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Days 13 – 15, July 27th to 29th
Friday, July 27, 2007
I thought I would get away from the mayhem by taking Salty for a long walk – I remembered a Beach not far from here that we went to the last time we were stuck at Nassau Harbour Marina. The street outside the Marina is so busy, it’s crazy and there are virtually little to no sidewalks that make walking a little bit treacherous. We were doing fine until three unleashed dogs flew down the driveway, barking and snarling in a not-so-friendly manner. Cripes, it’s a good thing they were on the other side of the street because the only thing that stopped them from getting to us was the steady stream of cars on that busy street. The park was good and the beach was small and a little dirty, but it was a fun time for Salty. Barry started his day off by phoning and cursing the entire Bahamian electrician community until finally, he was able to track someone down who, of course, said he would be here at 9:00 am and didn’t arrive until 10:00 am. John Morris went from the stern electrical breaker panel to the salon electrical panel – back and forth and back and forth until he said, he “thought” he knew what was wrong but had to leave because he had a plane to catch! Oh for cryin’ out loud. BUT, he knew his friend Kenneth could take over where he left off which was a good thing because he left both electrical panels all pulled apart. Kenneth would pick up the switch that was fried and install it. Well, of course, when Barry finally spoke to Kenneth, he knew nothing of taking over from John and he wouldn’t be able to help out because he too was heading off somewhere on a plane. Obviously, when these guys ever do work, they are making far too much money because they are flying off to God only knows where all the time. Anyway, long story short is that that crew didn’t do a damn thing and Barry spoke to the dock master, Peter to see if he knew of anyone. Apparently, there was a guy working on the other dock who would be able to come and look at it around 5:00 pm but by the time he got here, he was blasted! He said he couldn’t work on it until tomorrow morning which was a good thing because we wouldn’t want him touching it now anyway. So, another wonderful day full of frustration, disappointment and flaring tempers – oh my, boating is such fun. To add to that, our generator started to slowly overheat – slowly start to steam out the stern. Great – can it get any worse? Barry got the hose connected to special cone-shaped rubber fitting that he uses to flush out the generator’s water flow system. That worked! There we go, all fixed up for another night with the generator STILL running with hopes of someone showing up tomorrow. There won’t be too many pictures of these days – what do I take a picture of? The dilapidated Marina or electricians not showing up? I was still in no mood to cook or go out anywhere, so of all things, we decided to get Kentucky Fried Chicken take-out. Barry went up to the mall across the street and you would think that we could get KFC with no problem, right? Wrong! They ran out of CHICKEN! Kentucky Fried Chicken, running out of chicken…. OMG, the sooner we get out of here the better. How bad is that?
Saturday, July 28, 2007
So the wait begins – the telephone calls start and still no one shows up. This will be one ugly day, I can just tell. No one who was supposed to show up, did (surprise). Barry got the name of yet another guy and managed to get him onboard at around 11:00 am. He went through all of the same checks that John Morris did and came up with a completely different reason for our problem. It was the breaker that kept shorting out and so Tony just bypassed that breaker leg and all was fixed! Can you believe that? Of course you can, if you’ve had any dealings with the Bahamian trades. So, our poor generator can finally have a rest after 4 days of very efficient running. What a time this has been, but at least we can get out of Nassau now and get on with our trip. The only good thing about getting stuck here was that we were able to top up our provisions, get all the laundry done and get hooked on Starbuck’s Frapaccino’s. It poured rain most of the day today, so there was really nothing to do after the electrician left but to catch up on emails (at Starbuck’s) and get organized to get the hell out of Dodge tomorrow. Once the rain stopped, the never ending stream of party boats began again – one of them is so loud while it cruises the Harbour, I couldn’t imagine listening to that every day and there are some very expensive mansions here. We met a very nice couple just five slips down from us from Cape Coral – small world. Tom and Lisa are in a 65’ Hatteras named Island Hope and have been in the Bahamas for several weeks, but are on their way home. We all went out to dinner and several cocktails and had the best evening in our entire time in Nassau. Thank God for new friends! They are on their way back to the States tomorrow and we are going South. I know Salty will be glad to get out of here – beside the fact there is no real place to go for a walk or run OR a beach and they didn’t like him going into the pool. Yes, I did let him get into the pool once when we first got here but got into such trouble from a crazy old maid, he didn’t get to go in again. She gave me high hell, telling me that wasn’t allowed in the Bahamas, they have health regulations, blah blah blah. Are you kidding me? My dog is cleaner and healthier than most people on this Island! Anyway, we’re outta’ here…..
Sunday, July 29, 2007
ALRIGHT! We are up at 6:15 am, packed up and off the dock by 6:50 am on our way to the fuel dock. Oh great, there’s another Sailor in a monster Cat who is taking forever to get fueled up, as per usual. We hovered around for what seemed like forever before they left the dock and we were able to get fuel – as we were seriously low due to being on the generator for four days. So, starboard took 187 gallons and port side took 122 gallons for the paltry sum of $1,138.49 – another great deal! And if that isn’t enough, they charge a 3% service charge if you use a credit card. I don’t know, we usually don’t carry around thousands of dollars in our pockets in cash! Ok, we are now on our way to Warderick Wells Cay where we will moor at the Exuma Cays Land & Sea Park. We, again, can’t believe our luck when we cruise out of Nassau Harbour and the water is like glass, just awesome. There are a lot of boats and yachts out today and probably all of them thinking the same thing. I haven’t often seen sailors actually “sailing” – they are usually just putting along at around 8 knots per hour on their little outboard motor, but there were a few out today with sails up; kind of nice to see!
Here we are at the Park with its beautiful aqua water, sandy beaches and Rangers overlooking it all. This is the place where I hate, absolutely hate trying to hook onto the mooring ball line with that freakin’ boat hook because after all, everyone knows I’m “boat hook challenged”. So, here we go – we are assigned to moor ball number 6 – but as we are approaching, I noticed that they have attached small floating balls to the mooring end of the lines (that is attached to the mooring ball), thus allowing the mooring line to float on top of the water and easier to hook on to – bonus! Of course, as my luck would have it, number six does NOT have a little floating ball and the line is, of course, floating below the water. The challenge I have is our bow is so high, coupled with the high railings, that I would have to have a boat hook twice as long as we have to even come close to reaching it. I did manage to hook onto the mooring line but at the top and not at the end of the line which is not where you want to be and the boat hook got stuck, the handle slipped off and there goes the boat hook back under the water with the line. Crap! Plan B. I want to go to the next mooring ball because it has a little floating ball – but oh no, they say we need to go to the next one. Whatever. I don’t know how many times I tried to hook onto the damn thing but finally the Captain yelled “just lasso the bleepin’ thing”. That worked! Why in the world didn’t I think of that? That, at least, allowed Barry to come down from the helm and hook another line through the mooring line the way it’s supposed to be and we’d just retrieve the lasso line later. The Captain had the boat secured and the dingy off in jig time and off he went to rescue his trapped boat hook and lasso line while Salty scoped out the fish off the swim platform. Another boat was coming into moor as Barry was out there and he decided to play good Samaritan and help her! So, he cruised over in the dingy to help them get hooked on but of course, they had that damn little floating ball and hooking it was a breeze – of course it was! We took Salty into the beach where he romped around, swam and explored his new surroundings. We had bbq’d hot dogs for lunch and a huge Caesar salad for dinner – that is one thing you cannot seem to find in abundance here – lettuce. We lounged on the aft deck with a cocktail, turned on the underwater lights and hoped to get a better look at the Yellow tailed snapper swimming around out there. There’s a beautiful big full moon out tonight and finally, life is good – or at least better.
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