05 May 2012
0123

Been an exciting evening. Ships all over the place! Like a jigsaw puzzle, everyone working around everyone else-then enter one sailboat! All ships though we're very gracious.

Writing like this can be a bit nauseating. Dark outside, roly poly and then this white light from the iPad. Hmmmm! All is well 132nm down, 88 left to go. 8.3 kts and we are sailing.

I need to make a correction with charging the house batteries. Right now, the genset recharges them, but I need to set it up so either the engine or genset will do the trick. Thought I had done that, but nope! Back to the drawing able.

Our friends, Al and Sue McDonald left Georgetown and are headed back to Houston, sorry we won't run in to them while here. Not sure where Jim and Linda Delaney are here, nor where Gina And Bruce are. Hmmm again.

0638
46.35nm out of West End. Although this isn't the farthest we have been offshore-we were further coming across the Gulf of Mexico, this is our first foreign country. Now that is exciting! I actually feel we are cruising!

Sunrise right now. Cumulous clouds on the horizon, and the sun is peeking through a small opening. Kinda like we used to do on stage with our theater productions. We wanted to see what the house was like for the night. The sun this morning is doing the same thing. Beautiful rays of deep reddis-orange. With a peek, the opening is closed, and we have to wait for the overture to begin and the curtain to rise on the new day.

Everything is progressing well and we should pull into the Bahamas RIGHT AT LOW TIDE-another hmmmm. Arsenio Hall would be impressed with how I cam emulate the way he did that!

0730
Our personal best 24 hr run 176.7nm

0740
One adventure after another! There have been unusual hums and just a disquieting feeling over the last 4 hours from the engine, and at 0715 we found out why. The fuel filter clogged. The Racor filter was fine (the primary filter on most boats), but the Gulf Coast filter clogged. It is a roll of toilet paper. There is a fuel suction gauge in the line, and when the engine coughed twice, I shut the engine down. I looked at the suction gauge and it was reading 25psi rather than the usual 8psi. The more it strains to suck fuel (imagine sucking a real thick milkshake through a straw-the more you try to suck, the more suction you have to apply) the higher the pressure the gauge reads, until it starves the engine of fuel. With a milk shake you start using a spoon-with this system, you change a roll of toilet paper ($0.89) not $13.00. Many people think these filters are bizarre and a waste of money, and don't understand why we have this aboard-I say,"It's the ECONOMY stupid!
So it got changed, the Racor was still clean, so we averted another reason why BOAT is an acronym for "Bring On Another Thousand"!

Breakfast was Grape Nuts , bananas, and raisens again at 0800. the sun is shining brightly today. The seas are pretty calm, kinda one foot rollers from the starboard forward quarter. Winds are just a breeze of 6 or 8 knots. Glad we picked this weather window.

                                               Impressive, this is the Gulf Stream today!

As it turned out, of the boats that left in the last 10 days, we were the last to leave and the first to arrive as our friend Lou Gazzale put it. Funny how things work out.

1200
Land is in sight!we are 8.58nm out-1.3hrs to go. Had another interesting lesson a bit ago. I looked down at the instrument panel for the engine, and noticed the water temp and oil pressure gauges had dropped to zero. Sh-t. Went below and the engine was running normally and didn't seem to be too hot.
Thought about it for a few minutes, then realized the ignition switch had been turned off. whew. On a boat with a diesel engine, the ignition switch can be shut off with the engine running, but the owner runs the risk of damaging the instruments and the alternator.

Fortunately all seems to be working fine at this time.

What an adventure.

1345 arrived at The Old Bahamas Bay Resort and Marina. We were put in slip C-30, the tide yesterday was -.75 feet to +3.75 feet. Always interesting to see the tidal changes experienced at various marinas. We
Checked into Customs and Immigration at about 1400 then into the marina. The marina cost was $2.75 per foot or $125.00 (12.50/ft) plus a mandatory $15.00 for water, then $29.50 for electricity. We figured we would be out on the hook for several nights, so we got to run the A/C all night and recharge the batteries.

We straightened up the boat then headed for the pool. Dinner was pork loin with some of or D-I-L, Lindsay's Christmas Gift to us-her pork and steak rub. Renne tried a new sweet potato recipe olive oil, molasses, cinnamon. Also she steamed cauliflower and added cheddar cheese to melt. Fabulous dinner.

I checked the oil in the engine. It was okay. I added coolant to the fresh water system . The genset requires much more work to check, so i chose to leave it. I took a shower then the pump wouldn't empty the pan. I checked the pump in the engine room and realized the heat from the ending had softened the hose both in and out. I also cleaned the filter of all the hair and crud we leave on our bodies.

What I realized was how warm it got in the enclosed engine compartment. Again, Hmmmm! I hate ah-ha moments like that.
But to bed at that point.

JonNe'