At the beach
20 April 2008 | Tahiti Beach, Elbow Cay, Abacos
Mike
April 19th...Lubbers Quarters
After breakfast I worked again on locating the "rattle" that we have been plagued with and this time I was successful. It was the exhaust pipe but it was rattling in a different spot than I thought. Since I was down in the basement of the boat again I checked the packing gland and needed to loosen it another quarter turn.
We went to "Cracker P's" for lunch with Steve and Carol and had a nice meal. They don't have a fryer so everything is grilled or baked.
Later we all went to Tahiti Beach. We sat in ankle deep-water about 110 yards off shore for awhile than moved in to the beach. The last two days are the first times that we've gone to a beach just to sit ...
On our return we read until it was time to make supper....Shrimp and fresh spinach saut�ed in garlic and olive oil with a dollop of sour cream added at the end ....served over rice.
April 18.. Hope Town to Lubbers Quarters
We left Hope Town at about 8am on high tide and worked our way south along Elbow Cay. We only traveled about 3 miles to an anchorage just off Tahiti Beach. Tahiti Beach is a huge sand bat that at high tide s mostly submerged but at low tide is a long beautiful sliver of sand. There are probably about 10 acres of shallows that are less that knee deep.
Once anchored I went to work trying to locate a rattle that we are hearing al low rpms. I thought I had it fixed, but the noise was back today. In the process I ended up removing our prop shaft alternator which we haven't been using much. Since I was in there, I changed the transmission fluid as well.
I tightened a few of the motor mounts but failed to find the cause of the rattle. Then, I went down below the cockpit and backed off the packing nut about 1/3 of a turn to insure that our we are getting a little water on the shaft.
Finishing at about 2pm we read for a while and then headed for the beach with Steve and Carol. We wandered in the shallows for a while and then sat on the beach watching the tide slowly cover the sandbar.
On our return I dove on our anchor and looked for conch for a while before taking a shower on deck and grilling some chicken for dinner.