It’s Tuesday, February 23 in the Bahamas, and we sit at anchor in the pouring rain! We spent last night listening to torrential rain and very gusty winds, checking our coordinates often. Our weather guru, Chris Parker, has reported winds calming down this afternoon prior to another front with squalls 30-40K tomorrow. It helps to hear from friends in Florida that this is the worst winter there in 10 years! (Hope Bruce & Dorsey had a good weather window in FL!) We have heard bits & pieces of the weather in NE and it seems like it’s the same for you. We arrived in Elizabeth Harbor 2 weeks ago, Feb. 8th and have only spent 4 nights at the docks. We are becoming so much more comfortable with anchoring and staying put!! We moved onto Kinvara May 15, 2009 and, except for 6 weeks off, we have been living aboard since then. By the time we get back to Florida in mid April we will have been liveaboards for 9.5 months.
So far we went snorkeling once, had a dance party on the beach last Friday, and some days in Georgetown grocery shopping and doing bills on internet. There has not been too much socializing between boats because of the weather.
Peter read in a boating magazine that cruising is “fixing things in exotic places”. So true!! Not sure Georgetown would be described as exotic but the fixing part is true. Peter has been working (on the phone) with our wind generator installer for about a month to trouble shoot the problem with the wind generator. Nothing has worked and he has found 20 other boats here in Georgetown with the same issues. Our installer has been great and requested a rebuild kit be mailed here to us under warranty. The problem appears to be with the brushes wearing (on the newer models only) and becoming disconnected, signaling the “brain” to go into free spin and breaking. Our blades have been tied off now for 2 weeks to survive the noise from constant breaking. Unfortunately we have not had many sunny days so solar generation is spotty. So, we are running the engine for 2 hours each day and using a Honda 2000 for recharging computers, etc. What is working for us are the freezer and water maker (Thanks Bruce and Cleave from Sea Frost!!).
We were sitting out last night and talking about how lucky we were to make a last minute decision in Annapolis to enclose the cockpit with panels. It has completely saved our trip many times over, protecting us from strong cold winds and rain and given us another space to live in. Anyone contemplating this addition we highly recommend it!!
We look forward to a weather workshop by Chris Parker here on Saturday, the start of the Georgetown Cruisers Regatta on Monday or Tuesday, and the beginning of better weather. We are waiting for the winds to turn to the predominant E—SE before heading north again. Hopefully that will happen in 2 weeks!
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