Friday, April 25 — Eric did not sleep well. The boat became grounded at low tide in the middle of the night and started making unusual motions. The strange motion kept him from sleeping. Christi and Keith slept through it.

Despite being tired, Eric was feeling motivated to get stuff done. While Christi and Keith did school, Eric dug out the parts he’d need for his projects. Many were in deep spaces that were difficult to access — just getting the parts out was a project in and of itself!

As soon as Christi and Keith were done with school, we headed out. It was near high tide when we left Kosmos.

We rented a car from the marina office. They charged $11 per hour and didn’t require us to refill the fuel we used. Eric found driving on the left hand side of the road in traffic required a lot more concentration than normal. And it was a little bit scary, particularly with making right hand turns.

Our first stop was an auto parts store to get oil, which was the farthest away from all of our errands — a 10-minute drive.

After that, we went to The Swiss Pastry Shop to stock up. As the name implied, it was primarily a dessert bakery — the only savory items they had were Johnnycakes and curry wrapped int roti bread like a burrito. We loaded up on pastries.

Our last stop was a grocery store close to Palm Cay Marina. We were thrilled to see that the grocery store was large and had lots of selection, with prices on most items were not too different from what we’d paid in San Diego prior to leaving on this trip. The grocery stores on the other islands that we’ve been to have all been notably more expensive for fresh produce, refrigerated items and frozen items.

We stocked up on frozen foods and foods that had been difficult to find on the other islands. The only thing worth noting was that there was only one brand of eggs in stock, with a limit of 3 per customer. While we’ve heard about egg shortages in the US over the last few months, this is the first time we’ve seen an egg shortage outside the US.

From what we saw, Nassau looked like a typical US suburban area. If we hadn’t been driving on the left hand side of the road, we may not have even realized that we weren’t in the US. The only thing that stuck out to us was that the cable company had a giant satellite dish in front of it.

After food shopping, we headed back to the marina. Once the groceries were unloaded and the car returned, Eric got to work on boat chores (with Keith’s help):

He’d hadn’t added Stanadyne (a fuel stabilizer and lubricant that increases fuel efficiency) to the tanks during the fill up, so he added it and then started the fuel polishing.

They changed the oil and filter on the generator. They also changed the air filter, Racor external fuel filter and raw water impeller on the generator.

On the main engine, they changed on engine fuel filter, the Racor external fuel filter and the main engine air filter.

And they cleaned the sea strainers for air conditioners.

While we were aboard, low tide came. Kosmos was definitely grounded, and the strange motions returned. Eric’s theory was that the ground wasn’t completely flat, so Kosmos was teetering a bit on the uneven ground. For comparison, here was the ladder at low tide.

Christi made dinner and we spent the evening onboard. It rained pretty hard during the night and on Saturday morning. We again spent the day doing chores. When the rain stopped, Christi gave Eric and Keith much needed haircuts. Eric (with Keith’s help) changed main engine oil and filter.

Eric had forgotten to add the Biobor (biocide to stop things from growing in the diesel) yesterday when he added the Stanadyne. He drained some fuel into a bucket to check for water. No water. He then added some Bioboar in the bucket and dumped the contents of the bucket into the tanks. Then he put everything away, which was another project. 

We had lunch at Pink Octopus restaurant.

We tried a couple of Israeli appetizers: diced tomatoes in a tahini (ground sesame seeds) dressing, with a little bit of onion and mint. It was simple and good. We also tried the roasted cauliflower, which was served with a green herb sauce and tahini. We found it to be a bit bland — the herb sauce was light and the tahini flavor was dominant. The cauliflower had been boiled prior to roasting and was a little mushy. Eric found a new favorite drink: the palm cay, with strawberry, grapefruit and apple vodkas and sparkling wine.

Christi ordered a roasted peach and feta pizza with pumpkin seeds and a honey sauce. Christi regularly makes something similar every peach season, but instead of pumpkin seeds, she uses bacon. And she also mixes a little balsamic vinegar with the honey. The pizza was good, but Christi preferred her own version.

When we returned to Kosmos, she was grounded. The marina had told us that the slip was 8 feet deep. Kosmos is about 5.5 feet deep. The tide today was – .77, so clearly, the slip was not as deep as advertised. While not ideal, our propellor is protected from hitting the group by our keel, so it was ok.

At sunset, we went for a walk around the housing development that was part of the marina complex. There were some completed buildings and many buildings under construction. A few were stand alone houses, but most of the buildings were assorted types of multi-family units. It was a nice complex. It’ll probably be densely packed when all the buildings are completed.

The sun was getting low in the sky as we passed the community’s park. There were tennis courts next to the park, too.

We saw a few birds while we were walking around.

After our walk, we got Kosmos as ready for sea as possible.