From Emerald Bay to Georgetown

Thursday, January 27, 2011
After making coffee, I took out the last of the trash, showered, then said my goodbyes to Harry, Marijka, Pam and Glen. I had tears in my eyes last night with Pam & Glen so thought I’d be better today. But the big bear hug with Marijka and triple cheek kisses from her and Harry had me choked up again this morning. It seems the hardest part of cruising, for me, isn’t the storms or dragging through the night, lack of water or broken heads. Its saying goodbye to the people that you meet, travel with and get close to.

Caution! Caution! Caution! Las Olas Bridge is going up… and Patti’s eyes are flooding. The gates on the bridge may be able to hold back the pedestrians at the bridge, but they can’t hold back the loss I’m feeling as we part company that I’ve come to value. It’s the price you pay for getting close and I hope that some day we will meet again. Two boats heading for Calebash Bay, two boats heading for Elizabeth Harbor. We helped Blue Pearl and Aurora cast off their lines, then readied ourselves for departure, checked out, left our generator with John James at Emerald Bay.
As we were checking out, trying to give away the gasoline from the generator, it turned out that John (dock hand at Emerald Bay) is knowledgeable with small engines and said that if we leave it with him, he’d look at it and give us a call in Georgetown tonight. He thought he could get it to work and then could run it down to us at the Government Dock. Seems like a long drive for him, but if he can do it, why not? I’m sure he could use the money and we’re familiar with the quality of people that work here.
It was a pretty still day. After all the surging at the docks and the winds when we came in, it was relatively easy to get back out of the marina. The 2 foot swells were large and slow rolling and I really welcomed the calm seas. 2 ½ hours after we departed Emerald Bay, we were anchored in aquamarine waters just north of the stone monument in Elizabeth Harbor. Azaya joined us an hour later after they’d finished gassing up and checking out of Emerald Bay.

After they got settled in, we all went over to Volleyball Beach, then to St. Francis for Burgers and a bucket of beer. The burgers were still huge and great and the beer was cold and was just what was called for. The bucket of beer had 5 beers in it for $15 so by buying the bucket we saved a $1 for each beer. At sunset we made it back to the boat and I turned on the radio just in case John called. Right after I did, I heard “Kolibrie, Kolibrie, Kolibrie, this is John James, John James”. He’d been hailing us for a while with no response (oops – I thought it would be later after he got off work like 7pm or so). He had our generator fixed and ready for us to pick up!
Mary & Axel heard the conversation and Axel offered to take Wayne over – they have a faster dinghy than ours. What a lifesaver! It would have taken Wayne 3 times as long to get there and back in our dink. So ½ hour later and $40.00 and we have our generator back and running! I guess the carburetor bowl was full of rust and the jet was pretty plugged. John took a wire to it, cleaned it up and it ran fine. That was the best $40 spent this trip (plus a $5 tip for his trouble). Thank you John James and Emerald Bay Marina!
The sunset was gorgeous and it’s so quiet out right now. There are no fenders rubbing on the dock, masts fluting, generators running, or loud voices. I hear the surf on the Atlantic and somebody letting out an anchor chain. What a lovely evening… The generator is fixed – now for the sail!