The young man who’s doing the work on our engine got started yesterday. He was able to pull the shaft coupling apart, and after I got a diver to come and move the shaft zincs, he was able to pull the shaft out far enough to work on separating the engine and transmission. I tried to get a photo of the engine separated from the transmission. This is the best I could do. There’s not much room in there to get them apart.

He took the rear oil seal back with him to his shop. There were marks on the aluminum all around it, maybe from a screwdriver. The seal itself had a tear or gouge in it. It was very apparent and had to have been there when it was installed. We’re pretty upset. That seal and shaft misalignment were ticking time bombs. We’re lucky we saw the oil, that it started dripping here, before we made our crossing.

The marina here is full of people waiting for a weather window to get to the Bahamas. The predictions now are that there’s not going to be any really good weather until December 22 or later. It may be that this whole thing hasn’t cost us any time.

As a “seasoned” cruiser of two years, I’m finally getting it that you really do take one day at a time and don’t try to make any predictions.