Prodigal Motor Returns, Breaks

After my family left, two of our friends, Dan and Sarah, came to visit. We saw them the night we got here, but they were spending a few nights in the Treasure Cay hotel, which was perfect since we needed to run to Marsh Harbor to pick up our motor and battery.

We got to the Marsh Harbor Boat Yard (which is pretty close to the town of Marsh Harbor, but isn't actually in the Harbor) Thursday night. We walked to the broker, paid for the shipment and made sure all of the customs paper work was in order. Abaco Outboards ended up having an issue with a stolen boat so were unable to do the work Thursday. We kept the boat in the water and were able to stay for the night at the very minimally equipped boat yard. (We were given a bathroom key, but told, it's just a toilet and sink, and it's not, uh, female friendly. We used our facilities on the boat).




We hauled the boat about 8:30 the next morning, and Abaco outboard was (of course) running late. The yard closed at noon, so the boat needed to be back in the water by that point. I went back into town to go to the canvas shop to pick up the new directors chair seat (the old one ripped a few days ago). When I got back the motor was installed! It took a little while longer to figure out all the connections, but it seemed to be working and we just made the noon deadline to be put back in the water. The Abaco Outboards guys waiting to make sure the engine was working, but as we were heading out of the channel the engine died. We turned around and headed back, and waited an hour and a half for the Abaco Outboards guys to come back until we decided we needed to leave to make it back to Treasure before dark.

In the last few days we worried that maybe the battery wasn't going bad. It had finally completely charged, and the "hours" calculations didn't look quite right, but we did have green lights instead of red on the link 10 battery indicator. The new battery has been a total relief - it really did need to happen. Last night, several hours after the sun went down, with the Christmas lights plugged into a 12 V outlet, the Link 10 was reading 255 hours remaining at current consumption! That's about as good as it gets. We are now charging all of our electronics as needed, what a luxury.




We had an excellent New Years Eve. We went to Tipsy's bar by the marina with the rest of Treasure Cay. It was packed with tourists and locals, young and old. Ben and I stayed up way past our bedtime, and are exhausted, but it was fun and I'm sure we will sleep well tonight.


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