Last year in Bahía Honda, Panama, we replaced three leaky windows. This year over the last 8 days we replaced three more. The aluminum frames of the old windows are failing and all of the windows that we replaced this year showed signs of water weeping inside thru corroded parts of the frame. We have seen little rain since January but as soon as the first window was removed we got a good night of rain! The plastic that we taped over the window kept most of the water out, but not all of it!!
The second and third windows were removed and reinstalled in one day each and we have had very nice weather. Bill did most of the prep work on the new Plexiglas window before removing the old. Once the old one was removed several more hours were spent on getting the opening ready for the new window and holes drilled in both the Plexiglas window and the fiberglass of the boat. Then in the afternoon with lots of gooey 3M 5200 caulk, the new window was installed and the mess cleaned up. We still have two more small windows to replace, but they will have to wait until next dry season. When we purchased the 5200 for this project last year we inadvertently purchased black instead of white, but luckily we had enough smaller tubes of white on-board to complete the three windows.
We spent several days in the rolly anchorage at the SW corner of Isla Parida then moved to the much calmer NE corner, anchoring off the pretty Isla Gamez. There we spent another few days where I enjoyed kayaking in the calm waters, visiting the many nearby inlets where I again got to see the occasional sea turtle. Saturday afternoon we moved into the Boca Chica anchorage so that we could visit with friends, pick up needed outboard gasoline and enjoy a few fish dinners at “Frank’s”.
I think that we have finally recovered from the haul out. Things on Lanikai seem to have stopped breaking for the moment! We sure had a rash of failures and adjustments wanting help the first week or so after we left Puntarenas. The last biggy was a burst fresh water hose that dumped all 80 gallons from the fresh water tank into the bilge before we discovered it. That was repaired and a modification to the bilge alarm (which should have alerted us to the problem with only several gallons of water lost) were accomplished. The switch itself was poorly installed, so that it would not float up with the water but floated back and therefore never switched on. With a new modification to the installation it should work fine now. The water maker was then run for many hours to refill the tank. Bill even made a repair to my Kayak, fixing a boatyard acquired crack with his solder iron.
We almost got some rain last night and are looking forward to a nice downpour to clean Lanikai‘s decks and rigging.
See the Map!
