M/V MAERIN

The past two days have been busy, the propane truck came Wednesday, so we took the opportunity to have the empty propane tank refilled. The driver had problems, and arrived before 1PM, not a problem for cruisers, like there’s a whole lot of other things we need to be doing with that hour and a half waiting. Eddie’s Edgewater bar is right across the street. Have another Kalik and relax! The wait was plenty warm, temps were well into the 80’s and the sun was bright, and we’re just barely extra-tropical here!

We spent some time in the afternoon cooling off at the beach on the ocean side of Stocking Island, just a short walk from where we land the dinghy. Since the prop arrived at the airport freight depot on Wednesday, we decided to rent a car for the day Thursday, and include picking up the prop at the airport in our tour of the island. Um, next trip I will have a spare! Let’s see, $80 for the prop, $9 for UPS to Reggie’s, $16 for air to GeorgeTown, $10 for tax stamp, $30 for the customs guy to present 2 papers for me to sign and point “over there” to my waiting package, and $70 for car rental. It pays to keep vital spares!! We left the pups on board to snooze, and toured the island in our right hand drive Honda Accord with A/C. Oh, the rental, we’ll pick you up, no charge. When you’re done with the car, just park it somewhere around Exuma Market, put the key under the mat, we’ll get it in the afternoon. Well, someone could steal it, but there’s one main road, about 30 miles and no road off the island. So I don’t suppose car theft is a big problem here.

We spent the afternoon touring, stopping off to check out interesting sights, stopped at Smittie’s to pick up a supply of doxycycline for the dogs as insurance against a tick bite. No prescription needed. We then headed south to Little Exuma, accessible across a bridge. We unfortunately stopped short of the end of the island and missed some interesting points. Next trip! We parked the car around 5 PM and headed back to the mothership, new prop in hand! Installation took just a few minutes, and the difference is dramatic. The dink once again pops up on plane with a full crew, and we even had opportunity to test with three adults and the big dog, not as quick, but it planed! MUCH better!

Another problem not far behind, the ship’s computer ate a hard drive, so it is completely out of service. I suspected the hard drive was ailing, even had it on my October maintenance list, but it fell by the wayside. So it will wait until we return home and I can make a righteous attempt to recover the drive to a new one. Not a catastrophic event, since the ship’s computer’s function is primarily navigational, and all that data and function is completely duplicated on the laptop. So the laptop will be plugged into the nav ports, and it will take over the ship’s computer functions. A few cable changes and we’re back on line. The Raymarine chartplotter(s) also provide additional redundancy, so it’s not a big stressor! More inconvenient.

Also in the small triumph arena, we’ve been doing wash aboard again. After meticulous timing of the washing machine cycle and spending a full cycle (about 2 hours) observing the process, I learned the sequence of operation and we’re now able to advance the program cycle manually to keep the machine operating and not having a seizure from a fault code occurring. Nothing beats beating a machine at its own game! A small, but gratifying victory! You’ll be repaired on MY terms, and until then, you WILL serve!

Saturday we plan to head north from Georgetown. We considered staying for the Family Island Regatta to be held the week after Easter, but it’s three weeks almost, so we’ll pass this trip. It makes for a harder run back north, and we’ve opted to move northward at a more leisurely pace, perhaps swinging through the Abacos as we make our way north. We must be north of Savannah by June 1, that’s the only time frame at this point. Weather here continues to be delightful, Breezy, but not windy, and quite warm as spring comes to the Bahamas.