We arrived Treasure Cay with our friends Tom & Joyce Lanzilli on Wednesday March 23rd. This was their first visit to the Abacos. We spent Thursday enjoying the beach at Treasure Cay, preparing and provisioning the boat. They were predicting the weather to be absolutely beautiful during our entire stay and it certainly was. Sunny and 80 degrees. Friday we sailed to Hope Town. I miss calculated our departure time to coincide with high tide at Hope Town by about an hour but luckily we were still able to get into the channel without hitting bottom when we arrived about 45 minutes after high tide. We went for a dinghy ride to a deserted beach outside the harbor to swim and look for Star Fish. The water was beautiful and we found several huge Star Fish. We went to Tommy Bahamas restaurant at the Harbors Inn and had a wonderful dinner. Saturday morning we toured Hope Town and left at high tide on Saturday afternoon for Man-O-War. I had difficulity getting the transmission into forward gear leaving the mooring in Hope Town. We disconneted and checked the linkage but the problem appeared to be inside the transmission possibly the clutch. Fortunately with a little persuassion it would eventually go into gear so we continued on our way to Man-O-War Cay.
The entrance to Man-O-War harbor is very narrow and somewhat tricky with the current. Once inside the channel is well marked to the harbor on port. We picked-up a mooring right outside Man-O-War Marina where the harbor is the deepest. With 9-1/2 ft. at high tide and a 3-1/2 ft. tide it only leaves 6" under the keel at low tide . There is not very much to see or do in Man-O-War. There is a very nice Canvas Sail/Bag shop and several sovereign stores. Man-O-War is famous for a particular type boat called an Albury which strangely enough is also the last name of most everyone on the island. We went to dinner at Dock & Dine next to the marina. Man-O-War is a dry town so it's BYOB if you want wine with your meal. Sunday morning we had breakfast onboard and dignied to a wonderful beach where you could walk out the length of a football field in only knee deep water. We left Man-O-War at high tide on Sunday and had a beautiful sail on a beam reach in 12-15 knot winds all the way back to Treasure Cay.
We did some further diagnosis on the transmission when we got back to the dock and decided a call into Volvo was in order. We had dinner Sunny night at the Touch of Class restaurant just outside the main gate and on Monday we did laundry, cleaned the boat and prepared to go home.
Volvo ultimately acknowledged the problem with the transmission and agreed to replace it and pay for the labor to install it. Coincidentally we found out that there was a service bulletin issued on this particular transmission (150s Sail Drive) for the exact same problem. There are no authorized Volvo service centers in the Bahamas and since I couldn't get the boat to the nearest one in Florida I had to arrange to fly in a technician from McDonnell Marine the authorized Volvo service center in Connecticut I use regularily and haul the boat in Marsh Harbor at my expense so they could replace the transmission.
The transmission is scheduled to be replaced the week of April 11th and we are scheduled to go back to the boat with the entire family on April 22nd for Easter.
