We are in Road Town, Tortola on anchor at Inner Harbor between the Village Cay Marina and the Moorings Charter Marina. Brett has been in an out of the engine compartment for 3 days.

Why you ask?

1. It’s not a great idea leaving your boat on the hard for 7 months they are like Brett and need to be worked.

2. The engine’s saltwater heat exchangers should be serviced every two years or 1000 hours. They had never been done and the boat is 4 years old with about 1400 hours on the engines. The Yanmar service guy in Trinidad was to service them. But in reality they broke off a bolt and then made an excuse that they didn’t need to be done. Thus extra work here to do it correctly.

3. Our starboard engine is not charging the battery bank and there are some weird electrical problems. All were related to one alternator that needed a rebuild.

4. The port engine starter is sounding rough and needs a service as the salt water from the heat exchanger seal leak is dripping on it constantly.

So yes time for work…. It’s not all play there’s a lot of maintenance and upkeep in having a boat and keeping her in working order. Road Town was a great location to get the alternator rebuilt and pick up parts to service the heat exchangers on both engines.

Johan and Marlene caught sight of Paul a friend from South Africa who was delivering a 48ft Leopard to Moorings and was kind enough to give us all their provisions prior to leaving the next day. Thanks Paul, Malcolm and Jacob. Of course we had a party that night to thank them for all their goodies & sing happy birthday to Jacob.

Brett and Johan changed the oil & filters after finishing the heat exchange service. Marco even got involved and helped with the oil change and cleaning the compartments up after all the work was done.

We are now good for a while with less frequent engine room visits (we hope).