Marsh Harbour

Jan 20 & Jan 21

--Blogpost written by Bob

Saturday, January 20

This morning there is a 10 knot wind out of the east and a little chill in the air but sunny.  The hot water little more than dribbled out of the marina's shower #1 this morning but it was still refreshing.

Lizzie, like most cats, is only this alert in the
morning.  She sleeps most of the day,

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I have been trying to decide what location to choose for our VHF radio in the navigation station--it is currently on the masthead but something doesn't work.  Until this morning my leading candidate location was on the stern using an antenna mast to get some more height.  This morning, I had trouble hearing most of the Cruiser's Net using our VHF radio in the cockpit (which has a stern-mounted antenna).  The cloud cover could have had something to do with it but it emphasized the advantage that height provides. Consequently, I am simply going to replace the masthead antenna and possibly the cable running up to it.  I will be completing this project in the spring when we get to Vero Beach.

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On the agenda today is going to Maxwell's Supermarket for some provisions and cleaning the bilge.  If things go well, I might even clean the grill...we'll see as the day progresses.

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Since cleaning the bilge is usually a smelly and dirty job, I tackled this first.  It involves lifting two floor access panels, pouring in some bulge cleaner, agitating it with a stream of fresh water from the dock hose, picking out the globs of "bilge grunge" and any other materials that found their way into the bilge.  I pulled out a plastic wire strap that was blocking the passage from the forward bilge compartment to the aft bilge compartment, along with the normal semi-gellitanous globs of mixture of cat hair, cat litter, and oil.  (My bilge is always wet, having about 1-1/2 inches of water at all times.  Even though I monitor the engine closely for oil leaks, the bilge water is still always "oily.")

This is the aft bilge compartment where the bilge pump
(white round object in center) and bilge level
switch (top of image) are located.

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Next up is Maxwell's for some provisioning.  This involved a dinghy ride across the harbor to the Union Jack dock and then a 1/4-mile walk to the supermarket.

Three local boys playing marbles in the street
next to the Union Jack dock. (This photo
was taken using my GoPro.  I really 
like the low viewpoint of 
this photograph!)

This is what $200 buys in groceries in the Bahamas.
(This photo was taken using my GoPro.)

As we get to the dinghy dock near the Union Jack, we were greeted by three local boys offering assistance.  After we landed, they resumed their game of marbles on the street.  We walked up the road to Maxwell's and spent $200 on groceries for maybe a week.  Maggie bought a small bag of Doritos for each of the three boys and, wouldn't you know it, when we got back to the dock there were four boys.  Oh well, they had to share a little. 

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After coming back from grocery shopping, we had lunch (Maggie’s delicious pepperoni pizza on low-carb flatbread) on the boat. With lunch, I drank 1-1/2 leftover blue margaritas we had kept in a carafe in the fridge. This (inadvisable) mid-day consumption of margaritas thoroughly curtailed my plans to clean the grill this afternoon. The grill will have to wait until the next available opportunity.

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Internet access (using our BTC cell phone as a hot spot) here in Marsh Harbour is OK during weekdays, but (almost unusably) bad during most evenings and weekends. The bandwidth must not be large enough to handle all the users during those non-business hours. Consequently, I have established the habit of writing my blogposts offline on my iPad and then transferring them to my laptop for publication during weekdays. This blogpost probably won’t be published until Monday morning, our last day here in Marsh Harbour Marina.

Sunday, January 21

It is overcast this morning and slightly misting off and on, as the sun is trying to break through the cloud cover.  Again, this morning it is difficult clearly hearing all the contributor’s to the Cruiser’s Net--is it the cloud cover or our location in this marina? Or a little of both? 

The view looking east southeast from our
slip in Marsh Harbour Marina. Skagg's
Market is in the distant background.

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When I visited Marsh Harbour 26 years ago, I briefly used a slip at the Conch Inn--it was only for a day or two as I recall.  At that time I had a hard dinghy with a small 2 HP outboard.  I had the dinghy tied to the boat while I was in the slip and the outboard was in place on the dinghy.  During the night, the little outboard rubbed on a nearby piling, worked its way loose, and fell into the harbor.  I could see it in the water adjacent to the piling.  I put my mask on and dove down with a rope that I tied onto the little outboard.  I pulled it to the surface and immediately took it to an outboard repair service near what is now Skagg's Market.  They were able to get it running again but it was never quite the same.  From this I learned to tie the dinghy close to the stern with both a bow line and stern line that prevents it from even getting close to a piling.  

Our trusty dinghy motor is still attached!

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Our agenda today includes attending a pot luck brunch here in the marina and watching the NFL playoff games on TV.  In fact, we spent the entire afternoon watching the NFL playoff games: the Patriots beat the Jaguars and the Eagles beat the Vikings! 

Watching the NFL playoff games in the Jib Room
at Marsh Harbor Marina.

We met a lot of nice cruisers here in Marsh Harbour Marina, some of them power boaters. A lot of them spend the entire winter here in the marina.

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We visited a neighbor’s boat here in the marina and saw their Katadyn 40E water maker; it consumes only 4 amps on a 12-volt system while producing 1-1/2 gallons per hour of fresh water-this could run on just one of our solar panels. It would produce three day’s worth of fresh water for us in just 8 hours of runtime! Furthermore, it was very quiet and took up very little precious space on board. Needless to say, this is the type of water maker we will be getting as soon as we can sell our RAINMAN. 

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During halftime in the games, I researched various ways to add more solar panels on our boat. I did this mostly to gain power production on overcast days but it will also be very helpful with a new 12-volt water maker. Theoretically, the new water maker would only require 48 watts of power but I think I will add 90 watts of solar panels for this purpose.

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Our next blogpost will be published from Hope Town on Elbow Cay, our next destination.

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