Wow!

OK! As I promised late last night I'll first write down everything that happened yesterday both to inform and to do it while still fresh in my mind.

We awoke at 03h00 to do a first parade, download another weather forecast, and get Nelleke and ourselves ready for the crossing. We upped anchor and were away by 04h00 following Troubadour, our buddy boat who had been to the Bahamas many times before. Our plan was to clear the breakwater and head SE until we hit deep water or the Stream and then head 090 degrees and let the current carry us to Memory Rock. It wasn't long after we turned at the deep water point that we uncovered the first flaw in our cunning plan - the wind was pretty much right on the nose so we were motoring and the sails were only steadying us from too much roll and barely making 4.5 knots. The second flaw was that with the motoring I was watching the water temperature in the sea rise along with a corresponding increase in the engine temperature and by noon we were running at about 90 degrees C which is at the upper end of the optimum temperatures for Polly Perkins. With an older engine I prefer a little slush factor to give me time to react if something happens, so I was more than a little nervous. At about that time Troubadour had fuel line problems and they had to shut down their engine and go to sails only. We had a council of war over the VHF and decided to head for West End. It was going to be late in the afternoon to early evening before we had completed the cross any way and we had previously decided on Old Bahamas Bay Marina as our fall back stop. We both continued Troubadour under sail and ourselves under reduced power beating into the headwinds. With our "iron topsail" we were able to point higher and only tacked about eight times, but as we later discovered Troubadour had to tack about 40 times to get here. Neither of us wanted to get too far north of the rhomb line as the winds were forecast to veer to the SE and we wanted to take advantage of that when it happened. Of course, it never did!

During the trip I tried out my hand line fishing gear to see if I could invite anything to dinner, of course no one took up my offer except floating sea weed. We did see flying fish. I had seen them before but it had always seemed to be solitary ones and this was the first time that I saw small schools of them take off to skim away for a hundred yards. Amazing critters!

We arrived at the marina at about 18h30 and tied up at our slip thinking that we'd have to clear customs tomorrow morning since they stop work at 17h00. No way, Mon! The first thing that the dock attendant did was to scoot us off to the Customs Shack. Apparently they had stayed late in order to clear us in. Off we toddled and were confronted by two fellows who put us through our paces. There was an awful lot of paper work and I was steeling myself for a long and involved process but, frankly, I have never experienced any bureaucracy that has been nearly so efficient. They had us both filling out paperwork concurrently and the two of them were doing their stuff at the same time too, all the while questioning us and making us feel welcome and happy that we were in the Bahamas. Fifteen minutes and we were done! I was impressed.

From there we went to the Marina Office where we got a bit of a shock. Forget about what Skipper Bob's publications tell you about marina pricing, in his Bahamas book he says that there is a winter special here of $1 - it's really $2! A bit difference! We paid for two nights as I want to check out the cooling system on the engine anyway, plus rearrange the chain locker. Besides, we are in the Bahamas! I want to enjoy things.

While we were waiting for Troubadour to arrive we walked Peri (he was relieved) and treated ourselves to the least expensive meal on the menu in the resort's restaurant - cheeseburgers at $12. Sounds a bit pricey, but when they came to the table I didn't regret the price one bit; they were huge, well garnished, served with fries and cooked to our specs. I have been looking forward to a hamburger for quite a while and this was just about as perfect as I could have wished it.

Troubadour arrived at 22h30 and we along with the crews from several other boats on the dock turned out to take their lines. As you can imagine they were even more bagged than I was so we all hit the racks.

I haven't had such a great sleep for a while so I have decided that there will be no more of this cruiser's midnight crap if I have to start poking myself with pins to keep awake until at least 22h00. Maybe I'll take up night diving again.

In the morning we had breakfast at the "Straw Bar", raw extravagance, but we needed another treat or at least Barb did with her sore ankle, before I came back to work on this posting and to start the boat chores.

As I mentioned the boat chores began with me trying again to shut off the seacock for the raw water input for the engine so I could empty the strainer. Unfortunately it was still seized in spite of the judicious application of WD40 and small taps with the proverbial blunt object. So I put on my dive gear and went over the side to put a plug in the input and then we emptied the strainer. Waste of time really as there were two or three blades of grass and that's about it. So the next object of my attention will be the raw water impeller which we haven't changed for ten years and even then it was an original. Probably about time, don't you think?

Tomorrow I will pull the secondary anchor rode out of the chain locker and fix its storage. I think that when Mike at Oriental was putting in the new fairleads he leaned on the shelf and collapsed it. It isn't a big job, just a wriggly one.

As for today, Barb and I are going to take advantage of the loaner bikes and ride into the village down the road to see what's what and to buy some much needed supplies - local rum! Tonight there is going to be a dock party on C Dock and we don't want to be short!