We dropped the lines on Wednesday and headed out to Ant Atoll, about 28 miles from Kolonia. We took off just after 0900 with the help of Leslie and Phillip off Carina. We followed the track lines on our chart plotter VERY carefully as this harbor is full of wrecks and coral reefs. Once out of the harbor, we we headed west around the top of the island and then along the western side, always mind full of the reef that surrounds this island.

Six hours later, we headed in the south pass and made our way to an anchorage having the entire atoll to ourselves. Once the anchor was down, we were in the water swimming and enjoying some thing we have had in quite a while--no nerves on edge. We swam to the island where is immediately began the sprinkle. We, of course had left the hatches and port open to try and get the heat from the engine out of the boat. I swam back while Tracy walked the beach and joined me shortly at the boat. We got some water inside but I got back before it let loose.

During the trip down, we would go into the engine room and LOOK at just about everything. We found a leak out of the rocker arm gasket and some oil coming out from under the heat exchanger. Just a tad of water coming up from the new connections with made with the gate valve but nothing that looked bad at all.

As we came back and entered the marina on Thursday, I slipped the transmission into reverse with the engine idling. It promptly stalled. Started her back up and she did it again--three times in all. The idle is set to low. Again, an easy adjustment. Our plan to head back to Ant on Saturday shouldn't be a problem at all.

We made arrangements for Jun to come back so we can do some of the routine maintenance that has to be done when breaking in the engine after a sea trial. The valves need to be adjusted and the cylinder head bolts need tightening. Change the oil and filter and the idling and we should be fine. Jun just looked at the engine and thinks the leak under the heat exchanger may be from the head gasket!!! That's not a good thing at all. It means that we have to take off the alternator to get to the drain so we can get the coolant out of the engine and then take off the exhaust manifold with all it's gaskets. This may take longer than I thought. We'll see once he gets into it I guess.
As always--there's always more to come. CR_P!!!!