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We really appreciated the Decca Station's new owners unknowing hospitality and hope that it may remain a welcome haven.

Len & Peck (remember Gorfrog) turned up at Big Major's. They had concluded their visit in Nassau and decided to head for George Town. We,on the other hand, were working our way back up the island chain to visit some of the cays previously skipped. Gorfrog recommended Bell Island, a few miles north, as a good spot to visit.

I guess that I've made mention of the fact that there are many, many islands and that the tiny few sited represent only key locations having better anchorages. For instance, within 2 miles of Bell Island there are several large islands and at least a dozen smaller ones. And so it is over the entire island chain. On the trip south, we had skipped at least half of the more inviting stopovers and wished to remedy the oversight before looking to other far horizons.

At Bell Island, the weather kicked up and we were confined to the anchorage for several days. It was a good time to do a little boatkeeping. A detailed engine room check revealed a hairline crack on the exhaust elbow of the deisel generator. Neither we nor Heide carried this as a spare part. Good old J B Weld epoxy plastered over the crack gave at least a temporary sense of security. If it did break, we would be out a generator.

It's probably a good idea to explain about our dependence on the generator. In order to maintain fresh refrigerated food and keep the freezer cold, it was necessary to run the generator 3 hours in the morning and again 3 hours in the evening each day. The generator was our weak link; a situation that has since been remedied with the addition of a second high power inverter.

(Note: In subsequent cruises, with more experience, better instrumentation and more batteries,
we reduced the genset runtime to 3 hours per day total.)

The Heides, with their damaged swim platform and dinghy suggested that it might be time to head back toward the States. At the very least, Francesca would have to go to Nassau to obtain parts.