Adventures! From Black Point to Lee Stocking Island.

Where I'm blogging from. Not too shabby.

Three days ago, we left Black Point.  After getting knocked about by stronger-than-predicted wind (big surprise there) and choppy waves, we cut the trip short.  We anchored about a mile south of where we started.  The anchorage was pretty rolly, so after a little beach time, we headed back to Black Point. 
The next day, we left Black Point again.  It was much better!  The waves were tolerable.  Though the wind was in our face, it wasn't too strong, and we managed to motorsail our way down to Cave Cay, where we stopped for fuel.  We spent the last of our cash (not the last, we still have $4) on 6 gallons of diesel and one gallon of gas.  That should get us down to Georgetown.  We passed the super cute Musha Cay (adorably colorful houses and a totally sweet palm-tree lined beach) and made our way down to Rudder Cut Cay.  We anchored next to a cave!

Naturally, we had to go investigate this cave.  So we hopped in the dinghy and headed over.  There's a hole in the roof of it.  The hole lets in enough light for coral to grow in there.  It was pretty cool!  We could see blue tangs, assorted grunts, and lots of little fish swimming around.  We thought it might be worth fishing, so we headed back to the boat to grab our fishing gear and snorkel gear.  We had no luck with the fishing.  We tried to catch bait with the sabiki rig, but those little guys weren't biting.  So we anchored the dinghy outside in the sand and snorkeled in.  It was beautiful!  It looked like a garden.  It was so shallow that we didn't want to use fins and risk kicking anything, so we went barefoot.  In one of the little coral heads outside, we saw a huge lionfish.  I've read that they're all over the Bahamas, but this was the first one I've seen.  I wished so badly that we had a speargun.  They're wickedly invasive, and everyone is encouraged to kill them.  I've also heard they're crazy delicious.  So if we happen to pick up a spear gun in Georgetown, we'll have to go back to that spot and see if we can't get that lion fish.

Hole in the cave roof.

Yesterday morning, we were up early and ready to get down to Georgetown (if we could go fast enough).  But the engine wouldn't start.  Crap.  Assuming we had gotten bad fuel at Cave Cay, we changed out the fuel filters and bled the lines.  It started up and died after about 20 seconds.  Crap again.  So we bled the lines again, thinking maybe we missed a bubble.  In the process, we managed to strip out the threads in a casing where a bleed nut screws in.  Crappity crap crap!  This made it super leaky.  If fuel leaks out, then air gets in.  And the engine won't run.  We thought plumbing tape might do the trick, but we couldn't find it.  We tried duct tape.  No luck.  We tried a few other things.  Nope.  Then we remembered we're a sailboat.  Hell, let's try sailing out of here.  We won't make Georgetown, but we might get down to Lee Stocking Island. 
So we hoisted the main and lifted the anchor.  With a light wind, the boat does not go very fast with the main alone.  We managed to get out of the anchorage and into the channel toward the cut.  But with only the main, we were hardly going fast enough to even have rudder control.  So we hoisted the genoa.  Whoa!  Zoom we went!  But we were on a narrow VRP route, and we didn't have much room to maneuver.  So we tacked and tacked and tacked, zig-zagging along this little channel toward Rudder Cut.  Under sail alone, we knew we wouldn't be able to navigate those tricky VRP routes, so outside in Exuma Sound was our only choice.  With skillful tacking, we managed to zoom out of the cut into the sound.  The outgoing tidal current helped.  Ah, open water!
So we sailed the day away.  Once we were out there, it was actually pretty nice.  The waves were fairly big, but they were rollers and not choppy.  It was a great day of sailing!  We had to tack back offshore every once in a while.  On one tack, our genoa caught on one of the spreaders, and we ended up with about a 6-inch tear along a seam.  Crud.  But it didn't catch again, so we weren't too badly off.
The next tricky part came when it was time to go back to the inside.  We had to navigate another one of those narrow cuts.  The tide was coming in, so the current worked in our favor again.  I don't think we could have made it against those currents with only our sails.  So we zoomed into the cut, missing the rocky island to port, and the rocks awash at starboard.  Right on!  As we came around the western tip of the island, it was time to take down the genoa.  Then we had a headwind and nothing but the main sail.  Boy, were we going slow.  So slow I had almost no steering.  So I would turn out of the wind just enough to build up speed, then I'd tack around to where we'd want to go.  The tide was pretty high, and we were lucky to avoid running aground on a sandbar.  We managed to make our way in toward the mooring balls.  Can we sail onto a mooring ball?  We almost did!  Believe it or not, we were actually going too fast.  I luffed the sail and tried to slow down, but we were going over 2 knots as we got to the ball.  Trevor managed to grab it and hang on.  He hung on too long.  The momentum of the boat was too much to stop, and Trevor was dragged backward into a stanchion.  He let go, but not before the stanchion was broken.  (This is the second stanchion that's been broken on this boat.  I think they're poorly constructed.)  Maybe sailing onto a ball wasn't going to work.  So Trevor hopped into the dinghy and took a line over to the next ball (which I had nearly sailed to by this time, damn I'm good).  Then we tied on, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. 
We managed to make it through two cuts and (nearly) onto a mooring ball under sail alone.  It was an exhausting and incredibly frustrating day.  Our engine was dead, our sail torn, and a stanchion broken.  We both mellowed out with a cocktail.
Did I mention we spent all our cash on fuel?  Luckily, the research center here on Lee Stocking Island takes checks!  They work on donations, so we technically could have stayed for free.  But we don't mind paying for a ball, especially after the traumatic day we'd had.  And they take checks.
This morning, Trevor went in to pay for the ball and inquired about water.  They're not listed as having water available for cruisers, but we're in pretty rough shape, and they took pity on us.  We have water now!  After coffee and breakfast, it was time to work on that engine.  We'd talked to our friends on Glenice the day before, and they gave us a few more ideas to work with.
First, I tried wrapping whipping twine around the nut to make it bigger and to possibly get the thing to seal.  No go.  Meanwhile, Trevor found the plumbing tape.  I wrapped some of that around the twine.  Still not a perfect seal, but it's better.  So we added more tape.  And more.  Better, but still leaky.  Then I wrapped the plumbing tape around all the stuff, hoping to seal it off.  It was better, but the diesel seeped through the tape.  What else can we use to seal this damn thing off?  Latex gloves?  Sure, let's give that a try.  With that improvement, we managed to get the motor started, though it ran slow.  Sounded like it just wasn't getting enough fuel.  We thought if the seal wasn't perfect, the fuel pressure would be low, so that makes sense.  Then we strapped some electrical tape over the whole thing.  Didn't see any more fuel coming out, but the engine still ran slow.  But it kept running, so that was good.  Just not good enough to get us to Georgetown.  The throttle lever was pushed about as far as it would go, so there wasn't any way to get more power.  Or was there?  I thought the fuel lever on the engine looked a little odd, so I manually pushed it open.  The engine revved up.  I let it down, then pushed it back again, this time watching the lever in the cockpit.  It wasn't moving the whole way!  "Trevor, we have a problem with our throttle cable!"  He opened up the locker to look at it, and sure enough, it was off its bracket.  We turned off the motor, put the cable back in place, and started it up again.  Vroom!  It's working!!! 
So all that mess with changing the filters, bleeding the lines, stripping the bleed nut threads, and disassembling the fuel intake (forgot to mention that one) was all for naught.  Maybe.  We could have had a little water in the fuel.  We'll never know.  But now it's working!  We'll need to replace the part with the stripped threads.  Maybe in Georgetown, if there's a place we can order it.  But it's something we can fix ourselves.  No need for a mechanic!  Awesome.
Then we repaired the sail, stitching with dental floss because it's about the strongest thread we have on the boat.  Looks a little funny (minty green floss), but it works.  So 2 out of the 3 things we broke yesterday are now in working order.
We've had a good day.
The wind is going to blow pretty hard for the next few days, so we'll probably stay here.  There are trails to hike (we can get to the highest point in the Exumas), and the research center does tours on Tuesdays and Fridays.  So we're "stuck" in another great place.  And Wednesday or Thursday, we'll start heading south again.  Eventually, we'll get to Georgetown.  And then the Tropic of Cancer.
Adventures!  Some good, some bad, but always adventures!