Governors Harbour

Governors Harbour is the quintessential Colonial town with colourful painted houses dotting the hillside surrounded by lush greenery. Friday night is Fish Fry night at a local restaurant so we were looking forward to participating in the local activities. The restaurant was a short dinghy ride across the bay as the tide was out we had to get out of the boat and walk the dinghy in to tie it up. We were rather surprised to find out that the Fish Fry was more geared to the tourists than the locals. I don’t know where everybody came from but the place was packed with mostly Canadians and a few Americans! We had the choice of fish, chicken or pork, the fish still had the head on it, which was not real appetizing to me. We had the pork with the usual Bahamian side dishes of rice and beans, mac n cheese and coleslaw, it was all very good. There was a dj playing and it was a fun evening of dancing and meeting people. At one point the dj asked for volunteers and before I knew it Richard was up there, I knew that he obviously hadn’t been paying attention to what the dj had been saying because it was minutes later when the Michael Jackson dance competition started that Richard made a beeline back to me!!!! He is so not a dancer!

    We spent the days touring the town and swimming around the boat and the evenings getting together with other cruisers. There was a kids learn to sail program going on and the cruisers seemed to be anchored in the middle of it so it was fun to watch the kids (both tourists and local children) sailing around us. One little guy lost his sunglasses overboard to we lent him our mask and snorkel to retrieve it. Richard, Paul and Phyllis headed out to a local beach and I enjoyed some rare alone time reading in our swinging chair.

This boat (more of a raft actually) is the Antiki which made a trip from Canary Islands to St Maarten a few years ago to raise awareness for clean water. It seems permanently anchored here now, can’t imagine crossing the ocean in that. The “head” is a hole in the middle of a long plank sticking out of the stern, better be a seatbelt!

  Monday morning the weather forecast predicted a good day for sailing so we headed out for Rock Sound. It was a beautiful day, the first real good sailing weather we’ve had in a long time, winds were from the east at about 15 knots and we flew along doing about 6kts and arrived by 1 PM.

Hatchet Bay

Saturday morning we left Spanish Wells about 9am headed for Hachett Bay, which is about 25 miles away. As usual there wasn’t any wind so once again it was a motoring day. We had to go through Current Cut preferably on an ebb tide which we were off by about 45 minutes but it worked out well with there being about a 4 kt current. As we passed through the cut Richard saw a large Sting Ray leap out of the water in front of us. We arrived at about 3pm and were lucky to be able to grab the last free mooring ball to tie onto! After putting the dinghy in we headed in to check out the town and find a Church to attend in the morning. It is a very small town, with a few stores and a couple of Churches, everyone that we met was very friendly. Paul and Phyllis from Caper had arrived while we were in town,

Sunday morning we attended the local Baptist Church, the children were doing their Christmas Program, which we really enjoyed. The next few days were relaxing checking out the town and the local beach. Richard also had lots of time to work on various systems such as a new auto helm, wheel pilot that is not on crack like the last one! Generator was cutting out so found a couple bad connections and the outboard needed some adjustments as it was stalling. The cruisers joined forces and did a cleanup morning around the town; we also did happy hour on the dock. The men headed out one afternoon on a lobster hunt – we had ham that night for supper…. Christmas Eve we got together with Kathy and Curt on Five and Dime and Holly and Rob from Hampshire Rose we had a great evening.

    Christmas morning we awoke to another beautiful day, fortunately the front that we were expecting bypassed us. Although it is very hard to be away from our family we did really enjoy talking to them at Christmas.  We had planned a cruiser potluck at 2pm, which turned out to be a big hit, everyone attended, and there was a great variety of food. Christmas night we attended Junkaroo, which is the Bahamian version of Mardi gras, it was a lot of fun and the costumes were fantastic, it started at 7pm and went well into the night (we were back in the boat and tucked in by 11pm!) Richard tried the Soucie, which is a Sheep’s tongue stew; he wasn’t real impressed with it.

   Boxing day morning all the cruisers headed out for various destinations we are enroute to Governors Harbour, a few miles down the coast. We are picking Kevin up in Rock Sound on the 31^st so working our way there. We are really looking forward to having him here and showing him around!

Spanish Wells

We spent the morning snorkeling at the nearby beach, the water was warm and clear. There weren’t a lot of fish but enough to make it interesting. When we got back to the boat Richard and I dove on the anchor to see how it was set. The moment we got in the water we saw a large Sting Ray right beside us on the bottom. Richard was pretty interested in checking it out but I was more about hiding behind Richard, he said that I was trying to drown him! The anchor (Rocna) was only partially set and we had had a pretty rolly night so we decided to more around the corner for more protection. Well that was a bad idea as we spent the next two hours trying to set it with Richard diving on it about five times only to find out that it was still not dug in…. We finally gave up and moved back to our original location but further in so that we would be more protected. Well our troubles followed again as we couldn’t get it set, Richard changed to the Danforth and luckily that set right away. It had not been a good afternoon but we did have a lovely Lobster dinner to look forward too! I asked Richard to take a picture of the meal, I guess that I should have been more specific I thought he would take it with the food on the plates….

The next day we were on the move again with Royal Island being our destination. It was a nice protected anchorage but nowhere to go ashore and not very scenic. We had a quiet night and in the morning Richard climbed the mast to check out the VHF radio connection and the anemometer . He found that the VHF connector was corroded so that is on our list to pick up.  Then it was time to head for Spanish Wells, which was only about five miles away.

     Spanish Wells is a lovely little town where you can find most conveniences. We filled up with diesel and Richard went across the street to pay for it… the next thing I saw was him returning in a golf cart which he loaded our Rocna into and he was off again after muttering something about some guys and a boat shop… I was entertained by a guy at the dock named Carwash who wanted to know how he could get to Canada. Richard returned a short time later with our newly modified and sharpened Rocna which he quickly gave a fresh coat of paint before putting it back on the bow. Once at our anchoring spot the new and improved anchor dug in better much to our delight!

    After a quick lunch we headed in to check out the town. It is a very busy town with golf carts speeding everywhere, we really felt uncomfortable walking around the narrow roads with the traffic! We checked out some stores, shared a smoothie while everyone was glued to their devices as we had not had wifi for awhile… and picked up a few groceries. It was very hot out and we had walked a least a couple miles so it was nice to get back to the boat to a cool drink!

     There is bad weather in the forecast so we decided to head to Hatchett Bay Harbour (Alicetown) in the morning for protection.

Blue Hole

We left Snake Cay (pronounced Key) on Monday and had a leisurely sail down to White Cay which was about 15 miles. The water is so stunningly beautiful with shades of turquoise, aquamarine and indigo. They say that you can tell the depth of the water by the colour, we haven’t got the gift for that yet but we keep playing the guessing game.

  We anchored between Little Gaulding Cay and Fowl Cay in about 9 feet of water but after awhile we felt that we were a little too close to Little Gaulding so we moved to a more central location. We once again anchored in about 20 feet of water and decided that was a good location. It wasn’t long before we had the dinghy down and we headed to Hoffmans Cay with Paul and Phyllis to check out the Blue Hole. We parked the dinghys on a beautiful sandy beach and headed thru the bushes for a short hike up to the location. It’s amazing that all of a sudden you exit the bushes and you are on about 5 feet of rock, which drops down about 15-20 feet into “the blue hole”. We made our way down to the water and were literally underneath the rock that we had just been standing on! I was a little hesitant to go in the water but quickly changed my mind when everyone else got in. The water was really warm and refreshing, it was rather weird to know that there was no known bottom, it kind of made you wonder what really was down there and how big could it actually be…..

When we got out of the water and were drying off we saw a fish about 8-10 inches long swimming along the side which drops off very quickly. Back at the beach we saw a couple of rays in the water and lots of little fish. The ray came right up to Richard and Phyllis! That night we had a potluck on Caper and Phyllis made Linguinne with Clam Sauce, which was very good.

    Tuesday morning we decided along with Caper to head down a couple miles to Cabbage Cay and check out Flo’s Conch Bar, Caper headed out mid morning but Richard was working on some changes to the watermaker so we stayed while he finished up. When we went to leave we were unable to get the anchor up so Richard put on the snorkeling gear to check it out… It turns out that our chain was wrapped around a rock preventing us from being able to get it up but the anchor wasn’t even set… We managed to guide the boat in a big circle to free the chain from the rock then had no problem getting the anchor up. Lesson learned: anchor in shallower water so that you can dive on it if there are problems and dive on it to make sure that it is set also!

     As we were getting the anchor up we had a call from Warren and Diane on Sunset Dreaming, they were just passing our enterance, enroute to Flo’s as well. It was a short hop down to Cabbage Cay and we anchored in 9 feet of water just down from Caper and Sunset Dreaming. Richard dove on the anchor and after a bit of maneuvering we were satisfied with our position. Richard swam over to Caper and checked theirs as well. We took the dinghy over and had a nice visit with Dianne and Warren.

   We had reservations at Flo’s for 5pm and just as we were getting ready to leave a local boat pulled up and asked us if we would like to trade for some lobster, we didn’t really want lobster right then but it seemed that they were out of fresh water and needed some. We ended up filling their water jug and giving them 6 ginger ale and a bag of pretzels and they gave us 10 lobster tails!!

   Supper at Flos was an experience, we had conch fritters with fried snapper and fried conch. Check out the pile of conch shells in front of the resturant! Also rice plus peas and coleslaw served family style. It was all very good but things here tend to be fried a lot, something that we rarely do. The view from the restaurant was amazing and we enjoyed seeing the sunset from that vantage point.

After we returned to the boat Richard cooked up the lobster tails so that we can have them later.

Berry Islands

We finally got our weather window to cross over to the Bahamas on Thursday. Talk about a mass exodus, it was a steady stream of boats leaving the harbour! We left with Quick Sticks, Glory Days and Peace and Quiet all from LaHave River and Caper (Phyllis and Paul) from Wilmington NC. The weather was beautiful but no winds so it was 24 hours of motoring… not our preferred method of travel.  A picture of Quick Sticks shows how calm it was, there was a slight swell but nothing significant. We used the autopilot most of the way but auto and I don’t have a very good relationship and he is always determined to kick off whenever I am at the helm so it was easier for me to hand steer on my watch than use it! The last time that it kicked off on me Richard was sleeping so I hand steered until he woke up, it was a good thing that he checked it when he got up because the unit had overheated and burnt the motor and melted the casing, we were very blessed that it hadn’t caught on fire!

    Entering Great Harbour Cay was very easy even though all the channel markers were missing. The marina is very protected and lovely with fantastic staff.  Customs was first on the agenda with the agent coming right to the boat, and all went very smoothly. Getting cell phone coverage was next on the list so a bunch of us piled into the marina truck and headed out to the phone office. Coverage is much more than we expected it to be at about $1.50/minute so it will be for emergency use only and we will use gmail for most calls. The group had a nice stroll back to the marina once everybody had their phone business completed.

     That evening the marina was hosting a barbeque so we were all eager to have a night off from cooking and a chance for everybody to get together. The meal was your choice of chicken, pork, steak or ribs with a side of corn on the cob and mac n cheese. Richard and I had ribs and pork and both were delicious but the mac n cheese was amazing. It was an early night for all after doing the overnighter the previous night.

   Saturday Richard and I decided to take a walk in to check out the town which is about a mile away from the marina. The weather was beautiful and about half way to town the couple from the boat next to us came along headed back to the marina in a golf cart that they had rented. They were so kind to give us a ride to town and we all met up with Paul and Phyllis who were anchored off the wharf . The town is not very big but it was fun to explore the couple of little shops. We all had lunch at Cooley Maes restaurant which consisted of Ribs, mac n cheese and peas n rice again the food was excellent and although the mac n cheese was different it was fantastic. After saying goodbye to Paul and Phyllis we headed back on the cart with Alan and Joanna who are on a power boat out of Conneticut.

   Ken and Meydie had left earlier that morning but unfortunately had some boat issues so had returned to the marina and we ended up having them over for supper and we were later joined by Alan and Joanna.

   Richard had met a man at CooleyMaes who had offered to pick us up for Church, we weren’t really sure what denomination we were going to but we were glad to be going to a local Church. It ended up being an Anglican service which was very different than we are used to but it was a good message and great to be in the Lord’s House. After a quick lunch we left the marina and had a nice sail up the coast for about 15 miles passing by 2 cruise ships docked by their private islands to our destination of Pantome Harbour. Paul and Phyllis had arrived earlier in the day so as it was 5pm when we arrived we invited them over for supper and had a fun time discussing our day and making plans for tomorrow.

    We have really enjoyed the social aspect of cruising and have been having so much fun meeting new people and reconnecting with others that we have met along the way.

Everglade City

We headed out early this morning with some friends (Paul and Phyllis) off of “Caper” to go pick up their rental car. Our destination was Everglade City on the other side of the coast and to the airboat ride that we had booked. It was a quick two hour trip and on the way we saw many alligators in the ditch on the side of the road, guess I know where I won’t be taking a bathroom break! We went into a gift  shop when we arrived in town as we were early and bought a few things. I have a bit of a “thing” for headlamps, the more powerful and better adjustability they are, the better. All this to say I found a really nice one so it was not a wasted trip into the store…..and of course you can’t have too many….

Attached is our airboat which seats six of us plus the driver. When you get in, you have to hang on, as there are no seatbelts or even higher sides to keep you in place. They start out slow, due to the noise while they are near the town limits but once they enter the everglades they open it up and go up to 35 MPH! The next hour was like being on an amusement park ride with the driver snaking us through narrow channels of mangroves and even over grassy areas. He also did some sliding 180 degree turns when we came up to dead ends. The alligators apparently were laying low in the mud today due to it being a colder day in order to stay warm (us still in shorts though) so we did not see any of them when we stopped part way in.  Apparently they used to park here and feed the alligators marshmallows? to get them near the airboat but some people complained and they can’t feed them any more :) I wouldn’t have thought that alligators would even look at a marshmallow let alone eat one! The ride was so much fun that not seeing any alligators was ok. By the time we arrived back to the boat it was dark. At this point Thursday still looks like the best time to cross over to the Bahamas, will find out more tomorrow.

Dinner Key Marina 3

As yesterday was the technical blog today will be the life on a boat blog. After Richards very expensive cab ride we rented a car and it was great to be able to drive around getting things done. We topped up our provisioning supplies once again, it looks like there may be a weather window on Thursday now. With all our errands done we decided to take a break and visit the keys since we still had the car. Paul and Phyllis from Caper (Cabot 36) had just arrived in the mooring field, we had met them in Vero while they were rafted up to Mark and Margie, so we invited them along on the trip. We had a great day leaving at about 930am we took our time sightseeing and having a fun visit. Both of them had been to the area over the years so the were our travel guides. We had a fantastic lunch at a marina that Paul had stayed at 32 years earlier so it was a nice trip down memory lane for him. Each of the Keys was very unique and the views were superb. We hadn’t realized how far it actually was and ended up not getting back to the marina until 730 pm.

Today we refilled the propane tanks on the way to return the car and made plans to have supper with Paul and Phyllis tonight. They have decided to rent a car tomorrow and head to the everglades for a ride on an airboat and have invited us along as well. We are really looking forward to that as we have yet to see the elusive Alligator even though Richard has consumed a bit of them:)

Dinner Key Marina 2

Todays blog is a technical one so I apologize in advance, you are forwarned…….

The engine had been leaking at the #2 injector pump for a few weeks now. If you recall I had to get a replacement line sent in from TAD in Virginia. After putting this in and playing with the slight alignment I could not fully stop it from leaking. I went from a drop every 20 seconds to one every 5 minutes. I was going to leave it but things like this drive me nuts and they usually get worse not better, so back in I dove. Although it is very hard to see, it appeared that the leak was now coming from between the injector body and the threaded part the pipe attaches to, egad what does that mean?

There is a nut to tighten this part, but it wouldn’t move and I was hesitant to mess with it until I could get more info (was it attached on the inside of the pump with a nut or did it thread in?). I could not find anything out online but TAD was very knowledgeable and it seemed that it just unscrews and there was a crush washer underneath that I could change. I had probably loosened the connection slightly because of messing with the pipe, great, now to find the right washer. I took off the old one with a bit more confidence and found two places in Miami that had them in stock! They didn’t look too far away on a map so I got a cab. Funny thing about Miami – it is very spread out and google map is great - but check out the scale before taking a cab!!!!!

Anyways with tip it cost me $120.00 ride for a .50 cent part! Yikes, good thing I got a handful of them :( After putting everything back and slowly tightening things up I was finally able to stop the leak!!!

The next morning it was time to tackle the watermaker. It had been installed by the previous owner (but had never actually had a membrane in to run).  I ordered a membrane and a few prefilters for it while in Vero Beach. The membrane was a beast to put in but I finally got it in place. I turned on the pump, which sounded like it worked but no water was moving out of it. I reprimed again, disconnected stuff etc but could not get any output from the pump. I figured the issue must be in the pump as it had been sitting idle for 10 years or so. After watching some “you tube” videos I tore the manifold off the pump and checked all the “check valves”. They didn’t seem to be sealing so I took all 6 apart, cleaned them and when back together they seemed to work. I put everything back in, figured that was the problem – nope. Figured it must need a seal kit to be able to build up the pressure. Phoned around and it would be a few days to get one. One pump repair person said it didn’t sound like that would be the problem and to bring it in so he could test it. Ok, so where was he at? Way down south this time, another long way! After just being stung we decided rent a car for a few days so we could drive there :). I took the pump out and brought it to him, he tested it, but to my surprise it worked fine. He tested it by applying some pressure water into it but in our actual installation it just uses a gravity feed from the thruhull. I talked to the manufacture of the watermaker and he said that this should work but a lot of people feed it water via a pump. I replumbed the system via the A/C pump (which I had just fixed a few weeks ago) and gave it a shot – voila - high pressure water from the pump!!! Remember I had said it was hooked up but never ran………

After everything was hooked up and running things still were not working, the low pressure lines (water output) keep popping off and spewing water everywhere. I hate it when I think I have it fixed but there are still problems….. After a lot of messing about by disconnecting various things the only thing I could think of was the membrane output was somehow reversed. I took the unit out, turned the back cap of the membrane unit 180 degrees and flipped the connections (remember I said that it was hooked up but not running right?) Well that fixed it! Finally water flowed right, I could get the required 800 PSI out of the unit to make water – sweet.

I have also ordered another vacuum gauge as this one was shot and I had to put in a heavier breaker as the motor drew too much current and kept popping the breaker. I have to say I am still a little scared of this thing (800 PSI…), feels like messing with a coiled rattlesnake but so far I have made probably 10 -15 gallons of water. Anyways, both of the above items plus an oil change took 4 days – when does this relaxing stuff start????

We will head over to No Name Harbour where Greg/Debbie, Ken/Marydie and Laurie/Francis from the club arrived yesterday. We are still waiting for the weather to change for the jaunt to the Bahamas.

The picture included was the sunrise this morning from the mooring field.

Dinner Key Marina (Miami)

Finished with the ICW today! We only had a few more bridges to go through and with less traffic on a Monday it was easier than yesterday. We had the lowest bridge to go through at 55’ but with the low tide there was no issues (although still a pucker factor!) Once through the last bridge Biscayne Bay opens up and we did not have to follow a channel and could sail to our destination. We arrived at noon to Dinner Cay where it is $22.00 a night for a mooring (showers, laundry etc) and will stay here until a day or two before leaving for the Bahamas where we will cross the bay to No Name Harbour. I have some boat stuff to do (change oils, stop small fuel leak, start watermaker etc) so a few days here will work well. Some pictures from the Miami skyline are attached.