Great Stirrup Cay, Berry Islands

We were about halfway through our passage from Grand Bahama to the Berry Islands. The water was smooth, the winds were light, we were motoring along, and I was thinking "Wow, this passage has been pretty uneventful. Aside from seeing some flying fish, our web update tonight will be pretty boring." Moments later, Kevin came up and shut down the starboard engine because he heard a strange noise. When he opened up the engine compartment he could see that the engine temperature sensor cable had been rubbing on the belt. The belt was a bit worn and the coating on the cable was worn right through to the copper. He figured it must have happened when the mechanic replaced the crankshaft seals back in December. So it had only been going on for 3 "boat days" (we haven't been moving around much for the past 2 months). Anyway, he was able to relocate the cable and decided to wait to change the belt until we stopped for the night since he thought it looked okay and didn't want to burn himself on the hot engine.

So we restart the engine and a minute or two later Kevin runs up yelling "Shut it down, shut it down!". I didn't need to be told twice so I shut it down. Turns out the belt broke as soon as we restarted the engine and the engine overheated pretty quickly to 240 degrees (180 is normal). Kevin replaced the belt and we restarted the engine so that the coolant could do its job and get the engine temperature back down. So that was a bit of excitement, but that's what I get for thinking that the update would be boring.

We are in the Berry Islands anchored just off Great Stirrup Cay, which is about 60 nautical miles south of Grand Bahama. The island is actually owned by Carnival Cruise Lines, so I'm not sure what will happen if we go ashore, maybe Capt. Steubing and Gopher will chase us off the island since we aren't cruise ship passengers. I guess tomorrow we'll find out.

Where we are today (paste into your browser):
http://mapserver.maptech.com/homepage/index.cfm?lat=25.8134&lon=-77.8984