What David does!

The skipper on a vessel most know his boat and always be prepared for anything. Here some seagulls had taken a rest on the solar panels and were making an awful mess, which made the skipper angry!

Seagulls resting in the solar panels.

David taking aim with  a catapult.

Weighing the dinghy with the help of block and tackle and fish-scales.

The anchor chain is on the fore- deck being painted each five meters to mark the length of chain being used.

Going away from the boat in bear buff.

Going up a river in  the dinghy in The Pearl Islands.

There was a problem as the tri sail halyard was stock in the reefing slit on the mast.

The skipper is up in the top of the mast to make sure everything is okay.

In the cockpit having lunch.

He is in the forepeak painting.

Painting

At the workshop doing some maintenance.

In the cockpit doing a whipping.

Doing a whipping.

doing wiring at the chart table.

Diving with Hooka to clean hull.

After the dive.

Taking a photo of a nice sunset.

Plans! after Panama.

We just had 10-15 small stingrays around the boat and around in the anchorage, but  difficult to photo, as only the tip of the fins came up like sharks fins .

 I am busy .............knitting socks for Thomas and then Anna. I am about to sow some covers for the  helm and winches. The bimini is to be renewed but that is to be done professionally. David has  just re-wired the water pump so that the water comes freely and does not stop half way through a shower!
We met up with the other cruisers last night, as always, on Thursday night for pizza and cheep beer at a palata (palm-hut) restaurant near by.
It is very windy most of the time from the North, which is nice as the temperature is around 30 degrees C with a humidity of 75-80%. At night it is cooler and comfortable with a sheet as cover.
We have porridge for breakfast and eat a lot of fresh tropical fruit.
There's a boat near us from sunny Aberdeen, must go and meet them.

You know, I can drive the dinghy myself, mind you, I nearly tumbled out the back of it the other day as I gave the outboard a bucket of coal..... too much and too fast, and the boat flew forward, but I stayed on board and did not become shark-food this time. 
When we have got the new dinghy, the new generator, the plate for the  freezer fitted, completed fitting of new navigation instruments  when the boat comes up on the hard for antifouling..... when all that is done we will move on. We plan to go back to Ecuador. On the way there we hope to visit the Darian rainforest and up a river to visit a primitive tripe of Indians.
We leave the boat in Ecuador as we did last year before we come home. As always, our plans are written in the sand at low tide below the high tide-mark.

The Queen went through our anchorage!

 When The Queen Elizabeth went through the anchorage the other day, the boys went up to have a  look.

David at the top of the mast.

this  wee fellow had a good look.

At anchorage at La Plaita,Panama City. February 2014

Since Jane left us 18th January life has been quiet here at the anchorage.

Well, we are bobbing up and down all the time due to passing of traffic to and fro the Panama Canal and closer to home the supply vessels and pilots passing close to the boat and giving us a 'wash' every time they pass. Some of them do not slow down going through the anchorage.
When we arrived in beginning of January the anchorage was almost empty, as most boats were anchored on the other side of the causeway, The Amador, which runs from the mainland out between the islands, the last one being Isla Flamenco.The Amador was built with left over material from the canal project 100 years ago. Now the anchorage is full as the season is well under way. Also, this anchorage is protected from the strong northerly winds, which dominate at the moment.

Life here is not boring, but it seems to be slowed down. If you go shopping it is a day-project, as you leave the dinghy  at the dinghy dock,

See theboats at the dinghy dock!

well locked up, and making sure it is not in the way of the Toboga island ferries , or ends up under the pillars to the pontoon on a changing tide. Then you march up to the main road in the Amador to catch the bus ($ 0.25 per person). You get off the bus at the shopping mall, The Albrooks, which is absolutely enormous and the largest mall in the whole of Central America. Inside the building you walk a mile in the air-conditioned atmosphere to the grocery shop, do your shopping, wait in a long queue at the check out  and get back to the bus stop.

Now you wait for the bus in the baking heat. The bus could be there at any time, but mostly you have a long wait. When you get back to the boat it is probably after lunch and you are exhausted and it is steaming hot.The afternoon will be spent relaxing in the cockpit in the breeze under the bimini or on the bed with a fan cooling you down. At sunset , 6.30 pm we have our sundowner.  This is a lovely event of the day, and we always look forward to  watch the sunset with a cool drink at hand.

Visit to Ruins of old Panama City.

Ruin of cathedral

Background of Banking District.

We visited the ruins og Vielje Panama, ruins from the time of the buccaneer Henry Morgan ,, who fought the paniards and burned off the city.

Jane studying map of the ruins.

Panama Canal trip January 2014

We anchored in La Plaita anchorage at Panama city on January 5th and Jane,Davids sister arrived on the 9th and we had a lovely but exhaustion time with her as we did a lot of sightseeing of the old Spanish town, the Panama canal, old ruins from the time of Henry Morgan and into the jungle

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Panama seen from the Canal approaches.

                                         

Bridge of the Americas. To the left is North America and to the right is South Amarica.

In the Miraflores Locks.

Large Mærsk cargo ship at Culibra Cut.

Culibra Cut was the most difficult part of building the Panama canal, and thousands of men died in proceess one hundred years ago.

Every evening we went swimming from the boat to reed the sweat of the day and before we relaxed in the cockpit with a sundowner.

Passage from Ecuador to Panama. 28-12-13 to 5-1-14.

Passage from Ecuador to Panama. 28-12-13 to 5-1-14.

At 11.45 on high tide the pilot arrived on board and we left Puerto Amistad at Bahia de Caraques, Ecuador, in style with the rest of the fleet of cruisers waving and sounding their fog-horns.

 Pedro, the pilot, guided us safely out of the river and over the sand bar at the entrance, all for the cost of $50. Definitely worth is! If you saw all that white water breaking and the debt-sounder going to  zero, I think you would also use a local pilot.

On a broad reach , wind WSW force 3, we crossed the equator at 19.40 hours. We had a small celebration and David thanked Poseidon for safe sailing.

In the morning we discovered that we had a problem! 

The tri-sail halyard was stock in the reefing slit on the mast (we have in-mast-reefing). We did not realize it happening when reefing the main-sail in the dark during the night. For two hours we worked hard to free it by pulling the halyard, winching the main-sail in and out.  It was exhausting, but with a lot of hard work and patience we managed to free it.

The motion of the boat was uncomfortable and due to lack of sleep and the continuous movement I was suffering a bit of mal de mar.

We made very good progress for the first three days as we covered 150-185 Miles daily. We hardly saw the sun on the whole trip, which meant that the solar panels did not put any ‘juice’ into the batteries. We had to use the engine to charge up for an hour every day. The generator was on the blink, and we were on our way the Panama to get a new one.

On 31^st of December the wind veered to NW and we went close- hailed. It was raining heavily for a couple of hours during the morning and the current was 2-3 knots against us. David managed to repair the compass light which had become temperamental. The sea became lumpy and the wind abated. We discovered two small tears in the mainsail near the foot of the sail, and managed to reef in past  them.

In the evening during his watch David had a visit from a swallow, which went to sit on his fluffy white head of hair. Black butterflies with green stripes were attracted to the light of the boat and fluttered about everywhere. I had quite a job rescuing them in a jam-jar and letting them loose outside. They seemed to arrive in the droves.

At midnight we said fare-well to the old and celebrated the coming of the new year, 2014, with a wee dram.

On the radar David had seen an el-storm approaching with huge thunder and rain clouds and altered course accordingly to avoid them.

I took over the watch at midnight. We avoided the storm, but even the nearness took out the navigation instruments. We couldn’t see the wind speed or direction, and it was dark night with no moon! The barometer was fairly steady and we did a reasonable progress. The instruments came back on at 16.00 hours the next day. (Raymarine has been contacted re. this problem, and they seem as puzzled as we are). This seems to happen every time we get anywhere near an electric storm. The nav.-instruments go, but they come back 18 hours later.

In the early evening of January 1^st David saw the automatic bilge-pump working and found water spraying somewhere in the engine-room. A hole had occurred in the cooling hose as it was rubbing against the transmission. We found a big roll of wide duct-tape and bandaged it up. The wind was in the North, force 2, so now we motored on in a lovely starry night with the Southern Cross to stern. In the night of 1^st -2^nd Jan outside the coast of Columbia, we were successfully avoiding some storm clouds, but did not manage to avoid them all. At first light we saw the outline of the Pearl Islands on the horizon. David went on the SSB (single -side-band) Pan-Pacific net at 9.15 (frequency 8143) to give our position and was promised a beer if we anchored  at Isla Espirito Santo in Panama by Ben on Canadian S/Y Guyniwer.

In the afternoon we put the hook down next to Ben and Marion on S/Y Guyniwer, our friends from Puerto Amistad. David got his beer.

On the  4^th  of January we sailed to Isla Contadora, one of the Pearl Islands  where David took me out for my birthday dinner in a lovely restaurant, called Romantica, with a beautiful view towards the Pacific sunset.

The next day after 30 Miles of uneventful motoring we put down the hook and La Plaita anchorage at Amador in Panama City. From this anchorage we have an exciting view of the traffic of large vessels, cargo ships, oiltankers and car-transporters and cruiseliners etc,  which are on their way to and from the Panama Canal 5 Miles away.