Bimini to West Palm Beach

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Our marina in Bimini was in a beautiful resort, and the weather was ideal for the entire three days. Our "obligation" to come here every year to renew the paperwork for Empty Nest does not seem like such a chore at the moment, notwithstanding the rough trip Thursday. (How is notwithstanding even a word?!?)

The rooftop pool at our marina resort

Empty Nest as seen from the rooftop pool

As I mentioned last time, our starboard side generator was not working, and with my mechanic on the phone, we determined that it was a bad impeller. I pulled out the old impeller which was completely destroyed. I also opened up the heat exchanger and cleaned out the rubber pieces and removed the water hoses on both sides of the pumps to makes sure water could flow. I used our wet vac to pump water through them, and pushed air into the sea water side to make sure there was no blockage on the through hull. Whether I would be able to put things back together again was an open question. But the biggest challenge was getting my hands on the right part in the Bahamas.

Generator pump opened up

The impeller had almost no blades left

We had a lucky break! I met a boat captain at our marina, and his crew mate was unavailable for the next leg of his trip, so he hired a new crew person who was flying in from Ft. Lauderdale the next morning. I was able to get our mechanic in Lauderdale to secure the parts we needed and get them to that crew member, and he brought them to us. With the impeller in hand and several YouTube videos on how to change impellers under my belt, I managed to get the generator working again. I'm not saying that I'm ready to be a mechanic, but I did recently quit my day job. I'm just saying.

This morning, we decided to go to West Palm Beach instead of Ft. Lauderdale. The seas were completely calm with 2 foot waves on our stern, nothing like the craziness last week, and we got a nice push from the gulf stream, adding 2-3 knots to our speed. The trip was uneventful, and we anchored in a nice spot just inside the inlet. The customs and border patrol office is a short dinghy ride away, and our plan is to go there first thing in the morning and get our cruising license. We haven't decided yet if we are going to go to Stuart tomorrow or all the way to Port Canaveral. We'd like to start making good time, but if getting the cruising license takes too long, we will probably settle for the shorter trip (Stuart), and then try to make up the time later.

West Palm Beach, of course, is a great boating hub. We sat on the back of the boat after securing the anchor and watched boats go by, such as this 230 foot beauty.


Here is the view off our stern when not blocked by a superyacht. 


The generator has been running for 11 hours, and is still running. I'm really surprised!

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