Stay Over Days in Emerald Bay

—Blogpost written by Bob

Apr 5 and Apr 6

While sheltering in place in Emerald Bay Marina on Great Exuma Island, we are practicing social isolation--not just social distancing.  I can't even remember when the last time I was within 10 feet of someone else.  We expect to be here through May (maybe even into June)--it all depends on progress made in containing the Coronavirus in the U.S.  Our movement is still restricted within the Bahamas.

Sunday, April 5

I was actually cold last night as I slept in the v-berth under the quilt (and without the A/C running). Again this morning, there was not much breeze and, as I was drinking my morning cup of tea, I felt like “no-see-ums” were buzzing around my ankles, looking for an easy place to bite me (and they found a couple spots!).

Looking over the marina grounds
from the second floor of the
boater's lounge.

We got our bill for our first six weeks here at Emerald Bay Marina—it was very close to $2,000 and we have been on a (heavily discounted) monthly rate for the entire time.  Our 6-week bill included just under $200 for electricity and about $150 for ice cubes.  We’ve been making our own fresh water from salt water—otherwise, we would have $0.40/gallon water charges too. 

Today is Sunday and we have three more days of the current Bahamian restrictions due to the Coronavirus pandemic but I fully expect them to be extended again (maybe eased up in some small ways). I certainly hope that the restrictions on flights and cruise ships remain in place because the Coronavirus in the U.S. is still completely out of control with 311, 637 cases and 8,454 deaths as of yesterday (plus they are steadily increasing).  Still, there is no nationwide “stay at home” mandate in place which is necessary (in the opinion of many) to slow the spread of the disease.  (The places that only have 100 cases today will be the epicenter of the disease in just two weeks.)

Looking astern from our cockpit.

For some good news, our bilge pump has not activated all day, as far as I know.  So, we must have fixed the leak that caused the problem--the salt water leak at the raw water strainer for the water maker.  (We also have not been running our A/C, so there is no condensate draining into the bilge.)

Monday, April 6

I was up at 6:45 AM. I was awakened by something that sounded like thunder. I still don’t know what created this sound—it wasn’t thunder. It was warmer last night and windier in the morning, with a southeasterly breeze of about 12 knots. Even though it was getting light, the sun wasn’t up yet. 

I’ve been reading Elton John’s autobiography, simply titled Me, actually it’s an audio book. It was well written and narrated, but very disturbing because for most of his life as a performer, he was a drug addict (cocaine). I loved his early music—it became popular while I was in the Army Reserve (1970-1976).

As we sat in the cockpit watching the sun come up, a dolphin came into the marina and had a swim about.

There are very few people on boats
here in Emerald Bay Marina.

As of this morning, there were 29 cases of the Coronavirus in the Bahamas and 5 deaths--this is up from 4 cases (and 10 people in quarantine) and 0 deaths just 7 days ago (March 30).  (The only link between the islands of the Bahamas is the mailboat and inter island cargo ships).  (All the cases and deaths were in Nassau.)  Most (Bahamian) people around this marina think that the Bahamian restrictions to movement will get tougher on Wednesday (April 8) instead of a little more lenient like I first thought.  We’ll see...

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In the mid to late-morning, re-arranging our dock lines and spring lines took up lots of our time. First, our onboard cleat on the top of the starboard cockpit coaming worked itself loose from the near constant tugging on the starboard stern line. Fortunately, the cleat had a generous aluminum backing plate below the coaming—so, there was no need for additional reinforcement. We took two of the four backing nuts off and replaced them with nylon-inserted lock nuts (we only had two 1/4” lock nuts left in our stockpile!) We simply tightened the other two (regular) nuts of the four mounting nuts. 

The starboard cleat on the cockpit
coaming became loose from
the constant tugging on
the spring lines.

Then, we started re-arranging spring lines, going back to our original arrangement where the spring lines have longer effective lengths (about equal to the boat’s overall length). (This arrangement didn’t work very well in high wind conditions but I think they are over for the season.)  We also added an additional (3/4") spring line on the port side from the main pier all the way back to our port cleat on the cockpit coaming.

We found that our port bow dock line was nearly worn through where it came through the bow fitting—we moved this line so that the worn spot was well inboard of the cleat on the port bow and we added a piece of 3/4 inch rubber hose over the 5/8” dock line to prevent further chafe. (I used the last piece of 3/4” hose from my onboard inventory!) By the time we were finished it was lunch time.

When we eventually get back to Baltimore, I need to replace most of our dock lines and both spring lines. Also, I need to find better chafe protection for all the lines—the customary leather chafe guards are just not good enough for the high wind conditions we experienced when we first came to this marina.

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After lunch I re-arranged my summer projects on my iPad, moving whatever I could into the period of time we expect to be here in Emerald Bay Marina.

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The outside temperature got up to 79 degrees (felt like 82 degrees) in the afternoon, one of the hottest days we've experienced here so far.  We had the A/C running for most of the day.

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Stay home and stay safe!

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