A couple of days before we were ready to leave Simpson Bay for more southern climes, Greig found a leak in the bilge pump hose. The hole was directly under the engine. We knew we would have to replace that hose before we left. No problem, just measure how much hose we need, go to one of the many marine stores on the island, buy a new length, and replace it. How hard could that be? As it turns out, not hard at all, a couple of hours later, everything was good to go....except us.

In the process of checking the bilge hose, Greig saw some oil in the bilge. At first he thought it may have come from the last oil change, but upon further inspection there was oil drips coming from the bottom of the engine. When he touched the oil sump with his hand, his thumb went right through. We checked the dip stick and it confirmed our fears, there was no oil in the engine and there was a big hole in the bottom. So calculating that we were going to have to lift the engine and replace the sump, how much can that cost? Over to Simpson Diesel shop to find out.

They said they would have to have a look so that afternoon, John came out to the anchorage and towed us in to a marina right next door to the shop. We felt safer at the marina because if we dragged our anchor, there would have been nothing we could have done. The technician came over that afternoon and disconnected the engine and discovered that not only the oil pan was a rusted sieve but the transmission was all scored and bent up. They said they could fix both, but the sump would have to be made from scratch, as they don't make them anymore for our engine, and they could fly in a new transmission. Bottom line $5,000 US.

Greig and I talked about it and we felt that if we did the fix and paid a quarter of the price for a new engine, that we would be throwing good money after bad. When we bought the boat, we looked at the serial number and it had 2001 on it. So we thought that the boat had been repowered in 2001. We were wrong. As it turns out, this was the original engine to the boat and was over 30 years old. We decided that we would bite the bullet and repower here on St. Maarten.

We told them that we wanted to have a new engine and the shop manager said no problem, we'll have it brought in and we'll have you out of here no later than June 24th.
He then tells us that we have to transfer $13,000 US to the Yanmar in Florida, before they will ship the engine. I think we may be over our budget this month honey. After a whole day of trying to get the money transferred, the banks both here in St. Maarten and in Halifax, not being much help, and my mom running all over the city trying to make it happen, and Greig and I sending emails and making phone calls to the head office in Toronto, we finally figured a way to get the money to them. Which we did and we were assured that our engine would be on the island no later than June 16th. Three weeks, no problems. Out of here in a month, Terrific!

Well Tuesday, June 16th came and went, no engine. The engine will be coming in the boat that arrive on Thursday, June 18th. Thursday, June 18th came and went, no engine. It will be coming in on the boat on Tuesday, June 23rd, they said. We asked for a shipping number and they couldn't give us one. Something was fishy. Saturday, June 20th, we were towed along side a barge to crane off the old engine in preparation for the delivery of our new engine on Tuesday. The engine came out without too much fuss and we were towed back to our slip. Tuesday, June 23rd arrived, no engine. Turns out they had not even put it on a boat. The next morning, they put it on a plane a MONTH after we had paid for it. This time they were able to provide a tracking number. Hmmm.

The engine finally arrived on Friday, June 26th. Weren't we supposed to be gone by now? At least the engine was here. Now we could get on with the installation. Not so fast! You still have to wait some more.....