Hinckley at Savannah - Bob comes to repair the high heat problem

This is a heat exchanger! Raw ater runs through the tubes which are immersed in the flow of antifreeze, cooling the engine

When we had left the anchorage where we had the adventures of last night at Wahoo River, we thought we noticed the prop running somewhat rough. Perhaps, we thought, some piece of line was still in the gears of the prop?! Jeff, the diver, came with two others and one dived under the boat to check out the prop, he found nothing wrong. Although that's a good thing, one wonders what was causing the vibration or perhaps it was our imagination? I'll have the alignment checked next. As the diver was getting into the murky water (visibility about one foot) the two on the dock were reciting reports about alligators in the river. "Oh, there was one caught just last year around the bend, 9 ft and another one just south of here a little smaller...." They were having a great time with the diver. I don't think I would be too anxious to get in that water.

Here you can see the tubes end-on, they were clear of debris

Bob the mechanic arrived at the boat by 11:00 am with his tools and lots of cloths to protect the floor. He removed the heat exchanger from the body of the engine, the temperature gauge sensor mounted on the engine and the thermostat. The exchanger and thermostat were suspects in the overheating and the temperature gauge sensor was suspect in the erratic behavior of the gauge in the cockpit. Bob then departed with the heat exchanger for cleaning and to await arrival of seals and gaskets required for reassembly on Friday. The intention is to reassemble everything and then run the engine at the dock to see if the overheating problem is fixed. Sounds like a plan.

Here's the chamber the heat exchange fits in, fairly clean

Meanwhile, Jack Cothren offered to take us shopping for groceries but since I was still waiting for our mechanic and diver to arrived, I had to stay by the boat - so Ann and Jack got provisions for the next two weeks, many thanks to Jack!

We'll be here for sure through Friday and probably through the weekend since Hinckley doesn't work Saturday or Sunday and we still have other work to be done. Oh well, not a bad place to be for awhile, we plan on doing some exploring over the weekend.