Transmission is back home where she belongs. Step one was just picking it up and getting it to the boat. Watermakers Air is basically just a plane, a pilot, and a couple of employees who ferry guests in golf carts from the runway to the Yacht Club resort. I felt kind of bad asking the two older gents if they could give me a hand lifting the box down to the beach and into the dinghy, especially after one guy told me he nearly died the day before moving it into the office (they hadn’t told us it shipped). But they obliged, and the three of us got it in the dinghy and me on my way only a few Bahamian greenbacks light.

Back at the boat, with a little planning we were able to get it up on the back deck fairly easily with the boom, and Lowe on the winch. Safely settled on deck we popped the top and oohed and ahhed over our very expensive, very shiny, hunk of gears. I have to say I was rather shocked by how inexpensive the job would have been had it not been for the two insanely expensive gears that needed to be sourced for a transmission that ceased production about 25 years ago. Only $540 in labor to completely rebuild the thing.

We actually could have gone with a new transmission for the engine, but it would have required us dropping the engine two inches because it’s a straight shaft. This would have been preferrable, I suppose, since if something goes wrong again down the line we’re going to find ourselves in the same expensive predicament regarding parts for this one. If we’d been in the States I may have just gone that route, but it would have required fabricating new engine mounts, and some sort of shaft extension, and the whole thing just sounded like a job for professionals, and not for me to fiddle around with at anchor in Staniel Cay with a bag full of wrenches and some rusty pliers.

We got it this far and left it for the night. We got word that a couple of friends were going to be in the bay the next day, and were willing to work.

Crabby, still kickin’, and eating tacos with the rest of us.

Lowe drawing our friends, the Remoras.

The four men sizing up that puny transmission.

First, I tried magic to get it back on.

Then muscles.

Honestly, it didn’t go nearly as smoothly as I had thought it would. We struggled mightily to get it lined up and have the gears slide effortlessly together. We hung it up on a board and had it right where we thought we needed it, but it wouldn’t go together. After about 2 hours of fiddling around, sweating profusely, and cutting up various parts of my body, I remembered something I had thought of the night before. “We’ll put the engine mounts back on it, and it should pretty much line right up.”

Duh. I put the mounts on and we were able to set it in place. From there it was just a matter of sliding the two pieces together. But it still didn’t want to go for us. Then Nick took one last close look at it and said I think the back needs to go just a little bit this way…

And with that, we were done. I threw a couple bolts on, grabbed a beer, and called it a day.

It’s good to have friends. Kind of amazing to me that here we are, in some Bahamian anchorage, and my good friend Nick pulls in, and a longtime Bum friend, Russ, are right there alongside of us. Anyway, a hearty thank-you to both of them. I won’t say Ali and I couldn’t have done it ourselves, but it would have been pretty darn near impossible.

We got the boat mobile again just in time. A few more days and we may have been consumed whole by the Remoras.

With the transmission on, and only the easy work left, it was time to go out and enjoy the day.

This is what it looks like when you go on the hunt for lobster with the tide running. Not going to find anything in that.

So, go find a sandbar instead.

Finished product. Everything working again, alignment good, new oil cooler and lines, shifting smooth, oil at full, and we’re off.

First stop, the gas dock. Not because we were low on fuel (3/8 tanks), but because at about 1/2 tank the generator started sucking air through the fuel filter. Going to have to find a way around that little annoyance. While we hovered outside the dock another boat pulled up behind us in the channel. “Hey Bumfuzzle, we met you guys in Minnesota on a motorcycle run ten years ago!” I think we’ve probably racked up a thousand of these “small world” stories in the last decade or so.

From Staniel Cay we motored just a few miles to Black Point to catch up on laundry. Black Point’s do-it-yourself laundromat is sort of a famous institution in the Exumas chain of islands. Where at Staniel Cay the lady will either charge you $24 for one load of laundry, or give you filthy looks if you try to do it yourself, at Black Point you can do your own for a tiny fraction of the price.

When we got in I did a little engine room inspection and found that the generator’s fuel pre-filter was leaking pretty badly. It’s old, though I had just recently replaced the filter element itself. Anyway, I found that the leak was coming from this little plastic bleeder valve on the top, so I grabbed a screwdriver to try and tighten it up a bit, and the instant I touched it, the top just broke clean off and a spray of diesel shot a foot in the air. Like the Little Dutch Boy, I stuck my finger over it to stop the leak, then scratched my head with the other hand. I reached the fuel shut off, then stared at this small broken plastic screw wondering how I was going to fix this one.

And, there we are. Problem solved.

With everything on the boat back in working order, the world decided to add in some beautiful weather to complete our day.

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