Stay Over Days in Emerald Bay

—Blogpost written by Bob

Apr 1 and Apr 2

Several of my past blogposts were included in a recent email notification sent from Google! So, Google fixed their problem for now. We’ll see about future blogposts (like this one).

We’re currently looking at (at least) mid-May for our departure from the Bahamas, depending mostly on the situation with the pandemic in the U.S., believe it or not. Coronavirus cases and deaths in the U.S. are still increasing at this point (and I don’t say that without feeling for the victims)—so, we realize our departure is more than six weeks away.

I intend to make a blogpost every two days while we are "stuck" here...we'll see how that goes.

Wednesday, April 1 (April Fool's Day)

A moderate westerly breeze was causing the palm trees to “feather” their leaflets—it is a beautiful sight to see palm trees swaying in the wind!  Big white cumulus clouds were gathering overhead, blocking out the morning sun. It almost looked like it might rain (but it never did).

We expect today’s weather to be similar to most of the days in the recent past.  You may think that the lack of change in weather from day to day is boring (and it is somewhat) but the shear beauty of everything around us makes up for it.

Under normal circumstances I’d be playing April Fool’s pranks on Maggie (and anyone else that may be nearby) but being in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic is not a “normal” circumstance. So, there were no April Fool’s jokes this year.

A self-fashioned face mask made from one
of Maggie's bras.  (Just when you
thought there would be no
April Fool's jokes!)

Today I continued my search for the fresh water leak, moving onto Zone 3 which is the same area we searched early on and found/fixed some leaks. I was very tempted to switch my focus to Zone 4, a new area, but I remained focused on the most logical area that would produce both cycling of the fresh water pump and activation of the bilge pump. (A leak on the high pressure side of the fresh water pump would drain into the bilge and eventually cause activation of the bilge pump.)

Today, we thoroughly searched Zone 3 (for the second time). None of the hose connections on the water heater showed any signs of leaks.

All connections on the water heater
are dry as a bone.

We also searched the area beneath the floorboard where there’s a lot of interconnections—we found no leaks, however, there was some water puddled in this cavity (new since last time) that appeared to have come from the cavity just aft (beneath the companionway). The aft cavity (beneath the companionway) had a minor puddle of water as well but we found no leaking hose connections. We even took off the drawer panel immediately aft of the A/C’s raw water strainer and checked there but the area was dry as a bone. We decided to (again) declare this zone leak tight and move onto Zone 4 tomorrow. (If we don’t find any leaks in Zone 4 tomorrow, we will come back and re-inspect Zone 3 the next day because of all the potential places for leakage.)

In the meantime, the bilge pump has not been cycling as often as it was several days ago. The fresh water pump (if left on) cycles about once per hour. The bilge pump might activate once every couple or three hours (or longer).

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I just got the following notice from the State of Florida:  "Recreational boats in FL are facing new rules to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. Under a new executive order all recreational boats must be at least 50 feet apart and there can't be more than 10 people aboard."

This ridiculous notice shows the complete lack of leadership by the current Governor of Florida.  Why do boats have to be 50 feet apart, except for safety reasons, when the generally accepted safe distance between people is 6 feet?  Also, where did the "ten people aboard limit" come from when everyone is advised to avoid gatherings?  Suddenly, 10 people aboard in close proximity is OK?  Why doesn't the Governor just shut down all recreational boating for however long it takes?

Later in the day, a lawsuit was brought against the Governor (Ron Desantis-R) which forced him to issue "stay at home" orders all over the state.  At this time Florida had 7,773 confirmed cases of the Coronavirus (fifth highest in the nation) and 101 deaths.  Has the Governor of Florida been living under a rock during the past month?

Thursday, April 2

Today is grocery delivery day for us.  Even though we have been ordering our groceries by email (from Exuma Markets in George Town) there is still a bit of surprise when they arrive since we get things that are not exactly what we ordered (but close is good enough right now).

Grocery delivery at Emerald By Marina
doing the pandemic.

The wind picked up overnight to 14 to 15 knots out of the north.  It died down a little as the day progressed.  The outside temperature was in the low 70's, a bit cooler than yesterday.  Other than that the weather was pretty typical today.

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Every once in a while a singer's performance is simply beyond anything we ever thought possible.  Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" has been one of my favorite songs for a long time.  I have heard many different renditions of the song over the years.  However, no one even comes close to K.D. Lang's rendition in 2010, ten years ago.

K.D. Lang singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"
in Australia in May, 2010, 10 years ago.

Her spectacular performance from 10 years ago can be found at this link.  Leonard Cohen, who wrote the song, reportedly said that no one has sung it better than K.D. Lang!

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Continuing my search for the onboard fresh water leak into Zone 4, I looked for leakage from the forward fresh water tank by closely observing the area just aft of the bottom of the tank--for any leakage to get to the bilge, it would have to come through in this area.  There was no sign of any leakage (except for the salt water leakage coming from the raw water strainer.) 

Any leakage from the forward fresh water
tank would have to travel through
this area on its way to
the bilge. 

I also thoroughly checked all connections to the forward tank (including the fill hose) and found no signs of leakage.

Next we removed the cushions on the starboard settee to closely examine the 12-gallon day tank.  This is the tank that I modified to make room for the water maker.  I found no leaks around the starboard fresh water tank. (However, there was salt water leakage from the raw water strainer amounting to about 1 drip per second.)

I removed the teak panel to expose the A/C unit, thinking that a salt water cooling line may be leaking but it was as dry as a bone in the area--again, no leaks!  There was very little evidence of condensation as well, nut it does drain into the bilge.  (Tomorrow, I will examine the port fresh water tank to complete Zone 4.)

As I was walking around the marina early in the afternoon, I captured the following images:

About 1/4 to 1/3 of the boats currently
in this marina are Canadian.

Some of the boats on the eastern
side of this marina. Many of
the owners seem to have
flown home a long 
time ago.

In our next blogpost (in just two days), I will provide a book review of John M. Barry’s book entitled The Great Influenza. There’s a lot of takeaways that are relevant to today’s pandemic...

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