TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands November 2022 cruise of Lio Kai

We're back aboard Lio Kai for another 3 weeks. Arrived at the base last night after our usual near-24-hour trip... SEA -> ATL -> STT on Delta this time. I had possibly the worst seat I've ever had on the leg from SEA to ATL... Seats felt super tight together, and for some reason there was no window at all next to my window seat, there was a quite large person in the middle seat next to me, and for some reason the air conditioning had been turned off. It was about as close as I have ever come to having a full-on attack of claustrophobia on an airplane.

We had provisioned through Riteway, Moon Farms and Steakation. Only the Moon delivery (thanks Aragorn) arrived on the intended day, but we got the rest today and after chasing down a few minor boat issues, we got off the dock and are in the Bight.

More later.

Hey Mr Ez, Sorry to hear about the rough flight. We will be down starting the 16th for two weeks. We'll keep an eye out for "Lio Kai".
Cheers,
Chris
s/v Abby Normal To

Thanks Husker, we will look for you too!

I hope this kind of incremental trip blog is still ok - I'm necessarily bumping my thread with each installment. Please let me know if this is annoying and I can find a way to consolidate. A single trip report for a 3-week trip just isn't that practical.

We had a nice quiet night in the Bight. The unsettled weather and South wind abated yesterday, and weather is more typical for November - E wind around 15 and the occasional shower.

I estimate the Bight was no more than 20% occupied last night. At 7:15 AM 2/3rds of the BBs at Cooper were still available. Great harbor and Anegada were already gone. I'm going to pay more attention to keeping out-of-sync with the typical week itinerary, it does seem to help.

We had a nice swim at the Indians this morning. A Moorings 4500 (Monarch) with a European crew started dropping the hook at the edge of the mooring field. We let them know they should take a ball and they did.

For me the incremental approach is preferable. I usually don't have the patience to read a long trip report all at once.

And thanks very much for writing up your experiences (and the same to all others who do so). It's been way too long since our last charter, and you're helping me keep the dream alive.

Dan

I neglected to mention how pleasant it was to travel here without any of the covid protocols and procedures that we had to navigate on our last five visits. From ghost town Dec 2020 with wrist bracelets and police stations to this April still requiring testing. Not even the ferry terminal was requiring masking.

This will no doubt jinx it, but surprisingly neither my wife or I have had covid. Seems like our kids and all our friends have had it, some multiple times.

We spent a pleasant night at CIBC, hatches open and no AC. Forecast is good!

Everyone in our family has had it most twice. My wife has never had it despite caring for those of us who keep getting it. She says she has super immunity!

Spent the night at Saba. Pleasant breeze and no overnight showers helped us have another peaceful night sans genset.

We checked out Blunder Bay for the first time yesterday. Very nice place that shows a lot of promise and is a great addition. Barry and his son(?) Mordecai were both extremely welcoming and we enjoyed chatting with them. Didn't try the food there yet as they are not yet serving lunch, but we will definitely return. We stocked a few missing items at Leverick and I was mildly disappointed that the marine store was closed.

North Sound is not at all busy. Not even Saba filled up. A single small cruise ship (Star Pride) was ferrying guests to the Sandbox. As a data point, about 13 of the 18 BBs in Anegada were still available at 8AM. We may head there on Monday.

There is a demo event at the new Saba watersports center this afternoon which we plan to check out. I'm thinking about trying a wing foiling lesson depending on conditions and terms.

Saba was having a beach BBQ yesterday. Lobster, Jerk chicken, Mahi Mahi, Steak - it was all delicious and I had quite a bit of protein! They had round 8 place tables set out on the sand, live music and an open bar.

We were joined at our table by the owners of "Painted Falcon" and their guests. It was fun to chat with other owners, trade stories, etc. I wish the music would have been less loud.

Today is my wife's birthday, and she expressed the wish to eat a late sushi lunch at Nova, so we are in Deep Bay now. I was planning to head to Anegada tomorrow, but the forecast shows some rain coming through tomorrow AM so I think we will spend another day in North Sound. Very quiet! Nova is serving brunch but I'm not sure there are any customers.

Really nice report...great to hear as this has been the longest we have been away sans Irma...

Happy Birthday to your wife

Thanks Bailau! Hope you make it back soon, maybe we will cross paths sometime.

Last month we attended the Annapolis boat show and had the chance to meet some of the Moorings Clearwater staff, like John Keyes, Jenn Andre and Katy Buckner. It was nice to put a face to the names that I have been interacting with for close to 15 years.

From their comments, I was expecting November to be quite a bit busier than what I'm seeing. No complaints!

We enjoyed our birthday lunch/dinner at Nova and spent the night at BEYC. The BEYC field is huge, but the wind swirls around both sides of Biras Hill and that can make some of the moorings pretty closely spaced. There were plenty available, so we took a mooring with no neighbors. I was returning from a short paddleboard outing and from a distance saw a boat seemingly picking up the mooring right behind us. I sped up a little bit, hoping to politely dissuade them from mooring so close when there were so many other balls available. As I approached, a gentleman on the "PyroSea" (Conch Lagoon) told me that they had just accidentally hit and damaged our boat, and that his insurance would cover it. Fortunately, this turned out to be his idea of a joke. Relief trumped irritation, but still...

The showers predicted last night did not set in and today's forecast changed entirely. Another beautiful and calm morning.

What a great day we had today. The weather being unexpectedly fine, we did a bit of sailing. 12-15 kts. in the morning 1-2ft waves and no noticeable swell, we sailed a leg north almost halfway to Anegada and jibed south until we dropped sails in the lee of Cockroach Island and took a NP buoy at Great Dog. Both legs had the AW right on the beam.

Conditions at Great Dog were better than I remember them since before Irma. Visibility was 80-100ft, surge was minimal and either the coral is recovering or just looked so much better. Great Arch beckoned for a swim-through, but caution prevailed.

From there we sailed downwind a bit to Marina Cay and made another stop at Diamond Reef, which was also very very nice, only a little rough in the 15-18 kt. SE wind conditions.

Then a close reach back to CIBC for some paddleboarding and dinner aboard.

We have not swum at Monkey Point for a few years, thought we would give it a try again. Sailed from Cooper to Marina Cay and motored to Monkey Point via Camano passage. There was as yet no sign of the predicted north swell.

Monkey point was nice, about as I remembered it. Certainly worthwhile but not on the level of some of our favorite spots.
The plan was to go back to North Sound for the night, and I wanted to sail at least part of the way, so exited east of Guana as to not lose another 3 miles of easting and sailed two legs in ENE 15-18kts. I had both reefs in the main, which was pretty unnecessary, but it was pretty lumpy and I don't know that more sail would have given us much more speed. It sometimes seems on this boat that all the upwind drive comes from the genoa and what you get from the main is mostly weather helm.

Making about 5.5 knots around 50 degrees AWA, the tack angle was around 120 degrees. I kept myself occupied trying to work out a formula in my head for VMG as a function of tack angle. 120 makes it easy and I believe leads to VMG = V/2. If I was able to tack through 90 degrees AWA as performance boats surely can, that would improve to V/sq(2). I'm sure there's a general formula involving a trig function, but I couldn't quite figure it out without pencil and paper.

In any case, I was reminded why I don't often sail my little condo to weather :-)

My paddleboard has been losing air, and I tracked down the leak with soap and water and unfortunately the air is coming from a sleeve in the rail that holds a stiffening batten. The only option appears to be to attempt to patch over the sleeve opening (and no longer use the batten). I will try this, but probably time to think about replacing it again.

Nice...the first time we went to Monkey Point it was unbelievable and then were never able to recreate it again...kind of like my futile attempts to recreate my college experience 35 years later much to my wife's chagrin.

Enjoy your next two weeks there...

"kind of like my futile attempts to recreate my college experience 35 years later much to my wife's chagrin"

👍👍👍

Best experiences at Monkey Point in years past were juvenile dolphins and watching pelicans fishing from underwater.

When do you go back to your happy place my brother?

Hah, thanks for the challenge. I was able to visualize it by making angles with my hands -- would have looked pretty funny to anyone nearby. I believe the formula you're looking for is:

VMG = V cos(TackAngle / 2)

The results agree with your two examples.

Dan

Very nice! That sure looks correct.

All this made me curious to look for the polars for the boat and I found a 2014 R&C version "subject to sea trials".
It has max speed at around 80 degrees TW with the genoa, further ahead than I would have guessed.

I don't now remember who on this board put me onto the RadarScope phone app, but what a game changer it has been! Thank you!!!

It is so very helpful in answering questions like "Is THAT going to get us?"

The other day, after our fantastic dive at Great Dog, we had a shower and my view to the east was completely blocked. Should we leave after it passed or wait a bit in case there's more? RadarScope to the rescue!

For some reason I cannot get the "quote" thing to work.

"When do you go back to your happy place my brother?"

We are hoping for May '23. But first I have to get healed from my upcoming neck surgery and caring for a dog that is literally on her last leg. We rescued her about 11 years ago. The ugliest dog I have ever seen. But her heart is bigger than she is. Unfortunately it is her heart that is giving out on her. The vet says we are done to weeks or maybe a few months. We are hoping she drops before we have to play God. Either way, she has had a very good 11 years with us.

Back at BEYC after a brief trip to Anegada and getting my jerk mango lobster fix at Wonky Dog. The mooring field in Anegada was perhaps 30% full. This do seem to be picking up a bit in north sound. We will probably stay here tonight, supposed to be windy tonight and the return from Anegada yesterday was quite rough.

I finally tracked down an issue that has been bothering me: fuel tanks becoming unbalanced. Yesterday was particularly dramatic - we left Anegada with about 3/4 fuel in each tank, when we arrived the starboard tank was full and the port tank half full. The generator on this boat feeds from the starboard tank and there is a pump and transfer line from port to starboard, but that is the opposite of what I would need to rebalance the tanks.

The upshot is that shutoff valves for the transfer fuel line should be closed unless the transfer pump is being used, especially in a seaway, as there must be a check valve in the transfer line (or the pump itself acts as a check valve) or fuel will slosh from the port to the starboard tank. Moorings tech staff is apparently unaware of this.

The issue is complicated by the fact that the generator was moved from the port to the starboard side some time during the 5 year production run, the transfer pump was also moved, and the manual has inconsistencies.

I would look a little bit further into the fuel system. Some Leopards have the ability to feed engines from either tank. Valves for that can be hidden. I find it unlikely fuel would make its way uphill and across the hulls to get to the other tank. Having said that I know zero about the 4000 fuel system. This assumes the tanks are in the bottom of the hulls. If they are forward near bridge deck height it might be possible.
Edit, found a fuel system diagram for the 4000. It does not appear you can cross feed the engines or change which tank fuel is returned into. I would make sure all 3 fuel return lines are open. System looks simple. Strange the fuel is moving.

Thanks George, but I am 100% confident in my analysis based a thorough examination of the fuel system, repeated occurrence of the same issue, the reports of others with the same issue, and the notes in the manual about the shutoff valves.

I responded too quickly to the last post and I should never claim 100% certainty in anything, but let me explain further.
The tanks are underneath the aft bunks just forward of the bulkhead separating the engine compartments. There is a fairly large diameter fuel line connecting the two tanks, entering at the top of the tank. On the port side there is a transfer pump mounted low in the engine compartment below the starter battery. There is a shutoff valve at the top of each tank right were the transfer line exits the tank. Moorings leaves these valves open, understandably, because they DO expect charterers to make use of the transfer pump, because charterers apparently run the genset a ridiculous amount. They do not want charterers to have to open and close valves under the bunk in addition to just holding the fuel transfer switch at the helm as the briefers instruct.

I did not open the tank inspection ports, but I can safely assume that the port (source) side must have a pickup tube extending to the bottom of the tank, or the pump would just suck air. I am not entirely certain if there is also a tube on the starboard (destination) side or if fuel pours into the tank from the top where the line is mounted. In the former case, a siphon may be created. I suspect this is the case and it may contribute to the "problem".

I missed my chance for the moment of verifying that experimentally by observing/listening to the starboard tank while the transfer pump is running.

I have also not yet verified that the Jabsco model transfer pump has an integrated check valve, but I believe that would be common in a low-pressure fuel pump to prevent backflow.

The unintended transfer does not seem dependent on the boat heeling one way or the other, only motion that causes vigorous sloshing of the fuel.

This all has been happening as long as I have owned the boat (3 years). On the rough crossing the other day, somewhat over 10 gallons of diesel in the space of about 2 hours moved from the port to the starboard tank.

I strongly believe that the sloshing of fuel creates pulses of pressure differential at the transfer line termini that, in combination with the check valve, cause the "spontaneous" fuel transfer bit by bit.

There are two further possibilities I can see, but they appear remote.

1) Someone at the helm (me) is inadvertently pressing the transfer switch, maybe by putting their feet up on the panel, and doing it long enough to move a significant amount of fuel, AND does not hear the pump running. AND I am only doing this on rough passages.

2) An electrical fault is causing the pump to be activated and the noise is going unnoticed and it only happens on rough passages.

That's this early mornings TLDR :-)

Very strange stuff. Sounds like you need to run the generator more to burn off all that excess fuel in the starboard tank.

Dan

Got it running right now

We left BEYC and North Sound this morning planning to try another snorkel at the Dogs.

Raised the sails and got blown all the way to Diamond Cay :-)
Seriously, the wind was really nice for this downwind leg and no showers in sight so it seemed a good time for this sail.

VMG = V cos(TackAngle / 2) is correct only of there is no leeway or current. There is always leeway, more on a cat than a monohull. A charter cat will have as much as 10 degress of leeway. In that case, it would be VMG = V cos((TackAngle + 10)/ 2).

VMG is reduced by downwind current, increased with upwind current.

I live in a universe where all phenomena can be explained with simple geometry, and silly complications like leeway and currents don't exist. Where do you live?

Dan

This is a good point (though the mathematician in me bristles at inserting an arbitrary constant into the formula instead of a variable), and further illustrates why it seems pointless to sail this boat to weather.

Lots of time for musing at the helm, so I concocted an analogy (rationalization?) to skiing: The cruising cat is like downhill skis. Yes, you could use them for uphill work, but they are really ill suited for the job. A performance mono, on the other hand, is more like cross country skis, suitable for both uphill and downhill travel but with their own limitations. In the cruising catamaran, he ability to sail well upwind has been largely sacrificed to livability.

Likewise, in the age of sail, there were boats like sloops and skiffs that probably sailed upwind reasonably well, and vessels designed for carrying large amounts of cargo for which even a shallow bay in a blow could spell a death sentence. Fortunately, I have an engine.

After spending the night at Diamond Cay (more open to the east than I remembered), we made a brief stop in Soper's Hole to pick up a few provisions. Mainly, we were hoping to find fresh cream (coffee consumption has been very high), but sadly not even half-n-half was available. We did pick up some more protein and other items.

I received another nasty wasp sting right in the midsection while casting off the mooring and performed an involuntary tarantella on the tramp which must have been quite amusing to any onlookers.

I knew the 6.5 mile trip from West End to Norman Island would be somewhat unpleasant, and considered staying in Soper's Hole, but was a little impatient to get there and spend Thanksgiving relaxing, so despite the 5 foot waves that were still in the channel, we decided to make the short trip.

Wind was 20-25, and motor sailing 30 degrees off the wind kept the pitch and roll tolerable, though I could not clear St. John without a tack to the north.

We've been getting some water in the port engine bilge, and it seems like the float switch is not activating the bilge pump, though the pump will run manually. The warning beeps at the helm increasing in frequency did not make the trip more relaxing and had me visually checking the engine compartment to make sure we weren't suddenly taking on a lot of water. Eventually, I shut down the port to quiet the alarm.

Pirate's Bight is fairly empty (20%?), weather outlook is good and we hope to do a lot more diving today.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy thanksgiving to you and all TTOLers..Laura ( T Shirt Gal) and I will be feasting at The Sugar Mill...

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

That wasp sting sounds like a Jack Spaniel - very nasty.

Soon come.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Although the turkey in my oven is starting to smell quite delicious, I wish I was in the BVI - my frozen lake isn’t as appealing as that BVI blue.

Enjoy the diving EZ!

One of my go to rough weather dives is Angelfish Reef. The boat stays in calm water and the dive is underrated!

Didn't even read all of that but a pretty common cure for 'balancing tanks problems' is to install a small reversing pump in the line between the two tanks, and then plumb a short line bypassing this pump with a shut-off valve in it. Sometimes you might want to pump all the fuel from one side to the other and have it stay there - shut the bypass valve, switch this pump to pump to the tank you want. When you want to 'balance'
again, simply open the valve,

Sounds like a good way to add a fuel polishing system too, thanks. Not the kind of modification I can consider at this point, but will file away for the future.

Thanks George, I know we have dived that in the past - is that at the point just past Privateer? I can never remember the name of the point though I've paddled there many times.

I'm jealous that you have a dive setup aboard. That sounds so much easier than all the overhead of arranging a rendezvous. I'm leaning more toward free diving these days, hoping to do the AIDA or PADI course when things line up.

We went for lunch at The Sugar Mill the other day not realizing its dinner-only. However, the associated beach side restaurant across the road was really nice. Next chance we get we plan to try Sugar Mill for dinner. Thank you Manpot and other TTOLers for multiple mentions. The restaurant and grounds look spectacular.

We stopped by the resort/beach-side restaurant at Long Bay on our way back. It looked really nice as well. Anyone have any experience dining there?

In other news:
1) The islands seem pretty quite the last week and a half. Most anchorages are half full at the most. Great harbor at Peter Island was completely empty Wednesday night except for us and two other boats. Anegada was only half full last night (which surprised us as The Lobster Fest is starting today, Saturday.....BVI C&I is opening a port of entry at Anegada this weekend for the event)
2) Highly recommend a Conch Island tour. The reef is a wonder. We spent hours snorkeling there. We went with Sherman. He was fantastic! We've been coming here for the last 15 years and this is absolutely my favorite thing to do.

Cheers all and enjoy the rest of you Thanksgiving weekend.

[quote=MrEZgoin]

We've been getting some water in the port engine bilge, and it seems like the float switch is not activating the bilge pump, though the pump will run manually. The warning beeps at the helm increasing in frequency did not make the trip more relaxing and had me visually checking the engine compartment to make sure we weren't suddenly taking on a lot of water. Eventually, I shut down the port to quiet the alarm.

/quote]


Curious as to what alarm was going off? Was it the bilge pump or the sail drive? We were just on our Leopard 40 sailing Martinique, St. Lucia and the Grenadines and had a similar issue although our port engine bilge bump wouldn't stop going off. Typically when this happens it is because the float is stuck up and you can just unstick the float. That wasn't the case this time and since we were already having battery issues (I can PM you all that craziness if you want.) I didn't want the pump to drain the battery nor did I want it to burn out. We ended up pulling out the fuse for the pump to get it to stop. The next morning we got underway and once we got into heavy seas, the port sail drive alarm went off. I know this isn't good so we quickly opened up the engine hatch and noticed there was a little water in there. I wasn't too concerned about the water because I had had a mechanic friend look at the engine (for a different issue) the day before and had told him that we seemed to get just a little water in there everyday. He checked things and determined that there was a small leak in the outdoor shower that was causing it. We pushed the fuse back in, pumped out the little bit of water in the bilge and then checked the sail drive oil to see if we did in fact have water in the sail drive. The oil was clear as it should be...not the consistency of mayonnaise, so we determined that the sensor must have gotten wet with the sloshing of water and the alarm would eventually go off. Well it didn't! We had to listen to that stupid alarm for a good chunk of the day because we were motoring north in the lee of St. Vincent.

In our case, a water pump leak was causing a modest amount of water to collect in the port engine bilge, probably only when the engine was running.

I assumed that the visible float switch controlled activation of the pump, as well as the warning indicator at the DC panel and the trouble light and audible alarm at the helm engine control.

What puzzled me is why the helm alarm was only coming on when the boat was rolling in rough water.

Now that I think about it some more, I can only theorize that the bilge pump has an additional internal float switch and in flat water it kept up with the small amount of water ingress, but when there was a lot of sloshing the water also lifted the separate float switch and that activated the alarm.

It's the only thing that makes sense to me.