy Land Experience and yet it was the model that blew me away. Janice and I look forward to the day that we can travel to Jerusalem and see some of these places in person.

On a different note; last week, I was blessed to serve with North Florida Tres Dias. It has been quite some time since I was last able to serve there and I have to tell you that I have really missed it. In addition, I was able to sponsor Bob Gould to go through the weekend. It was a life-changing event for him - just as it was for me many years ago.

Being able to serve is always a blessing. This time was a special blessing in several ways. The rector, Neal Bradford is a very close friend and is also one of our intercessors. Additionally, I was able to serve with many great friends - some of whom are also supporters of this ministry. I was also able to serve my friend Bob Gould as he attended the weekend and to observe as God blessed him.

Next week, Janice will be serving on the NFTD ladies weekend. Likewise we have sponsored Tonya Gould to attend. I am looking forward to hearing back from them about how God blesses them.

It has been great to see how God has continued to bless us - over and over. We are excited to see what God has in store for us as we move forward.

We immediately clicked as couples. The Holy Spirit was bringing us together. They are Christians so we invited them to join us for church on Sunday (and later on Sunday nights and Wednesdays). Soon after, they asked me to lead a Bible study.

We have quickly become close friends and we spend a good deal of time together. Not only do we go together to church but we often will go out to meals together, as well as shopping trips. Bob has graciously assisted me in projects on our boat. God is doing something.

Recently we took the boat out on an over-night sea trial. We sailed down to Marco Island, anchored out and returned the next day. This was a very enjoyable trip for all four of us.

We have asked Bob and Tonya to join us as we sail down to Guatemala. I don’t believe in coincidence and it looks like their boat repairs will be completed in the same general time frame that our will. This will be a first mission outing for them and Janice and I are really excited about having them join us.

They were married in Jacksonville, in the backyard of a family friend. They had a small, intimate service attended by a few family and friends.

It was a real blessing to be able to perform this ceremony for my son. Janice and I were both absolutely thrilled to be a part of this. Danielle is a wonderful girl and we could not be more pleased with our new daughter-in-law.

It was kind of interesting to watch the weather. It had been raining off and over the last few days. The ceremony was scheduled for early evening and was scheduled outside. God graciously stopped the rain shortly before the ceremony was to start and resumed the rain shortly after the ceremony concluded. Praise His Name!

Yesterday, Joey, our 8-year-old grandson, went back home.

Joey was with us two months. Our plans had been to take Joey with us as we traveled down to Guatemala. Instead we have been dealing with problems with our new propulsion system. Specifically, our generator has not been working properly and it is a primary charging source for the batteries that run our system. Therefore this has been a major problem.

We were unable to resolve this problem before leaving Fort Lauderdale and therefore we decided to bring the boat (and the problem) to Fort Myers Beach. This is where the company headquarters for Electric Marine Propulsion is located. We have slowly limped along to get here and now we must figure out the problem.

We have had a wonderful time with Joey as we have sailed along. He enjoyed the dolphins swimming and playing with us along the way. He has been swimming at every opportunity along the way.

At one point, I saw Joey watching some bikini-clad young ladies. I asked him why he was watching them. He looked over at me and responded that they were hotties. “Like your Mom”? I asked referring to Janice. He thought about it for a moment and responded, “Yes - a hottie with wrinkles.”

Ever since then, Janice has been our “hottie with wrinkles.”

All Joking aside, we have had a wonderful time with Joey. We will miss him as he returns home.

The best part about this series is that it was designed originally for children. However the result is some of the best I have seen and even we adults can understand it.

We have been blessed to partner with Caleb Project in allowing us to host these Infobytes on our website. Please take the time to click here and review them.

They have a group of youth that are departing for a mission trip to Mexico. They were receiving some last minute training from Pat Cannon (www.PatCannon.org). Pat is a teacher at Calvary Christian Academy. More specifically Pat is has an equipping ministry called Simply Jesus that teaches a simple, non-threatening way of sharing the Gospel and helping someone grow in Christ.

This training was wonderful. Pat Cannon was amazing. I encourage everyone to check out her web site and to take her training. This training is not limited to missions but can be utilized anywhere and at anytime. The training can be used by both children and adults. The best part is that it is something that can be learned quickly and applied just as quickly. Furthermore what she teaches is a way to think and therefore it applies across cultural and age barriers. It also is something that will grow as you utilize it.

If you have not figured it out by now, I highly recommend that you pursue this.