Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Day 206

This morning seemed like the vacation I pictured when I first decided to join Grama and Papa on this trip. Grama woke me up because we were going to leave in an hour or so (ok maybe that wasn’t quite what I pictured but nothings perfect...besides me x] ). I got up and Papa had just finished his morning swim and shower since we were alone in the anchorage...which is something I missed in Georgetown there were always boats EVERYWHERE...so I decided to send Papa down stairs and I did a little swim and shower (I would like to make a little note to my mother and others who have made the comment about our hygiene onboard that we do shower regularly and I don’t always put it in the blog). It’s nice being in a secluded cove all alone with the water so clear and calm.

Papa and Grams had breakfast in the cockpit and while laughing at Grama Papa spilt his coffee all down his leg burning himself. After we made sure he was ok Grama couldn’t suppress her laughter anymore and told him that that would teach him to make fun of her :P.

When we got underway it was calm with a nice light wind and the sun was so warm promising us a hot day. We all felt like this is what we signed up for and then I made a big mistake. I commented about how nice this was and weren’t we having fun...and then the engine overheated and we rushed to turn it off and drop the anchor. Papa pulled the aft cabin apart and pulled apart the water intake strainer and found TONS of weeds that we had just picked up. The weeds were all through the hose coming from the intake and it took a bit to clean it up. In unattaching the hose quite a bit of water ran through to the bilge, which isn’t an issue other than I really should clean the bilge today. When all the hoses were reattached and we started up the engine again it was nice that there were no additional problems. We also checked the alternator which too was working. I talked Grama (who was on the helm) through the navigation to get out of the cut (I had been navigating before the engine issue) and then headed below to clean up the mess in the aft cabin and to clean out the bilge...unfortunately I didn’t get very far in cleaning up before I was called topsides to help Papa with the anchor. The winless was acting up so Papa had to pull the anchor up by hand and he asked for some assistance. When we were underway again I went back to the bilge.

Today was soo calm and beautiful that while I was bellow laying on my stomach with my arms and head in the bilge trying to clean it out I didn’t notice we were underway other than the slight vibration from the engine.

When I finished and headed topsides again we were out the cut and Grama and I wanted to put up the main sail and once we completed that we then rolled out the jib. There wasn’t enough wind to make good time and completely sail so we decided to motor-sail.

Just after lunch Papa just glanced at the Link 10 (the display from the alternator) and noticed the alternator had quite again. We stopped the engine (it was nice sailing for a bit =] ) and Papa went to play with the fitting we played with last night. When we started the engine again the alternator kicked in again. I asked Papa how full the batteries were because I noticed we had 4 green bars on the display. He said we were 45amps from being completely full! All on the alternator! It seems silly to be excited about that but after all we went through with this alternator it’s nice to be self sufficient again.

One thing I didn’t mention was how many boats there were out traveling today. Most having left Georgetown this early morning were heading to either Little Farmers or Black Point. There were a couple dozen boats scattered on the horizon and a cloudless sky and the deep purple velvet water of Exuma Sound.

One thing that was brought to my attention yesterday was that there is a rule we live by down here and I haven’t put it into the blog.

“Olde Sailing Ditty”

Water that’s blue is deep and true (40’ +)
As it shades to green, the water gets lean (3’-20’)
White or Yellow will ground a fellow (1’-3’ sand)
If the water is brown, you’ll run hard aground (rocky bar)
If the water is black, you’d better turn back (coral head)

This is soo true and something anyone cruising down here should know. Sometimes whether you’re in 3’-6’ or 1.5’-3’ it’s hard to tell the difference with a sandy bottom. We use to get paranoid when we were traveling in the dingy, not wanting to go aground, but after spending so long down here it becomes easy to identify the depth (although we can misjudge on occasion).

At the moment (2:31pm) we are underway and I am down below with my computer charged for the first time in days so I am trying to get the blog typed out. I think I’ve mentioned this but today is so beautiful out other than the slight hum of the engine it feels like we could be sitting in a little protected cove barely moving rather than motor-sailing up the outside of the Exuma chain in the Exuma sound in 200’+ water.

(part 2)

When we came in the cut we came past a cliff that was called white horses. It took us a while to see the horses formed in the rock but it’s there. Grama was too busy fighting with the helm to look for the horses. Coming through the cut on an outgoing tide was difficult. Not because there was not enough water (at low tide we would have more than enough water) but because the tide flowing out of the cut met the wind and waves coming off the sound and the only way Grama could describe it was it was like sailing through boiling water, the boat was pulled in one direction and then the other. Meanwhile Papa and I have no idea Grama is fighting with the helm because she was doing so well going through in a straight line.

When we got into the Black Point settlement anchorage we found a nice spot to anchor and dropped the anchor, let it settle in and backed down on it and dragged it way out of where we wanted to anchor. So Papa had to haul up the anchor hand over hand because the winless still isn’t working. We tried again only to have the same thing happen...and then we tried again...and then one more time just to make sure it wouldn’t work there. Eventually we got the hook down closer to shore and within hollering distance from Southern Cross.

Once we got everything settled Papa swam over to Southern Cross to invite them for happy hour.

When they came over we heard a lot about the Jumentos and we told them all about Georgetown >_> lol. It was a fun evening and once they left we made up some left overs for dinner and laid around after we were done. We were tired!

Niki

1 comment:

Sammeh said...

i totally imagine you on the beach tanning and having a good time, not fiddling with all the boat stuff and laying on your stomach and fixing oil stuff xD
just saying there darling xD