Bimini, Waiting on Weather

Comments:  The wind continues to blow without shame.  We’re seeing a steady 28 knots, day and night.  I’ve forgiven the Mantus for Tuesday night, though it wasn’t its fault, as it has held tight since.  So with the strong blow, we visit the island. 

Maintenance day, yesterday, gave me a little scare.  After doing a variety of chores, I noticed a very

Busted exchanger cap gasket

fast dripping stream of coolant.  I searched high and low hoping it would be a loose hose or even one needing replacement.  The leak was not coming from a hose.  It appeared the drip was coming from the gasket between the heat exchanger and the block.  That gasket is not something I carry as a spare.  So, I tightened the six bolts securing the heat exchanger to the block.  After restarting the engine it seemed to stop.  During this process I called John, who I have extreme confidence in, and sought his advice.  The best advice he gave me was to not tighten the bolts anymore.  I’m glad he did because I was pondering that as my next move.  Tightening it too much could cause other serious problems like a cracked heat exchanger.  As it turned out the problem was not the gasket,  it was simply a bad gasket on the radiator cap, which I felt sure I had examined.  I pulled the gasket and made one from a hypalon patch (dinghy material) and there’s been no leak since.  Over the next 24 hours, John texted me with several ideas.  Thank you, John!

Ruth daring the ocean

Lobster salad at Joe's Conch Shack

Today, we took off toward town.  We docked the dinghy at the Mega Yacht Marina nearby, which has almost no business in this off season.  David,  manning the marina was extremely nice. The island is only about 3 miles long so we figured we could see most of it.  And that we did.  We couldn’t help but detour to the Atlantic Ocean side of the island and boy what a treat we were given.  Holed up in the anchorage, we don’t see the extreme beauty of the island that we saw on the west side today.  There were even a few sharks swimming the beach.  I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.  We had our first conch salads, well almost, as we chose lobster salad instead, visited a few sites and then made our way back.  According to Ruth’s gadget watch we walked a total of 6.38 miles.  My feet won’t argue the distance.  On the return dinghy ride, we met up for the 2^nd time with Menno and Val from a nearby anchored Lagoon 38.  They invited us aboard and we discussed possible shove off days and routes.  It is nice here but we’re ready to make our way south, hopefully Tuesday. 

Voila, An American Dream