Saturday, February 18, 2012 The Berry Islands Club

Berry Island Club Mooring field, The Berry Islands– Frazer’s Hog Cay

It’s another sunny and beautiful day. I’d forgotten how pretty it is here. Sand flats, islands, turquoise water…

Howard, the mechanic showed up about 9:45am and towed us to a mooring ball then came aboard to look things over. He disconnected the cable from the engine, and the cable was broke about a foot into the housing, and then went up top to see if he could disconnect the cable from the control lever. Where Axel and I couldn’t get the screw off the middle section of the binnacle to remove the top, he with the help of a little WD40 was able to do it. We lost part of the cotter pin (clevis pin?) into the scupper but can see it down there so it didn’t go into the drink yet…we need a stick with some gum or something on it to fish it out before it falls through to the salty sea bed below us.

Howard tsk tsked and wished he could find someone with a longer cable here that he could use then mentioned that he might be able to weld it – a temporary fix until we could get a new one. All his tools etc… were on the other end of the island, about 7 miles away, so he took the cable with him and told us we could go ashore if we wanted to. It sounded like he was going to be a while.

Axel and Mary came by on their way into shore to see how we were doing… then a little while later, Jim and Carol (WindQuest) came by too… I finished reading a book called PotLuck by Jack Rudloe, then Axel & Mary came by again to say that Harry had mentioned someone was flying in on Monday from Orlando and that maybe they might be able to bring a part? I convinced Wayne to go ashore and chat with Harry to see if they could arrange something and find a cable… I’m aboard the boat and Wayne’s ashore. I hope he’s able to arrange something….


Wayne came back a few hours later and Azaya dinghied up at the same time Wayne was coming aboard. I wasn’t sure what our prognosis was. He said something about Harry’s female pilot friend might be able to help us out by bringing the part over but that she was out fishing for the day and Harry wouldn’t see her until later in the evening. He’d made contact with West Marine and they had the part in the Ft. Lauderdale office but not the Orlando office where Harry’s friend was flying out of and there was some problem about having it sent to a plane that was bound for the Bahamas…It had something to do with customs forms or something and having to contact someone in California before they could do that??? It totally sounded whack since this was a boat part for repair. Technically all they needed for customs was our documentation for our vessel and our cruising permit. Azaya had gone through this last season so it was pretty confusing as to what West Marine was talking about.

After looking at Mary & Axel’s bounty from the flats (one queen or flame helmet conch, one whelk or Florida Horse conch, similar to what we’d found by David Copperfield’s Island last year, and one pink conch) Axel, Mary and I went back to the Berry Island Club to see if we could figure out what was going on. Harry told us that we could probably get the part ordered but he had to talk with his friend first. So we wouldn’t know anything until tomorrow… Back to the boat again… It was kind of fortunate for this to happen here. We’d planned on staying here for 3 days or so while some weather passes us by and the new management is quite helpful, quite accommodating to us. I can’t think of another place that would try to be so helpful.

Howard had given Wayne some silicon putty, while he was ashore, trying to figure out how to order parts. Wayne had put some on the end of our fuel stick and stuck it down the scupper to sit for 10 minutes to dry. When we got back to the boat, I cracked open some beers for Azaya and Wayne and we discussed options and conch types. Then I pulled the stick up with the clevis pin attached to the stick by the silicone putty. Gotta love Howard and his putty!


So the wait is on to hear about whether we have somebody that’s going to bring a part for us or whether we’ll rig up some strings and pulleys to be able to work the controls until we can get somewhere to get it fixed…

I made some chicken salad earlier while Wayne was ashore so that’s what we had for dinner with crackers and orange slices. Wayne’s still feeling like crap. He’s either getting a chest cold or pneumonia… It sounds like there’s a lot of fluid in his lungs and he’s coughing a lot and running a temperature. He’s even starting to flute – going to give Azaya a run for their money on mast fluting (smiling).