More From Black Point

Black Point Town Dock

Yesterday we worked on the windlass wiring. It had been wired "downstream" of the house battery bank 60 amp fuse, so if any serious load was applied the house bank fuse blew. We've blown three fuses in the six months we've been cruising, with the most recent being yesterday morning. Rewired it into the 300 amp fuse at the batteries as Lighthouse, the windlass manufacturer, recommended. This required crimping new ends onto a longer piece of wire, but we had the tools and had acquired the correct lugs from Cat's Cradle, just before leaving Miami. We wired it up and the windlass works.

As we were crimping the lugs on with a hammer, a call came in on the radio for a crimping tool. Turns out that one of the local homemade Bahamian racing boats needed to crimp on a new forestay fitting. Just so happens that we had the tool out and it did the job! Smashee spent the afternoon working on the rig with the help of several cruisers. Just before sunset, the boat sailed by  with the crew hiking out yelling "Thank you Intuition."  It made our day and we have some okay photos.

Our wiring project precipitated another problem since when hooking up the new windlass wire I thought I'd turned off the house switch and hadn't. The Nexus instruments stopped working - the most important of these being the depth sounder. Traced it to a blown fuse. Replaced the fuse, but the replacement blew too.

It was a night of rock and roll, fore and aft, and side to side with a Southwest wind in the mid-twenties. Good holding here in the harbor so everyone stayed put, but not a good night for sleeping.

After breakfast we vetoed school and started to investigate the instrument problem. Disconnected all the wires from the Nexus CPU except power and the fuse didn't blow. Added the sensors back in one at a time and it was okay. Added the cockpit displays and the NMEA out to the multiplexer and computer and still okay. Stopped at adding the Multi repeater at the chart desk since that was our suspect and is only a "nice to have". Also because we are down to one spare fuse of that size. We've got over a hundred fuses aboard, but not quite the right ones.

The electronics project was done with the boat rolling through 25 degrees with a westerly swell, so as soon as we finished we vetoed school and headed for shore.

Starting our leisurely stroll out of town we met a local lady on her way in that stopped to introduce herself and welcome us to Black Point. Everyone here has been really friendly. Took a nice hike out to the Sound side and explored a beach. Lots of lizards, a hermit crab, a bannaquit and a hummingbird were found along the way. The sky was clear and the it was 86 by 1000, so we were glad we brought cold water.

The heat got to us, so we turned around and headed back for town in search of a spare fuse. Neither of the grocery stores or the marine store stocked any fuses. Met Lorraine and she said stop into the cafe anytime. It is a place that feels like home. You go in, help yourself to drinks and write down what you take in a notebook under your boat name. Noah wandered about and peaked in  the school which was just two doors down. We decided to stay for lunch and Beth asked the school principal if it would be okay for Noah to attend classes in the afternoon. It was casual Friday (no uniforms), so he fit right in, and the principal agreed to let him attend.

The teacher was Ms. Rolle. Three other third graders and four or five second graders were in the class. PE and reading were the subjects for the afternoon. They chased butterflies in PE and caught (and released) three or four. Noah read to the teacher and she told us he is a fine reader. He enjoyed the experience and mentioned that he could live here - if his friend Charlie's family from home moved here too.

Lorraine's Cafe

 Beth and I visited with other cruisers at Lorraine's Cafe. The wind calmed considerably so I ran back to the boat and picked up the camera. Also printed out some photos of "Smashee" to give to the captain. After school Noah met kids from Milano Myst, a boat we had last seen in Vero Beach as we were leaving -- another third grade boy! All the boat kids played together with the local kids. They were opening coconuts, playing tag and playing with a new puppy. Shouldn't have any problem getting to sleep tonight.

Back at the boat we had a light dinner and read some from "Journey of the Oceanauts" before hitting the sack. Plan to head further south tomorrow, taking advantage of the light winds to go out into the deep waters of Exuma sound.