Today, we are holed up in Marsh Harbour. It rained yesterday and is threatening today, so it is a good time to get caught up on laundry, grocery shopping and general maintenance.
This includes a little problem with the water injection exhaust elbow in the ONAN generator. I had notices some salt deposits in the area. Salt spray and 110 volts do not normally make for a healthy combination, so I had done what I could to isolate the problem, to protect sensitive electrical equipment and to help me identify where the leak actually was. Once I had it isolated, I read what Nigel Caulder had to say on the matter. After all, if Bob Sunday recommended his book, it must be good! Caulder showed a picture of an elbow in much worse shape than mine that had been "fixed" with a piece of inner tube and the fix lasted for 200 hours.
I am a little reluctant to try and remove the existing elbow here in Abaco since it will almost certainly be heavily corroded to other exhaust elements and I may need several pieces before I am finished. If I can patch things together for the rest of our cruise, that would be great. Otherwise, I will dissassemble then order parts. That means that we may have no diesel generator for some time. Good thing we have the 2KW Honda as a back-up.
Our neighbour on Celtic Cross happened to have some high temperature silicon seal and a spare bicycle inner tube, so yesterday, I cleaned the elbow as well as I could, applied high temperature silicone seal to all the cracks (there were several) and wrapped it all tightly in inner tube. In the process of cleaning, I discovered that someone else had already coated almost all the cracks in something black (probably JB Weld) so the elbow had been "fixed" before. The exhaust is cooled in manifold before it gets this far. The elbow is also cooled by the sea water injection so we will have to see how well this new "fix" holds. I ran it for an hour today and nothing caught on fire. No exhaust leaked. So far, so good.
As our good friend, Byrne, is fond of quoting, cruising consists mostly of fixing your boat in exotic places. So far, we have been pretty fortunate in not having a lot to fix.
Otherwise, our cruise so far has been pretty typical of 10 days in paradise, except for one thing; we have both been suffering from colds. Bev got hers in Florida and then gave it to me when we first arrived in the Bahamas. There are some gifts that you would rather not receive, but we are both just about over it.
Our passage from Green Turtle to the main cruising area of the Sea of Abaco was via the Dont Rock Passage. We had taken this route before in the Stray Cat, but were a bit nervous that this unmarked channel through the sand bars might have shifted over the last 2 years. As it turned our, the minimum depth we saw (at high tide) was 4.9 feet. We draw 3' 3", so this was as good as infinity. Most boats take the longer passage via the Whale Cut. Both routes can be rough.
Our first stop was at Guana Cay where we encountered the delightful guys, Josh and Andy, in the photo below. They had extra lobsters to give away. We traded: 4 lobster tails for 4 Coors Light. We were both happy with the deal.
I had forgotten just how clear the water can be. It is about 6 feet deep in the photo below, but it looks like if you jumped in, you would break your ankles.
Sunset in Great Guana
Same sunset a few minutes later.
The first evening, we ate lobster on the boat. The second day, we went exploring. This is the beach at Nipper's Bar. There is a really nice coral reef about 150 feet off the shore.
At Nipper's Bar, they serve these incredible rum slushies. One is enough for me!
This is Bev "steeling" herself for a walk on the beach.
More of Nipper's.
No reunion with Nipper's would be complete without a Nipper (rum slushie).
The pool at Nippers. They encourage anyone to come and use it. Of course, you are expected to buy a drink.
After Nippers, we went to the boat to rest up and then went in for the pot luck dinner at Grabbers and more rum slushies. If you don't get Nipped at Nippers, you are likely to get Grabbed at Grabbers. If after one drink at each establishment, you can still walk, you are doing OK.
After Great Guana, we went to Marsh Harbour where we met up with our friends Ian and Sharon from Celtic Cross as well as our friends Chris and Deke from the ChrisDeke. These latter two were the same friends that we met up with in Stuart on our way over.
Whereas we had a delightful experience clearing in at Treasure Cay, Chris and Deke had a bummer of an experience clearing in at Marsh Harbour. Apparently this echoed the experiences of others.
Above, Deke is in the foreground and Ian is blowing the conch in the background.
Ian and Chris on our after deck. The wind was quite strong and so we set up the side screens on the sundeck. You will notice that no one is starving. These were just the appetizers.
Bev and Sharon
After Marsh, we set off to reacquaint ourselves with Hope Town, one of the prettiest towns on the planet.
The famous lighthouse at the entrance to Hope Town
Hope Town Beach
Cutting through from the beach to the streets.
Pretty House in Hope Town
The pastel colours are delightful
After Hope Town, we scooted over to Treasure Cay in order to meet up with our friends that we had met in Green Turtle. Treasure Cay is supposed to have one of the top 10 beaches in the world. They also have a real deal on water: $9.00 for as much as you can take. We took 250 gallons. For $10 per day, you can anchor out and have full access to the facilities of the resort: not a bad deal.
The pool at Treasure.
Canal waterfront at Treasure
I shudder to think what one of these houses would be worth. We talked to people who had just spent $200,000 US for a 750 ft 2 condo.
Business meeting at Treasure
Monkey-business that is.
Treasure at the pool
Bev and Karen
Out for our afternoon exercise by walking the beach at Treasure
Preparations for a wedding on the beach.
Tiesha and Tuk taking a breather
After a couple of enjoyable days at Treasure, we left en masse for Great Guana in order to partake of the pot luck again at Grabbers. The tri below, was owned by a Canadian couple who were looking at settling into Treasure in a pretty serious manner. If someone wanted their tri, there would probably be a real deal here.
Beth from Coyote and Bev while we were out for more exercise.
The inner harbour at Great Guana. It is pretty shallow here.
Dinner at Grabbers.
Later on there actually was food and lots of it.
Hootenany time at Grabbers
Scotty on the gut bucket.
The next morning, I did the angel of mercy thing by showing Josh and Andy (of lobster fame) how to hot wire their ignition. Their key had broken off and so I showed them what to jump to what to get going again.
In the mean time, a lobster snorkling hunt was organized for one of the nearby cays. I found that my cold was still bothering me, making me short of breath and giving me vertigo when I was upside down. I did not see any lobster, but did find a 3 1/2 foot shark lurking in a cave.
After Great Guana, we headed for White Sound, anchoring at Hope Town again, and then dingying over.
Walking the beach at White Sound.
There is no barrier reef here so the surf can be spectacular.
Not so today, however.
Bev at the beach.
Bev at the beach
The beach at White Sound.
We were hoping to find sea glass, but it would seem that others beat us to it.
More White Sound Beach
House in White Sound. Love the colours.
The sky is supposed to clear up tomorrow. There is no rain in the forecast for the next week or so. Today, the high was about 21, but later in the week it should be in the 24 to 25 region. In the sunshine, this is plenty warm for me and I like the cool evenings for better sleeping.
I am not sure where we will go over the next few days, what we will do or who we will do it with.
I just know it is going to be fun.
Too bad you are not all here.
Until the next cloudy/rainy day when I have time to actually write,
Rob
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