Don’t sniff the glue.

(Puerto Real, Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico)

Don’t worry, we’re not sniffing anything around here. But we are mixing. Glue, that is. Our super potent two-part glue made especially for patching hypalon dinghies. Oh, and finding this elusive product here on the island of Puerto Rico only took about 20+ hours worth of effort, research, phone calls, driving across the island and back, etc. I almost think we needed to sniff a little glue after that fun “find-the-glue-in-Puerto-Rico” game. jk. ;))

And of course, actually fixing the leak (I’m talking man power/labor involved in applying the glue and patch) took about…um I don’t know…20 minutes. Typical.

So why didn’t we just have the special glue shipped here from the mainland you might be wondering? Well, this particular glue must be pretty darn legit. So legit that you can’t ship it or fly it here or do anything with it involving a plane. So it either has to come by boat (which wasn’t really an option for us right this second since we kinda sorta need to use the dinghy sooner than later) or we would have to find it for sale somewhere on the island.

Thankfully, we ended up tracking down this special two-part polymarine adhesive in San Juan at, you guessed it, West Marine of all places. West Marine also sold the necessary hypalon patch, but it was about four times the cost of the same patch we found at PR Caribe (a dinghy/inflatables repair shop also located in San Juan).

If you have a hypalon dinghy and are setting sail to exotic locales, make sure you bring some of this stuff with ya on the trip. This is actually the second time we’ve had to patch our dinghy in the same spot because we originally thought our dinghy was PVC. It might’ve helped the first time if we had known that fun fact…plus, we would’ve obviously brought along a backup package of this glue. The incorrect PVC patch we applied on the first go round lasted about 7 months. Lesson learned. 

We realize we could probably get away with just using a bevy of other glue products to get the job done, but would they really last more than a few months? I’m guessing probably not. And if you know anything at all about Jereme, he always likes to do things the right way. :)) Can’t fault him for that, can ya?

^^PS – for anyone wondering why we are using Acetone to clean the area before applying the patch (because you’re supposed to use Toluene)  — well, that couldn’t be shipped either and wasn’t available at the West Marine in San Juan or anywhere else on the island. We had to improvise on that one.^^

Anyhoo, after finally locating and purchasing the glue, we just needed a good sunshiny-not-crazy-humid-or-rainy-type-of-day to get the task finished. Luckily, over the past few days we’ve had quite the span of rain-free days that were downright perfect for this kind of job.

Said dinghy is now fixed. What what!

>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.