George Town is also known as Chicken Harbor. Lots of folks come here and never get any further. Yes, we have been here a long time but it is now time to continue on and sail the Thorny Passage. This is part of the trip what keeps cruisers from going any further. It is over 600 miles going to the wind to Puerto Rico and then on to the Virgin Islands. We were now ready for the challenge leaving the harbor early with 3 other boats (Don and Janis from Plane to Sea, Dave and Linda from Wayward Wind and Rod and Evelin from Manatee). Plane to Sea left a little earlier then us and by the time we were in open water they had already made the decision not to go all the way to Rum Cay. It was going to be what looked like a long day…the wind and waves were up and coming from the direction we were heading. Manatee radioed to say they too would not be going all the way today. That left us and Wayward Wind heading for Rum Cay. We were also in radio contact with a boat from Holland called Spray that was also heading in the same direction. No sooner had we talked to Wayward Wind that we discovered a massive oil leak and there was next to no oil in the engine. This was clearly not a good thing. Michael topped the oil up and again within no time it was all in the bilge. The only thing we could do now was turn around and head back to George Town. We made it back the anchorage and now it was time to try and figure out what the problem was. The engine sounded fine, but did not have a lot of power. What next….send an email to Adrian and James Countouris to find out who we could speak to down in this end of the world that might be able to assist us. Within no time James had emailed us back and put us in contact with Mark Bird in Toronto. It took about two days and many emails, pictures and phones calls and they believe the problem was as a result of a leak in the exhaust mixing elbow which was allowing seawater to get into the engine and then forcing the oil out of the breather. After many oil changes the seawater was all out of the engine. The parts have now been ordered and we hope that they will arrive on Monday or Tuesday. Stay tuned! Hopefully we will be on our way again soon!