{"id":536,"date":"2017-03-12T23:50:48","date_gmt":"2017-03-12T23:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/?p=536"},"modified":"2017-03-13T00:14:32","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T00:14:32","slug":"boat-maintenance-at-the-gates-of-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/2017\/03\/boat-maintenance-at-the-gates-of-paradise\/","title":{"rendered":"Boat maintenance at the gates of paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the marina where we cleared customs, on the west side of Great Harbor Cay, there’s no safe passage straight south so we did a three-quarters clockwise circumnavigation of the island, and then continued south to anchor in tiny Market Fish Cay, the first of a chain of islands with deep water on the east and the shallow Great Bahama Bank on the west.<\/p>\n

We needed to wait for the next day’s high tide to continue through a shallow passage to the more protected anchorage on the west shore of Hoffman Cay, right on time to receive the forecasted cold front and strong winds. Not too long after we dropped the anchor, bucketloads of rain fell, which we used to clean the windows and ourselves, showering on the deck. My rain-catching device is still not ready, so none of that precious water made it to the tanks.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
The storm is coming<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the rain, it was six days of relentless wind and sleep-depriving noise. That meant, of course, plenty of time for boat maintenance tasks. We dived to inspect the saildrives<\/a>, which to our chagrin were full of barnacles, and a whole ecosystem had started to form around them. A treasure trove for a marine biologist, but a potential nightmare for a boat owner. We dove again armed with a brush each to scrub the saildrive legs. The hulls are a bit slimy, but the anti-fouling paint has fended off more serious stowaways.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
The saildrive’s rich ecosystem<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
<\/a>
Laundry day<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n
<\/a>
Hoffman Cay beach, protected from the howling East winds<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div>
<\/div>\n

There was a lot of drilling and sawing to install a dimmer, an additional 12-volt outlet, and a shelf. Some filing, sanding and more drilling to fix a stubborn door, and some sewing for the rain catcher prototype. Then, half a day was lost turning the boat around in search of a key piece for using the dinghy in sailing mode (a windsurfing mast extension that I had modified back in California for the task). It simply disappeared. Or maybe it never made it to the boat. Either way, it’s exceedingly frustrating. As expected, in the process we did find stuff we were not looking for, including more things to fix.<\/p>\n

On our free time we visited the protected beach and socialized with the neighbors on the three other boats anchored nearby.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
It was unnerving to windsurf in a straight offshore wind. If the gear had broken, the next stop would have been Florida.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To get out of Hoffman Cay after the wind calmed down, we headed north, backtracking our route with the afternoon tide. We anchored by wild Soldier Cay, and the next day we went back to deep water to cross the Northwest Providence Channel in perfect sailing conditions, leaving the Berry Islands<\/a> behind.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Soldier Cay, looking south; \u00d1and\u00fa safely anchored on the west side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the marina where we cleared customs, on the west side of Great Harbor Cay, there’s no safe passage straight south so we did a three-quarters clockwise circumnavigation of the island, and then continued south to anchor in tiny Market Fish Cay, the first of a chain of islands with deep water on the east … Continue reading “Boat maintenance at the gates of paradise”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7GCAo-8E","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572,"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nandu.world\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}