And, at a kilo lighter than our wheezy old 5HP 4-stroke (and that’s wheezy before it had its unfortunate impeller shredding incident) it is slight easier to lift off its stowage, what’s not to like? Our only slight difficulty was what to do with the old engine? It seemed a crying shame to just throw it away – someone out there could surely use it, if just for spare parts and we had plenty of those too! In the end, we sold it for a song to an outboard mechanic we tracked down.
#DINGHY DOCK CULEBRA HURRICANE AFTERMATH FULL#
Though we couldn’t operate it at full revs for 10 hours, we were still able to use enough power to prove that the 9.8HP 2-stroke had definitely been the right choice. Over the next few days in Sint Maarten we did so much running around in the dinghy that we completed the engine’s initial run-in period. Back aboard BV, I was like a kid in a toy shop: a new outboard to get going and all the bits (bar the stainless steel pipe) for the solar panel project it was almost difficult knowing which to start work on first! But of course, it had to be the outboard and it didn’t take too long to get it filled with oil and fuel, a temporary lifting harness sorted out and then the new engine fitted to the dinghy. Getting back to BV with the solar panels balanced on top of the large outboard motor box was interesting. Rex, my contact at the store, arranged for the solar panels and associated bits and the new Tohatsu outboard to be brought out from the warehouse where they had been put aside for us, and we whiled away the time peering around the chandlery finding more things that we needed. Quite amazed by all we could see and nursing the outboard along all the while, we eventually arrived at Budget Marine. “GET A E” were the only letters left on the side of it but the building survived the hurricane (Bottom) some of these boats wrecked on the shore close to the airport were still homes to their ownersīudget Marine Warehouse tucked in the corner of The Lagoon.
Huge fishing boats were washed up on the shore and, of course, the damage to many, many buildings was still evident. Whole areas of the IGY Simpson Bay Marina were still utterly destroyed. We found the sheer number of destroyed and sunken boats quite incredible and the fact that there were still so many wrecked vessels in the lagoon just proved to us how bad the devastation had been. Inside, the devastation wrought by Hurricane Irma was obvious. Paperwork complete we headed into the lagoon to find Budget Marine.
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