Two weeks into the season...what’s broken?

Cruise long enough and you’ll find that there is always a project on a boat. After all, it’s just like a house but in a much harsher environment! If you’re lucky, they are projects of your choosing, both in extent and timing. If you’re not...you’re scrounging for parts and solutions in a foreign land to fix a critical system. 

We’ve been in the Bahamas for two whole weeks...what’s broken? And how bad is it?

1. The water heater. I mentioned this in a previous post, but we traced a leak to the water heater. We rarely use it down here anyway (only heat water via the engine when we are motoring) so we decided to just secure the water pump at night to limit how much water makes it to the bilge and routinely dewater the bilge when I am pulling stores each week. We can just replace the unit when we are back in the States. UPDATE! Somehow our jostling and investigating seems to have curiously stopped the leak! It’s an enclosed unit so impossible to see what the heck is going on, but the bilge has stayed dry and the pump doesn’t run at odd times. We will take it!

2. The propane system. After fixing a leak while we were in St. Augustine we really though this was behind us. Then one morning while we were in Great Harbour Cay I went to make coffee and got nothing. Tanks run out, but we had used the oven the night before with no signs of running out and now I didn’t even get the littlest amount of gas. Sure enough, one bottle was completely gone. Frank hooked up the other and immediately got a hissing sound. FFFFFFF! This is bad for plenty of reasons bust most of all because getting propane filled in the Bahamas is not straightforward. He located two leaks, repaired them, and we are back in business with one tank. As they don’t fill propane locally in the Berry’s (it’s a week-long mailboat process) and we do not want to stop at New Providence Island, we need to last on our remaining tank until the Exumas where we can either ship the bottle off on a mailboat to get filled or find a local fill. In the meantime we are turning the tank valve on only when we need it just in case there are small leaks in the lines. We are also strictly sticking to propane use only for coffee/breakfast and dinner—cold lunches for the crew! And while I normally look for opportunities to use the solar oven or pressure cooker to conserve fuel, it’s a much higher priority until we get a back-up bottle filled. We don’t have a microwave or any electric cooking appliance so this one is stressing me out a bit.

3. The dinghy. Our dinghy isn’t pretty—she’s old, beat up, and can’t get on plane with all four of us, but she’s been dependable...until now! We felt like we were having to pump it up more frequently and sure enough we found a small leak in the forward air chamber. Not a serious issue yet, but it sure has me looking at the budget for a replacement in a few months (with a beefier outboard!). 

4. Shoes. This is crazy, but a whole bunch of our shoes are falling apart after their first few trips into the water and onto the rough shore. Looks like we will have an arts and crafts day with contact cement in the near future.

And while not broken, my provisioning has met challenges in the form of my children. Seriously, I have a kid that NEVER eats breakfast. But get to the Bahamas and suddenly she’s on a granola kick...every single day. So “my” granola is now gone (thank goodness I like eggs!) and can only be replaced here at about $10 a bag. The boy is, well, a 13yo boy and therefore is always hungry!  And don’t get me started on the fact that one reported they were out of graph paper at the one-week point...

Challenges for sure, but so far we are able to mitigate the problems. Hoping I didn’t jinx us by writing that! 😬