Red Shanks, Bahamas
23.28.894N
75.44.111W

A funny thing about boats, a little thing often becomes a lot more than you bargained for. Yesterday I mentioned that Dale was going to secure the controller that sits on top of the generator which had suddenly become wobbly. Well, today he found out that the reason it was wobbly was because the 4 little shock absorbers that held it in place were completely broken. He patched them back together until he can order some more and put everything back together but . . . now the generator won't start. He ended up taking the controller apart thinking that perhaps some wire had been dislodged when he was working on the shock absorbers and checked to make sure that all of the connections were tight but still no joy. He dug out the maintenance books for the generator and went to work troubling shooting the problem.

I have seen him in this state before, so I made myself scarce by grabbing a book and retreating to the furthest point in the cockpit and stayed away. At one point I saw where he had moved everything from under the galley sink out and had taken the panel off the back side of the generator which is only accessible from under the sink. Needless to say, all of the other panels had already been removed for access to the offending unit but still no joy. He can jump start it, so there nothing actually wrong with the generator itself and both of the starters and solenoid appear to be in working order as well; it just won't start with the start button. After pulling out a fair number of tools and completely tearing apart the inside of the boat, he's made the decision that whatever is wrong, he can't fix without the guidance of a service rep. Of course, today's Saturday and none can be found; call back on Monday.

Did I mention that I had invited Roger and Elaine over for dinner? Later in the afternoon Elaine called to see if I wanted to cancel. Since I had already started marinating my fillets I told her dinner was still on, however I did agree to having it on their boat. Dale managed to get everything picked up and put back before 5:00 but it didn't leave me enough time to clean the way I would have liked to, so we packed up everything we needed and carted it all over to Doc-No-More. We enjoyed the visit and Dale got to talk about other things besides the generator.

Tonight the winds have picked up and the front we've been expecting is due to pass through tonight. So far we're sitting tight without any problems. We were joined by 3 more boats today. Besides Doc-No-More, 2 German boats have anchored near us. One has a yapping dog. You'd think it'd go hoarse as much as it yaps. Roger and Elaine said that they would be heading back to Volleyball Beach tomorrow. I guess they would rather put up with the rocking and rolling rather than the constant barking.

Still no sign of Rainbow Rider. We're beginning to wonder if they ran into trouble and are holed up somewhere making repairs. We'll keep hailing them until we leave.