Will we ever have to leave all this

Week 15   -  Will we ever have to leave all this?

Due to continuing windy conditions, the Bimini Blue Water Marina is fairly full. And about half of the boats in this marina on any given evening are registered in Quebec. We are inevitably hailed in French because our own Panacea displays her Port of Registry, Quebec, on her stern. There is a steady flow of Quebecers through Bimini. My neighbour here tells me that he has been able to spend 6 months of every year in Miami for the past 48 years, going home to the Matapedia Valley only for summers. His motor cruiser is almost new, and the young Quebec couple who left this morning were on the maiden voyage of their brand-new 44 foot cruiser. They were replaced that evening by a young Montreal couple on their Bavaria 44 sailboat.

We are definitely the ‘poor cousins’ with our old boat. This month will see Panaceas 44^th birthday.

 Panacea among the others

We installed our new shift cable on Monday. Because it required us to completely dismantle the binnacle, we had been putting it off. The engine is still idling poorly (due to a too-short rotor, erratic primary voltage, and whatever) but at least we are now able to shift gears from the helm. I even devised a heat shield from aluminum-foil layered with steel wool and encapsulated with an aluminum pie plate. The cable otherwise lays against a hot manifold.

 The anchor windlass restoration continues, with more corroded electric terminals discovered. The windlass now runs. Susan, as Panaceas  ‘winch-wench’, is absolutely delighted. 

She was a slightly less than ‘delighted’ to spend a half-hour in the forward chain locker bolting on our new ‘tipper’ roller for the # 1 anchor. Hopefully the aches and pains acquired there will soon be over.

Our replacement autopilot, bought used off a bulletin board, would not work correctly when I installed it this week. It turned out that the drive belt had been fabricated from a larger (and much stiffer) belt. In addition the new belt housing was slightly undersized – so it appears that we shall have no autopilot until after we arrive in the land of overnight deliveries.

Susan went to the liquor store Tuesday at supper-time to get a bottle of wine and a couple of cans of mix. When she returned she advised me that one of the local ‘boys’ tried to pick her up. Apparently he was pretty ‘saucy’.

western side of the Island

“This wouldn’t have happened if you had been there” she advised. 

I am not sure if that means that I should accompany her on trips to the liquor store in the future or not.  She seems to have enjoyed the experience. She has been chuckling about it all day.

A windstorm has the boats all rocking tonight. Peter and Cathlene of Now or Never, (Pearson 323) met on E-Harmony and they have been cruising together for two seasons.  Their cruising season was nearly wiped out by mechanical issues earlier in the winter.  When they arrived back in the marina early this week, Larry of  Afterwards , (Hatteras 63) – advised me that these two are “live-wires” and “party animals”. Last night the party was mainly over on their dock. Tonight Peter knocked on every boat, inviting one and all to a lobster barbeque and social by the pool.

     

Lobster party

These two organized the whole deal and everyone brought interesting things to eat and drink.  The lobster tails (there were at least 72, and probably more) were provided by fellow Kentucky farmer-cruiser Al. Al, spent a small part of the evening trying to convince Susan that she would be happier with him on his boat. Among his enticements was a promise that he would never send her into his chain locker!  This guy could be tough competition with crazy promises like that!

 “Susan, what was that thump?  Sue?”

She still loves me, despite a nasty bump received while I was ’forcing her to work in the chain locker’. Or maybe she still loves me because of the bump on the head?  Hmmmm.

Al went on to work the rest of the gathering, looking to abscond with a first mate. When I last overheard him on the subject he was offering to do all of the cooking and cleaning and to work the ship solo. He was not specific about what the first mates duties would entail – but then, what the heck is left?

It seems to me that E-Harmony would be a great place for him to start looking. Peter and Cathlene submitted a 300 item personality profile that connected them on E-Harmony. Their story is increasingly common in the cruising fraternity.

Two years ago we met Bev and Mike on Quieequeg , their newly acquired Irwin 39, at Marathon. They too met online over a year before. On the strength of a totally electronic courtship she left Utah and joined Mike on his homebuilt sharpie on the Hudson River. They proceeded to do the Great Lakes, the Mississippi, the Florida Coasts and the Chesapeake before returning to Marathon. When we met them they were selling the sharpie. They had received the Irwin 39 as a distressed gift from a Canadian, because they were “handy at fixing boats” and they were getting it ready to cruise the Carribean.

There have been several other examples of such cruising couples, some of whom simply return to their ‘other’ lives (as in ‘not together’) at the end of the cruising season. One couple whom we met in Boot Key were on their second season under these arrangements. We have met several men cruising solo who really want a cruising mate, and whose spouses have no interest in sailing and will not be cruising with the men.

It is an interesting world.  There is something new around every corner.

Sara-kins, maybe you should have come from Largo on this cruise, just to research an un-mined vein for your online dating (?) service.

The SJPBC Winter Invoice was finally communicated to us. Thanks GG! Much appreciated! Our request to have it forwarded to our new address (i.e. c/o Justin) has apparently fallen on deaf ears.

We are looking forward to the day when an e-mail would come to us to tell us how much we owe, and to which we can respond with an e-transfer of the correct amounts. We haven’t used cheques for several years.

The SJPBC is the one and only holdout to this ‘streamlining’ in our financial world.  

How about this for an idea? (Whoa!- Overload Warning! Aooogah, Aooogah! Here he goes again!). Why don’t we just make a monthly automatic direct (bank account to bank account) payment. The money would simply appear in SJPBC’s bank account in monthly bites that would accumulate to whatever the annual bill totals plus a small ‘cushion’. No trips to bank, no handling of intermediate stages – just the transaction code showing up in the Clubs bank statement as proof of payment!  The cushion would be created large enough to keep ahead of the ‘three lumps’ of the SJPBC billing cycle by maintaining a credit balance at all times.

Gotta love that, huh?

Ah well – I am not getting my hopes up!  Past experience tells me that trying to force a move into the twenty-first century on this will only be interpreted as being ”all about me”.

I will be delivering the ‘coin of the realm’ money in the traditional carpet bag on my return to NB. That has been retro enough for the Power Boat Club over the years and so it will continue! I just thought I would share this parochial taste of home with my general audience.

SJPBC, I love ya. But some of the quirks – ohhh – they are almost unique!

We are looking forward to cruising the Billy Joe B and Jane Ann in NB and NS with all of you again in August and September.

We also look forward to cruising the Panacea next winter with some of our hometown friends as crew.

We would not be down here doing this today, had we not received an invitation from another hometowner. Gary (Adastrelle) has introduced several friends to southern cruising. We too shall do this and look forward to having some visitors from home aboard as we cruise southern waters.

Gary and Adastrelle

The story of Garys invitation that we join him in southern cruising was published a year or two ago. I will re-publish it in next weeks blog. 

Our sail to Bimini was still only the first official sailing trip of our Panacea. The shaking out of glitches and bugs continues.  The second sailing trip will take us to Florida and a NAPA store. As soon as we acquire a rotor that is 1/8” longer than the original brand in our distributor, I expect that we will be able to motor without the periodic shutdowns needed to clean melted plastic off the rotors outer contact area.

Over and out. Panacea clear on six-eight.

week 14- Cruising: boat repair in exotic locations

Week 14 – “Cruising: Boat Repair in Exotic Places”

When in Bimini, be sure to eat at Joe’s .

 They really know how to serve-up conch!

We dined out on our first evening at the dock. The restaurant over at the Bimini Big Game Club makes a good burger, and likewise the deep-fried cracked conch. The service was prompt and the food was prepared just as you ask for it to be. After our meal we wandered down the main lane of Alicetown  

Streets of Alice Town

in a haze of satisfaction.

Mornings are taken slowly. Up at 7:00 or 7:30 with coffee in the cockpit. Read for a while. Do some boat chores. Lunch. Clearly we set a grueling pace!

Ohhhh…and speaking of lunch!

A local fisherman came by asking if we wanted lobster tails. His clarity of speech was left at home and when he said 12 tails for $20 we said okay. I handed him a twenty and he went all serious and then decided to speak clearly: “Forty Dollars!”. I got the nod from Sue and gave him another twenty dollar bill. The bag of lobster tails weighed at least 5 pounds so that was probably all right.

Susan then asked him if he had any other fish, “anything but conch” she specified. We told him we wanted twenty dollars worth of fish. He asked for payment in advance. I told him to get the fish – we would pay upon delivery. He drove away in his boat, returning twenty minutes later with a bag of fresh fillets. He did the mumbly thing again as he passed the bag of fish over. I passed him the twenty dollar bill – and – yup, déjà vu all over again. His speech got clear enough to hear that he watches TV advertising by McDonalds and thinks that he is selling filet cut for FORTY dollars. We said “no way, it is twenty or no sale”.

“You got beer?” he enquired.  “Give me thirty and a beer. What kind of beer you got?”

“Budweiser”, I responded.

“Okay, okay thirty dollars and two beers then”.

I told him that we had a deal. Gave him twenty and two beers and called to Sue to pass me a ten. And (this was bound to happen) she could not find a ten or any small bills at all. I had only larger denominations. The bugger had us again. He acted like he could not understand the concept of making change.  A really good act too!

When he drove away he had forty dollars and two cans of Budweiser in addition to the forty dollars we had paid him previously for the lobster. When I took the fillets below, I realized that we had bought ten pounds of fillets – easily two weeks worth of fish. The lobster took four meals to consume. The fillets are possibly Mahi mahi , and are very thick. We shared one for our evening meal tonight and it was simply too much. With seven more fillets to go I will not be surprised to find fish flakes in my morning yogurt and granola, fish sandwiches for lunch and interesting preparations of FISH for supper. I have always said that I could eat fish every day. Now it is time for me to prove it – right?

out for a stroll

Beaches of Bimini

Daily we are walking the lanes  and beaches of Alice Town, Bailey Town and Porgy Bay, visiting shops and slowly getting the rhythm of this place. 

Resorts world Bimini

Some of the older resorts remain closed and they and a number of homes are noticeable decayed. The development of the new Bimini Bay Resort, Marina and Casino has resulted in spin-off benefits – at least for some.

 There is a lot going on here and some buildings that had been abandoned are receiving new windows and doors

We think that we have found the ultimate cause of our repeated engine stoppages. After repeatedly fooling with carburetion and ignition I gave the engine a rudimentary compression test. Using my thumb as the test instrument, it was immediately apparent that cylinders 1 and 3 had no compression. On close examination, I could see that the exhaust valves were not moving. A syringe containing 50% Marvel Mystery Oil and 50% two-cycle lube oil freed number 3 immediately but number 1 was reluctant. When I leaned on it with a wooden dowel it would cycle fully, but its spring alone was not strong enough to return it to its seat. More oil got it to full range of movement and finally we got compression on all four cylinders! We are going to keep it soaked in Marvel Mystery Oil in the hope of dissolving the rust or carbon buildup which I suspect to inhabits the valve stems.

We added the Marvel Mystery Oil to fuel tank and lube oil as recommended by our engine manual. We will burn a gallon or two of fuel just to keep the valves unstuck before sailing to our summer destination in mid-April. Losing the use of the engine is a major pain in the neck when we have to negotiate narrow, tidal harbour entrances.

Several couples parked around us have been sharing their own ‘Atomic Four’ stories with us. It is kind of fun to hear all of the stories of problems and their sometimes ‘odd’ solutions. When one considers that it is possible to run a more modern engine for its entire service life on the original ignition system, it is like a return to the ‘dark ages’ of the gasoline engine to have to sleuth out the recurrent issues of the older ignition systems. Likewise, in the age of electronic fuel injection, the zenith carburetor stands as a relic of a bygone era, a time in which a puddle of gasoline in the carburetor throat was a sign of that everything is running just fine.

It feels good to figure these things out and make it work again. However, I must confess that I was dreaming about a replacement diesel last night. We will see how this engine treats us for the rest of the season before we make any hasty decisions. Moyer Marine still serves the Atomic Four market, even buying up take-outs and rebuilding them to keep an abundant supply of these relics available.

Susan correctly pointed out that she has yet to see a truly reliable sailboat engine. Two years ago we spent ten days in the Exumas scavenging for old springs to replace a broken one in a Volvo 2000 series plunger type fuel-injection pump. It gave us something to do to alleviate the boredom. Two years before that she was horrified that the ‘ultra-reliable’ Yanmar diesel in the Jane Ann – failed to start at a crucial moment (due to a dead battery). So our tribulations with the Atomic Four ( AKA the Atomic Bomb ) are just ‘sailing as usual’ from her experience.

We shared lunch with cruisers John and Carol ( Arabella, Tartan 34), and Steve ( Lagoon 38) prior to their departure to the Abacos and Spanish Wells. Steve shared an interesting definition of ‘Cruising’ which he found on a cruisers forum. “Cruising: boat repair in exotic locations”. That certainly describes our kind of cruising!

Returning to the boat after a shopping trip for fresh papaya, I elected to take an afternoon nap.  It did not last long.

“Get your clothes on” Susan called down the hatch, “we have company.” These words happily cancelled my nap. We toasted Jim and Judy ( Inzi 2, Hughes 38 ) who just dropped by to announce their departure for the Abacos - early tomorrow.

As some cruisers depart, others arrive. We are probably going to need a small database to keep track.

All of the departures kind of gives us the itch to sail somewhere else too. But for us, it will be all about: “boat repair in exotic Bimini”  until this boat operates smoothly.

Boat repair

Week 13: The Crossing

Week Thirteen – The Crossing     

We departed at 7:00 a.m on Tuesday the 25^th.  We had watered, stowed, un-shipped un-needed items and everything else that we could do. I was a little bit impatient because I had wanted to follow the fishing boats since they know the finer details of the passage to deep water. This was not possible. But Bligh lurks just beneath the surface. I let the other two delay departure until we had taken breakfast together.

Nargis took photos from across the canal. With a cheery wave goodbye, we motored out. I remembered the way and also the soft shoal that can really hang your boat up if you stray from the dredged channel – which we did do. Our grounding was at so oblique an angle that I was able to break free by applying extreme rudder and full power. For the following ten minutes my eyes were riveted to the sonar and the chart plotter- almost regardless of the mangroves which, at times, brushed our rails.

This year we have a laser thermometer.  Susan was taking the engine temperatures after the full-power ungrounding and alerted me to overheating. With visions of probable rust blockages in the marine manifold I changed the readiness rating of the engine from ‘good’ to ‘emergency use only’. We kept the engine on a fast idle and it got us clear of the last navigation mark happily enough. Susan opened the Genoa and took the wheel while I put up the main sail. There was a 5 knot breeze from the Southwest and we were moving up-channel at 3 knots by 7:30 am. A good start! We wanted to use the ‘weather window’ before things changed and this was looking like a pretty good start to what would be a long trip.

 Optimism reigned as we knocked one nautical mile after another.

Two hours later we 'stuck', still looking at the same piece of shoreline due to an unfortunate drop in the winds. Twice we dropped anchor to avoid drifting all the way back to our departure point. We motored briefly – but I did not want to use-up what might be the last short moments of this dear old Atomic 4’s service life. Finally, at 2 pm we had the beginnings of a solid breeze from astern. I rigged the spinnaker pole to the clew of the Genoa and we sailed, goose-winged, and again doing 5 knots, hoping to arrive at the reef  where we planned to anchor by the time darkness fell. Wind speed built to 10 knots by dusk, and as darkness fell we took an unoccupied mooring on the Reef, having 'not-quite' made our day’s objective.

I slept soundly and long.  Susan slept, neither so soundly or so long. She is new to sailing and is still learning which things that are worth worrying about – and to grab sleep when she can. When we slipped the mooring at 6:30 am there was no wind whatsoever and two hours later we were still within 500 feet of it.

we're in the Gulf Stream

 Finally, at two p.m., the predicted southwest winds of “from 8-14 knots” arrived. We were slowly crawling northeast with an average speed of between four and five knots. The forecast continued optimistic, calling for “variable winds”. A weather system approaching Florida from the west was shaping the forecasts which had themselves become ‘variable’. And so we listened often for changes. We decided that we could make Bimini in the dark and wait for dawn before entering port.

I shortened sail before dusk and reefed the genoa. The boat is not balanced without her main but we are sailing shorthanded for such operations as reefing the main (and it only has one reef point) so I just gasketed it to the boom and opened the genoa enough to give helm control for following winds. We arrived off Bimini at 1:30 am and set down to a long night of sailing back and forth off Bimini’s windward shore 4 miles away. There was some freighter traffic to keep us wary – and I briefly contemplated just sailing on to Nassau without stopping. At another time – maybe – but this time our destination is Bimini and we are darned well going to get there.

Bimini at dawn

 Dawn found us in building seas and increasing winds out of the west.  There was no way I was going to try to enter Bimini in this, so we decided to go through the cut at Triangle Rocks and anchor in the lee behind Cat Cay. The advantage of this is that we have done this before with Gary on Adastrelle and know the way.

large rollers

As we fought our way through very large rollers on the way to our approach position, a sailboat arrived with the daylight.  We think that it was Comfortably Numb due to subsequent radio chatter. This guy has obviously approached and entered North Bimini channel before under these conditions. And, I am guessing that his engine is more reliable than ours too. He was tying up at a resort before we were through the cut at Triangle Rocks.

We sailed on to find a quiet anchorage on Great Bahama Bank behind Cat Cay and slept all day. Late in the day the wind has been clocked northerly so we powered up the Atomic-Four and ran for all of 15 minutes before overheating. We managed to make 2 miles before dropping anchor again. I cleaned plugs and all the rest of it, and just happened to look at the anti-freeze reservoir for the engine. I took its temperature with the laser thermometer and found the header tank to be cooler than the overheated engine.

It is at times like these that I don’t know whether to say “ahah”  or “duh”. So I verbalized both ways. The engine was simply down a quart and the overheating problem was resolved. While waiting for the engine to cool, I had already taken off the carburetor and replaced the float needle – based on advice I had stumbled upon in the manual. The engine started and ran much more smoothly.

We made it three miles this time. (Yippee!  L)

South Bimini

 As we anchored for the second time a sailboat came through the Cut at Turtle Rocks at South Bimini and another overtook us and motored through the same Cut. This gave me some confidence that the shallow choke point near this Cut would not prevent our passing. The engine had been running well and then got rougher and eventually stopped. We let it cool and I cleaned all of the plugs, reconfirmed the coolant level and removed the fuel filter and blew through it to confirm easy flow. We re-started and this time we made the anchorage at Dollar Harbour next to the community of Nixon’s Harbour – the only community on South Bimini.

Dropping anchor yet again, the fuel system still checked out okay. The problems now seemed to be intermittent firing of one or two cylinders. There was one fouled plug. I checked the ignition leads and found that one was not making proper contact in its distributor cap socket. I removed the ignition leads from their alignment binders and re-arranged them to eliminate the possibility of inductive losses. This time the engine purred. By this time it was no longer a dead calm and an onshore breeze was again gracing the approaches to North Bimini. Susan plotted us a 1.2 mile course to the entrance and we went with it. By point eight miles the engine was running rough. By the time we entered the channel only 3 cylinders were working and the engine was labouring mightily.

200 yards from our destination

It stopped again – right in the middle of a narrow and busy navigation channel. We had only just made shelter from the onshore winds and waves. The first tie-ups were only 200 yards ahead and here we sat, anchored in a narrow channel that had current running at 2 knots.
Megayachts were passing us closely at 15 minute intervals and sportfishing boats went by more frequently.

We had become a hazard to navigation.

super ferry from Ft Lauderdale

And I was completely out of fresh ideas.

I stared at the engine for at least 20 minutes, petting the wires in the hope that their carbon cores would restore sufficient contact to get us to the anchorage.

It started and it ran, again, and we went to the first available anchorage. It was occupied by a trimaran and I had read that the anchorage was too small for more than on

one or two boats – so we kept going, up the newly dredged channel to the larger anchorage. We chugged along and the 3 mile trip was uneventful, to our great relief. By 2:45 pm we dropped anchor and then hugged and danced around a little bit in sheer joy.

Our day was not yet over. God knows I wanted to lay back for a while but we had now officially entered a foreign country and certain formalities must be met. We hoisted our quarantine flag and, after launching the tender which we had carried on our foredeck, I rowed to the customs office at the nearby Resort World Fisherman’s Village Marina offices, sitting on the vessel papers and our passports.

rowing to sign us in

The Dockmaster’s office advised that I could fill out the forms in their office but that I must report to the Main Customs Office in Alicetown, three miles away. It seems that the satellite Customs office at Resort World exists to facilitate fast turn-arounds for the half dozen or so passenger seaplanes that arrive and depart daily.

My taxi arrived at about four-thirty and my driver, a pleasant young man named Carson, took me first to the Customs office. Carson sat in the lobby while I checked our vessel in to the Bahamas, securing a cruising permit and a fishing license. By the time we had finished it was nearly 5:30. The Customs people were good enough to check and could confirm that Immigration offices were delayed in closing and that if I hurried, they might process me as well.

Carson took me to the van for the one-hundred yard drive to the Immigration Office, and personally took me to the right door and ‘nodded’ me into an office that was about to close.

sunset at Resorts World

When I finally returned to Panacea we sat back at last, Susan with her glass of wine and I with a can of beer watching the parade of arriving megayachts on one side and the glorious sunset on the other. We have arrived! Cheerful greetings in French wafted from the only other sailboat in the anchorage. We later got to better know our neighbours, Jack and JiJi from Montreal.

We waived and I briefly dropped by to greet them before we tucked-in for a well deserved sleep.

Tomorrow we will visit every marina and ‘shop’ for the best deal, so that we can have shore power and water, showers and – hey – a pool, maybe.

MARINA	SLIP (monthly)	ELECTRICITY	WATER	WiFi	POOL/SHOWERS
Fishermans Village	$1.00/ft/day = $1054.00	Extra:  rate not quoted	Extra: rate not quoted	Free: reaches the public anchorage too!	Yes
Bimini Big Game	$500/mo to 50 feet boat length	Extra: $13.00/day	Extra: $15.00/day	Free:	Yes
Blue Water	$500/mo	Extra: $100/mo	Extra: $0.75/KwHr	Free: but weak	Yes
Seacrest	daily $ only			Free	No
Weeche’s	$0.75/ft/day			Free	No
Brown’s	$1.00/ft/day	$0.30/gal	$0.70/kwh		Locked Shut

All day on the hook and it feels so good.
In the afternoon we were graced with the asistance of Jim and Judy ( Inzi 2, Toronto ) and Jack and Jean ( Tawannee 2, Montreal )- to raise  our extremely well-set anchor. They provided subsequent escort to us on our 3 mile trip to the BlueWater Marina and tugged us into our slip after the inevitable engine failure. Six days after we departed our previous port-of-call we were at last tied-up at our destination, sharing drinks and stories with Cruising Friends.  It had been a long one-hundred miles!