This is a Blog entry by Brady
Hi everyone!
Were having a great time now that, by some amazing stroke of luck, we came across another Catana 471
That just happened to have 2 SPARE PROPELLERS!!! Just what we needed after getting what we thought was electrolysis at Dataw Is. The bad news is that my dad wants to move somewhere just because he can! I really don’t want to leave g-town! There’s so many great kids this year, and, just to name a few,
There is: Chris and Josh on Liberty, Sam on More Cowbell(no joke, that’s really his boat name),
David on Nina, Ayla on Three at Sea, and a bunch more. I still don’t want to leave.
Today is the first day of our special swim aerobics/ classes/ thingys and they look kind of boring.
I would rather be tubing with Erin and Geneva like we did the other day. Now THAT was fun.
Well, my time on the computer is quickly winding down and my dad keeps telling me to get off.
Oh well, I’ll write another blog entry when I can,
Later everyone!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
It was a quick sail down to Shroud Cay, one of our favorite anchorages. Unfortunately for the spear fisherman, Shroud in in the Land and Sea Park, where fishing is prohibited. Funny how I didn’t care if I was in the country illegally but I didn’t want to break the rules of the park. We only spent a day playing in the mangrove canals of the island before pushing off for Warderwick Wells, headquarters to the Park. It was fun to stop in and see the caretakers and walk the paths. What a beautiful place. They’re working hard to keep the area from being decimated by local and pirate fisherman.
The next day we jumped off for a short sail to Staniel Cay. Since we had last fueled up at Ft Pierce I thought it would be good to take on fuel and water here. We weren’t sure what the status of services would be in Gtown. Diesel was a bit pricey at $2.00/gal more than the States. Water had jumped up to .40/gal but it’s good RO, no complaints there. Only thing different is they dropped their free wifi. Now it’s $10/day. Too bad as I thought that was one of the nicer services in the Bahamas. I guess everyone is trying to figure how to make a buck these days. \
As we left the dock we heard the port engine cavitating. That’s strange I thought. And after a quiet night at anchor, we left early the next morning for Gtown. As we powered up I heard the same cavitation. No problemo, just run on the starboard engine. Fortunately, it was an easy sail down in fair northeast winds. We pulled into Elizabeth Harbor around 3:00 PM and were amazed at the number of boats. I figured there may be ten to twenty but there was easily double that. The timing was good as Brian’s sister was due in two days and we could check in here.
As soon as the anchor was down I went over the side to see if I has wrapped my skivvies around the prop like I did last year. No such luck. It seems we were the victims of massive electrolysis at the marina in Dataw. The gears on one blade on the port prop was broken and just hanging like a limp noodle. Electrolysis is where stray electrical currtent gets in the water from bad wiring and turns your underwater metal into a battery. Apparently the prop was shedding metal for the past month or more. So here we are in the Out Islands with one working engine. Oh well, at least we should be able to check in and buy Kaliks.
Now it was time to forget about boat problems and start to get ready for Christmas. You’d think it would be hard to misplace a string of lights on a 47’boat but after tearing apart both vee berths I finally found em.
And if we’re going to have lights we need electricity. I guess there was no better time to start replacing alternators now that I have McGiver anchored next door. I don’t know who was more excited to tear the engine room apart, Brian or me? Marianne’s dad had given me a large Balmar alternator he couldn’t use so that was our first victim, I mean experiment. You know that Twelve Days of Christmas song where the guy is screaming about the !$%(&(^ mn wires. Well that was us. For those of you who have never changed an alternator, let me be the first to tell it aint’ not plug and play. After three days of brainstorming we finally connected the wires as best we could. Now the battery alarm only goes off randomly when the engine is running. Since we were deep into a basic rewiring of the boat I figured why not change the port engine alternator. I can’t use the engine for propulsion, but it should still make electricity. That alternator went on easier as it was a matching Volvo. I was finally able to call the tech support from Balmar. Their solution is to disconnect the alarm. Thanks for that great tidbit, guys. But what the hey, we have colored lights on the cockpit and everyone in in the festive spirit. And Christmas is only five days away.
The next day we jumped off for a short sail to Staniel Cay. Since we had last fueled up at Ft Pierce I thought it would be good to take on fuel and water here. We weren’t sure what the status of services would be in Gtown. Diesel was a bit pricey at $2.00/gal more than the States. Water had jumped up to .40/gal but it’s good RO, no complaints there. Only thing different is they dropped their free wifi. Now it’s $10/day. Too bad as I thought that was one of the nicer services in the Bahamas. I guess everyone is trying to figure how to make a buck these days. \
As we left the dock we heard the port engine cavitating. That’s strange I thought. And after a quiet night at anchor, we left early the next morning for Gtown. As we powered up I heard the same cavitation. No problemo, just run on the starboard engine. Fortunately, it was an easy sail down in fair northeast winds. We pulled into Elizabeth Harbor around 3:00 PM and were amazed at the number of boats. I figured there may be ten to twenty but there was easily double that. The timing was good as Brian’s sister was due in two days and we could check in here.
As soon as the anchor was down I went over the side to see if I has wrapped my skivvies around the prop like I did last year. No such luck. It seems we were the victims of massive electrolysis at the marina in Dataw. The gears on one blade on the port prop was broken and just hanging like a limp noodle. Electrolysis is where stray electrical currtent gets in the water from bad wiring and turns your underwater metal into a battery. Apparently the prop was shedding metal for the past month or more. So here we are in the Out Islands with one working engine. Oh well, at least we should be able to check in and buy Kaliks.
Now it was time to forget about boat problems and start to get ready for Christmas. You’d think it would be hard to misplace a string of lights on a 47’boat but after tearing apart both vee berths I finally found em.
And if we’re going to have lights we need electricity. I guess there was no better time to start replacing alternators now that I have McGiver anchored next door. I don’t know who was more excited to tear the engine room apart, Brian or me? Marianne’s dad had given me a large Balmar alternator he couldn’t use so that was our first victim, I mean experiment. You know that Twelve Days of Christmas song where the guy is screaming about the !$%(&(^ mn wires. Well that was us. For those of you who have never changed an alternator, let me be the first to tell it aint’ not plug and play. After three days of brainstorming we finally connected the wires as best we could. Now the battery alarm only goes off randomly when the engine is running. Since we were deep into a basic rewiring of the boat I figured why not change the port engine alternator. I can’t use the engine for propulsion, but it should still make electricity. That alternator went on easier as it was a matching Volvo. I was finally able to call the tech support from Balmar. Their solution is to disconnect the alarm. Thanks for that great tidbit, guys. But what the hey, we have colored lights on the cockpit and everyone in in the festive spirit. And Christmas is only five days away.
The dinghy problem was finally resolved as we decided to buy a new dinghy in Ft Pierce, Fl. That was the last thing keeping us in Dataw. So at 2:45 pm I looked at Marianne and asked if we should leave. At 3:00 pm we were pulling in lines and motoring away from the dock. Nothing like a lot of preplanning. The wind was light for the next forty hours as we motored down the coast. There was a short discussion about pulling into St Augustine as we had spent Christmas there two years ago. The command decision was made to keep going as the weather was making the trip so easy. We arrived at the Ft Pierce inlet Friday afternoon and promptly anchored. Lo and behold the anchor grabbed on the first attempt.
At first light on Saturday we scooted over to the marina and hooked up to shore power. West Marine opened at 8:00. I walked in at 8:05, bought the new RIB (rigid inflatable boat for those non sailors), and promptly put it in the water by 9:00. We were ready to leave for the Bahamas. Oh right, I had no depth sounder, wind instruments, or white caulk (can’t have enough caulk, see previous post) Fortunately the ray marine tech works on Saturday so we got the electronic problems solved, or at least the depth sounder problem. The wind instruments will have to wait til next year as I had to send that part back to Raymarine.
Our friend from Idaho, John Marsh, was visiting his folks in Vero Beach. He stopped over and we laughed that there was no snow on the mountain. Last year this day we were skiing down all the runs. After a short stay in the marina we went out to anchor again and wait for weather. It gave us a chance to spend more time with John and enjoy a dinner off the boat at his parents house. Thursday looked promising with the wind out of the right direction to head south. On the down side there was a lot of wind. It looked good to us so off we pushed that afternoon with plans to get to Ft Lauderdale the next day. At midnight we realized the winds were coming too far out of the south to keep going to Lauderdale so we ducked into Lake Worth/West Palm. Once inside the anchorage we dropped the hook. Before we started to congratulate ourselves on another successful passage, we looked at the wind again. Wind out of the SSW, gulf stream out of the south, and we want to go east. Sure looks like decent crossing weather to me. So after an hour at anchor we picked up and headed out, this time heading southeast instead of south. With this much wind the gulf stream was choppy but certainly doable. By nine the next morning we we across and headed to Great Isaac light with is due south of Freeport just on the northwest tip of the Great Bahama Banks. No reason or place to stop there so we continued on to Chubb Cay. When it became clear we were not going to get to Chubb by daylight, we decided we would continue on to Rose Island, just off Nassau. The wind kept pushing us the whole way. After a day and a half, Marianne hit the wall and turned the watch over to me. This was at 4:00 am. By 5:30 it was time to make our entrance through the cut and Marianne was still making zzzzs. I grabbed Brady to help take in the sails, make the entrance, and anchor. After the anchor was set , I listened to the weather forecast and then went to bed.
It couldn’t have been a half hour when the world exploded with all commotion on deck. I could hear one of the kids yelling “they’re here, they’re here!” I crawled up from my rack to see the crew from Gottalife on our stern. Man was I surprised. But not as much as Marianne. She was still trying to figure out how she slept through dropping the main, rolling in the jib, and dropping a hundred feet of chain. All of which create a tad bit of noise through the hulls.
Amazingly we run into the same boat here at our first anchorage we were hoping to meet in Georgetown. We had last seen them as they were anchored in Beaufort, SC. It was a short nineteen years ago that Brian and Sheryl and us had hooked up on our first boats. Gottalife was transiting with Sandpiper. Onboard Sandpiper were Brian’s parents and two nephewss. It was a bit too early for sundowners but it was nice to know we wouldn’t be celebrating our crossing alone.
Now that we made it to the Bahamas it was time to check in. Not so fast Mr Costigan. Seems someone forgot the passports in Akron. (I’m not naming names but after I forgot my passport last time I flew into the Bahamas I was told in no uncertain terms who the keeper of the passports would be.) You’d think by now we have the hang of this. So it was over to Nassau to make the call to Conlon once again to get me out of a jam. Fortunately, Brian’s sister was flying down in a week so she’d be able to bring the passports down with her. We’d only be illegal until we got to Georgetown. So after a few days of waiting for better weather we pushed off for the Exumas.
At first light on Saturday we scooted over to the marina and hooked up to shore power. West Marine opened at 8:00. I walked in at 8:05, bought the new RIB (rigid inflatable boat for those non sailors), and promptly put it in the water by 9:00. We were ready to leave for the Bahamas. Oh right, I had no depth sounder, wind instruments, or white caulk (can’t have enough caulk, see previous post) Fortunately the ray marine tech works on Saturday so we got the electronic problems solved, or at least the depth sounder problem. The wind instruments will have to wait til next year as I had to send that part back to Raymarine.
Our friend from Idaho, John Marsh, was visiting his folks in Vero Beach. He stopped over and we laughed that there was no snow on the mountain. Last year this day we were skiing down all the runs. After a short stay in the marina we went out to anchor again and wait for weather. It gave us a chance to spend more time with John and enjoy a dinner off the boat at his parents house. Thursday looked promising with the wind out of the right direction to head south. On the down side there was a lot of wind. It looked good to us so off we pushed that afternoon with plans to get to Ft Lauderdale the next day. At midnight we realized the winds were coming too far out of the south to keep going to Lauderdale so we ducked into Lake Worth/West Palm. Once inside the anchorage we dropped the hook. Before we started to congratulate ourselves on another successful passage, we looked at the wind again. Wind out of the SSW, gulf stream out of the south, and we want to go east. Sure looks like decent crossing weather to me. So after an hour at anchor we picked up and headed out, this time heading southeast instead of south. With this much wind the gulf stream was choppy but certainly doable. By nine the next morning we we across and headed to Great Isaac light with is due south of Freeport just on the northwest tip of the Great Bahama Banks. No reason or place to stop there so we continued on to Chubb Cay. When it became clear we were not going to get to Chubb by daylight, we decided we would continue on to Rose Island, just off Nassau. The wind kept pushing us the whole way. After a day and a half, Marianne hit the wall and turned the watch over to me. This was at 4:00 am. By 5:30 it was time to make our entrance through the cut and Marianne was still making zzzzs. I grabbed Brady to help take in the sails, make the entrance, and anchor. After the anchor was set , I listened to the weather forecast and then went to bed.
It couldn’t have been a half hour when the world exploded with all commotion on deck. I could hear one of the kids yelling “they’re here, they’re here!” I crawled up from my rack to see the crew from Gottalife on our stern. Man was I surprised. But not as much as Marianne. She was still trying to figure out how she slept through dropping the main, rolling in the jib, and dropping a hundred feet of chain. All of which create a tad bit of noise through the hulls.
Amazingly we run into the same boat here at our first anchorage we were hoping to meet in Georgetown. We had last seen them as they were anchored in Beaufort, SC. It was a short nineteen years ago that Brian and Sheryl and us had hooked up on our first boats. Gottalife was transiting with Sandpiper. Onboard Sandpiper were Brian’s parents and two nephewss. It was a bit too early for sundowners but it was nice to know we wouldn’t be celebrating our crossing alone.
Now that we made it to the Bahamas it was time to check in. Not so fast Mr Costigan. Seems someone forgot the passports in Akron. (I’m not naming names but after I forgot my passport last time I flew into the Bahamas I was told in no uncertain terms who the keeper of the passports would be.) You’d think by now we have the hang of this. So it was over to Nassau to make the call to Conlon once again to get me out of a jam. Fortunately, Brian’s sister was flying down in a week so she’d be able to bring the passports down with her. We’d only be illegal until we got to Georgetown. So after a few days of waiting for better weather we pushed off for the Exumas.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.JPG)
