We untied from the docks at Bimini early this morning, and set out course for Grand Bahama Island, one of the major commercial and tourism locations in this country. Mostly the passage was uneventful, except as Karen noted, it was a very “un-Caribbean” looking day. Meaning… overcast gray skies and gray water. The closer we got to our destination at the Grand Bahamas Yacht Club, the more the gray skies poured rain down on us.
I was hopefully that we would snag a wahoo on the run over here, but it was not to be. We arrived–fishless at the yacht club at about 5, and just after we tied the last line to the dock, the heavens opened, for real. It rained so hard, I am pretty sure if someone stood looking up at the sky they would have been at risk of drowning!
It’s an early night for us after a tiring day. The weather for the next couple days looks like on-and-off showers. Time to break out the umbrella! We have a project to do while we are here: find a fuse for one of our battery chargers that is on the fritz. I am hoping that the fix will be that simple…
This stuff is called many things by sailors, usually names not printable. But when in polite company, it is usually called “calcium”. Many sailors assume it is calcium carbonate, the material that seashells are made of. It is not. It is a complex mixture of various things, likely mostly calcium oxalate, a primary component of some kinds of kidney stones. The photo on the right is what we found in the hoses in our aft head. Not a disaster–yet. But the diameter of the hose has been reduced by almost 25%, and every narrowing of the hose makes a truly messy clog more likely.
One common myth about this stuff is you can prevent its formation and/or dissolve it away with vinegar. Nope. Doesn’t work. This is one of those things that gets repeated so often people start to believe it. It is told to beginning sailors, and becomes part of what they “know” to be true. “Experts” say it all the time. A simple experiment shows that vinegar has almost no effect at all. After the “Before” picture was taken, we emptied the hoses of all water, and filled them with straight, undiluted vinegar, and left them to soak for six hours, then flushed through with seawater. The result was, as you can see, not worth the trouble. The stuff lining the hose was just as hard, and just as intact as it was before.
I am happy to report, it worked, and not just a little, but perfectly. The picture on the right is the same hose after a 6 hour soak in SewClean followed by a saltwater flush. Pretty impressive.
A pretty place is Key West. Some parts of town are a bit overrun with tourists and the various ticky-tack businesses that pop up to cater to them, but other places are just plain pretty. There is a pretty steady stream of cruise ships that make port calls here, but they tend to be the smaller ones, and there is only room for one at a time so they don’t quite totally overwhelm town like in some places.
When the United States acquired Florida from Spain, Key West was pretty much uninhabited. The U.S.Navy developed a base here in the early 19th century that was initially used to “discourage” the original Pirates of the Caribbean. The Navy is still here, although in a greatly reduced capacity. Just a few hours before we arrived, an Amphibious Assault Ship arrived at the Navy dock. We were told she is the largest Navy vessel to make a port call in Key West since World War II.
fetchinketch 