Stay Over Days in Emerald Bay

—Blogpost written by Bob

Feb 17 thru Feb 20

Without further suspense, we decided to extend our stay here at the Emerald Bay Marina for one month.  We couldn’t resist the luxury of this marina, nice hot showers every day whenever we wanted (instead of paying $12 each for a shower at the so-called Exuma Yacht Club once in a while), trash disposal at the end of our floating pier (instead of carrying it 1.5 miles into George Town by dinghy and, then, paying $2 a bag for disposal), and the very fine bars and restaurants at the resort next door.  Of course, the deeply discounted price of $900 for the month was a factor too.

Monday, February 17

Yesterday, we arranged for a rental car for today. (We decided to to this once a week for our remaining time here in the marina.)  Our rental car was brought to the marina at 9 AM. Our primary objective for the day was to get provisions for the coming week and we accomplished this goal in the morning at Island Prime Meats & Grocery, our first time shopping at this facility.  Island Prime Meats & Grocery was located a few miles north of George Town along Queen’s Highway.

The brightly colored building housing
Shirley's Seafood.

After bringing our provisions back to the boat, we went to Shirley’s Seafood for a delicious lunch. Maggie had grouper on top of a nice fresh salad (very healthy) and I had pepperoni pizza. (I usually consider pizza as a healthy well-balanced meal, hitting most of the food groups.)  

I captured the following colorful images near Shirley’s Seafood:

The wreck of an old tug or workboat
near Shirley's Seafood.

Someone came into Shirley's
Seafood by dinghy.

A brightly colored karaoke bar near Shirley's
Seafood called Caribbean Flavour.

After lunch we stopped in George Town to dispose of our used engine oil and pick up a few things at Exuma Markets that we couldn’t find at Island Prime Meats. We since learned that the mail boat (that brings in fresh supplies) comes in on Tuesdays unless it is delayed by a day due to bad weather. Consequently, our future car rentals should be arranged for Wednesdays.

Since we were already pretty far south on the island of Great Exuma, we decided to continue our day’s journey southward. We followed Queen’s Highway all the way to the southernmost end of Great Exuma and then crossed the single-lane bridge to Little Exuma Island. We stopped at the Tropic of Cancer Beach, Santanna’s Bar & Grill, and Mom’s Bakery. (I’ll include photographs of these interesting places later in this blogpost.)

We made it back to the boat a little before 5 PM, exhausted from a full day of road travel (to the tropics and all).

Tuesday, February 18

Today was another perfectly sunny day.  I wished that just one day we would wake up to an all-day rain--a real soaker of a day.  (I guess I should be more careful of what I wish for!)

We are still filled with our memories of yesterday's road trip.  One of the highlights was visiting the Tropic of Cancer Beach on Little Exumas Island. The Tropic of Cancer is the most northerly circle of latitude on Earth at which the sun can be directly overhead.  (The equivalent in the southern hemisphere is the Tropic of Capricorn.)  While there, I captured the following images:

The sign along Queen's Highway showing the
direction toward the Tropic of Cancer Beach.
(Note the little add-on sign for Mom's
Bakery.) The beach was about
1/2-mile off the highway.

A very casual beach bar was built around
the entrance to the Tropic
of Cancer Beach.

Hot dogs, hamburgers, and any number
of drinks could be purchased
at the beach bar.

This image shows the clarity of the water
and the beautiful powdery
white sand.

If there is a beach nearby Maggie
can be found walking along it.

Lola has become quite the celebrity here in the marina.  I guess Maine Coons are rarely seen here in the Bahamas.  Everyone who walks by when she is outside with us comments on her beauty.

In the afternoon, I wrote and published addendums to two earlier blogposts: one is entitled "Addendum About George Town, Exuma" and it is located at the end of our Feb 11 and 12 blogpost.  The other is entitled "Addendum About Wind Storm" and it is located at the end of our "Stay Over Days on Staniel Cay" blogpost. I think they are worthy of a read.

Wednesday, February 19

I'm still wishing for an all-day rain shower but I don't think I'll see one while in the Exumas.

We were ready to move our boat today to a different slip in the marina but the Harbour Master gave us a reprieve since there weren't any boats expected to arrive over the next couple days.  We are in a slip intended for 50-foot long boats (and there was a beautiful Shannon 50 ketch next to us until this morning) and the marina could use our slip for longer boats (more $$$).  So, we might move to a slip on E-dock on Monday or Tuesday.

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As a continuation of the highlights from Monday's road trip, we stopped at Santanna's Bar & Grill which is about as far south as one could travel by car.

The covered picnic tables of Santanna"s 
overlook the beautiful blue ocean.

The bar area of Santanna's contained signed 
hats from all over the world.

Santanna's Bar & Grill has all outdoor seating as
it seldom rains here.  Mom's Bakery (covered
in Thursday's blogpost) is located in
the yellow building on the right.

I will be doing some diagnostics on our four Firefly Oasis carbon foam batteries while here at Emerald Bay Marina. There may be nothing wrong with them and our faulty refrigeration system at the time may have been the problem by simply having been a huge drain on our battery bank. I have to disconnect each battery after being fully charged, let it sit for 12 hours, apply a small load on the battery being tested for one hour, and then check the voltage remaining in the battery. By comparing the results of all four batteries, I should be able to determine if one of them has a bad cell. The manufacturer of our batteries (One Planet Energy) has been very responsive and I’ve learned that even if there is some damage (from overcharging, for example) there is a repair procedure that can be performed in a marina.

In looking at one calendar year as an estimate, our battery bank experienced the following conditions:

     Being charged by our onboard charger = 4380 hours (50%)

     Being drained while at anchor = 2921 hours (33%)

     Being charged by our solar panels alone = 959 hours (11%)

     Being charged by our high-amp alternator = 500 hours (6%)

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For lunch today, I made “unstuffed cabbage” using a recipe I’ve used before. The recipe included ground beef, diced up cabbage, diced tomatoes, garlic, onion, a pinch of cinnamon, and a teaspoon of lemon juice. We could only get purple cabbage at the grocery store—so, it looked a little unconventional (although pretty) and, most importantly, it tasted great.

My "unstuffed cabbage" using
purple cabbage.

We went out for Happy Hour in the late afternoon--to the beach bar at Grand Isle Resort called Sandy Toes. It was a nice change of pace.  (By the way, the outside temperature got up to 80 degrees today!)

The hidden path that leads us to the
pleasures of Grand Isle Resort.
(This little path is by the stop 
sign looking west from 
the marina.)

One of the characters at the
Sandy Toes beach bar.

A member of the staff at
Grand Isle Resort.

We ended up spending $100 on mixed drinks (2 each) and a small pizza to share at Sandy Toes beach bar--we can't do this every evening!

Thursday, February 20

My primary goal for the day was starting the battery decay tests.  All batteries were fully charged overnight.  I decided to do the easiest battery first--the outboard battery on the starboard side. First, I double checked the setting on the onboard battery charger--it was still correctly set on "Priority Setting #1-AGM."

The onboard battery charger was now set
to Profile Setting #1 - AGM. (It was
previously set to Profile 
Setting #2-AGM.)

Last night at 6 PM I removed the black wires from the negative terminal of the battery to be tested--this action essentially isolated the battery from the remainder of the battery bank.  The battery voltage was measured at 13.14 volts when initially disconnected from the bank.  At 8 AM (after 14 hours of rest) the battery had decayed to 12.96 volts without any loads and I, then, applied the load from a 12-volt inflator and timed it for one hour using my iPhone. 

My method of putting load on the battery for one
hour was simple enough--just attach a
12-volt inflator directly to the
battery terminals.

After one hour I removed the load created by the inflator and the battery voltage was measured at 12.78 volts.  (I was unable to determine the exact load placed on the battery by the 12-volt inflator--maybe I can get it later.)  This concluded the diagnostics on the first battery.  (Tomorrow morning, I will do the same test on the inboard battery on the starboard side and, later, the other two batteries on the port side.)

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Continuing with the highlights from Monday's road trip, Mom's Bakery was located in a yellow wood-frame building immediately adjacent to Santanna's Bar & Grill on Little Exuma Island.  Her business benefits from Santanna's customers.  Mom has been baking Bahamian bread and rum cakes for more than 30 years.  She told us about the death of her husband and the loss of her house to a hurricane many years ago. 

Mom's helper cleaning the floor of the
bakery before customers arrive.

Mom is waiting on customers buying some rum cake.  
Of course, we bought some rum cake 
too and it was delicious!

Today turned out to be another beautiful day.  After my battery diagnostics were completed in the morning, I spent the remainder of the day reading one of the books that I recently downloaded.

Stay tuned for more of our adventure, even though our credentials as "cruisers" may have taken a hit with our current month-long marina stay.  


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