Blog 5 2017
Election Day
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| the Current Pride in Current Harbour |
Other cruisers have come and gone, but we are still here in Anchor Bay,
hanging on the hook. Easter was a pretty big event here, starting with an
early-morning parade past our boat by the congregation of the Methodist Church
on Palm Sunday. The same congregation got up even earlier and held a dawn
service on the point only a few feet astern of our anchorage. Not only are they
early risers, but they are hardy too. The wind was steady at 23 knots during
the ceremony, and there is no shelter on that point of land.
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| Panacea in Anchor Bay |
A number of fellow cruisers have stayed here during the high
winds. Inevitably they move on when velocities drop to 15 knots, to be replaced
by another batch of cruisers. At this stage of the cruising season, about half
of the sailing community is returning to their nest. The other half are heading
southward. We altered our plans and had hoped to leave for Bimini as soon
as possible in the hope of linking up with co-cruiser Michel on M’Blij
d’amour. After a minor rigging failure, his plans to sail to France with the 2017 ARC Europe rally have been interrupted. He and his crew have concluded
that a rigorous trans-Atlantic crossing would be unwise until a rigger gives
the boat a thorough vetting. I gave him the names of a couple of storage yards
in the Bahamas, neither of which do I have personal experience with.
I have suggested that he store the boat in Florida at our own home boatyard near Green Cove Springs.
I have suggested that he store the boat in Florida at our own home boatyard near Green Cove Springs.
Our new head gasket arrived and had undergone two
stages of torquing with the 'old' (uncalibrated) torque wrench. Our new torque wrench shipped last
week, but the express company in Nassau failed to forward it for several days. "Uh Oh!" we thought, "...maybe they are using Watermaker
Air". That outfit sat on a vital engine part for Adastrelle for three
weeks several years back. It failed to come to us for a whole week after
Xpressit received it. Susan expressed her certainty that someone had stolen it.
The failed gasket appeared to have suffered delamination that
allowed lateral flow of coolant which eventually reached cylinder number three.
The torques ‘felt’ inconsistent on the strip-down, but I can’t be certain that
this was the case as several head bolts had corroded threads from the coolant.
I think we will be removing the head in Florida
and letting a machine shop check it over for flatness. Maybe new head bolts are
a plan too, although I have yet to find a source for these. We really don’t want to keep doing the same project over again
annually. There are still many ‘new’ projects to keep us busy. Trying something new, we ordered a copper spray adhesive and used it on both sides of the new head gasket.
The election is happening here in the family islands on May
10th, and people are running around in yellow tee shirts or red ones or
turquoise ones – depending on party affiliation.
Canadian fashion designer and
millionaire resident of the exclusive Lyford Cay gated community has figured in
election advertising here. Last year he was on the front page of Nassau newspapers – after
refusing to comply with government rules about his excavation of the coral reef
adjoining his property. He baldly declared that he didn’t have to comply
because he had paid Prime Minister Christie graft to have his transgressions on
the matter overlooked.
That particular chicken has come home to roost, with the
front page of the Nassau Tribune seemingly touting Nygard for Prime Minister
with the 'A-Okay' hand symbol of the Progressive Liberal Party.
This after a full
page advertisement in The Punch by a political governance interest group called
‘Transparency in Politics Ltd’ that is self-explanatory.
In an article in the same issue of The Punch, another civil
liberties/good governance interest group was taking the credit for the defeat
of the infamous ‘spy bill’ by which government agencies hoped to ‘legally’ have
access to all private communications in the country. This country has a lively
and vibrant press, and it shows its stuff at election time.
The Bahamas has got full spectrum politics with old-style
campaigning, supposedly with hundred dollar bills rolled-up in flags being
passed out by one candidate (the Police Commissioner), and political scandal
revolving around backroom deals between the government in power and big tycoons
from ‘away’. A number of Bahamian locals on Eleuthera have shared their opinion with us - that the incumbent party is still electable. One argument was essentially: "Yes they do stink, but the other guys were MUCH worse!". Another person could not keep a lid on her enthusiasm for the PNP (the incumbents). I asked about her feelings on graft and corruption. Her response conveys a common feeling among some Bahamians to the effect: "Sure they collect graft. But they share it back with the community. For example, our minister who supposed collected 5 million dollars on the Baha Mar issue, they papers don't tell you the other part. He is a big donor to charities AND he built a playground with his own personal money."
Call me hard to impress, but also I must remind myself that this is not my country. They can run it any way that suits them and I will simply be a spectator.
But hey, legalized marijuana is on the table here just like at home, although from one of the lesser parties, the FNM.
Call me hard to impress, but also I must remind myself that this is not my country. They can run it any way that suits them and I will simply be a spectator.
But hey, legalized marijuana is on the table here just like at home, although from one of the lesser parties, the FNM.
The chronically underemployed have ‘suddenly’ become
employed, performing needed maintenance on public properties. Apparently some of this work is saved up so
that it can be awarded for loyalty to known supporters at election time. Do
they still do this at home?
May 10th is a public holiday in the Bahamas, a
Remembrance Day for four Naval Marines who died in an air attack by Cuban MiG
aircraft that sank their (Bahamian) naval vessel. Perhaps it was the same two Cuban
brothers who have been tried in absentia for shooting down an US Cessna a
couple of few years back as it patrolled the Florida Strait watching for
rafters fleeing Cuba.
If relations EVER actually normalize, those two will be hunted down and
imprisoned.
Other news in The Punch included an item about a Canadian
Marijuana provider. CanaMed Therapeutics has signed a deal with Grand Cayman to supply ‘medical cannabis oils’. Jamaican
marijuana suppliers are ‘incensed’.
Who would have seen that coming? Canada
supplying weed to the Caribbean? This seems...stranger
than fiction.
Today we went over ‘everything’ on the engine. Sue washed
some wine stains out of one of my cool ‘Bahamas’ tee shirts. We were
getting so bored that we ‘almost’ decided to make a water run. While we do have
a water maker on the boat, I have pickled it, because it is more practical in a
place like this to shuttle water from public locations ashore. The turbidity of
the seawater feedstock resulting from wind/waves just blocks things up.
Anyhow, I proposed that we save the water run for tomorrow
so that we would have ‘something’ to do then too.
“Let’s walk around Cupid’s Cay, see if we can find our new
friend Diana’s house, and then maybe drop by Ronnie’s for a drink or two” says
I to Sue.
“Your proposition is accepted….” ….and Sue went looking for
some clothes.
We did our walk and were greeted by at least a dozen locals.
When we arrived at the bar anyone could tell that we were starved for some
culture. I chatted with Nelson, another patron of the bar and then got into a
re-run of Robert DeNiro and Tommy Lee in the one about the witness protection
family from New Jersey who settle in Normandy. I always loved
that movie. The mafia guys are sooooo stereotyped.
Sue and Dr. Seabreeze compared stories about grandchildren.
She was as animated as could be. Dr. Seabreeze and some other ‘locals’
sometimes forget that we are on a boat. When he asked if our grandchildren
would be joining us for the summer, Sue said yes with a lot of enthusiasm.
Sadly she had to tell him that we don’t actually live here, and that the kids
will be with us in New Brunswick.
We are hoping that they will summer here in Eleuthera with us before they leave
the nest, although presently we have no idea how we will make that come to
pass. Dr. Seabreeze is a seventy-six year old guitar playing widower with many
of his children and grand-children living with him. He is a regular feature at
local resorts, performing rhythm and blues long into the night. Like others
regulars at Ronnie’s, he is always fun to ‘catch up’ with. Regarding the
upcoming election, he warned Susan that the PNP, despite the really bad
press that they are getting, inherited a shambles and have done the right thing
again and again. He says they will get his vote.
I started to shiver later that afternoon and checked the
temperature. It was 83.6 degrees F. The seawater is the same temperature. And
we are going north soon? Oh Noooooooo! Every
year, going north is a transition that we happily make, usually
wrapped in sweaters before we get to New
York. Even so, we are looking forward to the time when we
can just stay here (on land). Susan has assured me that I will find enough
‘projects’ so as not to get bored. The people ARE welcoming, and there IS land
that is cheap enough. I hope not to have to build something. I'd rather renovate.
One of the discoveries of the year for us here in Eleuthera
is local honey. This is the finest honey we have ever tasted. No doubt
Bouganvillea and Mango yield different-tasting honey than Clover and Blueberry
plants. The honey from Cape Bald Apiary in Palmetto Point wins first prize from
us. AT $20.00 per kg, it is not competitive with bulk priced honey from Costco,
but it is competitive with similar (half kg) packaged product from the USA, like
Billie Bee.
pic of Honey Bottle
The torque wrench finally showed-up. This is the first time that Xpressit failed to operate smoothly for us, and they are forgiven. A day later, the head has been torqued in 3 more stages to exactly 94 foot-pounds. I am getting weaker as I get older. It took every ounce of energy that I could muster to achieve that amount of pull/push.After warming the engine, I performed an oil change using engine oil that I had stowed in the lazarette last year. Only a few days later was I to read the label on the oil cans.The oil is marketed throughout the Bahamas by Xcel from Florida. I was looking for the API letter code, just to be certain that it was the right stuff. After my initial alarm at the warning, I googled the oil ratings and learned that it was considered suitable for ignition engines built in the nineteen twenties. This is THE common available oil here.
We departed Governor's Harbour in brisk winds that Windfinder promised would back and subside late in the day. We would need four days to get to Florida, so we decided to 'anticipate' the weather window. The sail was rough enough that I chose to steer manually, rather than let the autopilot perform it's see-saw action up and down the waves.
Engine revolutions dropped a few hundred RPMs when we were 10 miles away from Governors Harbour. We smiled at each other and turned downwind for Hatchet Bay. "I knew Panacea wouldn't let us leave Eleuthera without checking in at Hatchet Bay" Susan commented as we relaxed on the new, and gentler, course.
To enter Hatchet Bay under sail requires that the tide be approximately slack or rising. due to the sea state, I was not interested in tacking back and forth along a lee shore to await low slack. Instead, we were rehearsing the several possible scenarios that we might encounter when we tried to buck the outgoing tide while challenging the narrow gorge which is the entrance to the harbour. I figured that the engine could be called upon to start and to run for a while, and when we started it to test this theory, it cheerfully pulled all the way to full throttle. "It's a fuel filter..." said I "...and the pump suction will increase while the flow diminishes. We will turn it on just as we get to the entrance and it 'should' power us in".
Panacea is a nimble steering boat, and it is conceivable that she could perform a tight U-turn in Hatchet Cut without striking a cliff....if everything is perfect.
As we approached the cut, a trawler yacht arrived and shoe-horned himself in front of us. He was maintaining radio silence when I hailed him. Reluctantly, we rolled in our Genoa and started the engine earlier than we had planned. My fingers were going to get a cramp from being crossed for so long.
The engine ran fine, and we entered the harbour to see the trawler yacht racing around the western anchorage, not really trying to anchor. He might have been sounding the depths, but it is hard to know with some people. As we turned for the Western Anchorage so did he, and I watched his bow wave grow. He was going to try to pass us and cut us off - again!
"Not happening...." I said to Susan."...Go to your station on the bow. When the engine dies, we'll drop the hook".
With Susan moving forward, I pushed to full throttle, expecting the engine to cough and slow. In a few moments we hit seven knots and were still increasing our speed when the trawler decided to just take his turn and backed-off. We drove straight to the only mooring ball and anchored. Since the ball was touching the hull, I examined its hardware and noted that someone had recently dove on the mooring and installed a nylon safety bridle on it. I walked forward with the mooring ball and connected or nose bridle to it. Susan had the anchor raised and we moved aft to shut the engine down.
The trawler circled the Western Anchorage, did the same mysterious circling at the Inner Mooring field, and eventually went back to the Western Anchorage. "The farther away, the better - with that bird" I told Sue.
We departed Governor's Harbour in brisk winds that Windfinder promised would back and subside late in the day. We would need four days to get to Florida, so we decided to 'anticipate' the weather window. The sail was rough enough that I chose to steer manually, rather than let the autopilot perform it's see-saw action up and down the waves.
Engine revolutions dropped a few hundred RPMs when we were 10 miles away from Governors Harbour. We smiled at each other and turned downwind for Hatchet Bay. "I knew Panacea wouldn't let us leave Eleuthera without checking in at Hatchet Bay" Susan commented as we relaxed on the new, and gentler, course.
To enter Hatchet Bay under sail requires that the tide be approximately slack or rising. due to the sea state, I was not interested in tacking back and forth along a lee shore to await low slack. Instead, we were rehearsing the several possible scenarios that we might encounter when we tried to buck the outgoing tide while challenging the narrow gorge which is the entrance to the harbour. I figured that the engine could be called upon to start and to run for a while, and when we started it to test this theory, it cheerfully pulled all the way to full throttle. "It's a fuel filter..." said I "...and the pump suction will increase while the flow diminishes. We will turn it on just as we get to the entrance and it 'should' power us in".
Panacea is a nimble steering boat, and it is conceivable that she could perform a tight U-turn in Hatchet Cut without striking a cliff....if everything is perfect.
As we approached the cut, a trawler yacht arrived and shoe-horned himself in front of us. He was maintaining radio silence when I hailed him. Reluctantly, we rolled in our Genoa and started the engine earlier than we had planned. My fingers were going to get a cramp from being crossed for so long.
The engine ran fine, and we entered the harbour to see the trawler yacht racing around the western anchorage, not really trying to anchor. He might have been sounding the depths, but it is hard to know with some people. As we turned for the Western Anchorage so did he, and I watched his bow wave grow. He was going to try to pass us and cut us off - again!
"Not happening...." I said to Susan."...Go to your station on the bow. When the engine dies, we'll drop the hook".
With Susan moving forward, I pushed to full throttle, expecting the engine to cough and slow. In a few moments we hit seven knots and were still increasing our speed when the trawler decided to just take his turn and backed-off. We drove straight to the only mooring ball and anchored. Since the ball was touching the hull, I examined its hardware and noted that someone had recently dove on the mooring and installed a nylon safety bridle on it. I walked forward with the mooring ball and connected or nose bridle to it. Susan had the anchor raised and we moved aft to shut the engine down.
The trawler circled the Western Anchorage, did the same mysterious circling at the Inner Mooring field, and eventually went back to the Western Anchorage. "The farther away, the better - with that bird" I told Sue.
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| Alabaster Bay |
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| Alabaster Bay Beach |
We settled in for the week of waiting, visiting 'Da Spot' for drinks, and hanging out with the crews of boats passing through. We knew that Spira Serpula was coming to Hatchet Bay from facebook. We have enjoyed the company of Bill and Gayle in several places already during this cruising season. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that they were travelling in company with another cat, named Bliss. We probably met in Georgetown in a previous year, and were happy to enjoy the company of Scot and Chris at sundowners aboard Spira Serpula that evening.
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| Hatchet Bay Caves |
A couple of days later, I was able to get a rental car and we trekked through the Western part of Eleuthera, dining at the Shipyard restaurant in Spanish Wells, looking in the marine stores for 'stuff'. It was during our stop at R&B's Chandlery that I found 'our' fuel filter element. I was sure that I had called them! Oh well. Our three elements would be arriving for discountracor.com, maybe tomorrow or the next day, so it's not an issue. I did find lubricating oil that was diesel rated with the latest C-code and bought 5 litres of 40 weight. |
| Snorkeling Fun |
We drove to Gregory Town and looked at lots in the surfers village, where the houses are simple 'camps' and the lots lack public water supply. I wanted to get a feel for what the low-end of the budget spectrum would buy a person. The lot prices here are running at $15,000 for a quarter acre.
The others had their snorkeling gear with them and after visiting the 'cave' (three went in, three would not), we set out in search of Sweetings Pond, said to have a vibrant population of seahorses.
After the greater part of an hour, we found ourselves on the banks of that pond, and after the divers were doing their thing, Sue, Chris and I drove back to Gregory Town to buy some cool refreshments.
Our final stop was at the roadside fruit and veg stand between Hatchet and Rainbow, where we bought expensive produce. He had a bin containing land crabs for sale although no one was interested.
The catamarans left us the next morning, moving on to the Abacos. Mr. Burrows, our friend who graciously shared his workbench when I was in need two years ago, waved us down as we walked back to the dinghy dock. He had a big bunch of bananas and a quart of button tomatoes for us from his garden. And the mangoes are just beginning to come in. Yay!
Susan and I spent another day in the rented car, talking with a real estate agent and looking at fixer-uppers in Rainbow Community and Palmetto Point.
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| Rainbow Bay Public Beach Park |
Fixer-upper TwoViews at Rainbow
We spent part of the day in the older community of Palmetto Point. We had met the new owner of the Runaway Bay Marina at a Friday night fishfry in Governor's Harbour. Seen up close, this could be a good place to tie-up. We plan to check in with him next year for story weather, and experience the place at first hand. We even espied a fixer-upper next to the marina,which would be close to an ideal arrangement. When Susan looked it up on her phone, it was noted to be 'under contract' the phrase that connotes the lengthy process of title conveyance here in the Bahamas. In a word, SOLD!
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| Runaway Bay Docks may need some work |
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| As does the house next door |
We also used the car to restock fuel, to go to a laundramat and to truck water from the public faucet to the dinghy dock. We definitely got our seventy dollars worth for that rental fee. Not an hour after I returned it, Susan had one of those ' oh darn!' moments. This time it was 'Oh darn, we have only a few days worth of propane left".
On Sunday morning we motorsailed out of Hatchet Bay destined for Coral Harbour 72 nautical miles away. We would get propane there.
