January 2012

January 25 The Glam Side of Yachting

Try kneeling in a confined space (the bilge), lean to your left and rest your ribcage on a spare anchor, reach your arms up and forward and try to fasten bolts to the underside of the floor, bearing in mind that the holes are just big enough. Remain in this position for an hour as your leg falls asleep. Gerry's knee was acting up and he claimed he couldn't do it so he remained in the bathroom issuing orders as I sweated in the bilge trying to line bolts up and ratchet them into place. A good time was had and we managed to cross another item off the list of 32 - raise the toilet.

My view of the toilet when I was allowed to finally
sit up in the bilge.

4 out of the 6 bolts, the other 2 are under the pipes etc,
really handy to get to - not.

 January 10 Dinghy Time

I got to paint the bottom of yet another boat – check it out – great job if I do say so myself. Gerry installed a fin to stop the porpoising, Richard came along to help launch the dinghy (and drive jeep back). Of course nothing goes smoothly, despite having worked to raise the motor up, when we tried to put it back down it was dead. Richard discovered the battery cable was hanging on by a thread (literally) and needed a knife to cut the plastic back. We didn't have one, so now what? Gerry believes that whatever you need will eventually come along and would you believe Richard found a knife on the sea wall just a few feet away!

fin

knife

 Motor fixed, we were on our way for some beach time.

 It is official – I am not a fan of motorboats, I much prefer the serenity of sailing. I hate bouncing along, the water was not as calm as it appears in this photo. I have a video to prove it.

On the way back we tried to find where the ship had scraped up the sea floor but couldn't find it.

We did find that the sea buoy had been moved out to deeper water and one of the markers was being repaired. Talk about closing the barn door...........   That's the way we do it in the Bahamas.







January 9   Oops

So how does one run a cruise ship aground? Blame is being thrown around but we still don't know for sure. Part of the problem may have been the outer marker that was moved to shallower water a while back.  There was a local pilot on board so this sort of thing shouldn't happen. She ran aground around 7 a.m., close to high tide so they had to wait till evening to try to get her off. This was Poesia's inaugural voyage to Port Lucaya. Not a good first impression. Cruise ships usually dock at Freeport and tourists get bussed over to Port Lucaya etc.  Anchoring right outside Port Lucaya was supposed to make things easier, just ferry the tourists in, something that used to be done years ago.

We decided to take Dirty Girl out and check it out ourselves (dinghy was still on the trailer).  Was my first ride, pretty nice but I could just envision $$$$$ as we moved through the water.

Tugs waiting for the tide to rise.

Bill and Gerry at the helm

Gisela and Rudiger enjoying the view.

Betty, Gerry, Bill, Richard, Jonie

Thanks to Johanne for this great shot.

Later at Coral Beach hotel waiting, waiting...

We left the beach, well past high tide thinking she's stuck till morning. Right after we left they did wriggle her off by having tugs pushing near the front starboard, tugs pulling on the back and her engines running full out in reverse.