Back to Normans Cay .... OOOOOOPS, Not So Fast

By about 0730 we were ready to start throwing off lines to get underway. I was turning on the electronics and the VHF radio was intermittent and, then, went quiet and dark, a very bad thing because it is the first use safety device on the boat. Big problem! I opened the panel to get at the radio's back side to start checking it. Carol got my electrical tool box and I searched for a continuity tester, of which I used to have two; now that number is zero, and I don't know why, but it falls on me. The continuity tester and a multimeter are either 1A and 1B, depending on the electrical problem at hand. I was able to use the multimeter to check the power supply: good. Checked in in-line fuse: good. Having no better ideas I eventually disconnected the cable to the remote handset. Voila! The radio worked, although I have no idea why that would be. Then I remembered that when we exchanged a non working handset at West Marine they had given us the whole enchilada and we had a replacement cable and fittings. A couple of ad hoc tests showed that the old cable was the culprit and the new cable was a/the solution. All the problems that we had thought were in the handset were, probably, cable related.

Pulling the old cable and running the new one was a fairly straight forward except that we had to empty about half the boat to get access to the cable run which meant that Carol had to remove just about everything in the galley above the level of the counter top, an area she considers her sovereign domain and sole suzerainty. I, of course, have a permanent easement through there since about 2/3's of the boat's wiring runs through that area. The whole job took about two hours; the repair of the galley, much longer. The odds of me figuring out the problem and, then, having those esoteric parts is about a googleplex to one. Sometimes it's good to be lucky.

Since it was too late to get underway, we decided to hang around Nassau another day and do some other work. Carol defrosted the refrigerator and I completed the non-motor part of the 100-hour checklist and a good thing too. When Jason and I were working on the engine we turned off the raw water through hull and nobody thought to turn it back on which meant that we would not have gone very far had we left.This was a rookie mistake of the first order. Since I always check the exhaust when I start the engine there's a very good chance I would have picked up on this, but, perhaps not. Regardless .... another bullet dodged.

But that bullet was small caliber compared to the high explosive (literally) artillery in the afternoon. One of the two LP tanks went empty, way too soon it seemed to us, having last been filled on January 18th. Another one of those things that you don't give much thought. Carol made arrangements to get it filled and I hooked up the full tank. I thought that I smelled gas and asked Carol to check since she is better at these things but she was too stuffed up to be any use. And, the smell could have been from the tank change over. After fretting about this for a couple of hours I went back and disconnected the tank for no good reason other than to mess with something that was bothering me. And, then I saw it or, actually, didn't see it: the o-ring that makes the seal between the brass fittings was not on there. After a second of panic about how to get a replacement here, I looked under the tank and found it. So, for three hours we were, and for three weeks we may have been, leaking explosive, combustible LP gas. This is a truly terrifying thought. Fortunately, LPG has a specific density of about 1.5 and there is a vent in the tank compartment through which gas can exit so everything turned out OK but this one will cause some lost sleep. Kudos to Beneteau for designing an owner-proof boat. The other thing to do is to get a backup o-ring when we get home or, maybe, someplace along the way like Marsh Harbour.

Carol's comment at the end of the day was that maybe having the radio problem turned out to be a good thing. She was probably right, but that could only be true on our boat. Four four days we have been working our asses off, Carol having a much larger and wider margin for error than do I, dealing with issues as they arose. We talked at dinner about whether we have become more resilient. Carol thinks yes; I'm not so sure. Boats being boats, there really is no choice other than to handle situations as they arise and to do what has to be done. What we lack is a baseline as to what level of issues should arise and where we are versus that baseline.

On the other hand, we are here, in the Bahamas; life is pretty good. We have no specific timeline for the trip so there is no sense that we have lost time. We have all of March and April, and into May, to go where we want and to see the islands. So, these problems have not detracted from the trip unless we allow that to be the case.

Tomorrow, Wedneday, if the LP canister gets filled early we'll head out. If not, we'll stay yet another day in the friendly confines of the Nassau Harbour Club Marina and leave on Thursday for Shroud Cay.