New direction sign for the back dock

I still need to touch up the screw holes with white paint and then varnish all of them in place to get some UV protection on them.  I created the stencils with a Cricut Explore 3 and some adhesive vinyl.  I used TotalBoat's TotalTint kit which contains 10 different vials of Mixol brand tints.  I added these to a semigloss white base paint.  The empty space is for a sign whose stencil got messed up and I have to create a new one.  It will point to Bootle Bay Bed and Berth.  

Here's a video showing more detail.

In the background you can hear the Wednesday evening festivities over at Smith's point begin to wind up.  They will be partying loud until around midnight.

The second half of solar panels are installed and producing.

The first set of 30 solar panels have been up on the battery house and battery house extension for several months now.  They max out at about 7.5kW right now even though the rated output is 10.5kW and the reason is that they are not installed at the optimal angle.  It was deemed more important to be able to withstand storms which frequent the Bahamas than to squeeze every watt out of the solar panels.

In order to install the remaining 10.5 kW of solar panels that I have on hand, I had to extend the boat house roof.  This took effort advantage of concrete poured during the great backyard pour as I used Simpson strong tie 4x4 bases that were sprayed with black paint and then coated several times with LPS-3 for long term corrosion control.  

We had to extend these pine logs in order to achieve this goal.  Each pine log was sandwiched between two 2x4 planks which also sandwiched a 4x4 roof support. 

Here the basic structure was beginning to take shape with 4x4 roof supports sitting on top of a heavy 4x4 outer framework.

Adding the plywood created a large new sheltered area in back of the boat house where the bait freezer can now stay without being rained on all the time.  Dive tanks and other stuff will also take advantage of this new covered work and storage area.

After installing the 5/8" plywood roof, the 30 lb fiberglass infused underlayment went down which is a protective barrier for the heat that will be used as part of the installation process of the called "torch on" or "torch down" roofing material that was use on the project.  We were able to get this base sheet to go up under the exiting corrugated metal far enough to create a leak-free transition between metal and torch down.

It was then time to install the Unirac lightrail racking.  Since the original cabin was made of natural pine, the roof was significantly uneven and we spent several days adjusting the L-feet of the racking system to obtain a reasonably flat installation for the solar panels.

As you can see, we often worked into the evening because my fishing trip to Walker's was approaching and I wanted this to be ready when the guys got here.  This is Frankie out there working in the cool winter evening under what he calls "the DaveStar" which is just a commercial grade LED street light that I had installed as part of the back yard upgrade.

Throughout the process, my partner for this installation was Frankie from AF Solutions, who have I have been working with for the past 2 years now to get Coquina Compound (as we like to call it) ready for Becky and I to retire here.  It was a very rewarding experience to have completed this solar install quickly and professionally with Frankie's help!!

After weeks of long hours, often extending into the evenings, the second 10.5 kW of the Coquina Compound solar installation was finally complete.

Here is the tessellation plan.  There are 6 strings of solar panels, 5 strings per panel, 30 panels in total of 350 W panels for a 10.5 kW nominal generation ability. However, these panels are actually tilted 5 degrees the wrong way because I did not want to completely reconfigure the boat house roof.  So during winter when the sun stays relatively low on the horizon they might max out at only 6.5kW but we will get that for about 6 hours per day.  During the summer when the sun is directly overhead it is going to be much better, perhaps 9kW peak generation.  We just happened to luck out that the starlink orientation was within 7 degrees of optimal.  The starlink antenna with its stupid kickstand was bolted to a piece of heavily painted 3/4" plywood and then solar panel clamps hold that wood to the unirac lightrail for a clean install.

Because of this new solar generation, Coquina Cove is now officially off grid.  We will continue to use the power company as a backup for the monthly connection fee of $50 but the average monthly power bill of more than $600 (more in the summer, less in the winter) should be a think of the past.  IF they do not raise the price of power (which of course they will) then payoff for this will be about 10 years.  But that is a bit misleading since the $600 number was taken when we were being very careful with power consumption, turning on the air conditioner for half the house during the day and the other half of the house at night.  But now we run the entire house at 72-74f AND I have the battery house extension AC running all the time in dehumidification mode which was not the case before.   I think at our current quality of service, the power bill would have been more like $1000 per month and so the payoff for the system is probably more like 7 years given the stupidly high cost of electricity here in the Bahamas.

Walker's Cay fishing trip, January 2025

This is the trip report for Third Wave's winter fishing trip to Walker's Cay which took place Sat Jan 25th through Sunday Feb 2nd.  The first Saturday was fly in day, food shopping day, etc. and the last Sunday was fly out day.  So the body of the trip was Sun Jan 26th to Sat Feb 1 with that final Saturday being dedicated to the long drive back across the bank in order to enter Grand Bahama from the north side, cross the Grand Lucayan Waterway and then back to Freeport..  The trip participants for this year were, left to right below, Eric S., Julian H., Capt Dave and Capt Kyle.  Steve E. was originally slated to go but was unable to attend at the last minute due to illness.  

The trip originated from my home in Freeport, Grand Bahama at the red circle and then ran west up the south side of the island toward West End where we stayed the first night.  Our path was then north west parallel to the Little Bahama Bank which is a large plateau of shallow, 15-20' water.  Our plan was to be between West End and Memory Rock, which is where the red line takes a hard right towards Walker's, during outgoing tide.  The thinking is that the big predator fish like wahoo will be in 200-400' water waiting for the food to be pulled by the falling tide off the bank and back into the ocean.

The plan worked to some degree.  On 01-28 we bagged a nice wahoo, first of the trip, as shown below. The fish was over 20 lbs and was the biggest wahoo caught on the trip.

We continued to cruise up toward memory rock at which point we cut over and made for Walker's, getting there around midnight.  The brand new, world class facility known as Walker's Cay Marina has been open for fishing tournaments for a couple of years now but there are few amenities other than the awesome floating docks and the new fuel wall.  While that will change dramatically over the next two years with a bunch of new additions, including restaurants, a bar, and even a 150 person casino, right now it's just awesome floating docks with stable power and good water at the slip along with the best fish cleaning stations I've ever seen.  Even the showers and the toilets are very temporary right now. If you need it, you better bring it with you!  This is why such a nice facility is literally unoccupied at present.  In the future when it is completed I suspect people will be fighting for the slips there.  In any case, we got settled into our slip with the help of a nice security guy.  

The next day (1-29) we got a bit of a slow start due to the late arrival the night before.  Most of the guys did a little exploring of the island.

We also learned that there are often large schools of bait living in the marina.  One old timer there cast his net and gifted us several nice live baits.  We went out onto the reef on the north side and Julian pulled up a very nice mutton snapper, more than enough to feed all 4 of us that day.

Mutton snapper a-la Kyle:

The next day (1-30) we were up with the sun ready to see what the waters off of the legendary Walker's Cay would bring us.

Trolling rigged ballyhoo, Walker's did not disappoint as we bagged a nice, but smallish 22 lb yellowfin tuna.  This fish produced 16 lbs of boneless skinless tuna, fresh like very few have ever had it.  Within a few minutes it had been cleaned on Third Wave's built-in bait prep station and people were eating ahi sushi.  I wish I could say this catch was due to extreme fishing skill, but we had just reeled our lines up because we had another fish on another line.  The lines were left dangling above the water 6".  We had just finished clearing the other line, which which was the shark, when this yellowfin jumped out of the water at the dangling bait and made a run for it.  Talk about FAFO.  Later on we hooked another small yellowfin but had to pay the Shark Tax on that one.  We still took 8 oz of meat off of that carcass...

We also took these other two respectable wahoos on that outing.  Not as big as the one off of West End but mighty good eating.

After cleaning the fish it was time for a nice drink while enjoying the sunset.  As you can see, Third Wave is now a registered Bahamian vessel so all of the usual pressure to clear customs is done with.

Third Wave: She's old, but she'll hold!  Not bad looking for a 1973 boat.  She's one of a kind due to all of the work Kyle and I have done on her since we acquired the hull in 2016.

On 1-31 we hauled in another nice wahoo.  

The big prize of this final day of fishing before we had to drive back to Freeport was when my shotgun line coming from the flybridge mounted 80w reel began to sing in about 500' of water trolling rigged skirted ballyhoo.  To our happy surprise we hauled in this nice sailfish which then released alive after the picture as required by Bahamian law.   

After we were done fishing for the day, Eric and Julian jumped in for a quick snorkel up near the reef.  Despite best efforts, Eric did not see any lobsters which are in season right now.

That evening we came back to the fish cleaning station at Walker's Cay Marina with a couple of small mahi mahi and our 4th wahoo of the trip.

Along the way we got the usual large number of barracuda (probably 8 or so over the course of the trip, but unexpectedly got hit on a Yo-Zuri wahoo lure by this shark in 400 feet of water.   This is unusual in my experience.

Third wave ran pretty well for us the entire trip.  We did have a few small maintenance issues like impellers, a new fuel leak in the filler tube and other unexpected items but nothing that slowed us down in any meaningful way.  One major upgrade we had this time was the inclusion of a bait freezer.  There was never any stinky bait trying not to rot in a bucket of ice overnight.  That was really a big deal IMO.  The fishing cockpit was where all the magic happened.

Of course the cockpit also doubled as a dining room for our "bounty of the sea" feast.  This dining experience is Kyle's baby and was well appreciated.

I would be remiss not to mention all of the sharks that have made the marina their home.  The fish cleaning stations throw them an easy meal.

The final new experience home was taking Third Wave through the Grand Lucayan Waterway which we found to be deep water and well marked.  We just made it under the Sir Jack Hayward bridge with our outriggers fully up (35') but did have to lower them for the Casuarina bridge which is only 27' vertical clearance at mean low water.

In summary, this Walker's trip was a big success for Third Wave and certainly the start of an annual (if not more often) pilgrimage there.

Incredible concrete pour is complete!

Today they poured the last section of the planned concrete for the Freeport home.  What an ordeal.  The house is on an island with only one way on and off overland, and you have to go over a bridge that is being decommissioned.  So there is a weight limit on it of 10 tons (20k lbs).  An empty concrete truck is 32k lbs so my contractor brought in a local gas powered cement mixer and extra labor and they poured the majority of the slabs by hand.

They mixed it up to be 3500 PSI and added fiberglass strands to the mix for better crack reduction.

We can pretty much walk around the entire back yard now without leaving the patio.  Everything outside of the pink portion is new pour.  Those 4 pillars will hold up the roof over the outdoor kitchen.  We live in a hurricane zone so everything I put in is overkill.

You can see the drain for the outdoor kitchen poking up.  It is tied into the septic.

I can now back the truck with dive tanks all the way back to the dock.

That portion to the right was difficult to mow and would get swampy after a rain.  Problem now solved.  The raised pad is for the 2nd AC condenser.

I'll enclose this area for the generator, my big compressor, etc.  Once done I won't need to leave any expensive tools outside.

This is all new pour as well.

There is a fiberglass jacuzzi tub over on the dock that will be installed where these electrical and water pipes come out of the concrete.  Should be nice in the evenings looking out over the canal enjoying the jacuzzi.  I don't want to take care of a pool or a hot tub so I will fill this up, use it for a few days at a time and then just dump it into the canal.  No muss no fuss.

Another view of the jacuzzi pad.

Now that all of the concrete work is done I need to get busy and install my dock lights.  These are commercial grade steel tapered streetlights I ordered direct from China.  The bare poles weigh about 300 lbs each which is why I have those two big concrete pedestals (prewired of course).  More on that later.

I'll leave you with this shot of Taino Beach as seen this past week when I was taking a midnight walk.  This is 0.2 miles from the house as the crow flies and 0.25 miles from the house by road.  This is why we moved to Freeport.

Progress update on the big concrete pour

January was a bit rainy and so progress was stalled a bit, but Chesney and his crew got back to it around the first of February and progress has been good. All of the trenching has been covered over now and all of the framing is in place for the pouring of the super-slab.  Below you can see the 4 sonotube forms (12" diameter on 15' centers) that will serve as the basis for a heavy duty outdoor patio cover.  Each of these tubes has an epoxy coated rebar framework inside.  At the top you can see the 304 stainless 3/4" threaded rods protruding which is how the double thick 2"x12"x16' lumber will be connected around the perimeter.  This is huge overkill, but we live in a hurricane zone and the roof will be carrying solar panels and other infrastructure.  Bottom line, I will build it so that it would take a nuclear blast to bring it down and then never have to worry about it in the future.

Here's another angle:

The tubes were filled with 3500 PSI concrete that was infused with fiberglass strands and then shot through this concrete pump to fill them up.

This first pour also did the light pole bases.  That hole is 3.5+ feet deep, solid concrete with a rebar structural frame.  It's amazing how much concrete is needed in order to handle the wind load of a 25' tall steel light pole.  As mentioned before, these pole are probably 300lbs or more each.  They are commercial grade.  The light pole that goes on top of the base below will have two 120vac powered LED street lights lighting up the dock and a good portion of the seawall.  In addition, this light pole has been plumbed for hot and cold water from the boat shed as well as cat 6 Ethernet in case I want to mount a camera on the pole.

The light poles have a 1/2" steel base which will be held in place by 4 stainless threaded rods with an L bent into the submerged end similar to the gazebo roof, but pointing straight up.  These ones are close to the salt water so I sprung for the 316 stainless for these instead of the 304.

The weather is so beautiful these days here in Freeport.  Mid 70s and low humidity.  Look at Atlantic over on the left...