Week 20; March 23 –March 29
Week 20 March 23 to March 29 We waited for a change in weather for almost a week and finally got a chance to break away from George Town on Sunday. Sunday we sailed off for Conception Island with a group of 6 other boats that had been in George Town. It felt good to be on the move again. There’s suppose to be great snorkeling at Conception, so we’ll check that out next week.
During our last week in George Town the weather was rough and windy. Trips in the dinghy were very wet and cold, so we moved Opus almost daily so she was close to where we wanted to be. One day at Volley Ball Beach for beach church and a play day, another day at Monument Beach for a meeting of boats planning to go further south, then back and forth across the harbor a couple of time to Kidds Cove so we could be close enough to dinghy into George Town for computer access and groceries. Jim spent at least a half day at J&K Inc. with a list of all kinds of things that needed to be taken care of on the internet. It’s amazing how much you can get done with a strong, stable signal. We even got our taxes done. The Exuma Market in George Town had a customer appreciation day the day before we left. We made a special point of being there for free food and samples. For all the high priced groceries we bought there, we felt we earned all the freebies we received. They even had people to check your blood pressure and cholesterol, both Jim’s and Linda’s dropped since they moved to the boat.
While waiting for good weather we met John and Janet on Ventoso, who are also planning to head south to Puerto Rico. They’re a retired Scottish couple who have been cruising for 9 years and have lots of experiences to share. Although they have a bigger boat, they travel about the same speed as Opus, because they sail their boat most of the time instead of motor-sailing when they can’t make 6 knots. Jim helped John out with a computer mapping program and in exchange they invited us over for coffee, tea and fresh baked brownies. A chocolate fix at last! John pulled out his guitar and gave Jennifer a lesson and taught her a few notes. Janet pulled out her recorders and music so she and Linda could play some duets. John accompanied them on his guitar. As Janet would say, we had a glorious time.
Sunday morning we left for Conception Island. It took most of the day, but we sailed almost the whole way. We caught a good sized maui maui on the way in and invited John and Janet over for dinner to share it. We managed to eat about half of it.
Week 18 and 19; March 9 –Mar 22
Two weeks later and we are still in George Town. The new engine has arrived and been installed. Jennifer and Linda celebrated birthdays and are both a year older.
The logistics of ordering a new motor proved to be a bit more complicated, or maybe just time consuming, than expected. Wiring funds took awhile, because it took our credit union 2 days to figure out they weren’t set up to FAX internationally. Then they had to get approval from someone at the VP level before they could deviate from protocol and take our information other than through a FAX. Over the course of those days, Jim found several businesses where you can make phone calls, get internet connections and FAX. J&K inc. probably offered the widest variety of services in one place. From one little open air building, you could make phone calls to the US for 10 cents a minute, get a good solid internet connection for $5 a day, send and receive FAXes for $1 as long as they had ink in their printer, and even buy some basic groceries. Jim became a frequent customer there coordinating things with the supplier and Reggie Air to get the engine here as quickly as possible. Another business that offered FAX service also offered to help Jim transport the engine and clear Customs at the airport and that proved to be cheaper than taking a taxi there and back.
The day we were in town trying to receive a FAX, we left Jennifer on the boat alone thinking we’d be back in an hour. We came back 5 hours later with nothing accomplished. She didn’t feel the need to move ahead in her school work during that time, but she didn’t have any trouble answering a call to OPUS on the VHF radio and using it to call her friend Marah and talk. It’s good to know she could get on the radio and call for help if she needed to.
After the motor was ordered and paid for and before it came, we could relax and have some fun. The wind calmed down for a few days, so Jim put the sailing rig back on the Tinker. He sailed around the harbor with Jennifer and Brett and Dylan from Dutch Dreamer. (one at a time of course, it’s a small dinghy) We invited the crew of Dutch Dreamer over for drinks one night. 6 people in the cock pit and Jennifer on the boom was a little tight, but once the kids went up on deck or down to the cabin to play games, we had plenty of room. Not sure we could do a full fledged dinner for 7 aboard OPUS, but drinks and snack for 7 worked fine.
March 15, Jennifer celebrated her 12th birthday and Linda celebrated her more-than-12th birthday. Jennifer really wanted some kind of party since several other cruising kids had had birthday parties in the last 2 weeks. We knew we couldn’t host much of a party on OPUS, so we moved our boat to the marina Sunday morning and invited people to join us on the dock. Carol, from Dutch Dreamer, baked us a fabulous 3 layer dark chocolate cake complete with a beach scene on the top and. Jim grilled hot dogs for everyone on OPUS. The kids played on shore and the adults visited on Dutch Dreamer. It was a fun afternoon. This was in an international birthday party held in the Bahamas and attended by people from the US, Canada and Switzerland.
We left the boat at the dock for almost a week after the birthday party. Since we’d been anchored out for almost 2 months, just being at a dock and being able to walk to shore or to someone else’s boat was really kind of fun. When Jim took the old engine out, using our boom and pulleys as a crane, he was able to use the dock as a work area and break it down into a bunch of spare parts before the new engine came in. Late Wednesday afternoon the engine arrived at the airport and with help from the guy at the FAX business was at our dock shortly after that. Thursday morning Jim used the boom to swing it from the dock to the boat, no trip to the boat yard required. By early afternoon he had it running. Way to go, Jim! Being at the dock made it easy to for Linda to take care of laundry and shopping. Everything is clean again and the boat is restocked and ready for the next several weeks. Now we can think about moving on as soon as the weather cooperates.
Oh, yeah, they say problems come in 3’s. The engine had to be replaced, the nuts that hold the propeller on came off and the day the engine came in the hand pump on the marine head broke. The new engine is in place, the prop is secured with a jerry rigged fix while we try to find the right size nuts. and luckily Jim had a replacement pump for the head that he could install the same morning it broke. Hopefully that counts as our 3, and we’ll be trouble free for awhile.
This week we said good bye to our friends on Dutch Dreamer and on Los Gatoews. Fair winds and we hope our paths will cross again.