Ahoy from Staniel Cay in the Exumas!
I wish that I could be writing a log telling you about how wonderful the Staniel Cay area is, but instead I'm writing about my life as a boat mechanic as it seems that's all that I've done since we left Waderwick Wells.
You may recall that our outboard died. After a lot of diagnosis I determined that the stator coil failed. The stator generates the voltage for the spark plugs and is is simply a coil of wire wrapped around an iron core with no moving parts. There's no reason for it to fail, but it did. Of course this happened on the Friday afternoon just before the 3 day Easter weekend, so nothing was going to happen until Tuesday. I sent e-mail to the Yamaha parts distributor describing in great detail what I needed, but I didn't have any faith that they would actually read their e-mail and get the part onto the ferry boat to Staniel Cay. There's no cell phone service in Waderwick Wells, so we decided to move S towards the nearest cell phone tower.
We were motoring along when Sue heard a strange noise coming from the engine. I checked it out and found that a bolt holding the alternator tensioning arm had broken, so we dropped the anchor and had lunch while the engine cooled down enough for me to work on it. I couldn't repair it where we were, so I bypassed the alternator using a variable length emergency belt and we continued south. We kept getting closer and closer to the cell tower and there was still no signal. We anchored at Sampson Cay, where there was supposed to be Internet service, but it turns out that it's only available to their high end guests. We decide to head to the Staniel Cay marina where there are phone lines and Internet service.
The only slip available required me to back down a 200' dock lined with mega-yachts with a strong current and wind on the side. That was fun and definitely raised some concerned looks from the captains of the mega-yachts, but we got in without any issues. We then found out that the cell phone service had been down since the day before and the Internet was also down...Oh yeah!
Tuesday morning came and I tried to use the pay phone to call the parts place. Do you think that the pay phone worked? Of course not! So I trekked to the Batelco phone office to use one of their phones. After an incredibly frustrating half of an hour where I kept getting disconnected, I finally got my part ordered...or so I thought. Oh, I told the folks at the Batelco office that the GSM phone service was down. They didn't know about that, but they reset the system and it was back up. Can you believe that!?!
I headed back to the boat where I had to fix the alternator problem. The bolt which broke off goes through the water pump and I didn't have a gasket set for the pump, so I couldn't remove it to access the bolt. The bolt managed to break off right where it threads into the engine, which was about an inch from top of the pump, making repairs much more difficult. I tried my screw extractors, but they didn't work. I then decided to drill it out and to re-tap the threads. Let me tell you, drilling cast iron isn't easy. Six hours from the start of the job I had a working alternator. Ya hoo!
Early Wednesday morning a strong cold front started coming through. I was up at 3:30 adjusting lines and fenders trying to keep the boat off docks. Mid morning we had a strong squall line come through which caused quite the commotion with all of the mega-yachts. After that was all over I called the Yamaha parts distributor and although they could tell that they had billed me for the part, they couldn't determine if it had been shipped. At 3 PM I called again to check to see if it had shipped and discovered that they had no idea what part I needed, so I restarted the whole procedure and at this point I *think* that they actually got the part to the ferry. Arghhh!
The Internet still wasn't running, so I offered my services. Their problem ended up being quite complex with some faulty equipment that kept crashing their router, but I eventually solved their issues. Then I got to go back to the boat and replace a huge belt on the generator that decided to shred.
If all goes well today I'll have my stator sitting at the dock and we'll be able to get out of here and explore the are. Cross your fingers for us!
-- Geoff & Sue
For the cruiser:
We stayed at the Staniel Cay Marina, which I really can't recommend. There's no protection from S to W and at high tide it gets very rough, even with SE winds. This appears to be due to current. I was constantly having to adjust lines and fenders to keep us off of the pilings. Even the mega-yachts complained. I would much rather have been at anchor. Their power isn't sufficient to handle the demands of the mega-yachts and as a result a lot of them ran their generators all night, which meant that we got to breath diesel exhaust all night. Their dockage rates (for under 100') was $1.50/ft; $20/30A, $35/50A; $0.50/gal water.
Of the 3 stores that we explored, the Staniel Cay General store, which is just past the bridge by the airport and is easily access able by dinghy, had the best selection of produce and hardware. Be sure to get there right after the Mail Boat arrives (typically on Wednesday) as everything disappears quickly.
A must-see at Staniel Cay is the Thunderball grotto which appears in the James Bond movie of the same name.
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