July 10 - 20

To the Bahamas....and back.

Finally, after spending several days in the Marathon Boat Yard to fix our bobstay,we were ready to move on towards the Bahamas. On Monday, we pulled the boat out of the water, which is normally a very stressful experience (see the Key West update). Even more so was that we had to remove all the food out of the refrigerator and freezer since we were not sure how long the boat would be out of the water (the refrigeration system is water cooled, so it won't work sitting in the yard). We had found a small motel across the street that had refrigerators in the rooms so we moved everything off the boat and into the motel room's refrigerator. It turns out that the refrigerator stunk of dead fish, but it was too late to move to another room. Despite the refrigerator issues, the room was clean, cold and had cable TV.

Luckily, the boat was ready the next day. We transferred the now fishy smelling food back to the boat's refrigerator/freezer and felt fairly relaxed for the first time in several days. The boat was ready to go, all we needed to do was the provisioning for the Bahamas. We had biked to the Publix before, but given the size of the grocery list (including several cases of beer, which is very expensive in The Bahamas), we ended up using a taxi. After two hours of shopping, we got the same taxi driver who was quite impressed with the amount of food we could fit into his cab.

One last problem in Marathon was that of leaving. We had already figured out while motoring from Stock Island that the draw bridge going into Marathon was not a problem. However, the 65 foot power lines just before the bridge could be a problem for our 67 foot mast. On the way there, we re-measured the mast several times, but it didn't get any shorter. The bridge tender gave us the bad news: the tide was up, so the power lines were at 65 feet - not good enough! There was a back way via Sister Creek. Unfortunately, the chart showed several five-foot shallow areas, a problem for our 5 1/2 foot depth. The bridge tender offered that he had heard other deep draft boats have gotten through at high tide. We were able to carefully navigate through the creek and into the Marathon harbor. Therefore, we had to schedule our departure at high tide as well. At 6:30 the next morning with a +2.2 feet tide, we snuck out the backdoor into the Hawk Channel. We then motored around the key to fill up with fuel. By 8:00 am we were at a fuel dock on the other side of the bridge (and the power lines) about 200 yards from the spot we started. As you expect, there were no fuel docks on our side of the bridge.

Finally, we were on our way to Rodriguez Key, the planned jumping off point to The Bahamas. We anchored about a half mile from the southwestern side of Key Largo and since Rodriguez Key was not inhabited, we dinghied to shore looking for ice. We ended up at the Mandalay Restaurant's dock and spent the evening there for drinks and dinner. While there, we noticed a guy putting several bags of ice into his dinghy and we asked where he found them. Before you know it, the man drove me to a gas station to pick up a few bags of ice. Turned out that he lived on a small sailboat about 100 yards off the beach so he had a car on shore to get around. This is one of the great things you find cruising: there are lots of great boaters that are willing to help one another in many big and small ways.

We ended up getting to bed early since the next day was going to be a long passage to North Bimini. Around 3:00 am, I went to the galley to get some water and I noticed a diesel smell in the main cabin. We had turned on the generator before bed to run the air conditioner (it was very hot and humid that evening), so I thought the generator had started leaking. The generator looked fine, but upon further inspection, the main engine was leaking diesel from its fuel pump.

I was certain I had a replacement pump on the boat, so it should be an easy swap and we can still leave in the morning. Unfortunately, the replacement (which was on the boat when I bought it 12 years ago) was the wrong pump. I did have a rebuild kit for the pump, so after three hours in the bilge (without A/C now), the old pump was fixed and it no longer leaked.

After being up most of the night, we decided not to cross the Gulf stream that morning. With a few more hours of sleep, we moved further north to No Name Harbor, near Key Biscayne. It's part of the Florida State park system and its a beautiful, tranquil anchorage. It's run on an honor system, $15.00 per night which includes free pump outs and garbage disposal on land.

The next day we crossed from Key Biscayne to North Bimini. The Gulf stream was moving fast, but we had only 2-3 foot waves and were in North Bimini by 3:00 pm. We docked at Weech's Bimini Dock ($0.70/ft plus $20/night for 50 amp power) right next to the customs building. Weech's gave us all the (enormous) custom and immigration paper work which we were able to fill out on the boat in A/C (it was very HOT there). Finally, after Terri dropped off all the paperwork and paid our $300, we were officially in the Bahamas!

North Bimini is the closest place to Florida in the Bahamas so there were many boats from the U.S., mostly sport fishermen. There are several small docks in Alice Town, however at the north end of the island they are building a huge luxury marina/hotel/casino which should be finished in 2008. Our stay at Weech's was a bumpy one! Although the docks are in good shape, there are no bulkheads between the docks and the harbor channel. Not surprisingly, the huge powerboats didn't seem to get the idea of "no wake". In addition, there was a very fast current during the tidal changes. We clocked about one knot on our speed log just sitting at the dock!

We decided to spend two nights at Weech's before heading to The Berry's. Between the wind and the current, we had to time our departure so we could get off the dock. We left and anchored out on the other side of the island. The anchorage was beautiful. We had a great time dinkin around and swimming. Around 7 pm, Terri decided to start making dinner so I turned on the generator to run the stove and charge the refrigerator, but the refrigerator didn't start. I put my gauges on the system - no freon! When I put freon in the system it ran out almost as fast as I put it in. Now we have a big problem!! We have a freezer and refrigerator full of food which will not keep more than a couple of days. Our wonderful evening turned into a bust!

After an uncomfortable, sleepless night (what to do about the refrigeration? what about that huge storm that's 5 miles away?), we decided to go back to North Bimini to try and fix the problem. I figured out that the water-based condenser had an internal freon leak. If I could get some copper, I could make a temporary condenser.

We found the copper and I managed to make a condenser and install it in the system. It worked fine for about 20 minutes, but unfortunately there was too much water and debris in the system from the old condenser and the temperature valves became frozen. At that time, the only thing we could due was to take the boat to a professional on the mainland. So about noon, the next day, we went across the Gulf stream for the second time to Fort Lauderdale.

While back at North Bimini , we also got in touch with Dennis at Lakewood Yacht Service in Seabrook, Texas and he was able to drop-ship a new condenser and other parts to our mail service (a big great THANKS to Dennis!). At that time, we had no idea where we were going to be. Once we decided to head to Ft. Lauderdale, our mail service shipped the parts to the marina.

Again, the stream was fast, but the waves were mild. After all the stress from the last few days, I went down below to take a nap. When I came back up Terri had just noticed a large white object in the distance and asked me to look at it (Is that a boat??). She was concerned since it seemed pretty big and it didn't show up on our AIS. "It's the Coast Guard!". At that exact same time I was looking through the binoculars, we could see a plume of diesel smoke and they started coming in our direction.

A few moments later, they called us on the VHF, asked a lot of questions and finally asked "Have you ever been boarded by the Coast Guard?" to which I replied "No, I guess this will be the first time ". Within 20 minutes, 4 Coasties were along side us and we were board by 2 of them. They went through the boat very thoroughly and very professionally. In the end, we passed with no violations! We want to say a big "THANKS" to Jenny on Wandering Star in Kemah, TX for giving us a heads-up about the waste management plan. We would have gotten a demerit for not having one and she informed us about it before we left Texas.

Finally, we tied up at the Fort Lauderdale Las Olas docks late in the evening. The next day we called several refrigeration companies, but most couldn't get to us for several days. Finally, we found a young guy calling himself "Cool Bean'z" (his name was Joe Beans). He re-piped most of the system, added our new condenser (Thanks again Dennis!!), vacuumed the system for about 12 hours and then filled it with freon gas. Everything looked great! We paid him and he left town with his family for a long-weekend (his birthday and wedding anniversary). When we went to bed, the system seemed to be working fine and we were going to get up early in the morning to replace some of the provisions that were spoiled by the refrigeration problem.

The next morning (Saturday) the system was not happy and it still appeared to have water in it. Terri called every listing in the marine yellow pages. She finally found one shop in Miami that worked on Saturdays (at 1.5 x normal rate). They replaced two more dryers and left their vacuum pump on it until early Monday. On Monday, they spent most of the day finishing the job, and now finally it seemed to be working.

We are NOW ready to go back to The Bahamas!!

View from Key Largo to Rodriguez Key (at the right).

Jan takes down the the quarantine flag and puts up the Bahamian flag.

Watching the sun go down in North Bimini.

Four drinks, 23 bucks and no floor. The sunset was free, however.