My last blog left off just before we arrived in Emerald Bay Marina. Tying Starship up to a dock is a very rare occurrence now. Keeping that in mind, it was such a treat to settle in and enjoy the area, showers and free laundry facilities. Wow, what a luxury free laundry was…everything got washed on the boat! 😜 This was also where we were invited aboard an 80-foot power yacht, Capricho, for a lavish dance party…but first… ‘to the spa ladies’!
Kim graciously treated Lea and I to spa pedicures at the luxurious Sandals Resort located a quick gulf cart ride away from the marina. Us girls delightfully spent the afternoon lounging poolside and sipping chilled champagne. Eventually we headed into our pedicure appointments which included warm, Himalayan salt stone massages. It was so lovely and got us really in the mood for heading over to Capricho with Dylan and our guys later that night! Thank you so much Kim!
The motor yacht Capricho was so beautiful and as we stepped aboard, the chef handed us all her delicious signature cocktail and kept them flowing all night. An informal tour of the boat soon had us all up on the fly deck as the party music carried across the marina. Under the stars, we all danced the night away without a care in the world! With Dylan being the only kid in our group, Jas and I were concerned that he was not going to enjoy the night. We were so wrong! He danced with us all and had a great time!
The next morning, Capricho sailed away but the fun continued for the rest of us at Emerald Bay. We had meals together and enjoyed meeting other boaters. The marina had a really nice lounge area that allowed us to get off the boat and sink into oversized, cozy couches for a bit. Unfortunately, the air conditioning wasn’t working on the second floor so it was a tad warm. Still, we enjoyed watching a Dateline episode up there one night!
Another day, our group rented a car and took turns driving into George Town to provision. Transporting huge grocery hauls on to the boat using a car is quite a bit easier than using a dinghy. With our trio of boats loaded with food, drinks and clean laundry, we said good-bye to Emerald Bay Marina. Prima actually stayed back an extra couple days as Mischief Managed and Starship pointed their bows towards George Town!
It was great timing that we arrived in George Town on April 5th. This meant we could celebrate Jason’s 52nd birthday at Chat N’Chill!
We spent time at Chat N’Chill years ago with our friends Wolfe and Lu and were so excited to get back there. The place is amazing! It’s described as being like a day camp for liveaboards and has claimed ‘world famous’ status’! To celebrate Jason, we enjoyed cold beers with Mark, Lea and new friends. Mark even got everyone in the bar to sing to our birthday boy! Dylan hung out with a bunch of kids and preteens and soon we all found ourselves in a game of volleyball. Back at the boat later Dylan said, “Wow, Mom, I didn’t know you were pretty decent at volleyball”! 😆 It was a special day for us being back there. I clearly remember watching the kids on the rope swings last time and wishing I could see our boys doing that. With Alex already off spreading his wings we still got to enjoy watching Dylan swing daringly from the trees with the other liveaboard kids. It was an afternoon I will never forget!
George Town is a huge anchorage with their own ‘cruiser’s net’. Like in Marathon, Florida, every morning boaters tune into a radio show using their VHF radios. Mediated by a host, the one-hour sessions includes weather, boats departing, local business announcements, requests for anyone needing assistance, details on any upcoming activities, etc. The cruisers net allowed for Dylan to try out his entrepreneurial skills cleaning boat bottoms. With Jason’s help, that experience taught Dylan valuable lessons about hard work. Across the bay from us is the town of George Town complete with many businesses and conveniences liveaboards need. Note I said ‘many’ not all – we have had our challenges getting our hands on some things we need for boat maintenance.
As of today, we have officially been in George Town for a month. This is definitely the longest we have stayed in one spot since starting the Big Trip. Arriving here we were planning on settling in and spending some time but what we didn’t expect were all the boat issues we are sadly having.
The biggest issue is the water maker. We got it new for this trip and it was a hefty, five-digit expense. Having the ability to make our own water has been so important to us. It allows us to shower regularly, hand wash laundry as well as wash down the boat and scuba gear. It obviously also provides us with all the fresh water we need for drinking, cleaning and cooking. We have two water tanks on our boat and together they hold 60 gallons of water. When we make water, it takes about 5 hours to fill one tank. With the lithium batteries and solar panels, we have plenty of power to run the water maker as much as we need and I cherish that luxury.
Each time we make water we test the water quality. Recently we started seeing the quality of our water drop dramatically. Jason got to work trouble shooting the issue in every way he could. He is now in close communication with the manufacturer and it is looking like the membrane is likely the issue. The thing is, it shouldn’t need to be changed this soon. We are currently awaiting the arrival of the new membrane and seals and hope so much that it will solve our problem and get us up and running again. In the meantime, our wonderful friends Ronda and Alex on Morningside have helped us out. The other day they rafted up to us and filled our water tanks. We are now using the dinghy to run our 5-gallon jugs to town to fill them up with the free water available there. It’s a laborious task but it’s doing the trick to provide us with the water we need.
We have needed to change our water consumption habits on the boat though. No more gear and boat wash downs and to wash ourselves we hop into the ocean. After a wash up swim, we use our fresh water just to do a quick rinse down to get the salt off us. We are managing just fine but only because we have the ability to go fill our jugs with water. There are not many places where you can do that. Just south of us is Long Island. Many friends have sailed there and said it is absolute paradise! We desperately want to head down there in the coming weeks but we are stuck here waiting on the water maker parts. Also, there is no place to fill up with water in Long Island. With us having the ability to carry only 60 gallons of water, we would be out of water in only a few days. Well, that’s one boat issue. The other one has to do with the engine. The other day Jason was puzzled when he saw salt residue on the engine. He quickly discovered that the elbow on our exhaust system had a rust hole through it. Running the engine like that would cause exhaust to fill into the boat. Jason called around and was able to locate the replacement part we needed and had it flown to George Town from Nassau. Yesterday he was able to install the new part so that’s another challenge resolved. Now if only he could find where he put the gasket for the outdoor shower pump he wants to install. Anyone know where the heck he put it? He remembers putting it somewhere to keep it from getting broken and saying to me, “Okay Amanda, when I am looking for this, remind me that I put it here!“…oh goodness, I have no clue where it is! 🤦🏻♀️We are at the point where we are considering ordering a new gasket. You know what will happen …we will find the original one as soon as we do that!
Despite our boat issues, spirits are high on Starship! Most days you will find us at Chat N’Chill socializing with the amazing people surrounding us! Jason and Dylan have also enjoyed several days of scuba diving. Through diving, we met a really great family from Greece. They were on the power yacht called Ionos. They graciously allowed Jason to use their air compressor to keep our dive tanks filled up. That was so nice of them!
One evening here we joined friends at a bonfire in a cave. That was certainly a first and was a very cool experience! Dylan goes everywhere with us so many times he’s the only kid in the group. That was the case that night so to keep him entertained, he and I spent time checking out the cool night critters that make the cave their home. We saw:
- a huge, black moth with a wing span of about half a foot; at first we thought it was a bat!
- several good-sized hermit crabs anxiously looking back at us
- a freaky looking, massive centipede
- a big banana spider (despite looking absolutely terrifying, I have read that the ones found around here are not poisonous to humans, phew!)
Another night a family had a little beach pizza restaurant set up so we decided to check that out! The husband was busy rolling out fresh dough to cover with yummy toppings while his wife took the orders. They quickly announced that they had taken the maximum number of orders that they could manage. As a result, that pizza oven was cranking out their delicious pizzas one by one for hours in to the night. There was a huge turn out and it was a fantastic time!
At this point I would like to tell you about our friend Tommy! He co-owns the company Fairwinds Designs and I invite you to check it out! https://www.amazon.com/fairwindsdesigns Fairwinds specializes in custom decals, stickers, and premium vinyl wall quotes aimed to inspire success, celebrate life and boost motivation! Knowing Tommy, I can say he is absolutely celebrating his life! 🤩Perhaps you sailors out there may want to check out ordering your boat stickers or custom boat name decals from his site!
Last week was the National Family Island Regatta here so that was really cool to see. For several days we could watch traditional Bahamian sloop sailboats racing in our bay. It is the largest regatta in the Bahamas with over eighty locally made boats taking part. It brought a ‘festival feel’ into the town with music and rows of temporarily set up food and bar stands.
As the weeks go by though, many boats have left to avoid hurricane season. Some have headed further south and some have headed up towards the US. Jason, Dylan and I have sadly watched many ‘fast friends’ pull anchor recently. In June, we too will be starting our journey to avoid the worst of hurricane season. Before we do that, we have a very exciting trip ahead of us! Towards the end of this month, we will be flying to Canada! We are heading to Nova Scotia for Alex’s graduation. Unless you are new to reading my blogs, you will already know that I am a very proud momma! Our oldest son, Alex, is graduating as a Marine Engineer Officer with the Canadian Coast Guard and we are so excited to celebrate him! As soon as we are back, we will be closely watching for our weather window to head south towards Grenada as quickly as we can.
The blog below talks about why we have decided to add the above Coffee button. 😊
Random acts of kindness
The Big Trip 