Only about 2 hours into our 16 hour passage to St. Martin, our cooling water high temperature alarm started shining bright red. We were heading directly into the wind, so we only had our main sail up and we were running our engine at full cruising speed. Our autopilot was on and we were admiring the super moon when it happened. I jumped behind the wheel and quickly throttled down, while Rob rushed downstairs to inspect the engine. I glanced at our transom and saw that we had plenty of water flow coming out of our exhaust. Perhaps the sensor had just failed and there wasn’t really an issue. However, when Rob opened the engine compartment door our galley transformed into a steam room. It was clear that we had a severe leak in our cooling system, so I immediately fell off from the wind and shut the engine down.
Tag: night sail
An Unexpected Stop in Turks and Caicos
As sad as we were to leave the Bahamas, we were equally excited to visit the Dominican Republic. We couldn’t wait to hike up the mountain side, explore waterfalls, and devour cheap street food. We pulled up our anchor at 12:50am on April 8th. It would take us 32-36 hours (our longest sail yet) to get to Luperon. Leaving in the middle of the night would ensure a morning arrival on April 9th. The pups were confused why we were up moving around so much at such a strange hour, but once we turned on the motor, they assumed their passage positions. Jaela took the cockpit floor, while Baxter settled into the side cushion.