2023-03-26 Lindsey's visit - watermaker out again

Our niece Lindsey flew into Staniel Cay on Monday the 20th in the late afternoon/evening, after a couple of delays in her flight.   We got back to the boat, upped anchor and moved to Big Majors, as winds were clocking and becoming strong out of the NE.    

Next morning, we made her suffer through 4 hours of motoring in to strong NE winds and seas, to get up to Waderick Wells.   Now normally we would not do this, but we had to be in Nassau by Friday night, so we did the cruiser unthinkable - we made a schedule.  Fortunately, that was the only unpleasant 4 hours of the next week - so not bad at all.

We went for a couple of nice walks on Waderick, and a great snorkel where we saw lots of fish, and a group of 3 large spotted eagle rays.  The rays were a good 5 feet across and had tails that were 3 to 4 feet  long.  Spent 10-15 minutes watching and following them, very impressive.  Unfortunately, forgot the underwater camera, so you will have to take our word on it.

Our niece Lindsey - beautiful girl, and beautiful water at Waderick Wells

2023-03-19 Pipe Creek snorkeling and walks, Black Point SSCA Gam and Manta get together

We stayed a few more days at Pipe Creek, went snorkeling with Jason and Monica from Breathe, and walked the beaches with Breathe and Aaron, Julie and dog Piper from Turnerbout

Some nice large brain corals

Interesting clumps of corals and fishes

This goat seemed very curious about us, but eventually ran away when it spied the dog

Large crashing waves on the east side beaches

This little guy wasn't very afraid

Beautiful moon rise

After a couple more days at Pipe Creek, including a Pi day, 3/14, celebration on Breathe, where Monica made up apple pie and ice cream (sooo good) to celebrate Pi day, we headed south for the Black Point SSCA Gam, and Manta gathering.

Lorraine's café hosts the SSCA Gam  SSCA website .   Basically a bunch of cruisers get together for a fun time, with a nice buffet dinner at Lorraine's restaurant, and then two days of afternoon music, food and beach activities.   We went to the buffet, had a good time, and did one afternoon of beach activities.

We also had a Manta catamaran lunch, with 5 of us Manta owners there (Charm, Breathe, Imagine, Sea Seeker, and  Green Envy (power cat))   

Full anchorage at Black Point

Fun beach activities and socializing

Monica and Jason participating in one of the many games - egg races

Kris joined in on the games, and at the end of the event they even gave out trophy's.

Kris's trophy

It has been a fun 3 days, but it is time to move on, now the festivities are over.

This morning woke up to heavy rain.  Nice to have, it has been a couple of months now without rain it seems.

Cloudy rainy morning - filled the water tanks, and got the boat rinsed off

Our niece Lindsey gave us a nice surprise, and is flying into Staniel Cay, where we will pick her up, and get to spend a few fun days with her, before dropping her off in Nassau, where she will spend a week on a dive boat.  So this coming week should be good fun spending time with Lindsey.

2023-03-12 Hanging out, waiting for watermaker parts, swirly winds

We have been having a week of swirly winds.  First they are south, then west, then north, then east - you get the picture.  

That means our travel is dictated by the winds, and were anchoring protection can be found - which is always the case, but this last week more so as normally we have a week or so of  winds from the same direction (trade winds), but this last week is more like a day from the same direction.

We spent a couple of days at the south end of Big Farmers Cay.  Just hanging out and had a nice beach walk, and spent a couple hours visiting with Ross and Phyliss on Kohina who have a 41' Maine Cat.

Nice beach, with small mangrove river

2023-03-05 Watermaker issues, calm waters, projects

 A good weather window came up, so we decided to head over to Long Island for a while.  There was going to be some very calm weather, and Kris had wanted to check out an anchorage, that looked interesting, so we headed out.

We anchored in a nice spot, that had a blue hole nearby.  We had heard that there was good snorkeling, so headed over to check it out.  Nice dinghy ride, but we saw virtually nothing on the snorkel.  No fish, shells, coral - etc etc.  Pretty boring.   

Got back to the boat, and Dean decided to start up the water maker - and it would not start.  Checked all the electrical connections, and it was getting power to the motor - but would not start.  Kris went and pulled out the brushes - as they are a wear item, and usually the motor will start slowing indicating brush wear, but that had not happened.   Well, when we pulled the brushes out we found the problem - one brush had separated.

The brush doesn't have a lot of wear, but certainly won't work broken apart.