Last night brought some nasty surge into the Black Point anchorage but not much else... It turns out that the nasty front that came through lost much of it's strength on this part of the Bahamas... Other places further north weren't as lucky.
I woke up after a rocky night feeling tired but encouraged after having dodged the storm. The water was clear and placid, plus the wind was about 10 knots, so I decided to weigh anchor and head towards Staniel Cay under sail only, as a purist might do. The wind remained good as I sailed past the other boats in the harbor, but as soon as I was out of the half-moon shaped anchorage, the wind dropped to under 5 knots... So I bobbed around not doing any progress for about 30 minutes, after which the wind came back, albeit a little odd and inconsistent. As I am vainly enjoying my self-righteous sailing state, Dan from Spice pointed out to me on the radio about a small vessel headed my way. As I got closer I managed to observe that it was a custom little boat, most likely not greater than 12 feet, patiently sailing downwind headed southeast through the Exumas. I suspect it may have been the person from the www.microcruisers.com website. I tacked over to head into a collission course to see the boat from up close, it seemed like a pretty spartan vessel. We waved to each other as boaters do, and I yelled "you put us all to shame!". This guy unknowingly managed to erase any kind of sense of accomplishment that I may have had!
I continued sailing over to Big Majors Spot (just north of Staniel Cay) and as I got close, I realized I was finally going to be able to hang out with people in my tax bracket! There was a super-megayacht, rafted up to a megayacht, which was rafted up to three large yachts in decreasing size, which were rafted up to a 40 foot center console powerboat which I suppose is one of their tenders. I can only imagine the crazy parties that go on in these vessels...
Since my dinghy engine had stubbornly refused to start that morning, I started working on it right after I anchored. I don't know much (anything really) about internal combustion engines (or for that matter, any kind of engine), so all I figured I could do was to follow a friend's advice on two-stroke engine repair.
Step 1) drain the water that might be caught up in the carburetor bowl.
Step 2) remove the spark plug and spray some wd-40 in the hole where the spark plug goes
Step 3) with the spark plug out, pull the starting cord 20-30 times.
Step 4) replace the spark plug or clean the old one and screw it back in
Step 5) pull the starting cord and hear the engine purr while tasting the sweet taste of victory in the battle of man vs machine (or at least that is what step 5 was for me!)
Dan and Linda from Spice were waiting for me to deal with the engine so we could go to Staniel Cay (in case I was going to need a ride), but once I cried victory they left, only to have their engine die on them shortly thereafter. I towed them back to their boat with my resuscitated engine and since they now didn't want to go to Staniel Cay, I left on my own.
At Staniel, I immediately met up with Bill from Meant2B, everyone else on his boat was napping due to an exhausting previous night (when we were all sitting ducks at Black Point). Anyway, his crew eventually did wake up and joined us at the bar. Later on, we met up with Wesley and Renee from Moonshadow, we played pool, had some drinks, and said goodbyes as I left to finally have some good night's rest.
Note: the pic with the rafted yachts was taken BEFORE the super-megayacht joined the raftup!
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