04/19/2009, Stocking Island, Exuma Cays, Bahamas
Sunday the harbour was a little bumpy, for a ride across to church & as there was no beach church, we had church on the boat. We spend some time showing the kids messianic prophesies. It is so amazing to see that there are hundreds of prophesies written in the Old Testament, in the thousand years before Christ, predicting the coming messiah..the coming saviour from God...and that every one was fulfilled perfectly in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Amazing!
I know it was Sunday, but we had some stuff that needed fixing, so I spent some of the afternoon fixing the water maker and such, while Sue and the kids went in to shore with the other sailors. At one point, I was repositioning an anchor and the generator; looking up to see some young Bahamian men hotdoging in a fast sporty powerboat..the hit the throttle, flew up on a wave and broadsided an anchored sailboat hard, riding up over the towrail, hitting the stanchions and ricocheting back into the water. They paused, looked around and began to slowly drive across the harbour towards Georgetown.
We started a flurry of activity on the radio, identifying witnesses, others tracking the offending boat's whereabouts, while I went to shore on this side (very close) to summon police. I was shocked to find a police boat at the dock hundreds of feet away & a cop watching the whole thing, without getting up from his table at the bar. I went and got him & then the sailboat's owner showed up too. He and the cop went out to the damaged boat, surveyed the damage & then the cop began to return to the bar. I went over and told him that we were hearing other cruisers watching the powerboat being winched onto a trailer in Georgetown with no cops in sight..and some of the guys even threatening to run over the cruisers watching them and radioing reports back here. The policeman finally got out his cellphone and made a call. How a cop can watch an accident like that, see the offending party drive away..a fast boat at his disposal, but do nothing. Makes one wonder about the effectiveness and dedication of the Bahamian police.
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04/18/2009, Sand Dollar Beach, Exuma Cays, Bahamas
A nice brisk breeze blowing this morning....keeps the bugs down and a heat-sensitive wife happier. We are anchored (still) in the shelter of Stocking Island....just off the conch salad stand at Volleyball Beach (more-or-less in front of the Chat n' Chill).
Last night we all went to a pot-lock & bonfire off Sand Dollar Beach (next large beach/anchorage to the south....well, ESE). It was mostly, but not all, families with kids. Some of the kids had discovered a large cave, so the kids brought all kinds of paint for the kids to do aboriginal cave paintings (complete with "Kids Only" signs). It wasn't long, however, before the kids began to paint each other. I suspect the kids all had fun with the evening, but the squeals and yells & running up and down the beach, back and forth to the cave, and over the island to the ocean side and back. The last bon fire was a kids only affair. We dropped the kids, stayed for a while, then Sue and I went to Georgetown, as I was to preach at a Street Meeting that night (Good Friday). We arrived back much later, to find a happy group of kids with a large bon fire and no adults in attendance for the past couple hours or so.
Yesterday there was quite a bit more chop on the harbour. It was Saturday morning, I NEVER do this, but was tired, so after everyone was fed and all taken care of, I laid down for a nap in bed. Just nicely drifting off, when Ben comes charging in informing me that I need to go to town to get yeast for Mommy (she's baking awesome boat bread). The trip into town was bumpy, but the dingy is empty and I'm somewhat with the waves. The trip home, the waves seem a little bigger, I'm headed into them and I have groceries plus two-hundred pounds of water aboard (never go to town without bringing more fresh water home). The dingy was pounding into the waves, regularly taking sheets of warm salty water over the bow (& in my face). I ended up having to turn away from the wind and waves (& further away from home) and work my way across the harbour into more sheltered waters, before turning towards Seawing. (home). Even though I was wearing my foul-weather jacket, I was soaked when I arrived...though the groceries where dry, snug in the heavy black garbage bag and grocery cart.
Yesterday, I was able to get a replacement auxillary pump for our water-maker. I installed an additional filter-kit to filter out finer particulate in the water, to protect our water-maker membrane. When you do this, it takes too much suction to draw seawater through both the primary and secondary filter, for the water-maker to do it alone, so a secondary filter is installed to help. Our secondary pump failed, so were unable to use the secondary filter. It turns out, there is a Katadyne(sp?) Water Maker representative, anchored in the harbour here right now. Yesterday, we were finally able to get a copy of the proof of purchase for our system & he replaced the pump for us....VERY cool, as we are rather beyond normally having any sort of specialty replacement parts available here. I am planning to install the pump this afternoon....yes, I kow it's Sunday, but we need a reliable water supply.
We are planning to attend the local Baptist Church this morning (if the weather holds....see come clouds blowing in; might be squalls coming with). There is not church on the beach this morning. Someone asked at the potluck last night if we were having church this morning & mentioned they enjoyed last week (where I was able to preach a clear Law & Gospel message). It's making me think that maybe we should take the initiative to organize services in coming weeks....not sure.
It seems like there is a lull in the head problems. For the uninitiated, a marine 'head' is the toilet. Over the past couple weeks, we've had 'issues'. The forward head got plugged.....really plugged. The head empties into a holding tank, the contents of which are macerated and pumped overboard when appropriate (i.e. night time when no-one's swimming, or at sea). Well, the kid's head plugged....seems about where the pipe turns and dumps into the tank. I tried everything to unblock it. Remember, when I began to disassemble to work on it, the contents o the 1.5" X 5'-6' hose (several gallons) come running back to where I'm working....NASTY! I can't begin to describe just how nasty this is....had to do it TWICE (& in tropical heat)!!! It is one of the worst jobs I've ever had to do. I finally gave-up attempts to unblock, 'till we return to Florida. I plumbed the head directly overboard, so...don't swim on the port side when someone's sitting on the throne.
(rain squalls blowing in now...just had to run around and close up boat...not sure we're going to dingy the mile or so across the open harbour to church this morning, unless this blows over in the next 30-45 minutes.)
The generator began causing problems this week. One day it was REALLY hard to start, and for a Honda, this is VERY peculiar....usually the first cylinder over fires. One day, it just up and quit while running to charge the batteries; alarming, to say the least. We are able to run the main diesel and charge the house-bank off of the oversized alternator, but it is slower, way nosier and causes extra use (i.e. wear) for the far more expensive Perkins diesel. I began to go through the Honda generator and try to identify what the problem might be. I removed and cleaned the carburator float bowl, the sediment bowl, cleared the carboon out of the exhaust spark arrestor and checked the spark plug. I cleaned up and suspicious-looking spark plug & dried to get it to spark against the block (out of the engine)...no spark. We were able to dingy up the island the next day to the NaPa dealer and get a couple new plugs. Amazing...the silly thing fired right up; problem solved...yea!!! Well....problem solved....until it wouldn't start again the next morning. I did get it started with a little starting fluid, but added a liberal amount of fuel system cleaner to the gas tank & ran for a long time...now it seems to start right up and be in a rather good mood again....welcome to boat-life....fix, fix, fix, fix, rest, play, fix, fix fix....
Blue & Pink jobs. The other night, we were for dinner with several families on an Australian catamaran (the crew are originally from S. Africa). It was fun & the bbq meat awesome. Durring the evening, the discussiong of 'blue' & 'pink' jobs came up. Our host, was explaining that all boat jobs fall under either 'blue' (male) or 'pink' (female) and never should the two meet. That generated lots of enthusiastic discussion & laughs, as you can imagine. We're still joking about it....figuring that we have alot of purple jobs here....Sue thinks they should all be blue jobs....(in the words of Winnie-The-Pooh) O bother.
Every afternoon, around 2:30 or so, folks meet on the beach for vollyball, bridge and whatever other social activities. Jacquie had become sought-after as a volleyball player (thanks Gunnery Road Academy) & both her and Ben are often seen climbing trees and swinging wildly out of them on ropes....wearing the skin off their hands in the mean time. I (Glenn) have mostly been too tired to go hang-out. for some reason, I've been rather exhausted most of the time lately...not sure why.
Anyway...Ben's asking for pancakes for breakfast....gotta go cook. Later!
Glenn.
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04/07/2009, Stocking Island, Exuma Cays, Bahamas
This place has been very, very different for us. We've mostly been meeting, socializing & visiting with Bahamians up 'till here, but now we are in a large group of anchored cruising boats. We are now mostly socializing with other cruisers. The kids are pretty stoked to find other boat-kids (or bilge rats..as we like to call them). Almost every afternoon they are playing together on the beach, running the trails around Stocking Island, building forts from palm fronds and swinging wildly from ropes in trees...not to mention beach volleyball.
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04/04/2009, Elizabeth Harbour, Great Exuma, Exuma Cays, Bahamas
We left Farmers Cay at a relatively high, but ebb tide. We were able to get out of the anchorage without having to plow sand with our keel (unlike the way in). Leaving through Farmers Cut into the deep water of Exuma Sound, the current was crazy. Even though Exuma sound was almost waveless, the current from the ebb tide created standing waves and swirling currents that ran quite a ways out into the deep water.
Soon after we go out and the sails set, I began to set trolling lines. Soon after, we had a hit out one of the lines, but no fish hooked. I did see some fish jumping around where the lured were being trolled. Later I noticed that the split ring holding the hook to the lure was stretched and one of the hooks snapped off. Bummer...I like hits, but you can't put a hit on the bbq..only fish landed.
It was a very quiet trip, eventually had to roll up the sails, as they were hanging limp, as we motored the rest of the way.
The description of the entry to Elizabeth Harbour sounded a bit complicated, with cays, rocks and reefs, but it is really quite simple. Actually, I took some time on the way down to program waypoints for the whole way in, around the rocks and reefs, and the autopilot took us all the way to our anchorage..very cool.
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04/03/2009, Little Farmers Cay, Exuma Cays, Bahamas
We were planning to do a street meeting with the local pastor on Staniel Cay, but felt we should leave and go further south. We sailed here to Little Farmers Cay and were ashore about five-minutes, when we met a Bahamian who'd been living in the USA and had returned as a missionary a couple days before. She helped us setup and preach the Gospel of jesus Christ in the open air three times on the island. We spent time getting to know people & talk with them. We didn't want to leave; easy to get attached to the people on this island..the island is full of problems, but the people pretty lovable.
We anchored the far side of the harbour, actually right off the shore of another island. In between, is a large sand bank...beautiful while sand. At low-tide, it's waist deep or less, warm..crystal clear. The sun shines right through it...like the world's largest swimming pool. We went out there for family baths. Apparently not necessarily the best place to swim on a high and rising tide, as the high-tide currents bring in larger, predator types from the deep sea nearby.
If you've a chance to visit this quiet, almost sleepy place, take it. I don't know if there are any accommodations ashore, but a very cool place to visit by boat.
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03/31/2009, Little Farmers Cay, Exuma Cays, Bahamas
After a week near Staniel Cay, we felt antsy and felt we should move on. Hearing there might be propane on Little Farmers Cay, we headed that way.
We were only able to actually sail the first half hour or so, and had to fire the iron-genny after that and motor the next few hours south to Little Farmers.
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