So, after deciding not to sell the boat, we realized there were some things that were worth investing in to make our lives more comfortable.

• Sonar fish finder & table: Not only to keep Nina happy finding fish when we don’t have other signs like birds, debris, and sea life, we splurged on a Raymarine RV 200 sonor fish finder. The install required yet another 2 holes in the boat which didn’t make Don happy, but the ends justify the means! Couple that with a new fish processing table to save my back, and life is good!

• New refrigeration: We’ve replaced both original refrigerators, and were able to find folks to repurpose the old ones. Needed to ditch the wooden door over the inside fridge since the new Vitrofrigo 135 Elegance fridge only was slighly deeper than the original. We went with a fridge only option so we don’t have to defrost as often (we supplemented freezer space with a used 40 L Engle). Hopefully, it will stay drier in the tropics since it now has a drain tray all across the back!

• New Yanmar engine heat exchangers: Both our Yanmar 3JH4E heat exchanges had been frozen we think since we bought the boat but certainly since 2019 when we tried to pull out the cooling sleeves. So, we bit the bullet and replaced them with new ones and exchanged all the hoses and exhaust elbows while we were at it!

• Mantus anchor bridle: Funny story, we sold our new bridle that we purchased at the 2022 Annapolis Sailboat Show when we were sure we were selling the boat. We approached the terrific folks at Mantus, and they gave us the boat show discount 6 months later out of courtesy.

Has it been our 6th Haul Out?

We hauled out Enjoy again (since 2019). There’s a new law by the Panama Canal to “protect the environment”. So, we’re required to buy $180 worth of tarps that the yard ends up reusing, after the wind blows all the dried paint off them or the rain washes the paint and fiberglass dust into the ground.

This time, we found a few blisters the size of a pencil eraser and ground them out, and remediated them with epoxy and fiberglas strand. We repainted the boat with Green Grey SeaJet for the first time since the SeaHawk BioCop wasn’t overly impressive in these waters. We also pulled our rudders since they had 3 mm of play in them, and found one of the lower stainless steel bushing was spinning a bit. Researching on the Lagoon Owners Facebook site, we got all the intel we needed to perfectly fix the situation. We ground out the old fiberglas plus, added in fresh expoxy (PC-7), zip tied the bronze bushing clip and taped it tight, and then applied a good coating of 3M 5200. The trick we found out, was to put the boat in the sling, and shove the bronze clip up as far as possible into the boat’s rudder housing and let it dry. Then, put the rudders back with the the plastic washer and re-attach. So, Enjoy was in the slings overnight while the 5200 dried.

We spent some love on our newish SD-60 sail drives and propellers, painting them with the beautiful golden and pricy PropSpeed. The first box seized up on us before we had a chance to put a brush in it but their customer service was amazing and they covered the costs for a 2nd box immediately! There was only 3 minutes to apply each layer, so Don and I had fun running around each other and them with brush and roller in hand.

Safety Gear Repacked and Recertified

Although as a recreational boat we don’t need to recertify our liferaft, we spend the money to have it repacked and restocked as well as the three fire extinguishers onboard. We purchased new flares as well, even though the stores only carried flares that were already 9 months old and they expire after 3 years. In addition to this, we have another ditch bag with handheld water maker, medical kits, and several items in our “Calamity” box (PC-11 2 part underwater epoxy, helmet, goggles, waterproof flashlight, rigging cutters, JB Weld steel stick high heat, and the list goes on).

Shameless plug

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