Sunday 24th December
Bird Rock
Crooked Island
22 50.7 N
74 21.6 W
Surprisingly we woke before 0700hrs, in time to see the other boat leave the anchorage – was it something we said? We had thought that we would move a short distance to what was supposed to be a better sheltered anchorage, less than a mile away so we hauled the anchor and set off, avoiding the coral heads and arrived at the designated spot only to find that the swell was horrible and the anchorage shallower – fine at high tide but what about at low? Gerry decided that he didn’t like it there so we turned around without dropping the anchor and head back to where we had just left, I suspect that we were great entertainment for the family that was on the beach! So we re anchored at the same place as before and Gerry decided to go into the settlement about 2 miles away to fill the jerry cans with fuel whilst I stayed on the boat (he went alone as it had started to rain on and off). A decent interval passed and he returned with his story of being a good Samaritan for the day. Apparently a fishing boat left the dock just as he was going in to get the fuel, then on his way back to our boat he found the same boat had engine failure about a mile from the dock and was floundering around. He stopped and threw them a tow line and dragged them back to the dock – our little 8hp outboard had to tow a boat with a dead 75hp engine – it managed fabulously and the owner was very grateful. Gerry was offered dinner and then a drink both of which he refused, saying it wasn’t necessary and he would hope that anyone would have done the same given the same circumstances - just think we could have had Christmas dinner on some one else’s money! We spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying the surroundings – a beautiful beach with no one else around and not another boat in sight. One hiccough though - the generator made a horrid noise when we turned it on in the evening, Gerry thought the belt was slipping and needed changing. This was a job for when we got to a marina as to get to the belt the whole gen. set has to be removed from the casing which involves a block and tackle suspended over the nav. station – it couldn’t be harder to get at if it tried. So we switched it off and went to bed thinking we need to get to a marina as quickly as possible, allowing for the public holidays over Christmas and new year.
Crooked Island
22 50.7 N
74 21.6 W
Surprisingly we woke before 0700hrs, in time to see the other boat leave the anchorage – was it something we said? We had thought that we would move a short distance to what was supposed to be a better sheltered anchorage, less than a mile away so we hauled the anchor and set off, avoiding the coral heads and arrived at the designated spot only to find that the swell was horrible and the anchorage shallower – fine at high tide but what about at low? Gerry decided that he didn’t like it there so we turned around without dropping the anchor and head back to where we had just left, I suspect that we were great entertainment for the family that was on the beach! So we re anchored at the same place as before and Gerry decided to go into the settlement about 2 miles away to fill the jerry cans with fuel whilst I stayed on the boat (he went alone as it had started to rain on and off). A decent interval passed and he returned with his story of being a good Samaritan for the day. Apparently a fishing boat left the dock just as he was going in to get the fuel, then on his way back to our boat he found the same boat had engine failure about a mile from the dock and was floundering around. He stopped and threw them a tow line and dragged them back to the dock – our little 8hp outboard had to tow a boat with a dead 75hp engine – it managed fabulously and the owner was very grateful. Gerry was offered dinner and then a drink both of which he refused, saying it wasn’t necessary and he would hope that anyone would have done the same given the same circumstances - just think we could have had Christmas dinner on some one else’s money! We spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying the surroundings – a beautiful beach with no one else around and not another boat in sight. One hiccough though - the generator made a horrid noise when we turned it on in the evening, Gerry thought the belt was slipping and needed changing. This was a job for when we got to a marina as to get to the belt the whole gen. set has to be removed from the casing which involves a block and tackle suspended over the nav. station – it couldn’t be harder to get at if it tried. So we switched it off and went to bed thinking we need to get to a marina as quickly as possible, allowing for the public holidays over Christmas and new year.
Labels: Bahamas
posted by SV Orpailleur at 6:53 a.m.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home