Great to have Otto working again!

Yes, the sails do work on Born to Cruise! We are enjoying sailing now that Otto is working again.


Monday 2/23 - It is always fun to have compnay but it is amazing how big the boat feels after they leave. After doing two loads of laundry we left Mangoes Marina and anchored in Marsh Harbor. Wayne had installed Otto’s rebuilt linear drive but we were still getting the same error message when he turned on the autopilot. Wayne tested what he knew to test and was still getting the message. It was not looking good.

Tuesday 2/24 - The first order of business was to talk to Pat at Merlin’s Marine Electronics to see what he thought about our autopilot problem. Pat ran through a long list of tests and Wayne had tried them all. Pat then said to try one more test before we did anything else. Wayne tried that test and it worked !!!! We visited Pat again to give him a tip as a consulting fee to thank him for his excellent advice and for saving us the money we would have spent on a new brain for our autopilot. Ann and Pat are both great and we highly recommend Merlin’s Marine Electronics. We ran into Flash II while going to Merlins. We had not seen Bryan and Sonya for a while. We enjoyed catching up and made plans to get together to do some beach walking when the weather allowed for anchoring near shore.

Wednesday 2/25 – With Otto showing no error messages, it was time to test him underway. We decided to go to Great Guana for the Wednesday night Pot Luck. The wind was perfect for a sail from Marsh Harbor over to Great Guana. We had a wonderful sail over, seeing a high speed of 6.6 knots under sail. The best part was that Otto was back and working well!!! Welcome home Otto, we missed you and glad you are well again!

There is a Pot Luck on Great Guana every Wednesday night at Grabbers Grill. Grabbers lets everyone use their tables, and people buy their beverages from Grabbers. It works out well. There were over 120 people that showed up, which was their largest turn out for a Pot Luck this season. Everyone brings a dish to share; the food was good. We sat with Cypraea, Celtic Cross and Temptation and had an enjoyable evening.

Thursday 2/26 – It was a windy day, so we hung around the boat. It was time for another game night on Born to Cruise. At the Pot Luck we had invited Cypraea, Celtic Cross and Temptation to come over for an evening of Mexican Train Dominoes. Eight people are a tight fit around our salon table, but we managed to get everyone in and had a wonderful time.

Friday 2/27 – Happy Birthday to Leta Poston, Wayne’s Mom.

They were predicting a front on Sunday night so we decided to go to Treasure Cay and find a good spot to anchor before the rest of the crowd came in. Once again we were able to sail! Having Otto, our 3rd crew member, back sure makes it easier. After anchoring we headed to the beach to look for shells and sand dollars at low tide. We found a lot of auger shells and various sizes of sand dollars. We spent a quiet evening on the boat.

Saturday, 2/28 – It was the calm before the storm, so Wayne took advantage of the flat harbor to climb the mast to tighten the screw on the wind indicator. While he was there he took some pictures of the harbor. Temptation took pictures of Wayne while he was up the mast. When Mom and Sandy were here and we were exploring the little shops, we noticed that the conch horns that they were selling in the shops had been varnished on the outside to make them shiny. So Wayne varnished the conch horns that he had made. They really look nice.

At low tide we decide to explore the beach at the entrance to Treasure Cay. We did not find much on the beach itself but found LOTS of sand dollars just off shore. We picked up 37 sand dollars and stopped because my collection bags were full.

After dinner, Karen and Earl, from Temptation, came over to play Farkle and Dominoes.

Sunday, 3/1 – Treasure Cay Harbor filled up on Sunday with people looking for a protected anchorage for the cold front. We were happy that we already had a good spot and our anchor was well set. It was interesting to watch the different anchoring techniques of the boats coming in. Russ and Pat on Consort had invited us over for sundowners , with the front approaching we went over early in the afternoon and left just after sunset. We had an enjoyable afternoon getting to know Russ and Pat.

The front came through as predicted on Sunday night but we didn’t think it was as bad as they were predicting. We got a little rain and the wind blew. The only bad part was that it was a COLD front, the same one that had brought so much cold and snow to the US east coast, it dropped our temperatures from highs in the upper 70’s to highs only in the lower 60’s, brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Monday 3/2 – Chilly day with a high of only 62! The good news is it should be back in the upper 70’s by the weekend. Sandi and Donn on Cypraea love to play games. So we invited them over for games and dinner. They came over at 2:00. Wayne and I learned a new game “Apples to Apples” it was a lot of fun. Then we taught them Quiddler and Farkle and ended the evening at 9:30 after several games of Dominoes. It was a great way to spend a chilly afternoon and evening and we look forward to doing it again.

Once again we have changed our plans….we had thought that when Otto was fixed we would head further south to Eleuthera and then on to the Exumas. We have relaxed and are enjoying the ease of cruising in the Abacos, so we have decided to stay in the Abacos for the rest of the cruising season. We let my brother, Jay, know that he should make his airline reservations to fly into Treasure Cay and we will show Jay and his girlfriend, Ginger the beautiful islands north of the Whale.