It was another day with no wind. Without the little waves on the bay you could really see everything on the bottom. I took this photo of a starfish at about 7:30 AM in probably 10 feet of water. That starfish is a good foot across.

As soon as we got back from taking Fuzzy ashore we worked on the generator. Last night when we ran it water began to seep out onto the floor from under it. We emptied all the things stored in the space under it but couldn’t find any wet area. I lifted the floor of that storage space and found a lot of water that seemed to be coming from the wet locker that sits just forward of the generator. So we took everything out of the wet locker, too. The tray in the bottom of the wet locker that’s supposed to accumulate all the dripping water from the wet gear you put in it was standing full of water and had obviously overflowed, causing the water we’d seen on the floor. We bailed out the tray and lifted it. We found that we’d kinked the hose that drains that tray into the bilge, probably when we did electrical work last year. We fixed the hose. We still needed to find out where the water was coming into the locker. There is a drain hose from the generator to that tray. We checked around the generator and could find no water. We traced the little drain hose back and found it was connected to the intake for the raw water part of the generator cooling. Bud thought it was an anti-siphon hose. We started the generator back up and a tiny but steady stream of water comes out of that hose when the generator runs. We’re not sure why, but at least now it’s draining into the bilge. Seems a strange design, though.

Since it’s still calm we went back to Staniel Cay today. We bought 10 gallons of drinking water for $0.40/gallon from the Yacht Club. We also paid $2.50 to dispose of our bag of trash. I was ready to hike up to the free dump, but with no wind, Bud thought it was too hot. (I’m sure all our friends and family up north are feeling sympathetic.) I also got on the Internet again.

This afternoon we went snorkeling off a little island on the north side of the bay. There were a few little coral heads there. It was pretty, but some of the water currents were chilly (again, I can feel the sympathy from the northerners).

Folks we met at White Cay and again at Warderick Wells invited us for dinner, Susan, Leigh and JP on Raconteur. They also invited Fuzzy along. We had a really nice time, starting with watching the sun set from their cockpit. They have a conch horn and a tradition is to blow the horn at sunset. JP blew theirs and several other boats also blew conch horns. They said this is the first harbor where anyone else has done it. Then we went below and had a great stir-fry and chocolate cake and coconut ice cream! Unfortunately, they have to leave the Bahamas for a month, so are leaving tomorrow on their way down to Georgetown. Hopefully we’ll run across them again in our travels.

We are only one long day, or several leisurely days away from Georgetown. I think that is a good place to fly into, so if anyone wants to join us, we could meet you there. Now’s your chance, and I know you’ve had enough of winter!
You could always fly to Nassau and take the mailboat to Georgetown for $30. Now that would be an adventure! A cruise ship it ain't.