I was hoping to avoid Marsh Harbour altogether in this swing through Abaco, other than a quick stop-in for reprovisioning. Alas, here we are in Marsh Harbor for at least one night, probably two or more, and on a dock at that! The problem is that our Balmar alternator went on the fritz a few days ago, it's been partly cloudy most days so our solar isn't quite keeping up, and we needed some shore power to top up our house batteries while we get the alternator fixed here in town. I hope it can be fixed anyways, because something fairly major is broken: it was actually arcing internally, and by the time I realized it and disconnected the alternator, it had burned a small hole in the aluminum case. Large-case, high-output Balmars are seriously not cheap - ours costs about $1300 - so I'm definitely hoping the alternator shop in town can fix this one. The dockmaster at the marina says Basil is good and does a lot of marine work.
Other than that it's been a nice first eight days in the Bahamas. As mentioned in my last post we spent two days at beautiful Manjack & Crab Cays, then returned to Green Turtle Cay for Thanksgiving. We spent the day shopping and doing miscellaneous chores in New Plymouth, then came back to the boat and watched the Vikings defeat the Lions on Dawn's iPad, and finally we had a scrumptious Thanksgiving feast - grilled chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, and homemade pumpkin pie. Friday was cloudy and windy, and we enjoyed a long (20nm) and boisterous beam reach sail around Whale Cay and through the Loggerhead Channel, past Great Guana and Scotland Cays to Man-O-War Cay. The reason for the long sail is that with brisk southwesterlies none of the usual lee anchorages were tenable, while Man-O-War's lagoon was calm as a lake. We really liked the quiet village but only stayed one night. On Saturday we stopped off for snorkeling at Fowl Cay en route to Great Guana, where we were the first boat to anchor in Fischer's Bay after the wind went north. The next morning we loaded up the dinghy for a snorkel expedition all the way around to the northwest side of Great Guana. It was pretty spectacular, the best snorkeling I've done in a long time, though the water was a bit rough. After our return we headed to Nippers for their Sunday pig roast, and mostly vegged when we got back.
This morning I tore out the alternator (having diagnosed and disabled it on Saturday) and then we had a nice close reach sail to Marsh Harbour, where we docked at the Marsh Harbour Marina. Quite a bargain at $1.05/ft, only $.85/ft if 2 days or more, with nice docks & facilities and a cruiser-friendly staff. So if we're to be stuck on a dock, this is a good option. After getting in today we took the dinghy across the harbor to the cruisers dinghy dock and used that as a base of operations for provisioning food and booze and tracking down some hardware. Dawn did a load of laundry and made her amazing Indian Butter Nut chicken, while I did my quarterly online airline training. Tomorrow will be a boatwork day, trying to improve the efficiency of the solar panels on our bimini and tracking down whatever leak has been filling our bilge the last two days. It's always something.
The easterly trades are going to howl the next couple days but supposedly there will be a good break for sailing to Eleuthera on Thursday night. Hopefully the boat is ready to go; in an ideal world, I'd also like to spend a night in Hope Town and an afternoon snorkeling at Sandy Cay. We'll see how this alternator repair goes first.
Other than that it's been a nice first eight days in the Bahamas. As mentioned in my last post we spent two days at beautiful Manjack & Crab Cays, then returned to Green Turtle Cay for Thanksgiving. We spent the day shopping and doing miscellaneous chores in New Plymouth, then came back to the boat and watched the Vikings defeat the Lions on Dawn's iPad, and finally we had a scrumptious Thanksgiving feast - grilled chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, and homemade pumpkin pie. Friday was cloudy and windy, and we enjoyed a long (20nm) and boisterous beam reach sail around Whale Cay and through the Loggerhead Channel, past Great Guana and Scotland Cays to Man-O-War Cay. The reason for the long sail is that with brisk southwesterlies none of the usual lee anchorages were tenable, while Man-O-War's lagoon was calm as a lake. We really liked the quiet village but only stayed one night. On Saturday we stopped off for snorkeling at Fowl Cay en route to Great Guana, where we were the first boat to anchor in Fischer's Bay after the wind went north. The next morning we loaded up the dinghy for a snorkel expedition all the way around to the northwest side of Great Guana. It was pretty spectacular, the best snorkeling I've done in a long time, though the water was a bit rough. After our return we headed to Nippers for their Sunday pig roast, and mostly vegged when we got back.
This morning I tore out the alternator (having diagnosed and disabled it on Saturday) and then we had a nice close reach sail to Marsh Harbour, where we docked at the Marsh Harbour Marina. Quite a bargain at $1.05/ft, only $.85/ft if 2 days or more, with nice docks & facilities and a cruiser-friendly staff. So if we're to be stuck on a dock, this is a good option. After getting in today we took the dinghy across the harbor to the cruisers dinghy dock and used that as a base of operations for provisioning food and booze and tracking down some hardware. Dawn did a load of laundry and made her amazing Indian Butter Nut chicken, while I did my quarterly online airline training. Tomorrow will be a boatwork day, trying to improve the efficiency of the solar panels on our bimini and tracking down whatever leak has been filling our bilge the last two days. It's always something.
The easterly trades are going to howl the next couple days but supposedly there will be a good break for sailing to Eleuthera on Thursday night. Hopefully the boat is ready to go; in an ideal world, I'd also like to spend a night in Hope Town and an afternoon snorkeling at Sandy Cay. We'll see how this alternator repair goes first.
Hey Sam, Sorry about you're alternator blues! I know of another boat that had a similar issue with internal arcing and turned out to be an issue with remote voltage regulator set-up if you are equipped with one on Windbird. With several charging sources between solar and wind the regulator system is key. Hope that helps! Say hello to Dawn & Piper!
ReplyDelete