Blog 9 The Six Kinds of Farts or Trivia Night at the Marina

Blog 9

The Six Kinds of Farts

or

Trivia Night at the Marina

After a big meal of Ribs, Potato salad, beans and chocolate kahlua cake prepared by the ladies, we sat around on the shelter deck of Stettler idly passing the time with a contest of Canadian trivia. In rounding things off and in tribute to the bean course we learned that there are six kinds of fart as follows:

There is a Lean Fart,

A Bean Fart,

A Fart Without a Weiner,

A Clean Fart,

A Jean Fart

– and -

A Tearing Asshole Screacher

Thank you Victor for this nugget from our culture.  You know that you can’t put a price tag on culture. By the time stuff like this gets ‘processed’ by culture Nazis, it wouldn’t rhyme, and it the humour component would be laundered. To Victor, thank YOU for a window on reality. This is the stuff that brings people together!!!

Time has passed since we posted the last blog...we departed Bimini and pounded our way south to the cut at Triangle Rock. When we finally arrived at the Cat Cay navigation mark on Great Bahama Bank it was nearly 11:00 am - but it was worth the inconvenience. Up went the sails and away we sailed. We logged 6.5 knots steadily and Sue claims to have carried 7.5 knots for a sustained period. The rail was under for the whole time. The winds subsided somewhat by 2:00 pm and our speed moderated as a result. We did make Russell Light by sunset and slept the sleep of the innocent, on the hook, on the Great Bahama Bank.

We awoke to the sound of a marine diesel engine passing close-by and when I poked my head out of the hatch, I recognized Dom and Lois in their Bayliner 32 just going past. We had not recognized their boat in the dusk as we passed them to anchor for the night.

With no time to waste, we raised anchor and set off for the next stretch. As the engine warmed I was alarmed to note that the temperature gauge was running above normal operating temperatures. Susan had warned me that she could hear the squeal of a belt! That glorious Balmar alternator uses so much horsepower that the single row 3/8” belt cannot deal with it. And I did not follow Joe’ advice and install a switch on the brown wire – so that the belt could get a rest. By 8:00 am I was in the side door to the engine compartment changing the alternator belt. The other boats which left Bimini at the same time as we did were all out in front now! Ah well – no biggie! As we turned south for New Providence Island, we took in our Genoa and let the main hang there. The diesel thundered and on we went – through the Tongue of The Ocean(AKA: TOTO according to the chart...I smell a hint of USNavy-speak here).

Out went the fishing line in the hope of any kind of bite. After a couple of hours, the line was hopelessly wound into a great bloody twist by that cheap crappy spoon that has never caught a darned thing. Over a hundred feet of my new line hopelessly twisted up – even with two swivels!

Experiment ended...

As the sun dropped to the horizon we entered West Bay, on New Providence Island, and dropped anchor right where the plotter told us to. The TOTO crossing was a glorious day. After we anchored Domenic and Lois (Sunshine) came by in their tender and we took a drink in the cockpit with Dave Brubeck’s Greatest Hits playing on the stereo. Life is grand. We relaxed all the next day, just enjoying the protected anchorage and doing small tasks aboard.  Oh, and I rebuilt the toilet. Another glorious event!

Ma Blij d'ar mor

That evening darkness was upon us as the last boat for the night entered harbour. Annie and Michel on Ma Blij d’Ar Mor had arrived from Bimini, having departed a day later than us. They had a water pump failure as they came through the cut in the reef. His plastic muffler melted and after dealing with that he encountered a few other problems.  Luckily we were able to get advice from Alberts Marine. Albert and his daughters were most helpful when we were in Nassau a couple of years ago. This time he could not furnish a wet elbow in the right output diameter. It was looking like a big problem to have the 2” one threaded to take a reducing barb fitting – so he directed us just around the corner to Garths Welding Shop. This place is HARD to find, but luckily –find it we did. Michel was presented with a welded steel copy of his cracked iron casting at a very reasonable price.  And he even stuck to his price....not such a common thing hereabout.

Raft Mates

With all of the mechanical work on Ma Blij we found ourselves just hanging around and enjoying the tranquility of West Bay. During the normal course of social intercourse, Joy and Steve of Meandering Joy told us what they had found on the internet about the community which partly surrounds the bay. The community is a high ticket gated type of place called Lyford Cay, boasting its own mega-yacht marina, a ‘foreign’ school (whatever that might be) and extremely rigorous security for the benefit of the one-hundred homeowners there.

And they have a big scandal going on at this time. Peter Nygard, the Canadian Fashion designer, has bought a three acre lot within the community that occupies the extreme Northwest point of New Providence. Apparently his persistant orgies are bothering some of the neighbours. There is also the allegation that he has illegally dredged enough spoil from around the point to enlarge his property to six acres. We noted the place when we first came into the bay and presumed it was a jungle theme entertainment park.  The music went on until 5:00 am and the huge arrays of coloured LED lights accent the tree houses and the bubbling cauldrons which apparently are hot-tubs.

Anyhow, petitions are being circulated – and it was pointed out to us that Sir Sean Connery one Nygard’s closest neighbours and well known British tax evader (no kidding! – this is how he was described to us) – has signed the petition circulating to put Nygard in his place.

A week and a half pass and we just know that it is time to go. We have seen the sights , we have heard from other cruising companions that they will not be coming, and also from those who went ahead asking if we are still planning to come south – south to George Town. Georgetown is Mecca to about half of Bahamas cruisers and is at least a cut above Marathon, where so many ‘cruisers’ park the boat and while away the winter months.

We had a lovely sail from West Bay to Normans Key in loose company with M’a blij  and at sunset we rafted together off the infamous drug lord’s cay, celebrating a great passage and planning the next hop, a short run to Big Majors Spot – famous around the world for the pigs which swim out to your boat to beg for food, as well as the ‘Thunderball Grotto’ made famous in that James Bond film  of 1965. We spent the afternoon snorkelling with Michel and Annie at the Thunderball Grotto, and I am happy to report that Sailor Sue got inside the grotto this year, unlike the last time. We all enjoyed the fabulous colours of the fish, which congregate here. They are totally tame and tend to formate on the largest swimming form. I had my own school of snapper for a brief moment – mine to lead. I lost my followers when I encountered a school, flock, den, bevy – oh who knows what to call them – of young ladies in bikinis, diving and lolling around in the grotto. I passed through them and sat on the very same ledge where the team of evil villain scuba assassins prepared to deliver their nuclear device to Miami(back in the 1965 movie:’Thunderball), and found myself chatting with the den mother of the young ladies, who commanded from that same ledge – in her own bikini, a leopard skin one. Wow!

Some people like Disney theme parks with Mickey and Goofy – but- just give me the islands every time!

dock at Black Point

Sue and I sailed that afternoon to join Now or Never at Black Point Beach, five mile to the south. M’a Blij  joined us a day later and we did our now-standard raft-up, just like at home on the Saint John River,   and at their home in Brittany, France. The fine people of Black Point Beach were as welcoming as ever and we revisited old haunts from our visit(s?) here with Gary on Adastrelle.

A weather window opened and we planned our departure. We wanted daylight to negotiate Dotham Cut, a channel by which we could leave the Bank and get to the Exuma Sound, an arm of the ocean, for our passage to Great Exuma Island. We knew that low slack tide occurred before sunrise – but we held out hope that the incoming tide would not overpower us if we tried to pass shortly after low slack and after sunrise. Things were looking very good for all three of us, who were struggling under full throttle and only making a little over a knot of forward progress. We had been at full throttle for at least 5 minutes when our engine simply stopped. I threw down the helm and we immediately raised the genoa sail to gain some steerage way. As we sailed past M’a Blij and Now or Never, we called out that we would catch up as soon as we fixed the problem. We might have been able to get out of the inflowing current to get back to our anchorage, but we decided that our best bet would be to simply proceed to the next cut to the South at the bottom of Big Farmer’s Cay, fixing the engine along the way. I was pretty sure that I knew what was wrong with the engine (belt wear as discovered previously - I had hoped it was completely corrected), so it should not take too long to put it back in service.

Well, I was wrong about the engine. Furthermore, I had no idea what caused it to stop. Susan and ‘Auto’ took us southward at 5 knots under sail while I read the service manuals for this Westerbeke W-27 power unit. Finally, in the electrical system schematic drawing I found a likely culprit denoted only as #10. It occupied high amperage space between the ignition key and the starter and had the ability to switch off the electric fuel pump. When I found the piece on the engine it looked like nothing more than a resettable thermal overload protector. There was no written reference to it in any of the manuals, and gently pushing its button seemed to have to effect.

We sailed all the way to Little Farmers Key with no breakthrough solution. Sue and I discussed it and decided that we could not negotiate Galliot Cut without an engine, and also that we probably would only be able to make the anchorage off the end of the airstrip runway under sail, which we remembered to have poor holding. So...back to Black Point we turned. Meanwhile I re-read both manuals from cover to cover. It was an hour later when I gave to concealed button a really hearty twisting squeeze and I felt something yield..

“Sue” I called “try the key”.

“Hot-Darn” the engine turned over. “Now stop cranking and leave the key on for a while.”

Needless to say, we had Sweet Success. As the fuel pump came on and bled the fuel rail.

Should we trust it? Maybe not. So instead of turning around again and going back to Big Farmer’s Cut or Galliot Cut we stayed on course for Dotham Cut, where we passed through on high flood tide with the engine idling, sails drawing full and hitting up to 8.4 knots over the bottom. We were four hours behind our companions – but we were under sail in the deep blue and enjoying the soltitude.

We hailed Now Or Never as we approached Emerald Bay Marina a half hour before sunset and three hours behind the others. Peter gave us our docking instructions and we were tied up in company with our companions in time for ‘sundowners’ on the dock.

Emerald Bay Marina is a bargain stop for cruisers in the George Town area. We arrived just after regatta week, and so we missed being part of the 450 cruising sailboat armada which annually comes here. For a fee of $.50 per foot per night, we had decent WiFi, free laundry and a weekly ‘Happier Hour’ with free rum punch and food. This has got to be the best deal in the Bahamas! No wonder they attract so many mega-yachts! It costs only a hundred bucks a night to tie-up a two-hundred footer.

Sealyon

We tied up just down the dock from a recent neighbour on New Providence Island.  SeaLyon is 212 feet long, with at least 4 decks and probably eats well over a million dollars per year in crew/maintenance/operating costs. It was kind of fun to hobknob with the elite over chicken wings, conch fritters and rum punch. Er captain was a charming gentleman, and the young guest passengers from New Providence added a little life to the place.

Now or Never leaving Emerald Bay

We could have stayed longer, but the blue water beckoned – so we sailed as soon as we took on some stores. It was a dawn departure and, as usual Sailor Sue and I worked all day long on our tan lines. This cruising life can be pretty strenuous.