While stopped in Wilmington, we walked around town.  Passing by this house Bill pronounced it the home of his great aunt Neely.  Now, he was only there once, and that was in about 1970.  When pressed, he says that it looks like the right house anyway.

We had the boat hauled out in Southport, N.C. for repairs hoping to stop a loud squealing noise that was coming from her engine.  Here she is, all 13,500 lb resting on her keel and propped up with these flimsy jack stands.  That is were we were sleeping (or not sleeping) during the night of the storm.

In the previous photo you can see the metal steps leading up to the cockpit of our boat.  I thought you would enjoy a close-up view.  While they were a great improvement over the usual 12 ft stepladder, they still left much to be desired.

After they made us leave the boat for our safety and while the wind was still howling, we walked into town and had a nice breakfast in this restaurant.  The hair of the woman in the picture looked as bad as mine did.  Bill, without much hair, had less of a problem.

The storm blew down this 100 ft tall, 100-year-old signal flag tower in town.  It was used to display storm and hurricane warning flags.  It had weathered every wind until our storm came along.

Four motorboats on the top tier of the dry stack racks near our boat blew off their wooden bunks in the storm.  They did not fall to the ground, but they ended up resting on the steel framework.  It took a crane to get them down.  You can see it in the picture.

While the crane was working, the yard crew launched Irish Eyes with her new propeller shaft and Cutless bearing.

In a second attempt to fix the noise, a diver was called to remove our propeller and install our spare.  You can just see his feet as he worked head down in the cold water.  The spare propeller and his tools were on the dock.

We are now finally underway again and headed south.  This is the 13^th time Bill and I have taken Irish Eyes south to the Bahamas.  If I were a superstitious person, I would be really worried about this trip because we have already had a bucket load of troubles.  But, I am getting ahead of myself, so I will back up and start at the beginning.

On January 11 Bill and I packed lots of clothes, three seasons worth, and anything else we thought we might need into our car and headed to New Bern, NC.  The driving trip was uneventful, and we were happy to be back on Irish Eyes.  Bill had a list of boat projects to complete before we could leave the dock.  The biggest one was installing a complete AIS system on our boat.  AIS stands for “Automatic Identification System”.  It broadcasts our name, position, and course so other boats can tell where we are going.  Up to now, we have been able to receive information from other boats but had not been able to broadcast our own information.  I like this addition.  I have never been sure that anyone looking down from a big ship and could see little us.  Now, we will show up on a screen on their bridge.

The morning after we arrived in New Bern, Bill started the engine and noticed a leak from the fuel injection pump.  We had a leak there last summer making our trip home a little scary.  Bill had replaced an o-ring during the summer fixing that leak, but this leak was another spot.  There was a mechanic working on a boat across the dock from us.  Bill asked him if he would come and look at our pump.  The mechanic came, looked at it, and said, “Call Troy at Coastal Diesel Service”.  Bill knew another mechanic.  He came out the next morning.  He said the pump needed to be fixed, and he said, “Call Troy.”  Bill called Troy.  Two weeks later the pump was fixed and back on the boat.  During that time Bill was busy with things on his boat to-do list, and I was busy with my knitting and reading.  As soon as the injection pump was installed, I bought the fresh food, Bill filled the car with everything we wanted to leave behind, he parked the car in the long term lot, and we were ready to go.

On January 30 at 9:30 in the morning, we untied the dock lines and headed out.  As we were motoring away from the dock both of us heard a squealing or singing noise as the engine passed through 1500 rpm, but it stopped and neither of us thought that it was a problem.  We motorsailed to our usual first night out anchorage in Cedar Creek where we had a quiet and peaceful night.

But, the noise remained.  Between 1300 and 1700 rpm there was an unmistakable monotone scream from somewhere around the engine.  Bill thought the nut on the packing gland was rubbing on the propeller shaft.  Neither greasing the nut nor re-packing the gland fixed the problem.  After four days of listening to an unhappy boat, we went up the Cape Fear River to the Wilmington City Docks.  There we could try and find the source of the noise with the boat stationary, and there we would be near boatyards with expert mechanics.  Once we were tied to the dock, we tried to reproduce the scream, but the noise was not there.  What was up?  I googled the problem and told Bill my findings, perhaps a loose alternator belt, a worn alternator, a faulty Cutless bearing, or maybe a bad shaft.  Bill found the alternator belt loose, tightened it, and pronounced the problem fixed.  Elated, Bill and I played tourists in Wilmington enjoying lovely warm weather, restaurant meals, and a railway museum tour.

As soon as we untied from Wilmington City Docks, we could hear the 1300 to 1700 rpm scream.  Bummer.  Bill called Wilmington Boat Works, and we went there to have a mechanic look at our engine.  A mechanic came and decided we needed to have the boat hauled out of the water and the shaft and Cutless bearing replaced.  There was just one small problem.  The yard was having concrete poured the next morning, and they said it would be three weeks before it would be hard enough to put us back in the water.  The yard guys suggested we go to Zimmerman Marine in Southport.  That is what we did.

Zimmerman’s mechanic, Steve, went for a short ride with us, listened to the noise, and recommended that we have the boat hauled out so that the shaft and Cutless bearing could be examined.  We said okay, they plucked the boat out of the water, propped it up on jack stands in their yard, and set to work.  They gave us a set of twelve foot tall metal steps to come and go from our stranded home.  This was February 5^th, Bill’s 69^th birthday.  Happy Birthday, Bill.

An old friend of ours from Salisbury, George Wilson, lives on Oak Island.  George came over to Southport to visit.  Bill and George traded stories for an hour or two, then we all went out to lunch.  Back at the yard they condemned the shaft and Cutless bearing.  A new bearing was ordered from Norfolk, and a new shaft was to be made by a Wilmington machine shop.  It looked like it would be a short repair process.

The next night a cold front passed through Southport.  The wind howled, gusting to 80mph, lightning flashed, and the rain poured.  Our boat on jack stands swayed in the wind.  In my mind the boat was threatening to fall over any minute.  I did not sleep much.  At about 6:30am we heard some knocks on the hull and a voice saying, “You have to get off the boat right now.  It is unsafe.”  Bill and I dressed quickly and left the boat.  The wind had unfurled the sail on another boat in the yard, and the yard master was afraid that boat would blow over toppling us and the other boats like a line of dominos.  In addition, four motorboats on the top level of the dry stack storage were blown off their supports.  They did not fall to the ground but were just sort of hanging there.  The wind was still howling, the place was unsafe, and all the workers were sent home.  This was Friday.  No work was going to be done on Irish Eyes until Monday.  Another bummer.

Bill and I walked into town.  I had the clothes on my back, my phone, no makeup, and unbrushed hair.  I felt, and looked, like a homeless person.  We had a gourmet breakfast, spent two hours touring a one room museum, and gawked at the 100-year-old hurricane warning flagpole that the winds had destroyed while a TV news crew interviewed the police chief and mayor.  We then went back to the boat yard to see what was happening.  The yard master said we could not stay on the boat until a crane could come and remove the four motorboats.  He did let us go back on Irish Eyes and get our things.  Bill and I walked back into town carrying our belongings in the two tote bags we had with us and checked into the Inn at River Oaks.  The Inn is a 1950s motel which has been refurbished and is lovely.  We spent three nights sleeping in a stationary bed.

Monday morning, Bill walked back to the yard to see what was up.  The workers said the crane would be there Tuesday.  Bill really wanted to be back on Irish Eyes and convinced the maintenance manager to say we could move back aboard so long as we kept a low profile.  So, even though the motorboats had not yet been removed, we moved back on our boat.  Work continued on Irish Eyes.

On Tuesday as a crane was lifting the motorboats off the dry stack’s steel racks, the Travelift launched our boat.  Bill, Steve, and I went for a ride.  The noise was still there.  The shaft and cutlass bearing were new.  Where was this noise coming from?  In desperation engine oil and the transmission fluid samples were taken and sent away for analysis.  Bill replaced our alternator and two vee belts in case that was the problem.  Then, to add to our woes, our hot water heater suddenly ruptured spilling water into our battery box.  Bill mopped up the mess and ordered a new water heater.  Friday, Nick, an engine specialist, went for a ride with us, and he said he thought the scream was coming from our propeller.  Friday night as the sun was setting, a diver came and replaced our propeller with our spare propeller.  (Bill of course had a spare).  Our replacement water heater had arrived, so Bill had something to do over the weekend while the yard was closed.  Sunday, Bill and I took the boat for a spin.  The scream was at last gone.  We needed to have the engine aligned, and we needed to pay for all the work.

It took two days for Steve to align the engine with Bill’s “help”.  They had problems with the engine mounts, but finally on Thursday they were both satisfied.  Another cold front was coming, and snow was predicted.  The wind picked up on Friday, it was very cold, the marina closed because of the weather, but there was no snow.  After two and a half weeks repairing the boat, we untied our dock lines on Saturday and left.  It is great to be on the move again.

Stay well and warm.

Everything in the Bahamas is expensive.  This box of crackers was $8.

Bill’s black eye was quite impressive although he said that it did not hurt.

When we woke up at Mile Hammock Bay, it was raining.  Rather than leaving in the rain, Bill made these cinnamon pecan pinwheels for our breakfast.

Greetings from our land home in Kingsport, Tennessee.  Bill and I arrived here Friday night, June 14.  Our land house seems to have fared okay without us, but I now have lots of projects here on my to-do list. 

Now, back to the description of our trip.

We left Brunswick, Georgia after breakfast on June 5.  The dredged channel from the harbor out to deep water in the Atlantic was long.  The shallow water along the Georgia coast extends miles out into the sea.  I felt like it took us hours and hours to finally reach the point where we could turn and head north.  Bill told me it was just two hours, but it was the sort of two long boring hours that seem like ten.  We motor sailed along the Georgia coast most of the day, but the wind picked up in the late afternoon, and we sailed on, flying both headsails and with one reef in the mainsail.

Just as it was getting dark, it began to drizzle rain.  The wind went behind us, and the sea was sloppy making the mainsail bang about.  Bill went forward to put a preventer on the boom, and somehow, he got hit in the face by a flapping genoa sheet.  His left eye was immediately bruised, swollen, and black.  Somehow, he did not lose his glasses overboard, but they were very bent.  I had been thinking we had been extremely lucky… with all the broken things on Irish Eyes, neither of us had been injured.  That thought came to a sudden end as Bill lay below on the settee with an ice pack on his injured eye.

We sailed or motored the rest of Wednesday.  Around Savannah, we had to dodge some ships, but nothing too exciting happened.  Wednesday turned to Thursday as we continued our trip staying 50 miles or so off the Carolina coast.  Bill was the chef on this part of our cruise.  The first night he made biscuits for country ham biscuits, and the second night he made individual meatball pastry pies.  I think he was bored and hungry on his watches and was dreaming up ways to use the remains of our food.

Finally, after almost forty-eight hours underway, we entered the Cape Fear River as the sun rose.  I was hoping we would stop at Carolina Beach, anchor there, and have a nice long nap.  No, that was not to be.  The captain went right past Carolina Beach and continued up the ICW heading to Mile Hammock Bay.  It is sixty miles from the Cape Fear River to Mile Hammock Bay.  That maded for an all-day trip.  A half mile before our destination, we crossed the New River as it flowed to the sea.  The crossing was an “ICW trouble spot”.  It was very shallow, and the printed charts were known to be wrong.  We arrived a little earlier than we expected, just after low tide, when the water was at its shallowest.  It had started raining hard, and it was foggy.  Thankfully, we made it across the trouble spot without touching the bottom, and we anchored in Mile Hammock Bay as guests of the United States Marine Corps at Camp Lejeune.  The rain continued to pour down.  It was an early to bed night followed by a late morning start for these two old and exhausted sailors.

We continued our trip north toward our slip in Northwest Creek Marina.  It rained on and off both Saturday and Sunday.  Because of the rainy weather, the weekend small boat traffic was not as bad as we had expected.  Sane people stayed home and dry.  We just motored on.

Our last night at anchor was spent in Cedar Creek.  It was a peaceful evening except for the buzzing of mosquitoes.  I was glad we had screens for our hatches and ports.  We were up and underway before 8am on Monday.  It rained a little on the three-hour trip up the Neuse River to Northwest Creek Marina, but we were tied in our slip and had our air conditioner installed and running by lunch time on Monday.  It was good to cool down and dry out the boat.  That afternoon as the air conditioner did its thing, we both had long showers at the marina and emerged as respectable humans (although humans with slightly pruney hands and feet) after months without a proper shower.

Over the next several days, we packed our car, cleaned the boat, fixed a few things, and were ready to drive to Kingsport on Friday.

This year’s trip was a challenge.  I was at times afraid we might not get the boat back to North Carolina until late summer.  The engine parts Bill ordered in Marsh Harbour on May 21 have not yet (as of today) arrived at the Marsh Harbour Boatyards.  If the epoxy glue had not stopped the engine's fuel leak, we would still be in the Bahamas waiting for repairs.  I would have been both hot and unhappy, and Bill would have been really bored.  Bill and I have not decided exactly how we are going to get all Irish Eyes’ parts mended, but it will all be done somehow.  Both of us are thankful we made it back home.

Now that we are here, we plan to spend the rest of our summer catching up with friends, hosting the grandchildren for a couple of weeks, and working on our land home.

James and Sandra Little flew down to George Town in the Exumas to join us and to watch the 66^th National Family Island Regatta.  We are just sitting in the stands between races enjoying a beer.

This is the Bahamian sloop New Legend sailing by behind our anchored boat.  You can see how much sail these boats carry.  To keep the boat upright, the crew must crawl out on two pries hanging out over the water.

As the day ends one last boat sails out into the sun.

On the last day of the regatta the Royal Bahamas Police Force Band put on their show.  They are something to see in tropical uniforms and leopard skin tunics.

There is as much to see below the water in the Bahamas as above.  It is hard to believe, but all three of the creatures are animals.

Last year the children and grandchildren spent a week with us in the Black Point settlement.  Well, this is the nearby White Point.  No one lives here.  It is just white sand beaches.

Sailing from Eleuthera to the Abacos we had two cruise ships pass just ahead of us.  Cruise ships are ugly, and the paint job does not improve things.  See what I mean?

Hello from Brunswick, Georgia.  It has been a very long time since I have written.  I am afraid I have not been a good correspondent on this trip, but I did not want to be too much of a whiner.

When I last left you, we were waiting for a visit from our friends James and Sandra Little.  They flew in a couple of days before the Family Islands Regatta began giving us time to check out George Town, walk on the Stocking Island beaches, and enjoy a few restaurant meals.  Mostly, we just hung out on Irish Eyes.  Once the races started, we managed to anchor in absolutely the best possible spot.  We were just off Volleyball Beach at the Chat N Chill restaurant with the race’s upwind turning mark off our stern.  When the race committee occasionally moved the mark away from us, it was still close enough to set down our drinks and run over in the dinghy for a closer view every time the fleet approached.  One time from aboard our boat, we could hear the calls of “starboard, starboard” before the loud crash of a collision between three racing boats just behind us.

For variety, we also took the dinghy to both the starting line and the finish line.  While most sailboat races start with the boats already underway, Bahamian races start with the boats anchored in a line.  When the starting gun is fired, all the boats pull up their anchor and raise their sails to get underway.  There are lots of opportunities for things to go wrong, sometimes dreadfully wrong.  We took the dinghy to the starting line for one of the races.  There was a crowd of dinghies and motorboats milling around behind the starting line, and we were about the smallest.  Feeling like a chihuahua among great danes and finding our position a little dangerous, we went back to Irish Eyes after the start to watch the rest of that day’s race.  Our venture to the finish line was a little more civilized, mostly because as each boat finished the crowd of spectators shrunk.  We watched each boat cross the line, we heard their supporters whoop and holler, and we saw them all take off to town to party.  We followed later.

The Regatta went from Wednesday to Saturday.  The final entertainment on Saturday evening was a parade by the Royal Bahamas Police Force Band.  We went into town to watch the parade, to have supper at one of the many temporary shacks selling food and booze, and to watch the closing ceremonies.

The band put on a great performance.  Sandra is a good photographer and got some wonderful pictures.  Supper was grilled chicken and pork eaten while sitting on the harbor wall.  The closing ceremony and awarding of prizes began just after we finished our supper.  Almost every government official in the Bahamas was there.  The Prime Minister was in the crowd, his deputy and the Governor General were on stage surrounded by a covey of departmental ministers, district governors, local council leaders, and prominent citizens.  Unlike the U.S., there was no security in sight.  The political speeches were, as usual, too long, but we liked watching the slightly intoxicated and delightfully happy winners collect their fabulous trophies.

The weather while the Littles were with us was great until their last full day when it got progressively cloudy.  We walked to the top of the Monument Hill on Stocking Island and along the beach on the Exuma Sound side of the island.  A couple we first met years ago had said that a snorkel along the rock wall at Monument Beach was not to be missed, so we went.  I’d describe it, but Gayle does a much better job on her web site, http://cruisingbiologists.com/monument-wall-george-town/ .  At 1:30 in the morning the long-awaited thunderstorm arrived (They invariably come when we would rather be sleeping.), and Bill caught enough rainwater to fill our tanks.  Monday morning, we motored across the harbor in the rain, then Bill ferried James and Sandra to shore to meet their taxi to the airport and begin their journey back to Kingsport.

While James and Sandra were with us, we had been monitoring the leak from the transmission.  It seemed to have stopped after Bill’s Loctite and silicone caulking fix.  Bill did notice a small diesel fuel leak from the engine, but it was minor.

We hung around George Town for a week in lousy weather, ready to leave.  There were rumors on Facebook and cautions on the morning radio net about the quality of the diesel fuel at the Shell service station.  While we had enough fuel to get to Staniel Cay, we wanted more in case they were sold out.  Bill took our three 5 gallon diesel jugs into town to buy fuel from the Esso dock (Yeah, it is still Esso there.), but they had none.  The Shell station said their fuel was fine, so he bought 15 gallons.  Back at the boat after adding the first 5 gallons to our tank, he found water in the bottom of the jug.  He added the other 10 gallons doing his best to leave the water behind.  We then circulated our fuel from the tank, through our Racor Aqua-Block filter, and back to the tank for 6 hours to remove the water.  All told we recovered about 3 ounces.  Bill added to our fuel tank a double dose of Biobor JF (a biocide) and another double dose of some $20/quart snake oil stuff he had bought that claimed to clean injectors, increase fuel lubricity, remove water, and dozens of other good sounding things.  It couldn't hurt, could it?  We planned to go north along a shorter route than usual because with our transmission problems we did not want to get too far from the Yanmar dealers in Nassau, Spanish Wells, and Marsh Harbour.  On Friday May 3 the weather cleared, and we sailed north to Galliot Cut and were anchored in time for sundowners.

Our next stop was a Big Farmers Cay.  In past years we had walked along the beaches and explored both a small creek and large cave.  This year, just above the high tide line, were four large “No Trespassing” signs and the creek entrance had been filled with sand.  The creek was interesting because the changes seemed natural, but the signs make us wonder what was happening on this island that was mostly populated by goats.

Farther north, we stopped at the south end of Hawksbill Cay.  We had not stopped there this year, and I always enjoy walking around this end of the island.  I spent a long time swimming in the sun warm water where a creek flowed out to the banks and watching a Reddish Egret walking along the rocky shore.  Bill walked across the island and found the largest float he had ever found.  At nearly 3 feet in diameter, he could not get his arms around it to pick it up.  Thankfully, he left it behind for others to enjoy.

Our last night in the Exumas was spent at Ship Channel Cay.  The rocks around our anchorage were described as a good snorkeling spot by Stephen Pavlidis.  He was right.  We saw all kinds of fish and other creatures.  Ship Channel Cay is Powerboat Adventure’s island base.  They bring tourists from Nassau to feed sharks and rays and to have lunch.  We had the fastest internet of our time in the Exumas while we were anchored at Ship Channel Cay.  Several years ago, we met the owner of Powerboat Adventures.  He told us the only way he could keep young staff was to have great internet.  We older cruisers enjoyed it as well.

The next two days were long days for us.  The first day we motor sailed from Ship Channel Cay to Royal Island; an all-day trip.  The second day was equally long as we sailed across the Northwest Providence Channel from Eleuthera to the Abacos.  We were making tracks north.  The first day we played tag with a thunderstorm and got a little wet.  The second day we played tag on the ocean with two cruise ships but managed to not collide with either of them.

Arriving in the Abacos through the Little Harbour Cut at supper time, we anchored behind Lynyard Cay; another island in the Bahamas that has sprouted No Trespassing signs in the last few years.  We could still walk along the nearby beaches but could no longer walk across the island to the ocean side.

Lynyard Cay gave us protection from the east wind, but over the next several days the wind moved first south then west.  We responded by moving to a spot in The Bight of Old Robinson for the south wind then to Snake Cay for the west then north wind.  Snake Cay is at the north end of the East Abaco Creeks National Park, and a cut between Snake Cay and Deep Sea Cay gives water access to a huge and shallow lagoon behind the cays.  The area is entirely undeveloped, and one of our guidebooks said it was great for dinghy exploring.  The current in the cut was very, very strong, but once inside, the lagoon was calm and pretty.  On our way back to Irish Eyes, we stopped at several small beaches just to see what was there.  All we found was plastic trash.  At our last beach, we failed to anchor the dinghy properly.  I looked back and saw it blowing away.  Bill had to run back down the beach then swim a couple of hundred yards to catch up with the dinghy.  It was a touch and go race for a while, but he eventually caught the wayward dinghy.

The weather was not pretty on May 15.  It was cloudy, and it rained off and on.  I baked bread while Bill tried to patch a leak in the floor of our dinghy.  Weeks before in George Town, Bill had given our can of expensive but out-of-date Hypalon glue to another cruiser in exchange for some freshly caught mahi.  That was OK because Bill had purchased a new can in Miami.  Unfortunately, the new can was for a PVC dingy, and our dinghy is Hypalon.  Bill did not realize that the new can was the wrong stuff until we discovered the leak in our dinghy’s inflatable floor.  He kept busy one whole day trying different types of tape and glue to stop our leak.  His fourth attempt produced the final solution -- superglue under a Hypalon fabric patch pressed firmly in place with two c-clamps and two pieces of wood while the glue set.

The wind picked up and become easterly, so we moved a bit north and anchored in a calm spot off Tahiti Beach.  That put us in dinghy range of both White Sound and Hope Town.  One day we had lunch at the Sea Spray Resort in White Sound then walked to a tiny grocery store for orange juice and a tomato.  The next day we went to Hope Town to look around, have lunch, and do a little shopping.  Hope Town now has a swimming pool.  A teacher holding an umbrella over her head for protection from the blazing sun herded her towel carrying charges down the lane from school to pool.  The children would run ahead passing us, the teacher would make them stop for her to catch up, we would pass the children, and the process would repeat.  I enjoyed talking to the kids every time we passed each other.

Remember the fuel leak I mentioned a few paragraphs back and remember the $20/quart snake oil stuff that promised to clean fuel systems?  Well, it apparently cleaned up around our very minor fuel leak and transformed it from something you could only smell into a steady drip, drip, drip from the top of our engine’s high-pressure fuel injection pump.  By the time we realized the seriousness of the situation it was after 4pm on Friday, and the telephone at the Marsh Harbour Boatyard went unanswered.

We needed the engine not only to move the boat but also to charge our batteries and to cool our refrigerator and freezer.  We planned to motor the two hours to Marsh Harbour on Saturday morning soaking up the leaking fuel with paper towels and anchor near the marinas in case we needed to move into a slip for electricity.  When we tried to start the engine, it would not start.  Where the fuel had been leaking out of the running engine, air had leaked in with the engine off.  Bill bled the air out of the fuel pump, and we got going.  We made it to Marsh Harbour completely soaking four paper towels and leaving a puddle of fuel under the engine.  Bill cleaned up the mess, studied our engine’s shop manual, and read things on the internet.  It seemed a copper washer in the discharge check valve of one of the injections pump’s three cylinders had failed.  Sounds easy enough, change the washer.  Bill did not have the washer nor the tools to work on the pump, and the warnings in the shop manual about unskilled work on the pump sounded serious.  Those of you who know Bill well can imagine how frustrating this was for him.  We hung our solar panel over the side of the boat to give it more sun and reduced our engine run time for the fridge to an hour a day even though it meant that our frozen food would thaw.  (We got to eat steak twice.)  We waited for Monday.

Over the weekend we had several people stop to talk to us.  One was a French Canadian who was sailing his boat, Argo IV, by himself.  He had Googled Irish Eyes because he liked the way she looked and apparently found my blog and our position reports.  When he came over in his dinghy, he called us by name and knew all about us.  If the guy had not been so enthusiastic, honest, and nice, he would have been creepy.  Jumping ahead a couple of weeks, while we were sailing about 60 miles off the Florida coast, the Coast guard asked over the VHF radio if anyone has seen Argo IV.  Bill responded and said we had seen him in Marsh Harbour.  The Coast Guard was only interested if we had seen him in the last six hours.  We do not know what had happened.

On Monday morning, Bill called the boatyard and twice left a message for the mechanic to call us back.  We waited all day and never had a return call.  Tuesday morning, Bill walked over to the yard and found that it would take two to three weeks to get the necessary parts to repair our engine.  The mechanic was to be “off island” in three weeks for two weeks.  It looked like we would have to spend six weeks in Marsh Harbour babying the engine enough to keep our food cold and our batteries charged.  I was ready to jump ship and fly home.  Bill made a second trip to the boatyard.  He ordered the parts in case we needed them.  He stopped at the auto parts store and bought a can of spray brake cleaner, a set of small wire brushes, a set of dental picks, and some epoxy glue for metal.

It took two applications of the epoxy, but the leak was reduced from a drip to a seep.  The engine started just fine.  It was time to head north stopping somewhere between Ft Pierce and New Bern depending on how the leak progresses.  The first day we got to Bakers Bay on Great Guana Cay.  The leak was OK.  The second day we got to Allans-Pensacola Cay.  The leak was OK.  The third day we got to Great Sale Cay.  The leak was OK.  Things were looking up.  The weather forecast was good for the next three days as far north as the St Mary’s River entrance at Fernandina Beach Florida.  North of that the wind was to be 25 to 30 knots with the chance of thunderstorms.  We headed for the St Mary’s River 300 nautical miles away.

 

The wind was very fickle.  At times, usually at night, it blew 20 knots.  At other times we did not have any wind at all.  The engine started every time we needed it.  One evening the engine seemed to vibrate more than usual at the start but calmed down as we ran it.  On Wednesday May 29, after about 57 hours underway, we were anchored in Cumberland Sound.  We cleared via an app on my cell phone.  We never spoke to or saw a single human at Customs and Border Protection.

Thursday morning Bill went swimming and replaced all the zincs on the bottom of the boat including the one on the propeller.  That seemed to stop the engine vibration.  We decided to move up the river to the town of St Marys, Georgia to wait for favorable offshore weather farther north.  We enjoyed the little town of St Marys.  We enjoyed the Submarine Museum, the National Park Service Cumberland Island Museum, a bookstore, and the restaurants in town.  All were air conditioned.  Bill walked the 7-mile round trip to Winn-Dixie for groceries and came back dripping sweat.

For a change of scenery we moved to Cumberland Island for a day, then for diesel fuel we motored up to Jekyll Island then Brunswick, and tomorrow (weather permitting) we’ll resume our trip north to New Bern.

Stay safe and well.

See Bill’s newly found sunglasses and his small mooring buoy.  These are the sorts of things he finds.  It is just trash that washed up on the beach.

This little sand dollar had a garden of small green plants growing on it when it washed ashore among a bunch of sea grass.  I thought it was sort of cute and threw it back into the water before the garden dried in the sun.

Bill found these fishing net floats on the beach at Normans Cay.  He is proud of them because they match.  It looks like they will be coming home with us.

This is our sign that we leave on top of Boo Boo Hill at Warderick Wells in the Exumas.  Each year we add another year to the list.  You can see the freshly carved MMXIX.

The Comma Sandbar emerges from the water at low tide west of Cave Cay only to be drowned an hour or so later.  Even when dry it is completely surrounded by water.

Wouldn’t you know it, Cave Cay has caves.  We took our dinghy into this one to see the limestone rock formations.  The roof is perhaps 15 feet overhead.

Greetings from George Town, Exuma.  It has been a long time since I last wrote.  I seem to have been on “Island Time” and have not gotten much accomplished since I left you all with our boat in Palm Cay Marina near Nassau waiting for our transmission to return.

On March 20 Brad, the Yanmar mechanic in Nassau, called to say our rebuilt transmission was ready to be installed.  Bill and I did a little happy dance.  We were more than ready to leave Palm Cay Marina.  It was a great place, but we did not come to the Bahamas to stay in a marina.  The transmission was back in the boat that day right after lunch.  We started the engine and tugged on the dock lines.  Forward worked.  Reverse worked.  Brad told us Tiffany would call us with the bill.  Ahhh.  The repair bill.  We sort of thought there would be one, but we had no idea how much it would be.

The bill came by email the next afternoon.  We paid it with my Visa card over the phone after calling the credit union to warn them of a large foreign charge coming their way.  Since Bill lost his wallet, my Visa card is the only card we have.  I was scared that Visa would see the suspicious charge and cancel the card leaving us stranded.  After paying the bill it was too late to leave Palm Cay, so we hung around for one more night.

The next morning, we were the first ones in the office when the door opened.  The Palm Cay Marina staff gave us some generous discounts from their listed rates for our nineteen day stay.  With that bill paid and with my credit card still working, we untied the dock lines and sailed the 31 nautical miles to Highbourne Cay.  We arrived and found a good spot to anchor in the lee of the island.  It was great to have Irish Eyes swinging with the wind and to have a nice cool breeze moving through the boat.

We spent several days anchored at Highbourne Cay watching the mega-yachts come and go.  While the weather during our stay was windy and cool, we did get to explore some of the beaches on the island before moving Irish Eyes to the north end of Norman’s Cay.  There, we explored a large sandbar and walked on the nearby beaches of Normans Cay and Saddle Cay.  Out Island Adventures had a dock with buildings and a tiki bar on Saddle Cay.  In previous years we have seen their high-speed motorboats bringing lots of folks from Nassau for a fun daytrip to Exumas.  This year it all stood silent and looked abandoned.  We do not know what happened.

As is typical for the Bahamas in the early spring, a cold front from the US was to pass over us bringing some showers and strong west wind.  In anticipation we moved into the Norman’s Cay Cut for better protection from the wind.  The cut is the channel between Normans Cay to the north and Wax Cay to the south.  It is the water passage between the Bahama Banks to the west and the Exuma Sound to the east.  It is narrow and twisting making it hard for the wind to raise any dangerous waves.  The wind did blow, but we were still able to walk along the beaches.  Bill found five bright yellow football-size Styrofoam fishnet floats while I found several pretty shells.  We also walked all around the new marina that is being built on Normans Cay.  Only one yacht and six jet skis were tied to its newly installed docks, but there was a private jet at the end of its 5000 ft runway.  When finished the marina will be a grand place.

Our next stop was one of my favorite uninhabited places in the Bahamas, Shroud Cay.  We anchored at the north end of the island.  Shroud Cay is part of Exuma Land and Sea Park.  So, it is a no take zone, and all I could do is look at the shells on the beach.  Bill could collect and remove all the plastic trash he wanted.  A system of creeks fills the entire center of Shroud Cay, with branches running from the Bahama Banks side to the Exuma Sound side.  It was, as always, beautiful.  The creeks were filled with dark turtles swimming in the baby blue water as it passed through the green mangroves to the white beaches on the Sound side.  We took a circle tour through the creeks and walked along two of the several beaches.

The next morning, we walked up a short trail over a rocky ridge to the northernmost Exuma Sound beach.  It was just breathtaking.  I must admit that I moaned and groaned while walking on the rocky bits of trail, but it was worth the effort.  Here, Bill’s beach trash finds included an almost new pair of Oakley sunglasses.  Unfortunately, they are over-the-counter sunglasses and not of much use to either of us.

After a few days at Shroud Cay, we made the long trip from Shroud Cay to Hawksbill Cay, about 5 miles.  We took the dinghy around to the north end of the island to visit the sandflats there.  I walked all over the flats discovering some Wilson’s Plovers nesting in the dried seaweed above the high tide line.  Squawking loudly, they were obviously not as happy to see me as I was to see them.  Bill walked over to a sound side beach and found lots of good things.  His best find was a GoPro camera.  It was buried in the sand with just the end of the attached handle sticking out.  Getting the sand out of the cracks and crevices of the waterproof camera and getting the camera open entertained Bill for days.  He finally got the doors to the battery and memory card spaces to open.  The only pictures on the micro SD card were a couple of very short videos of someone snorkeling.  They were taken a year ago, so the camera was probably lost when it was new.  I was afraid the pictures would be of someone’s beach wedding or some other significant event, and we would be searching for the owner of the camera.  On our way back to Irish Eyes, we saw five large sea turtles slowly swimming in the warm shallow water.  What a great day!

We had been without cell phone coverage or internet access for over a week.  It was time to head to Warderick Wells, the headquarters of Exuma Land and Sea Park.  The park office used to sell internet access, but we discovered they no longer do that.  The staff had too many complaints on the speed and reliability of the satellite service, so they stopped selling it.  Oh well, we would have to be out of touch a bit longer.  We picked up a mooring ball at the Emerald Rock mooring field and spent a lovely few days swimming, exploring the beaches, and of course, retrieving our sign from BooBoo Hill.  Leaving a sign on top of the pile is supposed to bring good luck to cruisers.  We made our sign in 2008 from an old board we found on the beach and have engraved a new date in it each year since.  It is hard to believe that the piece of wood has survived outdoors this long.  Although it was hard to find an unused spot to carve the year, MMXIX, Bill managed.  We walked to the top of the hill and placed the sign once again in the pile.

Our next stop was Sampson Cay.  It is really pretty at Sampson.  In the past the cay had a public marina with a store, fuel, laundromat, bar, and restaurant.  Several years ago, the owner closed the island to the public.  Cruisers can still anchor off the island.  They are not allowed to wander ashore on the trails or anywhere else above the high tide line.  Here we at long last had cell service and spent the remainder of the day doing internet stuff.  Bill had a list of things he wanted to order for James and Sandra Little to bring when they come to visit.  I had grandchildren to catch up with.  The weather was beautiful, and we explored the area both by dinghy and by walking on the beaches.  I was going to have a relaxing swim one hot afternoon.  I jumped in the water off the side of Irish Eyes.  When I came up and opened my eyes, there was a nurse shark underneath the boat looking straight up at me.  I was up the ladder and out of the water like a shot.  There are places in the Bahamas where folks swim with nurse sharks.  Not me!  I do not care if nurse sharks are not supposed to be aggressive.  A nurse shark is still a big wild shark with a big shark mouth full of big shark teeth.  I don’t even like the idea.

With still another cold front coming and our spot at Sampson Cay exposed to the expected west wind, we moved about two miles south to Staniel Cay and anchored east of the famous Thunderball Grotto.  Staniel Cay has several stores and the famous Staniel Cay Yacht Club.  Bill and I went into town by dinghy and had a cheeseburger in paradise at the Yacht Club.  We walked the couple of blocks to the Pink Pearl Supermarket (It is about 20 x 40 feet inside.) for the few groceries we needed.  The wind increased over the next few days and the sky was dark and stormy to the north of us.  We finally got a quarter inch of rain during the night on April 10.  Bill filled two five-gallon jugs of rainwater.  The front was not nearly as bad as had been forecasted.

While we were anchored at Staniel Cay, Bill discovered oil in our bilge. After some investigation he found it was coming from the newly repaired transmission.  Bummer.  Bill added transmission fluid, and we set off for Black Point on Friday, April 12.  Black Point has the best laundromat in the Exumas mostly because its windows have the best view to absorb as the clothes go ‘round.  After our anchor was down, I gathered our dirty laundry and we set off for the laundromat.  About half way there the dinghy outboard quit.  Bill could not get it restarted.  The outboard had been persnickety for a couple of days.  It did not run quite right.  Fortunately, on this trip we were not too far from Irish Eyes, and Bill rowed us back.  I managed to latch onto the boat before we blew past our home.  Turns out the pickup tube, the tube that sucks gas from the bottom of the tank, had fallen off.  Bill had to drain the tank, retrieve the tube, and reattach it with a hose clamp so it would not come off again.  By this time the laundromat was closed.  Oh well, it was then happy hour at Scorpios.  We enjoyed double rum punches and fried grouper fingers for supper.  Several other cruisers were at Scorpios along with some local guys.  We talked to the locals about the Family Islands Regatta and were told we need to root for their boat, Red Stripe.  We traded tales with the other cruisers.

On Saturday morning the laundromat was again open.  Bill took me and the dirty clothes over to shore.  In talking to the young man working in the laundry, I learned Mr. Adderley who owed the Black Point grocery store had died.  Mr. Adderley had numerous children and grandchildren.  There are pictures of all the children on the wall in his store.  He loved to tell his customers all their names, where they lived, and what they did for a living.  I always enjoyed talking to him.

James and Sandra Little were due to arrive in George Town on Monday, April 22 to join us for the week-long Family Island Regatta.  There were two different forecasted good weather days for us to go to George Town; the Tuesday before they were to come and the day before their arrival.  Our transmission was still leaking oil making a sooner trip a far better choice.  It was time for us to make the trip to George Town.  We would make the trip in two hops stopping at Cave Cay along the way.  Bill refilled the transmission with oil and put a paper towel pad underneath it to catch the leak.  There was not enough wind to sail, so we motored to the north end of Cave Cay leaking transmission fluid all the way.

We had anchored near Cave Cay in the past but never in the spot near the landing strip on the island.  It was low tide just as we settled in.  We took a long dinghy ride to the comma shaped sand bar west of our anchorage.  It was a lovely place, a long and narrow spot of white sand rising from the blue water, but this year we did not find many shells.  There were lots of birds hanging out on the bar who were not at all happy to see us.  Just as we were leaving for Irish Eyes, the first of the tour boats arrived at the sandbar.  We now know why there were no shells.

In the afternoon we went over to the beach in front of Irish Eyes.  The bank side beach was narrow with a salt pond between it and the rocky shore on the Exuma Sound side of the island.  It was a very interesting place with lots of shells.  We had seen a tour boat go toward the beach just south of us.  They curiously spent a lot of time there but did not land the boat.  We decided to investigate after they left and found the shallow warm water cove filled with turtles and with a large cave in the limestone shore that we could enter with the dinghy.

Bill cleaned up the transmission fluid leak and added more oil in preparation for the thirty mile trip to George Town.  In the morning we did not have much wind, but the sky was ominous.  A long band of dark clouds was just to the north of us as we left Cave Cay and entered the Exuma Sound through Galliot Cut.  The clouds kept getting closer until finally they were on top of us.  The wind increased and swung to the east which made it easy to sail.  The trip ended up being a nice fast sail in calm water, and the black clouds just went away.  Our anchor was down at Monument Beach in the George Town harbor long before happy hour.

Bill emailed Brad a description and some photos of the transmission. They talked on the phone and came up with a repair plan.  Bill stayed behind and worked on the transmission while I hitched a ride into George Town with our friends Kevin and Chris aboard their boat, Aprés Ski, for a grocery and liquor store trip.  I even got my hair cut in town.  Bill, our palm tree mechanic, crawled into the engine compartment and worked for a day and a half.  He reattached the coupling flange to the output transmission sealing the joint with the shaft with silicone caulking, and he glued the big nut which holds the flange in place with red Loctite glue.  The transmission has been now refilled with oil for a day and does not (yet) leak, but we have not used the engine.  

We have had wind for a couple of days and a thunderstorm with rain last night.  Our water tanks are full, and we are waiting for James and Sandra to arrive tomorrow.  The locals have been building their temporary shacks in town to sell food and drink for next week’s regatta.  It should be a blast…Happy people, food, booze, and sailboat races.

A Blessed Easter to you all.