Mike
04/24/2009, Marsh Harbour, Abaco

April 22nd.... Marsh Harbour, Abacos

After months bumping around in the tiny settlements of the Exumas, Marsh Harbour is a little busy. There is traffic to avoid and more choices than we're used to. Anyway, today began with an empty propane tank. It only took a minute to switch tanks and the water was boiling in no time.

One of the two hardware stores fills tanks so I jumped in the dinghy and ran it to shore. It would be filled and returned by 4pm.

We didn't do much during the morning. I finished the book I was reading and Kathy used up all her palm fronds. We have internet access so much of my day was spent on researching items that we will need in the future. I am thinking about replacing our stove and we need to order some chain. We are planning on a watermaker as well, so there is lots of information to gather.

In the afternoon we went ashore, deposited some trash in the dumpster, walked to the grocery and then picked up the propane tank. With our errands finished, we headed back to the boat.

A little later we motored over to "Fine Lion" with Kim's birthday present and ended up having dinner with them.

Back on board, we watched some video before bed.

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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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