George Town

It's a windy Saturday and Sunday.  I stayed aboard, downloaded Apps, podcasts and videos from Summer Salt Starlink. 

I updated my blog and log sheets.

Recharged the batteries, performed an oil change, and retightened the shaft packing.  

Had no appetite  

Monday, visited George Town to do laundry and walked through town, finding the BTC office, which had free high-speed wifi and a comfortable couch, a CNN on the big TV.   

Laundry at George town

I bought a lobster tail from a fishmonger.  He would not sell any fish less than 3 LB.  

Norm had my cruising decal

Lobster from fish monger

I filled up the dinghy tank with 2.1 gallons.  I found a piece of wood to let me tilt the outboard up for beaching.  

New block of wood to hold up outboard

Went back to the boat and dinghy to visit Chill n Chat beach  

Tuesday morning, moved the ship to outside Chit n chat beach, did yoga, dealt with the bilge, and bought a Renogy solar panel, which is battery-charging  on up to 5.5 amps

Wednesday, I did yoga again and dinghy through the various hurricane holes.

Thursday, Andy came and replaced the MC4 connectors on the solar panel.  I twisted my back and decided to spend the rest of the day aboard.  

I did a lot of daily Yoga with Anne while at Chat n Chill beach.  Lisa took over on Tuesday and Thursday.  

On Saturday, I walked around George Town, updating my devices at the BTC office, which was closed, but the free guest Internet access was open.

Sunday, I was going to Long Island, but Gavin had two 150-watt flexible solar panels for sale.  I repositioned Bellum, picked up the new panels, and replaced the rigid panel.  

The new panels put out about 10 amps or more.  The old panel put out 4 amps.  I had used banana plugs to connect the solar panel to the Telecom batteries.  When I switched to the new panels, the banana plugs melted!!  I reworked the panels directly to the DC-DC charger output to the Telecom batteries!  Tremendous how much power the solar panels produce  

New solar charger melted my banana plugs

On Monday, I tried to go to Long Island.  See separate blog entry  

Tuesday, I did yoga and tidied up the boat  

Wednesday started with a conversation on the phone, and I sold the rigid panel to a boat from Ottawa.  I wanted to keep the panel, but since it was taking up valuable space on Bellum and he was desperate for an additional one, I offered it to him for $20.  He insisted on giving me $40.  The panel was worth $200

The rest of Wednesday was spent at the beach, playing volleyball, and playing bochi ball.

On Thursday, I went to George Town, walked 5 km to Browns Marine, and hitchhiked back to town. The walk was at a slow pace, taking 90 minutes in 26 degrees.   

I went to BTC to update my laptop and iDevices, then at 2PM I went to the Junkanoo practice. 

On Saturday morning, I did Yoga and went to George Town to do groceries.  In the morning, I noticed the outboard starter cable was frayed.  In the afternoon, I was planning to go to Peace and Plenty and Sand Dollar beach for a bonfire, but the starter cord broke.  I opened her up and discovered the recoil spring had unwound, which made it difficult to put it back together.  No bonfire for me.

Sunday, Norm arrived.  Got outboard working with help from Glen of Silent Running  

Sunday and Monday were spent at Chit n chat.  On Tuesday, we moved the boat to Kidd's Cove near Lake Victoria for provisioning. Norm hurt his back on the rough dinghy ride back to the ship.  We moved to Monument and had drinks at Coconuts.  

To Georgetown

I got up before sunrise, had breakfast, rigged the boat for departure, and departed about 6:30 for an early arrival at 11:30, meeting up with Summer Salt at Stocking Island.

I wanted to arrive early because of strong northerly winds of 15 knots gusting to 23 knots from the North.  

I found a shallow spot to drop 80 feet of rode in 8 feet of water.  If the winds come from the south, I might be grounded.  It should not happen on the weekend.  Keeping an eye on this.  

Backyard Adventure finally shipped the new dinghy floor to Norm.  

I visited Georgetown by dinghy.  It was a long ride.  No acceptable chain or rope at the marine store. 

I found a free wifi to update my iDevices.  

The return dinghy ride back to Bellum across the harbour was risky with the waves.  

Supper aboard Summer Salt

Little Farmer Cay to Rat Cay

I come out to the Exumas Sound via Farmer Cut at 8 AM.  Winds were abeam, so I pulled out the jib and sailed for about 4 hours, followed by an hour and a half of Motoring.  I came back in through Rat Cay cut and anchored off Boysie Cay, just south of Rat Cay. 

It was a beautiful anchorage with a beach, and I was the only boat around.  I was going to change.

My impeller, but the beach was so lovely,

I decided to dinghy to the beach and wash.  On the way back, the tilt mechanism broke.  A nut holding the pivot arm sheared off.  According to Norm, it happened before.  Fortunately, it was not critical, and I was able to dinghy back.  It wouldn't have been a pleasant experience to paddle back.  And nobody was around.  

I returned to Bellum and decided against changing the impeller, given my isolation; if something went wrong, I would be completely alone.  I chatted with Chris and Norm, and it was 5 PM, so I popped a beer.

The sunset was amazing.   

Supper was pork tenderloin on the grill.  

The next morning was so lovely that I decided to spend the day here instead of rushing to Georgetown, where I would stay until Norm's arrival in 17 days.  The only reason to rush was that the weekend would be windy and Georgetown would be much better protected.  

I took it easy in the morning, and in the afternoon, I changed the impeller, which apparently had 1100 hours on it.  I also tightened the shaft packing again.  

A Hunter with a Canadian flag came into my harbour but left after a couple of hours.  

Black Point to Little Farmer Cay

I left Black Point heading to Little Farmer Cay.

I was going to take the VPR route, but I lost my nerves and went out around Harvey Cay and back into Little Farmer Cay.  

Most of the other boats anchored near Kemp Bay. 

I saw the Yacht Club and anchored in the central bay south of the club.  I was pretty much alone.  

I took the dinghy into the Government Dock and walked around. 

I met Danzel, a 62-year-old Bohemian man, who gave me a pomegranate and was selling his art and pomegranates.  I guess he was a pomegranate farmer.  Nice guy.  I didn't buy anything. 

I walked through the island to the Yacht Club.  Nice restaurant and souvenir desk with Little Farmer Yacht Club T-shirts.  The docks were in reasonable shape, but there were no boats there. 

The population of the island was 60 people.  I imagine everyone was a member.  I walked back and bought some pomegranates from Danzel, who had picked them from the tree. 

I returned to the boat and had a Ramen supper. 

Staniel Cay to Black Pont settlement on Great Guana Cay North

Enough with Staniel Cay.  The club was friendly, and the town was mostly under construction. The three grocery stores, however, were pretty sad. 

Let's move on - Southbound.  But some more diesel would be comforting, as there might not be much fresh diesel until Georgetown.  There was a Cat at the fuel dock, taking her time.  I needed to charge the batteries, so I just did circuits for almost half an hour.  The club's Internet was still down.  Finally, I bought 9.5 gallons of diesel for 34 hours.  This comes out to an hour per litre, much of which was spent on battery charging.

I had to go to the Club booth to pay, which sort of explains why the Cat took so long to fuel  

I set off for either Great Guana Cay North or Little Farmer Cay.  Navionics wanted me to take the outside route.  I built a route on Aqua Map to go on the inside,  but it was shallow.  In the end, I improvised and motored around Harvey Cay - a long way around, but not much shallow waters.  It was high tide.  Winds were very light and close to the nose, and I needed to charge the frickin batteries. 

Took the green route

Anchored at Black Point Settlement and went ashore.  Not much to see.  There was a lot of new home construction, some bars, and the yacht club, which was big into racing and had Wi-Fi, mind you, very slow. 

Not tourist at all - a nice change

We walked back to the dinghy and then headed back to the boat for a lovely sunset.