Category Archives: Failure

Something broke or failed.

Busy Day in the Exumas — Rachel’s Bubble Bath, Big Milestone Achieved, Dinghy Motor Failure, and Back to Big Major

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The anchorage at dawn on Sunday, March 22

When we got up, we were pleased to see that the forecast had been correct — the wind had shifted so that anchoring at Rachel’s Bubble Bath would be comfortable today. As soon as we got up, we immediately started getting Kosmos ready to go to sea. We pulled up anchor at 0715, as the sun was rising. It took us about an hour and 20-minutes to get to the anchorage on Compass Cay that was next to Rachel’s Bubble Bath. We had to go through the narrow, shallow channel while the current was strong, which was stressful, but we followed our previous line and all went smoothly. We immediately got dinghy down and made breakfast. 

After breakfast, we met the crew from Tiki Tour on shore and trekked up the short saltwater river to the Bubble Bath.

Thanks to the recent big winds, the waves were huge. They were even coming over the left side of the big rock — in our previous visits, we’d only seen the waves come over the right side of the rock.

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Snorkeling in Warderick Wells Cay and Moving to Sampson Cay, The Exuma Islands, The Bahamas — And Thoughts on Refrigerator/Freezers

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Friday, March 20, continued... In the afternoon, the kids from Tiki and Zimovia came over to play a game called Munchkin. After a while, they moved to Zimovia, which had a bigger table and better seating than Kosmos.

After they left, Eric, Christi and Clean Cup went snorkeling with another family in the anchorage called Sail La Vie. Christi and Eric had briefly met Sail La Vie one of the times we were in Big Major and they seemed like a nice family. We invited Clean Cup to join us since the Clean Cup kids were close in age to the Sail La Vie kids.

The motor had dried out and seemed to be working fine now, so Eric and Christi took their own dinghy — but warned the other two families that a motor failure was possible and to be prepared to rescue them. They left very early just in case there was an emergency. The motor seemed to work fine, which was a relief. Since they were so early, they waited on the sandbar in the middle of The Horseshoe for the other two families to arrive.

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Peggy’s Trail, Tubing and Games in Warderick Wells Cay, Exuma Islands, The Bahamas

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On Thursday, March 19, we pulled up anchor first thing in the morning. As had been forecast, it was raining with no wind. The lack of wind meant there was a lot of slack in the chain, so it was easy to get the snubber off and the anchor up, and we didn’t have to be out in the rain for long. Because there was no wind, we’d been doing circles around the anchor.

We left near high tide, on the rising tide. We were following the previous track that we’d taken in, so there wasn’t the anxiety going through the pass today that there had been on Monday when we weren’t 100% sure of the depths. Thanks to the lack of wind, it was a comfortable 2.5 hour ride to Warderick Wells Cay, though it did rain lightly the whole time.

The catamarans we were meeting had anchored in the same area that we’d anchored in at Christmas. The water in that anchorage was, for the most part, too shallow for us. Eric managed to thread through the narrow, slightly deeper channel to score the lone deep spot amongst them. We had to go out in the rain to anchor.

By the time Keith and Christi had finished schoolwork, the rain had stopped. Zimovia took all 9 kids (between the four boats) tubing. They ran two tubes at a time to maximize the number of kids being pulled per run.

Afterwards, the kids hung out of the beach for a little while.

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Dealing with Dinghy Motor Problems During Stormy Weather in Over Yonder Cay, The Exuma Islands, The Bahamas

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On Tuesday, March 17, Christi woke up before dawn. She sat outside on the bow and stargazed for a few minutes. With no light pollution, the stars were luminous. Sitting there made her realize the sounds of the water in this spot were almost musical. The current hitting the boat sounded like gentle running water, and there was also the crashing of waves behind the barrier island. She wasn’t out there long before large, ominous clouds rolled in and blocked the view. We did have a little bit of color at dawn, but the dark clouds kept rolling in and blocked the sunrise.

As was forecast, it rained in hard in the morning, then slowed down to on-and-off rain for the rest of the day. Usually it was moderate showers, but a few hard showers did pass over us. We were happy about that since the boat really needed the wash down. The wind changed direction several times throughout the day, and we were glad we’d chosen an anchorage with the 360 protection as it was comfortable onboard despite the tumultuous winds.

Eric noticed an error message on dinghy motor’s display panel saying to recalibrate. He pushed the appropriate buttons and nothing happened. He unplugged battery and plugged it back in. Then when he pushed the buttons to recalibrate, it worked. He tested the motor. It worked. All seemed to be fine.

In the late afternoon, the boys from Clean Cup and Zimovia came over to play games. After they left, Eric looked at the dinghy motor panel again and saw it had the same error message. He figured he’d deal with it tomorrow. 

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Moving to Ragged Island in the Ragged Islands, The Bahamas

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Sunrise on Sunday February 22

The wind is going to change this evening to the west, a direction that was not protected by this anchorage, so we needed to move today. It was actually a good time for us to move — the boat was a mess and moving always forced us to tidy up. The majority of the anchorage that we were going to, on the southwest side of Ragged Island, was shallow. Eric wanted to leave early to ensure that we could get a spot in the limited deeper area.

We got Kosmos ready to go as soon as we got up and pulled up anchor at 0800. There was quite a bit of seaweed and/or sea grass and at least half a dozen little things living on the anchor chain. The creatures were firmly fastened to it and Christi had a hard time removing them and dropping them back into the water. Here was a small sampling of the collection of items that came off the anchor chain.

In bad news, as we were getting the dinghy raised, Eric realized the dinghy’s solar panels were dead.

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