Fish Cays and Bakers Bay

Our boat with Nova in the V-berth
Our boat was taken over: Cameran and Nova had the salon with the table and settee made into a bed, and the settee across w/her large suitcase and backpack. We'd cleared out a space in the aft cabin for Jeremy (we use it as a garage and took out the mattress so Ken would have an easier access to the back of the engine), put down some pads, a sleeping bag, a sheet and a pillow. We felt like we were living in the sugarhouse again!

To those that don't know, we raised our kids in a small converted sugarhouse in the woods of Vermont. It had one bedroom which the kids shared, and Ken and I pulled out a couch. When Jeremy was 13yo we moved to our present house.

We started out on Friday, Dec. 23rd, to the Fish Cays. When I started the engine, the buzzer went off, which I thought was a little strange but I didn't give it much thought, just turned the key to turn it off. When Ken took over the helm he noticed none of the instruments were registering. It took us a minute to realize when I turned the key, it turned off the control panel. He turned it back up and immediately it started buzzing, which indicated the oil pressure was low. (Hmmm....that could be important). Ken checked everything and everything checked out fine...but the buzzer continued to warn us of low oil pressure.

By this time we were drifting around and I had Jeremy unfurl the jib to give us a little more direction in the light wind, so we drifted slowly towards the Fish Cays.

Ken was getting frustrated. Jeremy said something was triggering the alarm to go off; maybe some connection was broken. I tell you. It's nice to have 2 engineers aboard. Between the 2 of them, they determined the sensor was broken. The panel could be turned off and we'd be fine. We continued on our way.

We dinghied to shore at the Fish Cays and explored. Then continued on to Bakers Bay where we anchored for the night. Our intent was to snorkel at the north end of Great Guana, but it was late. Only 1 other boat was anchored in this beautiful bay. Later that night I saw lights flashing past the hatch in the v-berth and found Jeremy shining lights in the water watching needlefish being chased by a large predator fish. When he shined the light at the fish, the large fish almost jumped in the boat. The needlefish were jumping all over evading it.

(I don't know if it's our computer or not, Carole, but uploading pictures just does not work for me. I'll try to upload a more positive picture later. Right now we are late for happy hour with Bingo following!)