Norman’s Pond Cay Bahamas

We left Farmer’s Cay on 11 Apr at 0840hrs and sailed down the eastern side of the islands.  The wind direction meant that we needed to tack a few times to get towards Adderly Cut where we would be able to make our way into the anchorage close to Norman’s Pond Cay.  As the crow flies the distance was around 15nm but because we had to tack back and forth we covered nearly twice that distance – 28nm in total.

Entering Adderly Cut

We arrived at Adderly Cut at about 1300hrs, switched on the engine and the dropped sails to make our way into the anchorage.

There were several yachts anchored in the shelter of the islands here but we were looking for one in particular; Sofia.

A welcome wave before we anchored behind Sofia

We found her anchored between the northeast end of Norman’s Pond Cay and Leaf Cay.  After lots of waving hello and welcome calls with Anne and Jonathan we dropped anchor just behind them and set about inflating our dinghy.

The view of Leaf Cay from the cockpit

Iguanas on the beach at the northern end of Leaf Cay (spotted with binoculars)

Sofia

We spent the rest of the day and evening on board Sofia.  It was a lovely afternoon and we were spoilt with great company and a lovely dinner that Jonathan expertly rustled up.  It would probably be the last time that we would see Anne and Jonathan for quite some time because from the Bahamas they were planning to make their way across the Atlantic, via to Bermuda and the Azores, back to the UK.  After several years circumnavigating the world it was time for them to go home again.

The chafed wire that caused the exhaust over-temp light to illuminate

We had planned to snorkel off Leaf Cay in the morning but instead, trying to fix the generator took over our time. To date our efforts had focussed upon what appeared to be a fuel issue with the generator but we had exhausted our ideas on that tack and so started to look for other potential reasons for the generator to shut down.  The last run had ended with a fault light illuminated indicating that the generator was overheating; a new development.  However, the engine hadn’t felt that hot so I thought that there might be an electrical issue with the sensors or the cooling pump.  As a start point, I did a careful check of the wiring loom.  As I moved some cables underneath the generator an additional warning light illuminated, the red exhaust over-temp light, and so even though we seemed to have another fault it was clear that we might be onto something with the electrical issue idea.  Pulling the connector up to get a better look we found a wire that had chafed through and which, when fixed, cured the red exhaust over-temp light issue.  But despite that fix, I was concerned because I had discovered that the fresh (cooling) water circulating pump was not switching on as it should be.  Clearly, there was another electrical problem somewhere which had caused the engine to start to overheat.  Whilst looking for that problem I spotted a pinhole in the exhaust and also discovered that the inside of the plug for the fuel solenoid valve was a corroded mess. This had been caused by the pinhole in the exhaust (which we immediately patched until we can replace the exhaust) squirting salt water over the plug for the fuel solenoid valve.  We cleaned it up as best we could but sadly there was still no joy when trying to start the generator.  Something else was wrong but finding it would have to wait for another day because it was already lunchtime and we needed to be moving on.

Leaf Cay – our cruising is currently living up to the cynical description of it being ‘boat maintenance in exotic places!’

After the morning spent ‘playing’ with the generator, we raised our anchor at 1320 hrs and set course towards Great Exuma and Georgetown where we were hoping to meet up with Lars and Susanne on Sea Wind.

Norman’s Pond Cay, Bahamas