Boat Gremlins in Calabash Bay

Karen:

Long Island / Calabash Bay

We got up this morning and went straight to work pulling up the anchor manually. In the end it took about 1hr and though incredibly messy and tiring for Michael, was do-able. Great.

We left at 10.30 and were able to sail most of the 25nm over to Calabash, at times out of sight of any land. We had our rods out and caught 2 more barracuda, blast!! Threw them both back. I had the honour of pulling out the hooks, and threw the first one back, but on the 2nd bigger one, I just didn’t want to grab it. They have large teeth and a really icy stare that gave me the shivers. Michaels turn to throw that one back.

We were blown away by Calabash Bay. Long white sand beach. A small resort at the end of the island. We are in the quiet north end of long island, that has a larger community further south, and an airport with flights 2x per week to Ft Lauderdale. This would be a great place to have people meet us in future!

The next day, we got the bike in the dingy and I loaded my backpack with water, bike tubes and pump, and headed off for the airport to pickup our package of boat parts. It was a 1.5 hr bike ride each way, on a road winding through small settlements and a few shops to get to the airport. Michael drew me a paper map with landmarks I could reference to make sure I was on the right track. When I got to the airport, I spent the next hour in the customs office, on whats app with a customs broker to fill out the necessary paperwork. They were very helpful and I was back on the road back to the boat with our 2 replacement solenoids.

However at this point, we realized that our fridge and freezer were no longer working, and it had already been a day or 2. Also the safety switch for the propane for our stove is showing low voltage and wont work. That, coupled with our Tacometer not working and our Alternator not charging our batteries is pointing to a bigger problem than just the solenoid on the windlass. Michael replaced it only to confirm what we were thinking - that wasn't the problem. Clearly gremlins have taken over our boat and we have electrical issues.

We started reaching out to see if we could find help. No electricians in Georgetown, but lots of advice given to us on the Bahamas Land and Sea Facebook Group. We also reached out to Jamie, the wonderful tech who worked on our boat in Brunswick. The consensus is that its a connection issue, probably with a ground wire.

This also happened to be the day that Christian’s cast could finally come off! We had said Friday, but Thursday night we did it. He pulled off his cast, with his swimsuit already on. He then did a quick dip and jumped off the front of the boat. It was pure joy to finally see him in the water, able to swim and snorkel and fully take part in the beautiful ocean. We made jello to celebrate and Christian just wants to go swimming all the time. He’s back.

We had a good weather window open up. So instead of trouble shooting our electrical issues, we got the anchor up again and headed off to Atwood Harbour. There was rough weather forecasted coming up and thunderstorms that were likely going to miss us. Before we left, I wanted to get some ice for our freezer so we didnt lose all of our food. I contacted a local taxi and was picked up at the resort and taken to the gas station, and back to the road off the beach where we are anchored and Michael waited to dingy me back to shore. All in all, $50USD for 2 bags of ice, but whatcha gonna do.

We have now declared it ‘Meat Fest’ on We Jammin. Luckily I got the BBQ up and running a few days ago.