For nearly a week we sat at the Harbor Club Hotel and Marina
in Nassau. If you recall, we dropped off my mom and sister and had intended to
leave the following day heading south, back into the Exumas. Well, as I
reported then, our inverter went on the blink. Instead of producing 125 volts,
it was putting out 180 volts. Instead of running our stereo and television, it
was burning them out. Luckily for us, the refrigerator and other essential appliances
appear not to have been damaged, just the TV and stereo. BUT before we head out
again, we needed a new inverter. I contacted the manufacturer and, despite my
concerns, Xantrex honored their warranty. On Thursday 1 February they sent me a
replacement via UPS next day delivery. Of course, it didn’t arrive the next day
(Friday), which meant that the first time I might conceivably see it was
Monday. On Monday we e-mailed Xantrex, then later called them to find out where
the package was, and learned it had just arrived in Nassau (hardly overnight),
and they would start processing it the following day (Tuesday). We finally
received it on Wednesday.
But before I tell you about finally receiving the inverter
and its installation, let me first tell you how we spent our time waiting for
it.
As I mentioned I spent most of Wednesday the 29th
on the phone with Xantrex trying to get the part down here. On Thursday, I
spent much of the day waiting for an e-mail from Xantrex telling me that it had
been shipped. As you can imagine, both Ann and I found ourselves getting more
and more bored. (Yes, Virginia, you can get bored even in Paradise!) On
Thursday night, though, GiGi and Vic on Salty
Turtle, a 44 foot Defever, asked us over for drinks. We got a lot of information
from them about the southern Exumas and a new recipe for rum punch.
On Saturday, we had another day to kill, so we thought we
would walk down to Fort Montagu, which was only a bout ½ mile down the road
from us. For those of you who don’t know (and there is no reason any of you
should, the present version of Fort Montagu was built between 1741 and 1742 by Peter Henry Bruce, an engineer. It
was built of locally-cut limestone and named after the Duke of Montagu. The
fort was intended to be used in conjunction with a sea battery – called
Bladen’s Battery, which was located on Potter’s Cay, further into the harbor –
for the protection of Nassau Harbour. The fort and Bladen’s Battery were finished in
July 1742 and mounted with eight 18-pounder, three 9 and six 6 –pounder
cannons. Originally, the fort contained a rain water cistern, barracks for
officer and soldiers, a guardroom and powder magazine. What is amazing is how
small the fort is. I am guessing maybe 40-50 yards on each of four sides. How
it would have served as a fort, I am not sure.
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| Fort Montagu |
For those of you who are aficionados of the American
Revolution, however, Fort Montagu is best known as the site of the United States Marine Corps' first military
action. In 1776 Continental Congress ordered Commodore Esek Hopkins
to take a fleet of eight ships to capture a large supply of gunpowder
the British had stored on New Providence Island. After two weeks of sailing,
Captain Samuel Nicholas landed with his 234 Marines two
miles east of Fort Montagu. The Bahamian militia retreated to Fort Nassau,
so Fort Montagu fell unopposed. It turned out the 200 barrels of gunpowder were
stored at Fort Nassau instead of Fort Montagu and the Bahamian governor was
able to load them on merchant ships before the marines arrived.
While the marines were not successful in their primary mission of retrieving
the gunpowder, they did bring back 46 cannon and thousands of round shot
for General Washington's army.
We also ran into a fish market and a couple of stands
selling food. The fish market prices seemed to me to be a little high, but that
may have been because we were not locals. The little food stands, by contrast,
seemed very reasonable. They didn’t have cracked conch but one lady did have
conch fritters – four for a dollar. They were very good. We also learned that
the proprietress had been working the same corner for nearly 20 years. During
the week she worked at a law firm (I am not sure what she did) and on weekends
she sold food in Montagu Park. She said she earned enough to send her children
to private school and one to college in Canada. She was very proud of her
accomplishments – and well, she should be. I have to tell you, though, there
weren’t a lot of customers the day we were there, and to put her kids through
college and private school she sure would have had to sell a lot of conch
fritters at 25 cents per!
Just to make sure we didn’t get bored Saturday evening Ann
suggested … what else? … a party!! Our friends from Salty Turtle were already gone, so we walked the dock Saturday
morning and found Regina and Bill aboard their Silverton Meant 2B, Ruth and Bill aboard their Nordhaven Tautaug, and Tom and Susan aboard their American Tug Arion. We invited them all to a BYOB get
together during which Ann provided some of her patented artichoke dip. Bill and Ruth had been to Nassau and the
Exumas many times before and provided some interesting observations and some
goods advice. It was the first time for Tom and Susan (who are traveling with
Bill and Ruth) so they were kind of following their friends aboard Tautaug. Both of those boats were
planning to leave in the next couple of days and continue heading south. Bill
and Regina, however, had decided to spend the month here in Nassau. That worked
out well for us because Regina is another Yoga person like Ann AND Bill used to
be in the Navy and actually knows something about electronics and electricity!
(Just in case I screw up the inverter installation.) Oh! Did I mention they
once lived in Woodbridge, VA??
On Sunday we took a bus to what I would call the Middle
Class Beaches in Nassau. The beaches on Paradise Island are for the very rich.
Cable Beach, on the west side of New Providence, has several major
hotel/resorts like the Sheraton, Sandals, etc. But Junkanoo Beach , the middle
class beach, is right across the street from what seemed to be the smaller locally
owned and operated hotels – kind of like the equivalent of Best Western – that
probably pre-dated the big chains. Who knows, maybe it was one of these hotels
at which James Bond stayed while he was in Nassau hunting down all those
Russian spies! (Well, okay, I must admit I can’t see any of those hotels
requiring tuxedoes even in their heyday.) Anyhow, it was a good-sized beach
with several little bar/food stands. The clientele seemed to be in their
twenties and maybe early thirties and they sure seemed to be enjoying the bar
half of the food stands. Ann and I found one that was a little quieter (meaning
they weren’t serving shots) and had a Kalik (one of the local beers).
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| Junkanoo Beach. On the right side of the picture you can see one of the stands that sold beer and shots. In the background you can see one of the ubiquitous cruise ships. |
On Monday and Tuesday we hung around the boat waiting for
UPS. After a number of phone calls and becoming the “squeaky wheel” at the
local UPS representative, the package finally arrived on Wednesday. Ok, I had
studied the installation manual. I was just putting in the boxes themselves,
most of the wiring was already in place. All I needed to do was unhook the old
box, connect the new box and voila! How hard could it be?? It turns out to have
been a little harder than I was expecting.
Now you have to understand that the inverter is placed in a location
that is VERY challenging to service. It is between the outside bulkhead (the
wall of the boat) and the fresh water pressurization system, in an area that is
about 18 - 24 inches wide. The only way to get to it is to lay on your right
side, on an inclined platform, in kind of a sitting position and try not to put
too much pressure on the air conditioning system at your butt. So, basically,
it ain’t very comfortable. After turning off all the electricity in the boat (I
wasn’t taking any chances) and getting into position with all my tools, the
first thing I had to do was disconnect the DC cables from the batteries; check.
Next, I had to disconnect the AC input cables from the inverter; check. Then, I
disconnected the AC output; check. There were a few other small cables that I
needed to unplug and I did that too. Now it was time to unscrew the inverter
and lift it out. It weighs 24 pounds and I was laying on my side. Nevertheless,
I managed to get it out and hand it off to Ann. Check and double check.
 |
| The back of the now infamous inverter. I wish I had a shot of its location. Then you would have really fvelt sorry for me. |
The next series of tasks was to work everything backwards
for the new inverter: screw it in place, reconnect the AC output, the AC input
and DC cables in sequence. Now just to give you a flavor for the difficulty of
the task, I spent at least 30 minutes trying to screw one “doggone” ground wire
(uh, that’s not the word I used at the time) into the back of the box; it was
sooo frustrating.
Anyway, after the last cable was tightened and the last
screw turned it we turned on the unit and – it was behaving badly. Well I
wasn’t going to spend all day troubleshooting so I asked my new friend Bill
from Meant 2B it he could help. He
could and did. Within about 10 minutes he figured out I had connected some of
the wires wrong and in another 10 minutes he realized that some of the
connections I had made were separating.
After asking his wife to go get some of his tools (and really, my
failure to connect some of these wires was based on my amateurish crimpers – a
factor I will rectify here soon) he repaired everything. We owe Bill.
The next day we were off. Our next report will come from
somewhere “down island,” as they say.
ANN’S NOTES: What
Michael did not say was that I am the one that does most of the phone calls. I
was the thorn in the side of the Bahamas UPS office. From one day to the next
we were not sure if the package had cleared customs or not … and they always
said they would call me back … not so. It got to the point that they knew my
voice and the name of the boat. I try always to be nice, one always catches
more flies with honey than vinegar (some wise old person said that but I can`t remember
who) I was waiting for a return call when the inverter arrived. Now the fun
part started…again …not so. My name changed to “Ann…will you get me … (one of
many items…screwdriver, electrical tape, crimper, etc, etc)” You see where my
day was spent…all I could really do is go for things, keep him company and be a
cheerleader. He did his very best to get it all right and I finally got our new
friend Bill over to help … thank heaven for new friends.
Michael told you many things about Fort Montague what he forgot
to mention was in this very tiny fort they had a very large oven. Yes boys and
girls, just what the Bahamas needs is an oven. They did not bake bread in this
oven but heated up cannon balls. The ships were wooden and the “hot shot” would
start fires on board and sink them. Nowadays it would just melt the fiberglass
boats but still sink them all the same. Also what kind of oven mitts would one
use to remove red hot cannon balls? Just wondering…
We have had some fun evenings meeting new boating friends…I
really like getting together, having a drink, sharing some food and exchanging
funny stories. Every boater has them and laughing together is good for the
soul. We also exchange where to stay, what anchorages have good holding, where
the best beaches are, and the name and numbers of good repair people. All must-haves
when you live on a boat.
I want to take this space to thank my sister-in-law, Kathy,
for leaving me her crock, leopard skin-design
shoes. She wore them over when she came to visit and left them with me when she
left. I love them because they are easy to wear, slip on and off and I can wash
the sand out of them. I have been in the water a lot since Michael cannot get
his heel wet. I do all of the dinghy beaching
and un-beaching…and the crocks are perfect … so again, Kathy, thank you so very
much. Oh! They are also cute and fun to wear!
Since we were stuck
in the marina most of the week the only wildlife I have to report is a few long-spined
sea urchins clinging to the seawall . They are black and the spines are very
sharp, the dock master takes a long handle shovel and tries to remove them from
the wall, he gets most of them but they are back by the morning. Such is the
life of the urchin.
I will have a much better wild life report next blog entry.
Thank you for following us…
Traveling Soul….OUT
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