The wind has gone light and so we decided to take the opportunity to do some long range exploring in the dinghy. On our way to English Bay the outboard suddenly went to high revs and we dropped off a plane. After three plus years of cruising and heavy dinghy usage, we had spun the rubber splines out of the propeller.
We were able to idle back to the boat as the wind was light and the sea smooth, under different circumstances, things may have been more interesting. We carry two outboards for exactly such an occasion but the standby outboard is currently out of commission due to a lower unit oil leak. However the two propellers are identical except for pitch. So after forty five minutes Sten had swapped out the propellers and we were once again on our way, this time going a little slower due to the effectively smaller propeller and the need not to over-speed our primary outboard.
On the way to English Bay we explored some lava tunnels and checked out some nesting yellow footed boobies and sooty terns. Once there, we had a picnic lunch and did some snorkeling. Sten wandered off to dive on a wreck, while I hung close to shore to watch an octopus harass some grouper - or was it the other way around?
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