January 3

When we woke at 6am and began to get underway the wind was blowing in the anchorage 10-14k from the North. We made preparations for getting under sail and immediately raised the main and genoa after retrieving the anchor. Alas, after 10 minutes of blissful sailing the wind died to first 5 then 2 knots and we were forced to start the engine and lower all sails. The skies are cloudy and dark, seas are calm and the swell is down.

At 11am the engine died. I hate engines. This time it seems we accidentally closed the valve leading from the fuel manifold to the racor fuel filter. This apparently resulted in a vacuum which seems to have sucked air into the manifold making it impossible to get any fuel to the racor ­ even with the 12v feed pump. As a result, we were unable to restart the engine. We radioed to a friend on "Quiet Woman" (someone we have known all of one week) at the marina who commandeered a launch from a large power yacht to come out into the bay and tow us back. We were only about 1.5nm from the entrance to the marina basin. Tomorrow I will try to prime the manifold and bleed the engine again and hopefully get things back to normal. Did I mention I hate engines?