Georgetown Passage Day 3 – January 5 and 8, and beyond – Part II
Cruising is….

We left you as we were heading for Georgetown from Normans Cay…

As is the case, usually, the weather is changeable, however, and after
we got under way at about 4:30 PM Thursday January 9, picking our way
through the coral heads at the entrance from the deep-water side, the
wind was nearly calm. The run to Georgetown would be a straight shot,
and we set course for 143 in 5-7 knots, making 3.7 knots in a broad
reach. By 7PM, however, the wind had died to 3-5 knots, moving over
to a beam reach, and we actually picked up speed slightly, making all
of 3.8 knots in 1’ seas.

At 11, however, there was a sudden wind shift, going to 150 at 8 knots
on a starboard tack, and we accelerated to an invigorating 4.5 knots.
At this rate, we might even make Georgetown before dark!! The wind
had been forecast to be more on the order of 10-15, beginning before
dark, but we expected that there must have been some weather
disturbance that delayed the onset, as we were seeing none of it. Of
course, ever changeful, at midnight it backed again, making a danger
of a jibe, so we tacked out 20 degrees on a new heading of 159 in 6-8
knots, moving up to the blazing speed of 4.8 knots. Hm. Maybe
there’s hope?

At 12:40 for the shift change, when Lydia took over, we were rocking
and rolling in following seas in very mild wind. By 4:30, the wind
died completely. Not wanting to venture the tricky entrance, with all
its coral heads, in the dark (which is how we perceived we’d arrive,
at this rate), Lydia woke me and we reluctantly dropped the sails and
fired up Perky, who seems to need a heat exchanger colonic, as he
complained about the heat at 2500 rpm. We backed off to 2150, and all
was well until the wind suddenly picked up about 9AM, when we
enthusiastically raised the sails again.

We’d put out our lines as we left, and just after dawn, we had a very
big fish spool our line. Evidently, the drag had been too loose, and
in the excitement, Lydia hadn’t known how to tighten it, and all her
reeling didn’t slow him down. Ah, well, fishing isn’t entirely free,
and when I got up I spooled on another line from our supplies and made
up another lure. Unfortunately, it apparently was the only fish in
the neighborhood, because we got no further activity in the fishing
department. So far, aside from losing big fish, we’ve had no luck
whatsoever in provisioning by line (our conch gathering having been
very successful earlier).

With the sails up and the wind cooperating, we made the entrance to
Conch Cut at about noon. After picking our way through the coral
heads, we had the anchor down in 11’ of water in Monument Beach by 1PM
on January 8th. We immediately checked out the Internet situation and
had 3 or 4 usable but marginal sites to choose from.

The wind continued to pick up from there, and our trip into shore to
pick up our guests who flew in from Georgia had a very wet return to
the boat, but otherwise our stay at Monument beach was entertaining,
if uneventful. It was a full moon shortly after, and we got some
marvelous pictures of a neighboring boat’s dog and master ashore,
framing the hillside, as the moon rose at dusk. More on our stay in
our next post…


So, back to the title…

Cruising is … … boat repair in exotic locations.

In addition to all the various “1-2-3’s” (the daily small chores that
help keep us ahead of the maintenance curve), we’ve had multiple
failures, some of them more than once, GRRR.

For example, there’s a design flaw in Honda eu2000I generators. We
have one to power our hookah rig (it enables me to dive the boat, and,
we hope, at some point, to visit deeper coral and other visual and
victual sites), and also to charge our batteries when we’ve been
profligate with power usage (chiefly 3 computers!) and the sun and
wind power supply don’t keep up. That design flaw causes starter-cord
failure, and getting to the recoil mechanism requires virtual
disassembly of the generator.

After much searching around via Internet and telephone, I managed to
find a service location that could tell me how to do that, and I got
out the recoil, shortened the cord, and reinstalled it. It wasn’t a
week later when that cord failed, just like the first time (chafe at
about 4” in on the cord), too. GRRRR! So, I replaced the cord.
Rinse, repeat. AGAIN!! Rinse, repeat. Then, I pulled the (third)
cord out of the starter mechanism. GRRRRR!!!

Okay, enough of this. I went to the local everything-store (you
wouldn’t believe what this tiny store has available – nearly
everything other than groceries), Top II Bottom, and bought wire rope
– galvanized multistrand wire – and used that for the pull cord. One
problem though – it’s so much stiffer, that I didn’t believe I could
merely knot the wire due to the space it would take up on the
mechanism. I settled on crimp-on electrical terminals with the ends
cut off. Of course, that proved insufficient, and I pulled the cord
out of the handle on the third start and out of the starter mechanism
on the 4th. I’m getting pretty good at disassembly and reassembly,
not more than about a half-hour start to finish. The last one was to
make a very tight knot in both ends, pulling extra hard to make sure
the “overflow” wouldn’t interfere with the mechanism, and (knock on
wood) that has proven successful.

However, in chatting up several cruisers I saw with similar units
(they are ubiquitous in the anchorages, being much more effective for
the types of electrical needs of those without full-sized generating
plants in their boats than to take up the space and noise and fuel
issues – we removed ours, early on – than the type designed to run air
conditioning and other heavy-duty applications), I learned that my
experience was not unique, with many having shortened their cords
several times before they failed.

So, I did a VHF seminar on the subject of replacement, the chief
difficulty for most being figuring out how to get to the unit.
Based on the mike-clicks I requested, we had perhaps 25 listeners to
that seminar. I did that following the morning net, more, too, on
which in our next posting…

We nearly had a fire (well, not really, but the potential was there)
from our charging system… We’d noted that our shore power connection
at the side of the boat (where you put the monster power cord to bring
household power into the boat), and on the cord itself, seemed somehow
to be flaky, indicating burn potential. Both the cord and the input
showed signs of unusual heat. Then, one day, suddenly, during a
charge cycle, the Honda went to idle (not working very hard any more),
and I went to investigate.

The hot wire connector to the input had melted the connection point,
and the prong fell out with the cord when I removed it. It had been
inadequately wired, and the wire itself had melted through. Ooops…

Without, again, all the gory details, I was able to rewire the
connection to the second shorepower input, disabled when we took out
the air conditioning units early on in our refit. A neighboring
(boats around you in the anchorage are “neighbors”) cruiser, on their
vacation return for skiing, picked up a replacement input cord for the
generator for us in thanks for their internet connection, and all was
well again. We’ll replace the original input when we get back to the
states, where ordering is vastly simpler.

The recoil mechanism on our 15HP (main dinghy motor) gave up, again,
the day before we left. That’s one of my 1-2-3-‘s in the next few
days. Boat repairs in exotic locations – location to be determined…

Louise’ mouse gave up the ghost while my computer was out for repair,
so I loaned her my wireless one – but she went into withdrawal when I
retrieved it once my computer was back. She’s reluctantly, but,
finally, successfully, learned how to use the mousepad on her laptop :
{))

The nagging diesel leak in the engine room was resolved by, first
finding it (complicated by its nearly invisible location, found with
the aid of a flashlight and mirror), and then tightening on the bolt
involved, in itself a bit of a contortionist act. Along the way, our
front-seal leak seems to have resolved itself (recall the departure
from St. Michaels where we forcefully wrapped wire into the bearing
during a fan belt failure), as we’re no longer getting the front-end-
of-the-engine goop, nor any oil in the pan underneath the engine.
Nice to have SOME hiccup cure itself!!

We’ve developed a small leak (maybe an ounce a week) in the fresh
water pump under the sink. As it’s diminished over time, perhaps that
will wait for rebuild time, my tightening all the screws I could see
without removing it having lessened it from an ounce to perhaps a
teaspoon.

Our flag halyard hoist line broke again, this time due to my attempt
at securing the bottom of it to the hoist (helping reduce the amount
of belly in the line during high winds, which made it rub on a shroud)
by a stainless steel ring that chafed through it. I’ll use a rubber
one when I go up the mast to replace it.

One of our rudder hydraulic pistons seems to have an internal seal
that is failing slightly, as, over the course of a week at anchor, it
moves from neutral to all the way over to port. That will likely
involve a rebuild, which I’ll have to investigate when I get to the
states again. I’m hopeful it’s just o-rings which I can replace
myself. The system is otherwise sound, based on the remaining high
pressure in the pressure canister, and no hydraulic fluid leaks being
visible.

The rudderpost packing gland continues to be troublesome, letting more
water through than I’d like. I’ll probably have to remove it on the
next haulout, and try to resolve (with epoxy) the presumed cause,
pitting on the shaft (which I presume abrades the packing). Otherwise
it will be either living with it or having to pull the rudder for
replacement (big bux, and a major mechanical nuisance)…

Back to the subject… The major repair item, of great frustration, was
the computer. Without any of the innumerable failures and rescue
attempts, the sending-off and receiving of it from the vendor tales,
and all the rest of the hair-pulling which accompanied that adventure,
the troubleshooting end result seems (so far, keeping fingers crossed)
to have been an inadequate power supply. It’s a 12V computer, and, at
least for the week or so we’ve had it reinstalled, a new line directly
to the battery, of heavier gauge wire, seems to have solved the
problem. Restoring all the programs is a nuisance, but not a
disaster. It was this – all the experimentation, then failure, then
waiting on both ends for the convoluted and expensive modus of
shipping stuff to and from the Bahamas, plus, then, restoring the
navigation and other programs we rely on – which kept us in Georgetown
for as long as we were. For all that, the stay was marvelous. I’ll
go on (and on, and on :{)) , no doubt) about all that in my next post…

L8R

Skip and Crew