The Cursed Crossing- Break, Break, Break

We spoke with our good friend Andy Allen, owner of MV seeDee. He agreed to go with us on the crossing to the Abacos. We picked him up on Thursday night, had a great dinner at a Dominican Republic restaurant in Jacksonville, FL. Christie Comrie drove our car to the condo after we left (Thank you, Christie). Tim Popp from Cloud X also helped us out with getting the car prepared for the winter storage at the condo. (Thanks Tim).

After a good night sleep, we left the dock by 6:30 a.m. and had a great cruise up the St. John's River to Jacksonville. As we passed the Navy base in Jacksonville, we enjoyed a flyby show of Navy planes.

As we approached the Intercoastal Waterway, we were able to clearly see where the salt water began and the fresh water ends.

We started seeing a little white spoke from our Starboard (Right) Engine. Wink had changed the oil and filters and felt he had overfilled the engine. After a short while, Wink decided to consult a Yanmar repair expert. The expert was concerned that the fuel injectors were having a problem and suggested we keep a watch on them. We anchored our first night north of St. Augustine. When we awoke in the morning, the batteries were lower voltage than they should have been.

As we continued on our cruise, we continued to monitor the engines and we kept a closer watch on the batteries and when we awoke on the third morning, indeed the batteries were again not where they should be. We continued on our trip with the plan to stop near Andy's home and have the engines and the batteries checked. Andy directed us to Telemar Bay Marina in Indian Harbor Beach. It's a great place and Sara really liked it because she was only 10 feet from the grass.

Wilma spent some of her time in front of the sewing machine making 10 new fender covers. These covers keep the fenders from squeaking when rubbed against the dock and boat. They also look a lot better and keep the boat nice and clean.

Wink dived on the boat to check out the shaft seals and discovered that one of the zincs was loose and pretty well used up. He replaced the zinc with a new one.

After the Marine Pro expert came and looked over the engines, it was decided that we did need to have all eight fuel injectors cleaned and reworked. We also determined that our house bank of batteries needed to be replaced. The picture below shows the batteries removed and the area cleaned and ready for new batteries.We decided to also have our battery for the generator replaced as well. Thirteen batteries total. We were going to be taking a break from the crossing because the repairs would take two weeks. Andy was near his home now and his window of opportunity to cross had closed. We rented a car for the week and did some errands. Our coffee pot even decided to break. We have a spare purculator on board, but if we used it we wouldn't have a spare so we just bought another one.

Wilma called her family to let them know that we would not be crossing for another two weeks. Wilma's family decided to have an early Thanksgiving with all of her siblings coming in from various locations for a family reunion. Wilma's parents are on the loveseat above. They have been married for over 63 years. Their children from left: Billy, Betty, Timmy, Geraldine, Mickey, Wilma and Hardy. Wilma's family also had a celebration of their fathers 84th birthday.

Once Wilma returned, we decided to get underway on Tuesday, November 25th so Wilma rode her new bicycle to Publix for fresh vegetable and milk. We left early at 6:30 a.m. and cruised to Ft. Pierce, FL. We arrived at the Ft. Pierce inlet around 1:00 p.m. and kept going as we knew this was our only chance as the weather was due to deteriorate in the evening.

The crossing went well with 3-4 ft swells. Wink had driven during the morning until we got to the ICW and into the ocean for a couple of hours then Wilma took over and drove until about 9:00 p.m. We reached the Little Bahama Bank about 10:00 p.m.

Our intention was to anchor anywhere on the bank and get some rest, but the winds and waves were too rough to anchor. We had to keep going. We drove as if in the ocean, radar was on, the chart was plotted, the navigation screens covered to keep out the light. We checked the radar, the navigation, and checked for lights in the dark night every few minutes. Wink and Wilma both took turns and tried to rest some in between. We set our course and speed to arrive at Great Sale Cay (a good anchorage) about daylight Wednesday. We were so happy to finally see day light and have a chance to rest. We anchored on the west side of Great Sale Cay for protection from the east winds. We attempted to turn on the generator to cool the boat down for better sleeping - keyword "attempted". After a short time diagnosing the problem, we decided it couldn't be repaired quickly so we pulled up anchor and headed to Spanish Cay. In route to Spanish, we decided to dump our holding tank. Guess What? You got it, the macerator wouldn't work. Just one more thing to repair at Spanish Cay.

We arrived at Spanish Cay and cleared customs 32 hours after we left our dock on Tuesday morning. By now we were so wired by the coffee and the excitement of actually arriving that we couldn't sleep. Wink was able to replace the impeller on the generator and luckily we had bought a spare macerateor so he changed that out also. The rain came about 5:00 p.m. and continued all night. Thank you, God for washing the boat down for us. Finally around 11:00 p.m. we enjoyed a nice, relaxing sleep.

Spanish Cay put a nice Thanksgiving Dinner together for about 9 boaters. It was very nice to meet some new people and have a great dinner and to give thanks for a safe - yet long crossing to the Abacos. On Friday, we decided to go lobster hunting. We prepared the skiff and when we tried to start it, it wouldn't work (what else is new?) After examination, Wink discovered that the cable to the motor from the shifter was broken into. This must have happen on the transient as the skiff was working fine in Florida. This repair will have to wait until we get to Marsh Harbour. On Saturday Wink needed a little more light in the Saloon, but the light switch wouldn't work - luckily this only took a few minutes to repair. We stayed at Spanish Cay for several days and then headed south on a calm day to make the Whale Cay crossing. As we approached Green Turtle Cay, we passed Ken Fickett (Builder of our boat). He was the Captain for a charter group on Spoonbill. The water was so clear and we had dolphins under our bow twice on the course to Marsh Harbour. A special thanks to David from Tar Heel for coming out to take our Skiff into Boat Harbour so we could back into our slip. He also brought Fred from Chippka Fire III (thank you Fred) to help out with the lines since Wilma is steal healing from her dual arm surgeries.

All our friends at Boat Harbour were there to greet us and catch our lines and once more we were home. After a day, a night, and a happy hour, it seems as if we never left........