Monday morning we rented a car to reprovision, see some sights, refill our propane, and get rid of 5 gallons of engine oil drainings. The engine oil disposal was the most difficult part. The service stations certainly must do something with their waste oil, but none seemed willing to take any. A chance sighting of a CAT engine service facility ended up being the ticket. One of the service guys offered me an empty pail from his service truck and said he’d dump it when he dumps what he has on his truck.
New Providence is 21 miles long and 7 miles wide. Nassau is the capital of the Bahamas, has 70% of the Bahamian population, and is the largest city in the Bahamas. Nassau is the largest city on New Providence, and the island is typically although mistakenly referred to generally as Nassau. Traffic on the island is nuts at best. It’s not particularly fast, in true Bahamian style, and the attitude is a sort of cross between stoned and relaxed indulgence. Add to that the fact that the Bahamas traffic is to the left like the English, and you have a real adventure traveling from one roundabout to another. Turn signals are a rarity. Horn honking is frequent, but it’s a Bahamian honk, more as a “Hi, you OK?” or a “thanks for letting me out” as opposed to altercation. Closer to Nassau, traffic is more dense, and becomes very close quarters at a snail’s pace. It can take an hour to traverse the island, with most of the time spent around Nassau. There are a few sections of road that are 4 lane, but most are 2 lane, and not particularly wide.
There are several large grocery stores on the island here, some are nearly as well-stocked as a typical stateside store, but with regional differences, and the eggs are all broken or cracked!
Our generator parts arrived from Ft. Lauderdale on Tuesday, that’s UPS overnight that shipped on Thursday. That’s how overnight works in the Bahamas. There’s no sense of urgency about anything here. Wednesday was repair day, and repairs began in earnest just after we returned the rental car we had been using the past two days. The parts were an exact match, and my initial diagnosis of a leaking exchanger (marine version of a radiator) was correct. Since the engine cooling system had been operating with salt water, it was important to flush all the saltwater from the system, a tedious process. Once the system was flushed and rinsed, it could be filled with antifreeze (at $30/gal. here!) leak tested and put back into service.
So our maintenance tasks here included
- Main engine seawater pump rebuild, new impeller
- Main engine oil & filter change.
- Main engine primary fuel filter change.
- Generator heat exchanger replacement.
- Generator cooling system flush and new coolant.
- Generator seawater pump impeller replacement.
We’re all maintenanced up, and ready to go, now all we need is a decent weather window. Since New Providence is at least 40 miles from any other destination, when the wind is blowing like stink, you don’t plan a departure. So we’re here in NP for a few more days until the wind lays. Forecasts don’t show a window for several days, not what was in our plans, but we’re beginning slowly to accept that that is the way it is, and if the wind blows, we adapt our activities to the weather we’re presented. It’s the Bahamas, mon!
Today, Thursday we accompanied our “dockmaster” Nick to the Green Parrot in Nassau for the cruisers’ luncheon that he hosts on behalf of BASRA, the Bahamian Air Sea Rescue Association, a volunteer organization. There were many cruisers in attendance, and among those were Ade & Jo Salzer, owners of Selene 4324, Wandering Star! It was fun sharing stories about our boats, and catching up on news about the Selene family, and where boats/owners are located and their travel plans. The Salzers have been cruising since 2007, starting in Alaska and have accumulated over 12,000 miles in their travels, including transit of the Panama Canal! We are hoping to connect with them again, and some of the other cruisers we met. With our location here in the boonies, we need a car to travel the about 14 miles to Nassau. An impromptu cruisers net has been slated for Friday morning just after Nick broadcasts the weather on VHF 72.
Our stay here has been delightful, our hosts typically have boats staying with no one aboard, but our presence has been graciously endured, they have been wonderful hosts! Their dog, Brenda comes by the boat for visits, and although she is shy, she always has a greeting for us and our pack. She and Molly are fast friends, Molly and everybody are fast friends, she and Sammy periodically get a bit at odds over turf. Sammy can be such a snot. Brenda came aboard the other evening to join us for a while, seems her owners were out and there were some firecrackers set off, so she was looking for a sympathetic touch to fend off the fireworks gremlins for a bit! So she joined us for a movie.
