Doreen has spend a lot of hours of the last few mornings working on the reconstruction of the propane box. In the afternoons, Bill would spend a little time with his Dremel tool, opening more of the structure for the next morning’s Epoxy Episode.
Thursday … 
Friday … 
Saturday … 
Sunday … 
Its a mess … 
But it’s going well … 
And meanwhile… Bill had time one morning to change his reading light from the
old-style light dim bulb 
to a new-style LED fixture. 
We thought we had a small problem with one corner of the propane locker (a plywood box holding the propane tanks). Yup!! Doreen started tearing into it and discovered a lot of dry rot. I opened it up some more and we find that the whole box is dry-rotted plywood beneath the fiberglass shell.
The repair plan is to remove the inner fiberglass layer, remove and then replace the rotten wood with solid fiberglass. We’ll have to do this slowly, in stages, so that we continue to have a box to work with !!
Stay tuned !!
While I was in the states helping my daughter and parents and enjoying my grandson, Bill finished up and started projects that we hope to finish before we leave the big city of Panama with all its supplies and stores. Since I returned bringing some much needed parts south with me, we have finished fixing things and have now started with checking out the many systems that have not been used since we tied to the buoy here at the Balboa Yacht Club last May.
We both made trips to the top of the mast to check out the rigging, replace the sun-brittled lens of the tricolor light and to install a repaired antenna. Bill has also spent many mornings curled up in the engine room checking out steering parts and refrigeration tubes, replacing engine zincs and making final adjustments to the finally-repaired Kubota genset engine. The genset now works better than is has in years!
We have also been enjoying visiting restaurants with our friends, so it has not been all work and no play.
Soon after Easter, we are hoping to leave here and spend some time in the Las Perlas Islands before heading south to Ecuador in early June.
Last week we rebuilt the little shelf that holds the Kubota’s water-lift muffler and on Saturday Bill got it all installed into the engine room where there is lots of space to work (!not!). With that finished, this week he got started on getting the motor itself back together. Yesterday, the piston went into the cylinder, the valves went into the head and the head went on the block. Alas we could still hear air escaping from the exhaust valve when we spun the engine by hand. So today he removed the head, re-lapped the exhaust valve until the seat looked “perfect” and finally got the motor back together (with decent compression) and in back into the engine room bolted to its little spot. The project is not completed yet as there is all the extraneous stuff to attach to the motor including the water pumps to cool the engine, the starter motor, air filter, fuel filter and the alternator so it will be several more days before it is actually running but progress is occurring.
Last Sunday we walked the causeway (5 kilometers) with Frank (WindSong) to meet up with Royce and Pam (RDreamZ) for lunch. It was quite windy with occasional clouds blocking the hot sun so it was not a bad walk.
We ate at Pomodoro’s Italian Restaurant and the food was quite good, although a little slow in coming. No problem as Royce had brought along his new fancy iPod that even connects to the internet to surf or receive mail – naturally we all had to play with that! The food was very good and the waiter was good at keeping our water glasses full as we rehydrated from the walk. To top off the meal, we all had ice cream at the nearby Gelarti’s and then the three of us walked back to the Balboa YC (another 5 kilometers!). Sorry that Pam and Royce have their boat anchored at that end of the causeway and didn’t get to enjoy the 10k walk!
We have now been back on Lanikai two weeks. The last day of the cruise (Saturday) was spent on-board traveling all the way from the ABC islands back to Colón, Panama. In Colón we were met by friends – two of whom were boarding the ship to take the cruise the week after we did. Frank and Shirley (of WindSong) did the honors of driving us back across the isthmus to the Panama City on the Pacific side and to Lanikai.
It took us a whole week to get our act together and to figure out where we were on our projects; and this last week Bill has gotten going again on the rebuild of the tiny Kubota engine. Its parts and pieces have been scattered throughout Lanikai for almost two months now. Broken pieces have been taken to a shop for repair and now Bill has to figure out how to attack all the problems in a systematic way. This little engine is used to turn a large alternator to top off the batteries when the sun does not do the job. With the two extra solar panels that we installed in December, the batteries now top up each day (usually in the early afternoon) so getting the Kubota back into working order is much less pressing than it was back in early November. But it certainly will be nice to get all the parts and pieces back into one spot in the engine room when it is repaired, get all the tools put away, and to reclaim the nav table for general use.
Here is a photo of Bill examining what is left of the little Kubota after he removed all the parts that he could.
