George Town

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

Updated blog and log sheets  

Recharged batteries and did 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 an CNN on the big TV   

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

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

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

Tuesday morningI moved the boat to outside chit n chat beach and did yoga and deals of the bilge and bought a Renogy solar panel which battery charging by 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 Tuesday and Thursday  

Saturday I walked 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 and 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 switch to the new panels, the banana plugs melted!!  I reworked the panels directly to the DC-DC charger output to the Telecom batteries!  Amazing how much power the solar panels produces  

Monday I tried to go to Long Island   See separate blog entry  

Tuesday I did yoga and the tidy up the boat  

Wednesday started with a conversation on the Nee and I sold the rigid panel to a boat from Ottawa.  I kinda wanted to keep the panel even though I was not eager to part with it but considering it was taking valuable space on Bellum and he was desperate for an additional panel I offered it to the for $20 and he insisted on giving me 40   The panel was worth 200

The rest of Wednesday was beach, volleyball and bochi ball

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

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

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 bon fire but the starter cord broke.  I opened her up and discovered the recoil spring had unwound and had difficulties putting it back together. No bonfire for me.

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

Sunday and Monday was at chit n chat, Tuesday we moved the boat it Kidd’s cove near Lake Victoria for provisioning   Norm hurt his back on the rough dinghy ride back to the boat.  We moved to Monument and had drinks at Coconuts  

To Georgetown

I got up before sunrise had breakfast and 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 since they were for 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 comes the south, I might be grounded  it should not happen on the weekend.  Keeping an eye on this.  

Backyard Adventure finally shipped the new dingy 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 8am.  Winds were abeam so pulled out the jib and sailed for about 4 hours and an hour and half of Motoring. I came back in through Rat cay cut and anchor 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 nice,

I decided to dingy to the beach and washed. 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 would not have been a nice experience to paddle back. And nobody was around.  

I got back to Bellum and decided not to risk changing the impeller since I was so isolated that if something broke I would be completely alone.  I chatted with Chris and Norm and it was 5pm so I popped a beer.

The sunset was amazing.   

Supper was pork tenderloin on the grille  

The next morning was so nice I decided to spend the day here instead of rushing to Georgetown where I would stay until Norm arrival in 17 days.  The only reason to rush was 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 tightened the shaft packing again.  

A Hunter with a Canadian flag came into my harbour but left after a couple 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 in to Little Farmer Cay.  

Most of the other boats anchored near Kemp Bay. 

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

I took the dingy in to the Government Dock and walked around. 

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

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

The population of the island was 60 persons.  I imagine everyone was a member.  I waked back and bought some pomegranates from Danzel which he picked 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 nice and the town was mostly under construction and the three grocery stores were pretty sad. 

Let’s move on - South bound.  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 and she was taking her time.  I needed to charge the batteries so I just did circuits for almost half hour.  The club Internet was still down.  Finally I bought 9.5 gallons of diesel for 34 hours. Comes out to an hour per liter - much of which was 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.  A lot of new home construction, some bars and the yacht club that was big into racing and had wifi, mind you very slow. 

Not tourist at all - a nice change

Walked back to the dinghy and. me back to the boat for a nice sunset.