Mike
04/24/2009, Marsh Harbour, Abaco

April 21th.. Marsh Harbor, Abacos

We had a prefrontal squall during the night which rinsed the salt off the boat for the first time in months. It was cloudy most of the day and a little windy. There were a few items that we forgot yesterday while shopping so I took the dinghy in and returned to the grocery.

On my return, I began the task of fixing the bilge pump switch which hasn't worked correctly for a while but is such a pain to remove that I've been putting it off.

First I moved all the stuff from the garage (starboard berth) to get at the access hatch for the storage area behind the engine. It is filled with plastic container about the size of large shoe boxes and spare parts. Once it was empty, I reached in with the drill and removed the screws that hold the rear wall in place. Then, I moved to the cockpit and emptied the port lazarette to gain access to the area between the cockpit floor and the hull.

After changing clothes and organizing some tools I stepped through the hatch and carefully ducked down. Once in, I have to do a 180 turn to get my head and shoulders in the right position to work. I removed the hatch that covers the hollow section of our keel and took out the wall that I had just unscrewed from the other side. I had been at work for an hour by now and was finally at the point that I could see what was happening.

Our bilge switch has no moving parts but senses water electrically. It is attached to a 6 foot section of pvc pipe and suspended just about the bottom of the keel above and beside the pump. It appeared that the pvc pipe had slid down submerging the sensor permanently in about ½ inch of water. I loosened the clamp and raised the switch about 2 inches to solve the problem.

After testing the system, I was finished with that job but found two other things that needed some attention before I could climb out of the basement. The first was that the packing gland was dripping too much and needed tightening. I didn't take to long back off the lock nut with a pipe wrench and then tighten down the packing nut about ½ turn.

The last job was that the oil reseviour for the autopilot seemed to be low so I had Kathy find the ATF and a small funnel to top it off.

Finally I could come up for air.

It took another hour to put everything back in place. I also transferred the diesel in our jerry cans to the main tank before putting one of them back below decks in its place.

As we were having lunch "Solitaire" called and a few minutes later was anchored behind us. I ran over to chat for a while and was invited back at five for snacks...along with "Fine Lion." We stayed too long and by the time we returned it was bed time.

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Mike
04/24/2009, Marsh Harbour, Abaco

April 20th...

We headed to town around 9am run some errands... first on the list was to find a dumpster to get rid of some trash that we've been carrying too long. Then we were on our way to a bank to get some cash. We have new debit cards that Mom brought down and it said on the back that they need to be used in an ATM first.

We found a bank but the ATM there wouldn't recognize our card. The guard came out as we were walking away and explained that the international ATM was located at the next bank down the block.

At the second bank we tried the cards once again with the same result. So...I called the Chemical Bank in Carson City and talked to Pam who said that she could activate the cards from there and call us back.

She called back in about 5 minutes to say that everything was taken care of ...so we returned to the ATM and nothing. It still wouldn't recognize our cards. We decided to give it a few minutes and went for a walk. After checking out the stores in a small strip mall, we found another bank and presto, we were back in the cash. Very few of the places visit here in the Bahamas take credit cards and the ones that do usually add a 5% charge on top to the charge that the credit card company adds for international use....most boaters just use cash.

We walked to the grocery store which, by Bahamian standards, is huge and purchased about all we could carry back to the dinghy. I ran everything out to the boat while Kathy did some more shopping. We returned to "Sapphire" around lunch time and stopped by "Fine Lion" to see if they wanted to go out to lunch.

We picked up Kim at the laundry dock and headed to a hamburger stand that Steve liked, but it was closed so we walked back to another restaurant for a nice lunch. On the way back to the dinghies, we all picked up a conch salad from stall on the water that would either be supper or a snack later.

Our last stop was Curly Tails for a beer. It is on the second floor overlooking the harbor and is a nice place.

By the time we returned, the afternoon was almost shot so we read for a while in the cockpit and ate our salads for dinner.

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Mike
04/24/2009, Marsh Harbour, Abaco

April 19th... Lynyard Cay to Marsh Harbour, Abacos

We had our normal weather and coffee fixes and then wasted some time until about 8:30 am. It was blowing from the SW at about 18K but since our trip of 20 miles was a northward zig-zag, it wasn't going to be a problem.

We hoisted the mizzen while we were at anchor, but kept the main in the sail cover. With all our sail up we would have been way too sideways for Kathy to keep her weaving stuff on the seat. We rolled out the staysail as we got under way and made 5.5 K as we passed a large opening to the Ocean which had some good rollers. After a down wind leg between two sandbars for a couple of miles we rolled out the Jib and doused the staysail...running at 6.5 on a beam reach with the weaving crap still on the seat.

Our course was dictated by shallow water and shoals but we did a good job of sailing all the way to the harbor entrance. I did resort to the engine once when I came up 50 yards short at Sugar Loaf Cay.... it was just too much up wind for us to make without the main.

We arrived in Marsh Harbour and anchored with a fleet of about 25 boats, half of whom we've seen before. There wasn't much to do on shore on Sunday afternoon so I changed the oil and accomplished a couple of other jobs that were on my mental to-do list.

For dinner we had bad hamburgers from the freezer and green beans. It was undoubtedly the worst meal we've had in months. We bought some frozen patties in Georgetown and will not make that mistake again.

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