It is February 4, 2011 and we are currently anchored at Marsh Harbour. This is the Bahamas' third largest city. It is so big that it even has a traffic light. Before you snicker, be aware that this traffic light is a very important land mark. Everything is so many blocks this way and so many blocks that way from the light. From that perspective, it is very useful.
I have been waiting for a rainy, crappy day to write this blog. It has not happened, so I am doing it in 80F, sunny weather. Call me crazy.
Let me break our recent experiences into historical chunks starting with preparing the R&B Haven for this year's sun and fun in the Sea of Abaco.
Someone said that cruising consists primarily of fixing your boat in exotic locations.
Maybe. I certainly spend a lot of time fixing our boat. But Indiantown Florida? It is not exactly an exotic location. That is where we had stored our boat over the summer and where we had to prepare it to be launched and to be used as our home over the next several months.
I had projected 10 days of work before we went down there and it took 10 days to get the boat ready for the water. The difference between my projections and what actually transpired was that we did a number of things that I had not anticipated and dropped off the list some things that would be really nice to do but were not essential.
Mould was a bigger issue than expected. Unfortunately, I had loosely plugged with screening material, all the through hulls that did not have seacocks. Unfortunately, the deck drain screens plugged solid with debris and the water then backed up in the internal downtubes until it seeped through the bilge pumps into the hull. This provided a ready source of humidity and humidity leads to mould growth. It also leads to corrosion of electrical things. This was a bad mistake and one that I will avoid next year. Because of it, we had to do a lot of extra cleaning. Just to be sure, I have installed a couple of supplementary drains: one in the transom and one at the bottom of the keel so that next year, water will not be able to accumulate.
Our refrigerator also died. Rather than replace it with a dual voltage version, we bought a deeper and taller 120 volt fridge at Lowes. The price difference was substantial ($1500 vs $400) and the the dual voltage fridge always ran on 120 volts anyway since the inverter is always running in order to service the chest freezer. The new fridge seems to use more power, but it is also much larger. On the whole, we (meaning Bev) are pleased.
I had lowered the old refrigerator to the ground using ropes and the crane that is for lifting the dingy onto the roof. I was prepared to do the reverse with the new fridge. After tying the ropes and hooking it to the crane, I went looking for help from neighbouring boats in the boatyard. This really big black guy comes over and he picks up the new fridge, hefts it a few times and says "We don't need all these ropes and things. Why don't I just pass it up (over his head) to someone standing in the boat?" That is exactly what he did. He was certainly a better man than I ever was or even ever dreamed of being.
Life is good when you can get help - especially good help.
Of course, there are some costs. She wanted rewards. She had not previously told me about her Indian heritage and the fact that one of her ancestors was from the Blackfoot tribe.
The biggest error in time to repair estimate concerned the generator. I had "budgeted" 4 hours to install a new exhaust elbow. In fact, it took me 12. I could not just unscrew it. I had to remove the whole exhaust manifold in order to have the space to turn it in a full circle. Of course, it broke into pieces when I put some torque on it when it was still in place in order to loosen it up. In order to remove the exhaust manifold, you have to remove the heat exchanger and the bracket that holds it in place. All of this is in a restricted cubbyhole. If the whole thing was on a workbench, it would be easy. In fact, I had to take the manifold to someone with an oxy-actelyne torch and a 4 foot long pipe wrench in order to separate the elbow from the manifold. But in the end, it all went back together as it should. I then stuck its sea water intake hose into a bucket and, miracle of miracles, it started right up.
I thought this meant that the generator would run without problems this year. Man, was I sucked in!!!
Much of the work was just normal maintenance or undoing the things that we had done to prepare the boat for storage or the possibility of a hurricane.
Reinflating the dingy and installing its outboard.
The work seemed to take forever since we were living on the boat in the boatyard while working on it. Finally, however, it was ready to be launched.
Launch time!!
Yahoo!
Once the boat was in the water, the main engine started right up, just as it had in the boat yard. The generator ran for about 60 seconds and then died, not to be recussitated. Good thing we had the Honda 2000 watt generator as a back-up as it meant that would continue.
While this was going on, Bev was working full time at grocery shopping for essential provisions (wine, beer and food). Then ready or not, there was a weather window approaching where we could cross to the Bahamas and we were set to go.
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