Stats for Friday, April 12, 2019

Origin: Little Harbour

Destination: Marsh Harbour

Distance: 24.9 miles

Speed: 8 mph

Time on the Move: 3 hours and 6 minutes

We woke up leisurely on Friday morning, as we like to most mornings. We weren’t planning on going far, no reason to get moving too quick, so I decided to make eggs for breakfast. Generator on and I’m making my coffee (where I really just heat up water in the microwave), I turn the stove on to start the eggs, then I put the toast down to get that going, but the water needs a little more time in the microwave, so I add another 30 seconds. Our inverter is a champ and I don’t ever really have to worry about a thing (read: either it’s working and I don’t worry OR it’s broken and shit already hit the fan, so I know there’s a problem).

All of a sudden the microwave and the stove stop working, but the toaster is still on. Weird. I call Mike over and blow his mind with this new fact. All boat trip we have been wishing our galley plugs ran off the invertor and not just the generator, but wishing doesn’t help with projects like that, so we dealt with it. Obviously the generator wasn’t working at this moment, so why in the world were the galley outlets still on??

Then, the stove started making a weird buzzing sound and we shut down the generator. Now we’re running on inverter power only, which should mean all kitchen power is dead, but that is not the case. Mike was flipping switches–is this on? is that on? Stove is still buzzing, so we switch spots and I’m at the panel and he’s in the kitchen. All of a sudden he says “WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A FIRE!!” so I grab the fire extinguisher I’m right next to and run (3 steps) to the galley. The stove is sparking and buzzing so we quick decide to turn off the inverter so that there is absolutely no power going to anything on our boat, hoping to prevent this rogue stove from starting a fire.

Sure enough, the buzzing stops and the sparking stops and all is calm. We looked at each other wondering what in the world just happened to our nice morning of eggs and a short boat ride because surely now everything has changed. Being nothing is getting power in our boat and that fact that it is Friday in the Bahamas, we decide we need to get moving and find someone who can help.

So Mike fires up the engines and starts pulling up the anchor while we look at our options of where we can get service. We decide we should head to Marsh Harbour because it is the biggest settlement that really caters to cruisers, that we know of, in the Abacos. On the way, Mike makes some phone calls to marinas while I search for recommended marine electricians. Sure enough, we get in touch with THE guy who everyone recommends, and he says he can be available in the afternoon to meet us at Marsh Harbour Marina. WHEW. Thank goodness. He also offers us a tip right over the phone to check the breaker on the generator and sure enough, that’s exactly why the generator stopped working. The breaker flipped from me using the toaster/micro/stove combo. Who knew?! But the question remained why would the stove spark and attempt catch on fire with no apparent power??

The good thing about our marina is that there was a pool. That was especially good since the whole galley floor would be open for the 3rd day in the last 6 or so with repairs taking place. So as soon as we landed at the marina, I took the kids to the pool and the electrician showed up.

My day went like this:

Mike’s day was quite a bit different. It involved squishing into a small space with a man in tights. This electrician knew his stuff, but yes, he was wearing tights. And also perhaps a dress.

They reviewed everything from shore power through the panels to the inverter to the receptacles. They figured out that the sparking stove was because there was a back-fed neutral wire from the galley plug. This means power was going to the stove when it shouldn’t have been. We had a broken burner on the stove and wires were touching, so that fed into the problem, as well. Electrical tape was put around the broken parts of the burner to band aid that problem for now. They talked about how to fix the back-fed ground wire, and apparently Mike will take care of it in his free time. Other than that, I just can’t use 3 things in the galley at once, or I will pop the breaker on the generator. Makes sense to me, but once again, living on a boat is not EASY!

As soon as the very nice and knowledgeable electrician headed on his way, Mike realized he needed a few washers for our leaking generator issue so he zipped over to town on the dinghy and (again) made it to 4 stores withing 20 minutes of closing time, but none of them actually had what we needed to stop that stinkin leak once and for all.

After all that excitement, the kids were ready for some down time at the boat and Mike was ready for some pool time and a swim, so the kids watched a movie while Mike and I went to the pool for a bit. Then we decided to dinghy around the Harbour and check it out.

My Aunt Marti used to live in Marsh Harbour for 6 months a year for a few years back in the 1990’s. She actually rode out Hurricane Dennis with her boat at this exact same marina in 1999. It was cool to be in her stomping grounds and see what she loved about the place.

It was definitely a place set up for cruisers with lots of resources and boats anchored in the harbour. We ended up landing at the dinghy dock and going for a short walk. To get ice cream, of course. INNTW?!

The next morning we decided to stay another day because we had a dock and air conditioning and a pool. Plus, we had to pay $20 for water hook up whether we stayed one day or two and it seemed like such a rip off to pay that much for one day!! Also, there was a big grocery store. Important stuff, ya know?!

We headed to the grocery store and brought our wagon full of goodies back to the dinghy. The grocery store was HUGE by Bahamian standards, more like a grocery store in the states, but prices were all at least double what they would be at home. We had to look at prices carefully and resist temptation to buy too much. As it was, we bought too much.

When we got back to the dinghy dock, some local kids were hoping to load our groceries into the dinghy for money. Mike explained that our kids would take care of it, and then we proceeded to explain every last detail about putting the groceries in the dinghy to them. I think it was a good wake up call for our kids to see how hard these kids are willing to work to make some money (not that loading groceries is that hard, but getting kids to do anything when they don’t “want to” is like pulling teeth…). Then as we were pulling away, a bunch of the local kids went swimming right next to the dinghy dock. Which was gross. The water was so murky there, I can’t imagine swimming in it. Again, another good wake up call for our kids to see differences in life everywhere.

We headed back to unload groceries, work on laundry, and hit the pool again. It was a nice relaxing day.

I spent the rest of the day blogging, but Mike and the boys went on a nice walk at sunset.

And of course, the creature catcher caught 1 more lizard!!

We had a great time in Marsh Harbour, and we felt so relieved that the generator/fire issue was figured out, if not actually fixed. Plus, we had groceries and clean laundry, and that felt amazing.

On to new adventures!! Thank you for reading and following along!!