The Roosevelt theater is closed and abandoned, but the wall has the happiest “Welcome to Miami Beach” mural.  We were happy to be there, too.

The red line is our course from the south end of Key Biscayne, across the Gulf Stream, around the north end of Bimini, and across the shallow banks to Morgan’s Bluff.  The green line shows our plan to sail to New Providence’s West Bay, anchor there for the night, then sail to Highborne Cay the next morning.  The plan did not happen.

The big piece of metal is the coupling flange that fell off our transmission’s output shaft.  It is about 4 inches across.  The little thing is the nut that should have held it on the shaft.  It unscrewed.

Our chart plotter draws what it calls a “breadcrumb” that shows where we have gone.  Here we are leaving Morgan’s Bluff under sail on the zigzag course tacking back and forth as we sail into the wind.  Then, the straight part is where the transmission temporarily re-learned how to do forward letting us motor the rest of the way to New Providence Island.  The crossed lines of the cursor show where we anchored for the night.  The numbers are the water depth in meters.  2000 meters is about a mile and a quarter.

This picture from our chart plotter shows our route the next day as we sailed to Palm Cay Marina.  If we were to zoom in on the chart plotter, you would see many, many more little crosses indicating coral heads and rocks.

Sailing into Palm Cay Marina with an engine that would only do neutral and reverse, the lady on the radio said, “Go to pier 3, slip 15.”  One red arrow shows the route; the other shows our boat in its slip.  It is not something you would want to do.

Safely in our slip, and after a couple of drinks, we could appreciate our surroundings.  The marina is great.  The grounds crew works constantly keeping it that way.

Hello from Palm Cay Marina on New Providence Island in the Bahamas.

Yes, we are in the Bahamas in a marina.  It’s not our usual thing, but here we are.  The transmission on our engine failed, so here we wait for it to be repaired.

Bill and I spent two weeks in Miami Beach shopping, eating out, getting our second shingles shot, and just walking around in both Miami Beach and in midtown Miami.  Bill’s longest expedition was a solo Uber trip to the Sam’s Club in Doral to get a battery to replace the boat battery that failed on the trip down.  Our longest expedition together was a bus and train trip to Coconut Grove to visit the West Marine store where Bill wondered around for an hour looking at boat stuff.  We then walked to Home Depot where he bought some stainless steel thingies.  Hot from the walking in the sun, we had a nice lunch at Berries Restaurant… not outside on the porch with the tourists, but inside with the much-appreciated air-conditioned coolness.  Before returning to our boat, we checked out the Dinner Key Mooring Field, but decided that our spot anchored off Miami Beach was both better, and free.

It takes us two and a half to three days to travel from Miami to the Exumas.  A suitable window was to open on February 28.  It was boat stocking time.  Bill filled the boat’s fuel tank to the brim, tied three 5 gal jugs of diesel and a jug of gasoline on the deck, topped off the water tanks, and went to buy tonic water and beer.  He dropped me off at the police dock to walk to Publix to buy food.  When he came back to pick me up and was stacking my bags on our hand cart, he grabbed his back pocket and said, “Darn (not really), I’ve lost my wallet.”  He had.  Gone were his credit cards, driver’s license, medical cards, some cash, his bus pass, and other things.  Oh well.  Just cancel the credit cards and go to the Bahamas.

We motored south through our last draw bridge on the Intracoastal Waterway, past Miami, and onward to the south end of Key Biscayne to anchor outside No Name Harbor for a peaceful evening before our coming early morning departure.

We were up at 3, the anchor was up at 4, and we were underway in the dark heading for Morgan’s Bluff on Andros Island.  The trip to Morgan’s Bluff was expected to take about thirty hours.  It was a little rolly in the Gulf Stream with a light NE breeze.  By the time we were in sight of Bimini, the sea calmed down, the wind picked up, and we turned the engine off and sailed across the Great Bahama Bank.   I think this was our fastest trip across the Gulf Stream.

During the night, the wind went ahead of us and pretty much died.  Bill started the engine about 2am.  We saw the lights of boats both coming our way and going the other way.  While Bill was on watch, he had a bit of a bother with a ship that did not seem to see our lights.  Bill shone a flashlight on our sails.  The ship lit us up with its searchlight and turned slightly to the right to avoid us.

We arrived at Morgan’s Bluff around 9:00 am.  There was just one other sailboat anchored in the harbor.  There was a cargo ship tied up to the dock and unloading, so the customs and immigration people were already in Morgan’s Bluff.  We launched the dinghy, and Bill went ashore to clear us into the Bahamas.  It did not take him long.  We paid for our cruising permit and were given permission to stay in the Bahamas until June 30.

We put the dinghy and its motor back on the deck, raised the anchor, and departed on what we expected to be a 30 mile sail to New Providence Island where we would anchor for the night.  We motored out of the harbor and raised the sails.  I noticed that the engine did not seem to be pushing us.  A quick check showed that we could not motor either forward or backward.  This time both of us said, “Darn" (again, not really).  We sailed back into the harbor and anchored under sail.  It was tense.  There was a lot to do in a short time, and only one chance to get it right, and we did.

In the engine compartment, Bill discovered that the forward flange of the coupling between the transmission and the propeller shaft had slipped off the transmission’s output shaft.  The engine and the propeller were no longer hooked together.  Checking his books, Bill found that the flange was held to the transmission with a big nut that needed two special tools to tighten it securely.  Well, guess what we didn’t have.  In addition, without the flange in place all the oil had drained out of the transmission.  Great.  Bill called the Yanmar dealer in Nassau.  A mechanic named Brad said to smear blue Loctite (a special nut glue that we luckily did have) on the threads then tighten the nut as well as we could.  Bill did, then he refilled the transmission.  During the hours he worked, other boats came into the harbor and anchored around us.  We tested the transmission in reverse by pulling on the anchor line with the reversing engine.  It worked.  We were scared to try forward.  The other anchored boats were too close.

We could not stay in Morgan’s Bluff.  The wind was forecast to change to north in a few days, and the harbor, open to the north, would not be safe.  Besides, there was no one in Morgan’s Bluff to work on our problem.  So, we slept.  In the morning we raised the anchor and tried to motor out of the harbor.  We had no forward.  We re-anchored and thought about it.  We could not stay; we had to leave.  Our best option was to sail to New Providence Island.  The harbor at Nassau on the north side of the island would be too crowded, unfamiliar, and current ridden for us to safely enter, so Palm Cay Marina on the southeast corner where we fixed our fuel tank last year would be our best place to go.  Bill raised our sails, I steered the boat, we threaded our way around the other anchored boats, and we left Morgan’s Bluff behind.

The wind outside the harbor was light and coming in the exact direction that we wanted to go.  To sail into the wind, we had to tack.  We sailed first to the left of the wind, then we turned and sailed to the right of the wind.  It meant that the 30 mile straight line trip would be a 50 mile zigzag trip, and with the light wind it would be 3 in the morning before we would be in water shallow enough to anchor and sleep.  Oh well, we would do what we needed to do.  From time to time we started the engine and tried to motor.  For whatever reason, by late afternoon our transmission re-learned how to do forward.  We dropped the sails and motored the rest of the way to the southwest corner of New Providence where we anchored in the dark.

In the morning we tried the motor, but the transmission had once again forgotten forward.  So, it was sailing time again.  We had rain, rocks, and coral heads to contend with as we first tacked then later sailed as close to the wind as we could to the Palm Cay Marina entrance channel.  We lowered the sails, turned on the engine in case we needed reverse, and let the wind push us into the marina.  Inside the marina we had to make a left turn between two docks then a right turn into our slip.  With the help of a skilled dock hand, we managed to get the boat tied in the slip without hitting another boat, without either of us getting hurt, and (believe it or not) without any angry words between us.  Whew.

A few salty sailors will say all this maneuvering under sail was a piece of cake.  I very strongly disagree.  I hope and pray I never have to do any of it again!

Bill called Brad on Monday morning to ask him to come and look at our transmission.  Brad and another mechanic, Martin, could not come until Tuesday, but they were here by 9:30am and went straight to work.  They had the transmission out of the boat by noon.  We decided to order a new transmission from Yanmar in the states.  Unfortunately, Brad discovered that the transmission was no longer available.  He came back Wednesday morning, got the old one, and took it to the shop to see about repairing it.  Thursday, Brad called and said the needed parts for the transmission were available in Georgia.  We agreed to expedited shipping --- Adairsville in Georgia to St Pete in Florida then on to Nassau.  We gave him copies of our USCG vessel documentation and our Bahamas cruising permit in hopes of avoiding import duties.  We’ll see.  In the meantime, we wait.

Today, we have been in this marina for two weeks.  It is a very nice place.  It is safe, the restaurant and the café both have good food, there are showers, and a laundry.  The grounds are perfectly maintained, and the folks here are friendly.  The weather has been beautiful, some days windy, some days not, and it is warm.  Bill is doing projects on the boat. I am getting lots of knitting accomplished, and I am reading through my Kindle library.  I doubt I will run out of yarn, and I can order more Kindle books anywhere.

Hopefully, we will get the transmission repaired, and we will soon be out of here and beach walking.