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

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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Rocky Point to Blackpoint, Exuma Islands, The Bahamas

Dawn on Saturday, February 28

It was still calm in the morning. We’d never put out the flopper stoppers, put on the window covers or got the dinghy down, so we had very little to do to get ready to go this morning. We pulled up anchor about 0630. It was a smooth passage to Blackpoint. We had a current with us and made amazing time, arriving at 1245.  

Our friends on Algonquin and a Nordhavn 50 called Grey Goose were in the anchorage. Keith and Eric met them onshore. Christi stayed aboard to attend an online meeting.

They went to Lorraine’s on the road for lunch. Lorraine’s directed them to go to High Tide (the Lorraine’s on the waterfront) instead. After 30-minutes, the server still hadn’t taken their drink orders yet, so they left and went next door to the Yacht Club, instead. Eric had a nice time talking Nordhavns, but Keith was bored. After lunch, they headed back to Kosmos. Eric and Keith did stop by Lorraine’s mom’s for bread on both the way in and the way out, but she wasn’t home either time.

We’ll take a moment to share our opinions: we think the three restaurants in Blackpoint are all very comparable in terms of price, menu selection and quality of food. That said, we’ve decided that the Yacht Club was the overall best restaurant. We thought Lorraine’s had the best food, in part because she cooked the food to order, but the service was the slowest of the three, in part because she cooked food to order. Deshamon’s and Lorraine’s were inconsistent with hours. Emerald Sunset had stable hours and good service, but it was also the most expensive and the food was mediocre. The Yacht Club was reliable, with consistent hours, food, service and middle of the road prices. The biggest downside of the Yacht Club was that cats lived on the premises and sometimes the cat smell was quite strong — and for Christi, that was a big negative.

Christi hadn’t been on dry land since Wednesday and was anxious to go to shore. She and Eric headed to shore as soon as her meeting ended. Here were some of the birds watching them as they approached the dock.

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Moving to Ragged Island in the Ragged Islands, The Bahamas

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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Lying Low in Hog Cay, Ragged Islands, The Bahamas

Dawn on Wednesday, February 18

It was another day of puttering around the boat. Before doing school, Eric and Keith changed the generator oil and cleaned the sea strainer for the generator. Eric also ran the wing engine. Then Keith and Christi did school. In the afternoon, Keith went tubing with Clean Cup while Eric and Christi went to shore. There were a couple of locals there who were making repairs to the hut, but they left shortly after the group arrived.

When they were done tubing, they joined everyone onshore. Here was another shot of Kosmos with both flopper stoppers out. You can see why we called them “the force field.” No one wanted to anchor too close to us when we had them out!

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