Lucaya To Nassau

Another tough passage from Lucaya to Nassau, the main cruise ship hub in the Bahamas. A big swell on top of a short wind chop. All motoring, all the time. Will we ever get to sail?!

We had planned to go to West Bay and hangout for a few days at the beach where Jaws (the original?) was filmed, but our chart plotter was acting up again, and Nassau seemed more straight-forward and therefore safer, especially now that our chart plotter and depth sounder are the same unit (see previous post "A Rant About Electronics").

Since we arrived last Saturday, we've been waiting on weather. We had planned to leave this morning for the Exumas (Normans Cay), but bagged that when the dawn broke with a heavy overcast sky. There's a patch of coral heads that passes through the middle of our intended track and we want the sunlight to make sure we miss 'em all. The locals don't seem to be too concerned about them, but I don't want to take any chances, especially since this is a first-of-its-kind passage over a shallow bank for us.

Meantime, a few boat projects and finally getting to some freelance writing. Something to kill the time. While offshore and motoring hard, whenever the boat would pitch, I'd hear a scraping sound in the engine and then a bad vibration. I concluded that the shaft was misaligned and that it was something I needed to address as soon as we were in port.

Indeed, that was the case. A whopping .022 off -- with the engine too high in front (or too low in back, depending on how you might look at it). This was almost certainly at least in part the source of my alternator vibration issue. The problem was, that the front engine mounts had no play to lower them and the rear ones were all but inaccessible. However, the front two had a couple of thin shims underneath and I found that by removing one of the two shims, the engine came into almost perfect alignment. What luck! A messy job, but I hope it's the end of the issue. If not, I have bigger (and more expensive) problems on my hands.

We have done a bit of exploring of Nassau. It's not very many people's favorite city and has a reputation for being awash in guns and violent crime. The second night we were in the marina, we heard the report of a pistol three times, the screech of car tires and then sirens. I heard something on the local news that sounded like it might be connected, but we still aren't sure.