28 April Like a Darwin finch

Our first day of passage from Belize to west Cuba the wind was forecast to be from south of east. Ha ha! It was a late April Fools day joke as it doggedly stayed north of east and we had to tack and tack and tack across the rhumb line. By dusk we'd sailed 50 miles and made 20 miles towards our destination. However, the further north we progressed the more the wind veered to the east and then to south east and we were no longer slamming into and falling off waves.
On day 2 of the passage the freezer stopped working.  This is a catastrophe.  It's half full with best south American beef and pork.  What are we going to do?  First David investigated all the wiring, connections, power supply, etc.  I turned the fridge the maximum cold and filled the ice box with as much as possible leaving out fillet mignon for supper.  The thought of throwing out food goes against my upbringing but frozen lemon slices and jalapeno chillies were fed to the fishes, minced beef was cooked in the pressure cooker and left sealed for three days.  An experiment that worked. It was like canning meat.  David's fault finding eventually restored sub zero temperatures in the freezer and I was able to transfer back to the freezer.  A day later and it went off again.  This is not what I want on a long passage, but it is something I have to do.  Part of the whole package.

Late on the third day we were approaching the Yuacatan channel and the western tip of Cuba. The weather had settled considerably and it looked like if we had wanted to continue up the Florida Straits to Bahamas there were three days of light wind or no wind instead of the more usual easterlies.

Without warning, and without touching it, our Raymarine chart plotter began to scroll in and out. Shifting from 24nm to 3nm zoom and back again. I switched off and restarted only for the start page to be followed by the terms of agreement, a black screen and back to start again. OK the chart plotter has crashed. No amount of powering down at source, checking connections, checking for salt or dirt under the smart keys would reinstate the plotter. What now? Our back up is a smart phone tablet with the same Navionics charts downloaded and it's internal GPS to indicate where we are. The rest of the instruments continued to work without fault. Nowadays many sailors use only their smartphones for navigating, but we prefer the chart plotter.

Another decision had to be made. Do we stop in Cuba or continue to Bahamas. Continuing would be another three and a half days at sea, but the weather is good to go. Stopping would making landfall in the dark and then a future of picking our way around the coast with a lesser navigation device and no chance of finding a Raymarine engineer or the means to repair the chartplotter.

Like a Darwinian finch we have to be ready to adapt to survive. Plot a course for Bimini, Bahamas.

It turned out to be a good decision as we rode the two to three knot current in light southerly winds on the beam. We maintained 8 knots boat speed, sometimes with winds as light at 7 knots which is a real bonus in our heavy boat. The seas were flat and visibility perfect. An essential at night when we couldn't see AIS hits using the plotter. It was switched on and we were transmitting our position. What we couldn't see was the name of the vessels or closest point of approach data.

On the third day, and a 24 hour period of motoring is 2 knots of wind we reached Cat Cay south of Bimini. The Navionics details indicated this as a port of entry so why not pull in, check in and rest before continuing on to Nassau? Making entry through the reef had it's moments, our keel skimmed the seabed as we motored a mile to the anchorage and collecting paperwork and taking the dinghy in to the marina was easy. What was a surprise was to find Cat Cay and the marina are private. An aggressive dock master lectured we could come ashore, but to walk upon his hallowed ground to the Customs office would cost $100 in addition to the $300 check in fee. Unbelievable! Welcome to the (expensive) Bahamas. Dockage in the marina is $5 a foot.

More Darwinian adapting was called for. We went back to Jackster, lifted the dinghy and moved a couple of miles north to shelter behind Gun Cay for the night. I went for a long swim to shore and walked on the beach. We slept and next morning exited the reef to head to Nassau.
Footnote: the freezer intermittently stops but we've found by turning off power for a few hours and switching on again puts it right.  A replacement is required when we reach the States...