So Saturday morning we managed the provisioning run originally planned the day before. We walked to the mall for a bit of exercise taking a slightly different route from last time. On the way we decided to try some local breakfast freshly fried on the street. No idea what the things were called that we picked up but one was a sort of chicken pasty, one was like a sour dough bread and the other a spherical doughnut. We took one of each, the three coming to under a dollar. I wasn’t too keen on the sour dough thingy but the others were delicious. Helen enjoyed her share of all three.
First stop was the home store where we picked up a few items. I found a couple of pipes which I can make a long extension to our syringe for injecting grease into our dropless seals. Problem was they were 3m long so they’ll have to wait another trip. Next stop was the Carrefour supermarket where we picked up a little food and a lot of beer/wine. We now should have enough for the family all the way to Panama City in January.
After getting all our provisions back on the boat I headed back to Panda to complete their network setup. As ever, sleeping on the problem seemed to bring ideas into focus and it didn’t take too long to have everything going the way they hoped for. Next stop was Glide who’d also learned I enjoy a challenge. He’d been having problems with his printer. He was just completing his third attempt to install the drivers. While the compute was rebooting I removed the printer cable and put it back. By the time it had rebooted the printer was working. No idea if it was the final install or cable which fixed it but it’s the result that counts. I ended up being able to borrow their Panama Cruising guide for a couple of days. We have a copy in NJ coming to us with the kids but this allows us to plan a little ahead of time.
Helen, in the meantime, was busy preparing for the evening. We’d invited Derek and Martha back to the boat for a return meal and invited the Whiskers over too. Derek and Martha had plenty of questions still and Gerald and Dianne added an extra perspective on things.
Evening came. I picked up Derek and Martha from the dock and we spent time touring the boat before Dianne and Gerald showed up. The meal was excellent, the company better. (Right now Helen’s a little cross at me for opening too many bottles of wine. She does have a point.)
When Martha and Derek were ready to leave I dinghied them back over the bay. It was quite flat so no dinghy bums as far as I could tell. We were left with an invite to visit Martha and Derek at their sailing club today (Sunday) and go out on the clubs sunfish. Flying back on my own in the dark was fast and fun.
Dianne and Gerald stayed a little longer but soon we were left to crash.
We are awake now. We’ve got to pull ourselves together to be fit for this afternoons outing. We’ve never sailed boats so small so it will be interesting to say the least.
