Whoa!! No Way to Steer!!……… almost

These last few days have been going by kind of fast…because of the problems.

Everything was fine a few days ago when I went to bed. When I got up I found that my global positioning unit was not sending a signal to all of the electronic components that require it’s signal. So I shut everything down and restarted it…problem solved, I’m a genius!!

So I leave the little bay I’m in and decide to go exploring down the coast about 40 miles. I make it to a little cove called Rainbow Bay. Nice area where I can see people fishing from the cliffs next to the beach. As I come into the bay, I find that I am the only boat there….Yes, just the way I like it. There is a group of four elderly people in the water near the beach in about 4’ of water. They all had drinks in their hands, clearly enjoying the beautiful day that was getting near its end. I steer the boat into about 9’ of water and let go the anchor, settling in about 400’ away from the quite water party of bathers.

I make a drink and sit back in the cockpit and enjoy the sunset, all is well. The next morning I get up expecting to explore further down the coast, but when I get ready leave and turn on the boat’s many marine electronics the GPS stopped working again. This time the restart didn’t fix it. So I start to see if I can trace down the problem. I was heavily distressed to find millions of miles of wires crisscrossing all over in an almost inaccessible space of 4’ x 2’. After poking around about an hour I decide that I should look for some outside advice, like the product techs. So I decide to head down the coast to find a Internet signal, well after about three hours of sailing with no help from my electronics. I decided to pull into a big protected bay with a huge beautiful beach with no other boats and no people on the beach….Nice!

So I spend the rest of the day tearing the boat apart trying to fix the problem. No Luck! I put the boat back together and make another drink and watch the sun go down thinking of my next move.

I get up the next morning and decide I need real local help with this, so I figure I’ll go back to Spanish Wells and see if there is somebody there that can help. It takes about 7 hours of motor sailing to get there. I grab a mooring ball and lower the dingy and go to shore. I found one guy there that runs an electronics shop, apparently he is the only guy on this island I can hope to get any answers from. We talk about my problem and he says the problem is 9 times out of ten the wiring connections go bad. So back to the boat I go armed with this new information and his description of how he would tackle the problem.

I tear the boat apart again but still I can’t find the culprit. Next step, check the internet. I find that a few people have had the same problem as me and it turns out that the gps antenna needed to be replaced. After a few calls I find one in Nassau. So I am heading there on Monday to pick it up and install it. Price for the unit in the States $325, price in the Bahamas $525. I’m sure shipping is part of that, but ouch!

The defective GPS makes it so that you don’t know exactly where you are, kind of important dealing with reefs and rocks, also a big deal is that you don’t have autopilot. I have found that after having it for two months it is a luxury that I don’t want to do with out.

Mom waiting for a big King Salmon on the Kenai River in Alaska. Good Luck!! Catch a big one!!

Dad and Tony catch their limits of Silver Salmon on the Kenai. I’m sure one of you guys has a proxy.

My mom, looking ready to take on anything. This photo might have been taken in Germany or Luxemburg.

Dad in the Air Force, with one of his buddies.

Water & Poop

I guess someone might want to know how we take on water and dispose of used water (toilet waste), so here is an entry about that.

We could pull into a marine and pay about 50 cents per gallon (in Bahamas) to fill up our two fresh water tanks but we don’t have to because we have a water maker installed on the boat. You might think that we are saving about $75.00 dollars to fill up our two 75 gallon tanks, but in reality a water maker can cost over five thousand dollars installed on this boat. We are gold platters (spoiled).

When making water, the seawater enters the boat via a thru hull fitting below the waterline. It goes through a small strainer with a metal mesh screen.

After that it goes through a another bigger filter before entering the two priming pumps. These two pumps push the seawater at about 60 psi into a bigger pump. The bigger pump is a piston type pump that increases the seawater pressure up to 600 psi. Yes, that is a lot of pressure.

The high pressure seawater is then forced through a special 36 inch membrane that filters out all the salt and lets through only fresh water. This filter membrane operates on a 10:1 ratio, that means that for every 10 gallons of seawater introduced it produces 1 gallon of fresh water.

The fresh water is diverted into one of our two holding tanks (which ever one is selected). The remaining seawater is pumped over board through a different thru hull fitting.

 

Each one of the 75 gallon fresh water tanks are built into the bottom of each of the hulls on our catamaran.

In the picture below you can see the water pouring into the built in tank from the water maker.

The water maker makes about 12 gallons of fresh water per hour and it takes about 6-7 hours to fill up an empty tank. The maker uses our 12 volt batteries as power and after the six hours I will have to recharge  the 6 “house batteries” with the diesel generator. I have found that I need to treat the fresh water with bleach so things don’t start growing in the water tanks. I add 1 tablespoon of bleach per 30 gallons.

The tank that holds the toilet waste must not be dumped close to shore. You have to be three miles off shore to empty your tanks or you can have them pumped out at a marina. Here in the Bahamas there aren’t any pump out stations on many of the islands so the waste makes it way back into the ocean.

Here aboard this boat we are water pigs. We have a hot water tank that is heated every day from the generator which at the same time charges our batteries and allows use to use the electric skillet to cook breakfast. So after breakfast we take showers. I’ve got it down to about 3-4 gallons per shower. Not Bad. Turn water on to wet down, shut off, soap up, turn water on to rinse off. I’m glad that I’m not on one of these boats out here that have to ration their water, I hope this water maker keeps pumping out the goods!

Gas @ Potatoes

Well I woke up in Royal Island and wasn’t in the best mood. I’ve come to the conclusion that I need an alarm clock. I thought I wouldn’t need one but there actually is a reason you might have to get up earlier than when your body tells you to even if you dont have a job. Any way last night I’m getting up every hour or so to check my watch. Why? Because the weather show comes on at 6:30am and I am addicted. Wind and waves matter a lot when you live on a boat. You might want to know when that next squall is predicted to come through your area at 3am. Any who……Juliette, please bring back a battery operated travel alarm clock. Why battery?, because no 110 volt at night.

I woke up tired and missed the first half of the general forecast show, but I was able to fill in the missing pieces by listening to individual reports that he gives to people who pay him a fee. After his general forecast he takes call ins on the radio from these customers who want more specific weather reports for the particular boating plans.

After the weather I decided to go to Spanish Wells to Fill up the fuel tanks. I left the protected anchorage and was heading directly into a 13 knot wind. It was only about 5 miles away which would normally take about a hour with the engines, but i decided to zig zag with the sails. Sailors call it tacking, but I am not a sailor, just a sailboat owner. I zig zagged with the fishing lines out….no luck!! Drat.

The 1 hour boat ride turned into a 3 hour zig zag ride. That was okay because I didn’t have anything else to do today. When I got to the gas station I got some help docking from the two fuel attendants. Both of them were very nice and after I was done fueling I went into the general store to pay, I picked up a bag of potatoes and a onion and paid for my 50 gallons of diesel.

I sailed down wind back to my anchorage that took about 2 hours. I just put out a small scrap of sail and coasted back at about 2 knots (I had a few hours to kill). Oh yeah, on the way there I was doing 5-6 knots Zig zagging.

On the way back a fishing boat towing 3 smaller boats is heading out to the fishing grounds. The smaller boats go collect lobster or conch and return them to the mother boat.

Fish On!

Today I missed the morning weather forecast that starts at 6:30am on the ssb radio, but that’s ok because I’ve got the past forecast that cover today. I’m moving the boat today, I’m leaving Nassau heading 40 miles north east across some deep water over to Royal Island. At 8:30am I start the engines, pull up the main sail, get clearance to leave the harbor, and pull the anchor. Nassau Harbor is very busy with sailboats, trawlers, party boats, tugs, container ships, and cruise ships. All the boats are suppose to check in with Nassau Harbor Control to ask for permission to enter, exit, or move about in the harbor. Its all very simple you just call them up on the vhf radio on channel 16, they ask you to switch to channel 9, they want to know the name of the boat with the coast guard documentation number and where you are going.

The trip is about six hours. After I clear the island I let out my two fishing lines. I’m on a very long dry run with my fishing luck, the last fish I caught was a very tasty dolphin fish which I hooked about a month ago. Once I get the poles set up in the rod holders I put out the two remaining sails. The front sail is the Genoa and is the boat’s largest sail, the last sail I put out is the smallest of the boat’s sail called the stay sail.

The wind is directly of the starboard beam (side of the boat). Wind is running at 15 knots and the seas are at 2-3 feet. Wow, this has to be the best day of sailing I’ve experienced yet. The ocean is deep at 6000 feet, but I’ve got almost no ocean swell and the small waves are because there is a reef a few miles away at the same direction from where the wind is coming from and also over the past two days there has been no wind in the area. I shut the engines off and the boat is moving along real nice at 6.5 to 7 knots and the ride is very comfortable. The ride over is great, no boat traffic to worry about, but also no fish. I was really hoping to catch a tuna or a dolphin fish in the deep water….Nothing……until…….

As I’m nearing Royal Island the water is getting shallower at about 100 feet. Then wham! One of the rods bends over and the line is getting striped off. Fish On!! Yes.

I grab the rod and realize the fish is not the big tuna I was hoping for and It comes in pretty fast. Barracuda, Not the fish I was looking for. The guide books say not to eat this fish because it can make you sick. Apparently it eats reef fish that can carry a toxin, then the toxin builds up in it. So I let it go.

I put the pole away because I’m nearing my destination. Then….Wham!! The other rod bends over and starts taking line. Yes!! I grab the pole and quickly realize that this is no record breaker. I reel him in and find that I’ve hooked a Mutton Snapper. We’ve caught this fish before and it was very tasty so I’m happy.

I arrive at Royal island and put the anchor down in a very protected inlet. Next job is to clean the fish, I’ve discovered that when I haven’t had fresh fish in awhile I try to be very careful with my filet skills. I skin the fish and try to get all the meat I can off the bones.

I cook the fish up, turn off the skillet, and grab a beer and go sit in the cockpit for a nice cold one and a cigar. Very nice day, wish my wife was here to enjoy it with me.

Nassau unsafe, What??

Well the unaware are just happier. I’ve been here in the Bahamas for over two months and all the guide books I’ve read all say about the same thing, “The criminals live in Nassau”.

I’ve spent much time on the outer islands and everyone there also says, “Nassau is not safe”. So when I got here in Nassau about six days ago, I was concerned about my stuff. We anchored on the north side of the island off Cable Beach. We would take the dingy ashore and just leave it on the public beach. When we returned hours later I was not quite sure the dingy would always be there, but it always was and the locals I met on my walks were all very nice and they answered all my “tourist questions” with much patience and always an “enjoy your stay”.

I thought I found a nice bay to anchor in. Every day I was amazed that I was the only boat here at anchor in this big bay, after all, there are many boats coming to Nassau every day and you would think at least one of them would find out about my little slice of paradise. Instead they all would pile up inside the busy harbor 2 miles east of my anchorage. Do they know something I don’t or are they just like most people that just like to herd together?

This morning I was enjoying my day on the boat thinking that I might just stay here at this anchorage, after all I had a very nice beach here, I had Internet, and all the stores I might need were all within walking distance………..Then I had a visitor.

It wasn’t some low life criminal coming to steal my stuff, but instead it was the “Harbor Patrol”. Two very nice professional men in uniform had come by to check up on me. The conversation goes something like this,

him: Hello, how are you?

me: I’m good. how are you?

him: Fine. How long are you here for?

me: Well I’ve been here a couple of days and I might stay a few more. Is this a restricted anchorage?

him: No, not at all, but you might consider moving into the harbor for your own safety.

me: Is that weather related or something else? (I knew the weather was going to be okay for the next couple of days)

him: Both. The wind and waves could build from the north and your the only boat here. If somebody was to board you a night there isn’t anybody around to help you.

So after a little though, I moved to the harbor today. The harbor patrol man looked like a seasoned professional, so I took his advice. After looking around at my new anchorage I’m not so sure this place is any better, just a few more people to hear my screams and maybe its easier for the police to take theft reports, after all the police station is a lot closer.

Tomorrow I am heading to Royal Island about 40 miles east of here, back to the sticks, were I belong.

my new backyard

Below are the pictures of my old back yard. I’m not so sure that maybe I was the riff-raff they were trying to tell to “move along”.

What to do?

Juliette departed yesterday. She is going back to the states to do some work for two weeks so here I am, in complete charge of things………kind of boring in paradise, I mean we have been joined at the hip for the last couple of months, this boat has about as much room as a big living room. I’m sure I’ll be able to adjust.

Well I woke up to nice surprise. The wind was gone and the water in the bay is like glass.

Nice public beach in the back yard. The only bad thing about this anchorage is the jet skiers. The beach has a few hotels on it and the guest come out and some decide to rent a jet ski for 1/2 an hour. Of course what is the first thing you do when you hit the throttle?….. You go over and check out the only boat in the bay. Me!

Its not that bad, I know I can move anytime, but its kind of nice here after being out in the sticks for the past month. I’ve got a nice beach to land the dingy on and plenty of places to go explore (stores) and Wi-Fi.

This morning I decided to check the bilges. Seems I always have a little water in each one. I think it comes in from the bilge drain hose in big seas. I might have to rig up some kind of backflow preventer.

These pictures were taken after I removed about 3/4 inch of water.

Next I checked the oil in the engines and generator. I had to add one quart between all of them. Not Bad.

Oops, letting it get a little to low. Believe it or not, that little 30hp diesel only needs 3 quarts of oil to fill it up after a change. Nice!

Next, I cleaned out the raw water strainer for the generator. Sea water gets sucked in from below the boat to keep the motor cool, but sometimes crap gets sucked in as well. (Once I found a small crab in there).