Cool and strong winds!
12/13/2010, Hopetown on Elbow Cay

With the wind gusting to 80kph we're hiding in Hopetown harbour getting tossed all over the place! Several neighbours have gone ashore to avoid the seasickness, and Louise is finishing up the stainless steel polishing. I've never seen such a lovely protected harbour so rough with whitecaps and howling wind. If our mooring line let's go, we'll be toast!
Lots of bright sunshine allows the solar panels to fully recharge the batteries, and all of my internet problems have been sorted out, so the current challenge is to find a safe and reasonable way to get our new dinghy from the west coast of Florida to Marsh Harbour..... it would be virtually impossible without internet.

The bilge is dry, the beer is cold and the sun is shining.... all is well!

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Rather cool... damn North wind!
12/08/2010, Hopetown on Elbow Cay

Safe and sound on a mooring ball with a cold NW wind blowing... socks and hat on, thinking about turning on the heat! (first time ever! probably won't work!)
Living on the boat results in finding new things that don't work... you don't know until you try them...
Fixed the wash-down salt water pump in the anchor locker, rebuilt the windlass, repaired 4 small leaks in the dinghy (just the valves really), fixed the dinghy anchor, and Louise has almost finished polishing the stainless steel!
So, with the job jar slowly emptying, we've got the opportunity to start to relax and smell the flowers....long walks on the beach, fine restaurants, a pocket full of sea glass, bicycles ashore ready for a trip to the south of the island if the wind can drop down a bit...
The Christmas lights are decorating the dodger, and we've just purchased a new dinghy on ebay which will hopefully arrive shortly via freighter to Marsh Harbour.... anyone interested in a great 10' RIB c/w 9.9hp motor?

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windy and cool
12/04/2010, Marsh Harbour

After a successful launch, and a nice sail around the "whale" we spent a couple of days relaxing at Great Guana Cay where we discovered it was possible to buy fresh crab claws and sushi grade tuna directly from the fishing docks... we stocked up and will return.

Another nice sail south brought us to Marsh Harbour where we have spent the past 7 days fixing things that have broken in the past two weeks.

The solar panels died (just a corroded terminal, but hard to replace), the impeller on the generator feel apart (two years old and only 50 hours of run time), dripping taps, and leaking hatches.

My extensive spare parts kit came to the rescue, but I await another onslaught of problems for the next couple of weeks. Seems it takes a good month to really shake down the boat and get it back into shape.

Provisioning in MH was reasonably successful and the new Maxwell's store was bright and cheery, but who needs 20 different versions of Cracker Barrel Cheddar Cheese? Very limited selection, but fortunately Abacos Groceries came to the rescue with local shrimp, wasabi, great European cheeses, smoked salmon from Chile, and many other wonderful treats..

Biggest problem was repairing Louise's bicycle.... a real nightmare which took more than a week and countless visits to the bike shop, and numerous delays for spare parts from Nassau.... just barely repaired due to lack of spare parts and necessary tools.... another lesson for next year!

Off to Hopetown later today to hide from another cold northern front arriving tonight...

Keep well!

glen

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