…That’s your laugh for today! It took me almost two days to stop feeling the affects of the one precautionary Dramamine pill that I took. We finally signed up for our Out Island Internet connection for the next 4 months, so we will be able to post more regularly on the blog. Up until now, we have been catching a few free wifi signals, or trying to stretch out 10-minute trials in different harbors, just to get our emails.
TODAY, all systems are working on New Horizon. That is subject to change at any time, since of course it is a boat. Our exciting discovery has been that our refrigerator healed itself over the summer. We had a new one all picked out and ready to purchase, but just for the heck of it, I turned the old one on, kept checking the temps and it is working fine. We think that what happened is that when the generator shut down with the fridge on, it didn’t reset itself. According to the owner’s manual, you need to wait 5 minutes after a power interruption, to restart it. It is strange that it hasn’t happened other times during the many years we have owned it. It’s nice we have the small fridge as back up though.
Other problems have been cropping up also, but that is to be expected on a 1984 boat that has been sitting all summer in the sun and salt air. Having a full time mechanic living onboard makes a big difference and is becoming a necessity. So far Dave has been able to overcome all the obstacles.
Once we were floating again, we anchored in White Sound at Green Turtle Cay for several days. Actually, Dave found an abandoned mooring block that we hooked up lines to, so we were prepared in case of storms. None materialized, and in fact the winds were fairly calm and we have BOTH been swimming almost every day (living in our swimsuits has been awesome! Saves water too, since laundry has been minimal). However, due to huge offshore waves, we had to wait for better conditions to get through the Whale Cay Passage. Many long time residents have said they have never seen the waves breaking on the reefs and shore as high as they were. Our next post after this one, written by Dave, will tell you about a sobering scenario that happened to a cruising sailboat.
After making it safely to ‘the other side’, we anchored for a few days in Fisher’s Bay, Great Guana Cay. Northeast winds were predicted, but during the first night the wind veered to the Northwest leaving us totally exposed to the whole Sea of Abaco. After two hours of ‘bronco bucking’, and just as we were contemplating moving to Guana’s Settlement Harbor (something I cringed at, being nighttime), the wind thankfully moved to the north and then northeast. After that we enjoyed the rest of our time there working on the boat, exploring, swimming, and snorkeling.
From Guana we moved on to the hub of Abaco, Marsh Harbour. We did quite a bit of provisioning at the new huge grocery store ‘Maxwell’s’, which is comparable to the size of stores in the States! Although prices are higher on most items, some aren’t too outrageous. We were quite impressed with the cleanliness of the store, the well-stocked shelves, and the professionalism of the employees.
Now we are back on our mooring in bustling Hope Town, just in time for volunteering at the Box Cart Derby (I’ll write a separate post on that). It has been great seeing our friends again and getting back into the swing of things. Everyone was glad to see us too, and the camaraderie here is amazing. We had barely secured the boat to our mooring, when two different couples invited us for cocktails. And so the winter season begins…
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