Briefly, I want to mention one of my hot buttons:
courtesy and consideration from one human toward another. It seems sadly lacking so often in our current society. This was reinforced in the crossing of our paths with other boaters. On the ICW and elsewhere, powerboats most frequently ignore the presence of their slower sailboat brethren, passing them at high speeds with large wakes that make the sailboats pitch and roll, sometimes violently. Often, they do this even when they could easily pass to stern of a sailboat, preventing this disruption. This is well-known to folks who have been cruising for any length of time at all. Additionally, while most sailboats have a friendly wave for each other when coming into sight, it is common to be ignored by power boaters when you wave in an attempt to be polite and friendly. Not by all, certainly, but in my very limited experience on Florida’s ICW, it is well over 50%.

Surprisingly, this carried over in our contacts with other cruisers at Marathon. While most folks on sailboats (over 80% of those boats moored and anchored in the harbor) would wave back, there were quite a few who would disdain doing so. Hence my earlier comment about “snobs”. We had a close neighbor on a boat named “Living Well”, a brand-new 42’ or 46’ Hunter (IIRC) who would actually stare at us as we motored by in our dinghy, but would not respond to a wave or a pleasant greeting. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that he received one final wave from me before we left Marathon, but I wasn’t using all of my fingers.

Back to our run from Bimini to Great Harbour Cay. We left last Friday morning, motoring into what was still somewhat heavy chop, although not as nasty as Thursday’s. It bounced us around, as well as slowing us to approximately 4 knots. When we got to the area of the Bahama Banks near Mackie Shoal, we anchored for the night in about 20 feet of water, dropping the hook at about 1800 hours. It took us almost thirty minutes before we were able to get the anchor to stop dragging,a new experience for us, as we had purchased a new anchor that had worked exceedingly well for us so far, a 35 lb. Manson Supreme, very similar to the Rocna. We had read numerous reports on both the Rocna and the Mason Supreme, with the Manson getting the slight edge. This Manson, on all chain rode, has always done well, but did drag for a while before we were able to reset it and get it to hold.

We were fairly exhausted, so we retired for the night almost immediately. About this time, the wind began piping up, going from the 10-15 knots we had been seeing most of the day to 15-20, with gusts occasionally higher. Both the boat and the dinghy we were pulling behind us at this time began pitching and slamming in this shallow water, also sailing around the anchor a bit. We endured this, unable to sleep, until about 0300, when I suggested to Shirley that we raise anchor and continue to motor on to Great Harbour. She agreed, so we raised the Manson and about 150’ of chain, and set out again. I fired up the radar, as visibility was good, but I wanted the assurance that we could see traffic that might not have lights visible (e.g., power outage, drug-running, or ?), and anything that might be sticking out of the water that didn’t show on our charts. We did observe several other vessels, including a long-line fishing vessel towing a couple of small powerboats behind it as it trolled.

As this was the first time Shirley and I had sailed/motored at night without either someone more experienced on board, or along with one or more other boats, we both felt much better when the sun came up and we could once again see clearly what was - or wasn’t - around us. The Banks are pretty well deserted both day and night, but remember that we had no prior experience of our own to give us reason to relax.

We got within about 10 nm of Great Harbour Cay when the port engine alarm went off. Have I mentioned losing several alternator belts since we had the Balmar high-output alternator installed by SALT Engineering in Marathon? (I’ll correct that omission in a moment.) I shut the engine down,and checked it out. The belt was shredded. It had been running continuously for about twenty hours since I last changed it, so I thought it was good to go, but that obviously was not the case. When we got about a mile out from Bullock’s Harbor, I slowed the boat until she just had steerage, and had Shirley take the helm while I went below and put a new belt on. (I was glad I had had the foresight to purchase four spares before leaving Marathon. Knowledgeable friends had suggested carrying a couple of spares, but I decided a couple for each engine would be better. If I had known that the Balmar was going to be a problem, I would have bought ten or twelve of the buggers.) Good thing. When we got to the marina, and had to use reverse to maneuver the boat in tight quarters, I ran over the dinghy painter (we normally have the dinghy up on davits) , immediately jamming the starboard prop and stopping that engine. With the wind and current, it was difficult docking on one engine, but not as difficult as it would have been if the port engine hadn’t had a belt on it and was unusable!

Great Harbour is a disappointment. The marina is run down, the bathrooms marginal and not very clean. One washer and dryer, but they do work. We walked a good ways toward town, but although we ran into three small stores and a police station, I’m not sure we actually got to “town”. There is a Batelco (Bahamas Telephone Company) office about a twenty minute walk (ten minute bike ride) from the marina that has free wifi access. The only thing that can really be said for it is that there is excellent protection from wind in this harbor. We sat out a squall with 40+ knot winds here, and only saw about 15-20 knots with 25 knot gusts in the marina during its passage.


OK. SALT Engineering of Marathon, FL. A sad story indicating another lapse of good judgment on my part. One day while in Marathon, having noticed that we were having to run our diesel generator for several hours every day to keep our refrigerator cool (not cold), I realized that a prior owner of this boat had removed the engine-powered compressor system that would have run our Sea Frost refrigerator in an efficient (fairly) fashion. This probably occurred when the engines were changed from Perkins 18 HP diesels to the larger Yanmar 27 HP diesels. Possibly due to a lack of space for the engine-powered compressor, or for some other reason, said prior owner had installed an optional 110 volt “Shore-Assist” system, which ran a small compressor off of shore power, or the generator if shore power was not available. Unfortunately, if you are not hooked up to shore power and running the reefer almost continuously, it will not keep the contents cold, only cool, definitely warmer than desired.

Walking in town, I noticed a business that dealt in alternative energy equipment - solar, wind, etc. They also sold refrigeration equipment. I stopped and asked if they might be able it install the engine-powered compression equipment that was usual for the Sea Frost system. They said that, for $98 an hour, a technician would come to our boat, survey the system, and make a recommendation. A very nice fellow named Dwight, a Canadian who said he had seventeen years experience living aboard sailboats, came the next day. He observed that it would be difficult to reinstall the engine-powered compressor, piping and wiring. He said the boat’s electrical system needed to be corrected (both engine batteries, he said, had been wired directly to their respective engine’s alternators, bypassing their battery switches), and that a larger bank of house batteries (six 105 amp hour AGMs), along with an inverter (Heart 2000) , would supply enough energy to keep the reefer cold without having to run the diesel generator every day. He also suggested a higher output (Balmar, remember? ;-) alternator, which would charge the battery bank while the boat was motoring (at least while the port engine was running.) Later, when we could afford to add some solar panels and a wind generator, we would be able to power the boat without spending money on diesel fuel for the generator, especially when we were at anchor, which is how we were hoping to operate most of the time.

Having long been a fan of solar/wind/hydro alternative energy, I was a sucker for this. So, when I was given a written quote of $6100 for parts ($4800) and labor ($1300), I cringed, and almost passed on it, but - with Shirley trusting my judgment - finally agreed to have the work done. Dwight said it could be done in about three or four days. Two and a half weeks later - not due to our slowing the process, except for one day when we had an appointment - it was finished. We were presented with a bill for $8100. Seems Dwight had not listed all the parts he needed, and the labor was more than double what was quoted. I went -twice - to their shop to explain that a quote was a quote, not an estimate. Dwight and the owner of the business spent over an hour explaining why I should pay for the extra labor and parts. As Dwight had indeed done two hours extra work that was not listed on the quote, I agreed to pay an extra $200. The owner argued that he could only cut the bill so far, and insisted that we had to pay an extra $750 above the quote. Finally, as we were due to leave Marathon the next day (the first decent weather window in almost a month), and I was afraid the owner would tie up our boat with a mechanic’s lien while we sorted this out in court, I agreed to pay for the $200 extra work Dwight did, plus an additional $400. So the system cost $6700 instead of the $6100 quoted.

Have you fallen asleep yet? Well, here was the bad news: we still had to run the generator every _other_ day, as the reefer was such a power hog that it ran the battery bank down by almost thirty percent over a two day period. To make your batteries last, it is best not to let them get depleted more than 30-40%, or you end up having to replace them frequently, instead of them lasting for a few years, and they are expensive. So, until we can spare the money to buy some solar panels, we basically spent $6700 to save about two gallons of diesel a day. At $4.00 a gallon, it will only take about 4.6 years to pay back the system ;-) Worse news: thanks to the Balmar alternator, the port engine began shredding belts. The alternator was misaligned, and after running for about eight hours, it ate a belt. We found this out as we were enroute to Rodriguez Key (FL) on our way to Bimini. I replaced the belt with a spare, but fifteen minutes after starting out the next morning, it ate the spare. As we were in convoy with several buddy boats for crossing the Gulf Stream while conditions were mild, we just ran on one engine.

Now, the monohull sailboats we traveled with were worried abut keeping up with our fast multi hull catamaran. Cats have a reputation for speed. Well, with all the provisions we brought (three months worth of food, dog food, full water tanks, extra tools, spare parts, etc. ), a month’s growth of algae and barnacles on the twin hulls, and only one engine, we were passed by every boat in the group, becoming the last to reach Bimini that day. The wind was light, so even with our jib out, we only averaged about 4 knots. (We might have picked up an extra knot if we had raised the main sail, as one other boat did, but Shirley and I have not had much experience with the sails up on this boat yet, and did not want the added complexity in case conditions worsened during the crossing. Most of the boats only flew their jib or genoa, as we did.)

Back to the belts. After we got to Bimini, I had one of our new friends, David Nutt from the UK, look at the engine. He said that the alternator was misaligned. I tried shimming the mount, and believed I got the Balmar’s pulley in parallel with the pulley on the engine. However, as I mentioned earlier, on the last part of the trip to Great Harbour, it shredded again. Today, sitting in the marina, I tried to decide if I would attempt to re-align the Balmar or put the original Yanmar alternator back on. Looking at the face of the Balmar, it appeared that a washer or shim behind the pulley might bring it out to where it would indeed be parallel. I located a larger washer that just exactly fit (a miracle in itself) over the large pulley shaft, yet was small enough to fit the back side of the pulley without rubbing on the alternator housing anywhere. I ran the engine at various rpm for a while, and it seemed to work properly. I won’t know for certain until it runs under load for a while , but I’ve got my fingers crossed. As the next leg of our journey is a 30 nm run across some deep water, followed by a 50 nm stretch across water exposed to the full fetch of the Atlantic Ocean with a lee shore, I’d _really, really_ like to have two engines to motor with, and two engines to maneuver with when we get to where we will anchor or dock. Those of you who have read this far, thanks for hanging in there. More to follow.