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.