Date: 05/17/2011
Local time: 2230
Location: Virgin Gorda, BVI
Weather: Gentle Breeze, Overcast
Title: Coral Bay to Virgin Gorda

We left Coral Bay right after breakfast and were anxious to see how our repairs from yesterday held up with the engine running.

Well, it turned out that the "real" leak didn't have anything to do with that little drip from the stern packing gland. The real leak was coming from the engine coolant system. On these marine diesels, the engine is cooled by recycling fresh water through a salt water heat exchanger. Well one of the hose clamps on the heat exchanger was broken and salt water was just gushing into the bilge. Barry turned the engine off and as we were drifting, I put a new hose clamp on. That seemed to fix the problem. Then all we had to do was clean the bilge and put all the engine covers back on.

The rest of the day was a very nice sail with the island of Tortola off to our port beam. We also passed Norman Island, better known as Treasure Island, made famous by Robert Louis Stephenson in the book of the same name.

We got to Virgin Gorda, BVI about 3pm and after anchoring, I just had to take a swim. The water was crystal clear and I could see the bottom. We went to shore for a beer at the Bath and Turtle. A nice man named Markus waited on us. He knew Barry from a previous visit.

After we quenched our thirst, we went over to customs and immigration where we each had to fill out 2 forms plus one for the boat.

Virgin Gorda is a very nice place. Not real upscale but clean and neat. The marina is quite small but has most of what you would expect. But it is pretty pricey. The beers in Coral Bay cost $2 and here they cost $4.
So we went back to the boat and Mirko cooked pasta and we opened up a bottle of wine and told some stories.