Luke carried on for several weeks with the air conditioning compressor project – we had to remove the new compressors to install a new rack as well – apparently they don’t make the 4 ton any longer, so they sent us three 5 ton compressors which called for a different mounting rack and manifold.
Paul, Jacob and Tyler came into town for the holidays and we spent some time entertaining with Luke escaping to the engine room whenever he could and I at my desk catching up on programming work. We locked onto a weather window to cross the gulf stream and it was the usual scramble to prepare: running around town buying parts and provisioning for 6-8 weeks in the Bahamas.
At around 2AM on the 8th we cast off the lines and made our way down the New River. The stretch of river that once brought me to a borderline breakdown with it’s narrow, winding waterway, has become a pretty relaxing cruise, particularly in the quiet hours of late night or early morning, depending on your perspective.
We crossed to Bimini, arriving at 10AM and anchored just south of South Bimini, given the swell from the north. Luke took our passports in to clear customs while Jacob and I had a swim around the boat and made breakfast. We immediately headed north to round Bimini to the bank and make our way across the shallow waters, past the Berry Islands and around the west side of Nassau then along it’s south coast to cross the White Bank for the Exumas. Evening was upon on by the time we could see Norman’s Cay so we anchored just south and in the morning, traversed the cut to anchor near the plane wreck.
We geared up and took Jacob and Justin to free dive the downed drug plane, then over to the pristine beaches on Norman’s, which Jacob refers to as ‘fake beaches’ – due to their postcard-perfection.
We moved south to Shroud Cay and were delighted to find deep enough water to get within a few hundred yards of shore. Luke jumped on the radio to arrange for a mooring at Warderick Wells the following morning. The weather was a slightly cooler but still comfortable enough to take the tender to explore the tidal river that cuts through Shroud and Jacob and I enjoyed swimming with the current back to the sea.
The next morning we motored another hour south and began to negotiate our way into the narrow channel at Warderick Wells, littered with a few sailboats on their assigned moorings. I stood on the bow with the hook ready to fish the mooring line when Luke called down that the bow thruster was not responding. I raced to the lower helm to see if the controls there would illicit a response. Nothing.
Now at the stern, I watched the shallows behind us as Luke negotiated a tight turn with only the single prop and rudder, around a larger sailboat and back out to open waters. Upon investigating the forward bilge, a hydraulic line to the bow thruster had given out, dumping nearly 50 gallons of fluid into the bilge and rendering our hydraulic driven systems offline. No anchors, no crane to the pick the tender, no bow thruster, no windlass winches for docking. Fortunately the steering is on it’s own hydraulic system or we would have been hand tilling the hefty bird!
We radioed back to the Exumas National Park office and they suggested a first-come-first-served mooring back at Shroud. Upon approach we could see that these tie-ups are another 100 yards closer than we had anchored the night before. Those further out were already taken by very shallow-draft catamarans, but the charts indicated similar depths, so we carefully worked our way in and secured to a mooring within 50 yards of shore.
Luke spent that afternoon on the phone with his hydraulics contact back in Fort Lauderdale. He decided we needed to remove the hydraulic pump and seal the opening that would be left. The next morning Luke manufactured an aluminum plate and gasket and we used a come-a-long to hoist the heavy pump off the engine so we could get the engine running without ruining the expensive pump and avoid the $7,000-$10,000 towing back to Nassau.
It was late by the time we had everything ready and crossed the banks. The hour made it challenging to watch for coral heads – a required duty when crossing. Typically one makes this move in the mid-day, with the sun high, so these massive coral out-croppings are clearly visible, as dark black areas below the surface. With some luck and a keen eye, we made it into Nassau around 7pm with dead calm conditions, perfect for docking sans bow-thruster.
Two weeks in, the hydraulics are adequately repaired for now. A local outfit created new hoses, cleaned up the bilges and loaded new fluid. The weather was initially near perfect and then turned quite intense, with strong winds and in the meantime Luke cut the end of his thumb off testing a generator fan he was replacing.
Today we wait for UPS to deliver a final generator part and then.. south to Georgetown.
