Squalls continued to lash Nassau periodically last night. The wind shifted to the SE, bringing lots of swell and rain into the marina, making for mild sway all night with lots of odd noises to investigate.

In the morning, there was time for Paula to wander the marina a bit before Tommy came above deck for coffee.  She visited the nesting Kingbirds, inspected the sea state beyond the marina’s channel, and took Feral Kitty her third home-cooked chicken snack. Perhaps it is Paula’s imagination, but doesn’t Feral Kitty look marginally less deranged, a tad sleeker and a touch more civilized after some good Jewish cooking? You decide.

By the time Paula returned to C Ghost, it was becoming a gloriously sunny morning. Quite a difference from last night. Most of the day it continued sunny and hot, but by 7 p.m. tonight another fast-moving squall blew thru, killing the marina’s power (featured picture). Now we can hear the hum of generators all around.

After coffee and breakfast, boat prep for our next leg continued. Paula worked on cleaning the boat and rearranging our significantly diminished stores so that they are easier to hand and still appropriately distributed port and starboard, fore and aft, to help keep C Ghost’s weight distribution undisturbed. She did take time out to make the last Sunday batch of drop biscuits before our planned departure. These were shared with the marina staff as usual.

Tommy spent most of his time trying to de-bug Octavius, our auto-pilot. It has worked great about 60% of the time and not at all the other 40%. We know the problem likely has to do with the fact that our system has components from two different manufacturers. When we got the boat it already had an autopilot installed but the display didn’t work didn’t work. However, it had a very robust drive motor/clutch that appeared in excellent condition. Therefore, when we got our new Garmin Autopilot system several years ago, we saved a lot of money by not having to also buy a new drive motor since Garmin claimed their system would work with the one we had. Well – almost. Occasionally, when we engage the autopilot, the alien drive motor clutch will draw slightly more power than Garmin deems appropriate, and the Garmin software will shut down the whole autopilot system. So today, Tommy cleaned all the wire terminals leading to the clutch and motor to minimize any electrical resistance that could be responsible for the additional power draw. We’ll see.

Tommy also added a few more routes to the Chartplotter as alternates in case the weather changes from its current forecast for later this week.

After lunch we both got showers and walked around the marina and surrounding neighborhood. The marina traffic was intense, with boats returning to port, leaving, and in some cases, doing both in the space of a few minutes! This was apparently the switch-over day for a lot of the charter boats. Also, squally weather was forecasted for the later part of the afternoon.

We saw some beautiful boats like a gorgeously appointed 42 foot Hinkley, which had just arrived, and as always we were also on the look-out for cool boat names.

Afterwards, Tommy totally vaporized Paula in chess, making for a two-game streak.

Tonight’s dinner was baked chicken in sausage gravy, cabbage with bacon, corn kernels, and bread, accompanied by a dish of Lipitor.