Breeze On

Good news. The flex feeder is securely attached to the mast. The replacement leaf springs are on order (one to spare) and should arrive at our daughter’s house in time for her and her husband to bring them to us when they visit next week. Fingers crossed the shipment will arrive before the major storm hits their area this weekend.  The windy weather here continued through much of the day yesterday. George and I ventured off the boat briefly to cut each others’ hair on the beach. Today has been a lovely, calm, sunny day. We joined Dee & Ron and Jean & Michael at Dapple Cafe for lunch. George has been thinking of Dapple Cafe’s mocha smoothie ever since we arrived a week ago. We have so enjoyed hanging out with our friends but are all going our separate ways tomorrow.                                                         George’s mo...

Our time here at Thompson Bay has flown by. Yesterday we ate lunch at Sou’ Side with Dee & Ron and Jean & Michael. On our way back Dee and Ron stopped at Breeze On so that Ron could take a look at the stubborn screw that didn’t want to come out. He and George worked on it a while until the head came off the screw. In the meantime a front—which we had hoped would not come this far south—arrived and the wind picked up. George and Ron continued to work on removing what was left of the screw and tapping a new hole. At some point they noticed that the leaf spring—a part that goes under the flex feeder—had broken off. George suspects it had been cracked by whatever stresses ruined the old flex feeder. A new leaf spring was not included with our replacement flex feeder so George has ordered two new ones (one to spare.)  George and Ron have a bit of fine tuning to do on the flex feeder then we will wait for the new leaf spring.  The front brought quite a bit of rain last night...

George has been working on removing the old mainsail feeder track but is not done yet. He has been applying penetrating oil to the screws and tapping them with a hammer. In addition, he has been using his oscillating multitool and hot knife to cut away the plastic feeder track to allow better access to the screws. Then he heated the screws with the hot knife. The first screw came right out, but the second screw is proving to be more stubborn. He is applying more penetrating oil to that one and will allow the oil to do its work overnight before trying again tomorrow.  When we arrived in Thompson Bay, I was very much looking forward to going to the farmers market on Saturday morning.  Just as we were about to leave the boat for the market a heavy squall arrived. We waited for it to pass then went to shore.  I didn’t find nearly as much to buy there as I did two weeks ago, but did come back with some arugula, sapodillas (a very sweet, soft fruit that tastes like brown sugar)...

After stealing an idea from Dee and Ron we decided to leave George Town yesterday at noon, taking advantage of the SW wind to sail east to Thompson Bay, Long Island. The conditions were great and even allowed us to turn the engine off and sail with just our very small jib. We arrived about a half-hour street sunset. Thompson Bay is wide open to the SW and, although the anchorage was somewhat bouncy, it was tolerable. The anchorage calmed down after the wind moved further to the north overnight.  George attempted to replace the mainsail feeder track before we left George Town but wasn’t able to remove the old screws. He doesn’t want to strip the heads of the screws so he is proceeding very carefully.  This afternoon we joined Dee, Ron, Jean and Michael at Vantage Pointe for a late lunch. The food was delicious—George and I had the pan fried grouper and finished with key lime pie, yum.  It was a pleasure to be able to turn the engine off and sail with the jib. We won’t be u...

Our package containing the new mainsail feeder track arrived at Staniel Cay Yacht Club late yesterday afternoon.  There was a moment when we were concerned that it hadn’t arrived. George watched as the golf cart bringing the packages from the airport to the yacht club was unloaded and there weren’t any packages the size of our part. He was relieved when they said another golf cart was on the way. As soon as we got back to the dinghy with our package we raised the anchor and motored six miles south to Black Point, dropping the anchor just after sunset. This morning we were underway to George Town before sunrise. Although we were motoring into the wind the conditions weren’t bad since the wind was so light. We had just finished anchoring in George Town when a brief heavy squall arrived. We will stay here a day or two until the worst of the next cold front passes.                       George with the package containing our r...

It has been a gloomy day here as we wait for our part to arrive. There was a slight chance that the part would arrive at Staniel Cay today, but George called and found out it would not be arriving at Staniel Cay Yacht Club until about 3:30 tomorrow. We chose to wait at Bitter Guana Cay—2.5 miles south of Staniel Cay as the crow flies—because it is quieter and less crowded. The occasional tour boat comes by taking tourists to view (and possibly feed) the Exuma Island iguanas on the beach. We have visited the iguanas in the past but found some of them to be quite aggressive toward others so we passed it up this time. There were three sailboats with us in the anchorage last night. After they all left today a large motor yacht joined us. Later this afternoon a helicopter landed on the yacht, unloaded, then left, then another helicopter landed right after that. George took a video of the second helicopter which is posted below.  Our trip from Cat Island to Bitter Guana yesterday was une...