Still in Panama City

Posted on January 20, 2010 by KC2RIY

We finally received our passports and clearance but long after our window to get to Las Perlas. Our agents explanation was that he had spent two and a half hours with the president (the president of Panama no less) in the morning and that had delayed him as well as prevented him from answering his phone. Last time we couldn’t contact him he was stuck with the chief of police. If it’s all true he mixes with the highest folks. We used the extra day here to do some clothes shopping. I picked up an extra scuba tank which provides for some better permutations of tank usage. Tomorrow morning we’ll leave at dawn – hopefully – for Las Perlas. Next blog from the islands.
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At 1/20/2010 15:15 (utc) our position was 08°54.66’N 079°31.53’W

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Off to Las Perlas

Posted on January 20, 2010 by KC2RIY

We have our Code Zero back from repairs. Stamped passports should back in this morning allowing us to stay in Panama for another month but leave without checking out again. We’re scheduled to load on fuel at 8:45. Hopefully we’ll be off straight after.

Yesterday was our final provisioning – the biggest one to date. We hired the same taxi driver who had membership at the local Pricesmart. We came back with his vehicle absolutely stuffed and us squeezed in on laps and whatever space was left.

In the evening we invited Tim and Ruth from Kamara aboard. I’d met them both at one time or another. They’ve sailed down from San Fransisco and have some experience of Costa Rica they were prepared to share. All very helpful.

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Parts

Posted on January 19, 2010 by steve

For the last few days we’ve been building a list of parts we need for a few projects on the boat so that we could go out on a single mission and acquire as many as possible in a single effort. In the morning I was able to figure out how to make my TV Link feed to my chart plotter so the parts necessary to make that permanent were added to the list.

We went ashore and first visited the Abernathy marine store right by the dinghy dock and picked up some replacement dive boots as mine are falling apart and a bit tight. We then grabbed an English speaking taxi driver to go shopping. The usual deal around here is $10/hour running around town. It’s a pretty good deal as you get a translator as well as someone who knows their way around town. After four and a half hours we managed to get everything on our list bar some copper foil plus a whole bunch of things we saw and realized we needed.

A nice surprise along the way was bumping into Steve & Trish from Curious in one of the stores. They’re currently berthed in Shelter Bay in Colon and are due to transit next Sunday. It’s possible we’ll bump into them in Las Perlas. We also received a nice call from Gerald and Dianne from Whiskers who had recently bumped into friends of ours on Bristol Rose and Jackster in the San Blas. Jacksters will be transiting in February so we’ll have to wait until the mid-Pacific to meet up with them again. Bristol Roses are whizzing through on the World ARC so we have a chance to see them in Las Perlas too. If we miss them there they’ll be way ahead of us as they’re on a pace to reach Australia by August.

Back on the boat I tested the 4 gallons of distilled water we’d bought. It was no better than our water maker water so that was a waste of money. As we wanted to do a battery inspection we used the bypass I had installed a few months back to run our on board water through a second time to make nearly pure water. After one cock up and a lot of mess we managed to make just under a gallon of battery water at the expense of a whole tank of on board water. Worse still I didn’t realize we’d used the other tank with recent washing so we were down to almost nothing. We managed to get the water maker going but with difficulty as the water outside was thick with crud and it kept clogging our primary filter which we put in new just a couple of weeks ago. Yach. We did check all the batteries and all was well. All the voltages were good and none needed any water so that was that.

During our taxi outing we had spotted and Indian restaurant and had picked up a card. We decided to eat there in the evening. The food was more like the Indian food in the US – nice but too salty. And a bit too expensive. Nevertheless, we’d have regretted not going.

What else. We have heard that our sail is fixed. We’ll meet Enrique today to hand over the cash and he’ll pick it up. He’ll do our paperwork to clear us out tomorrow morning and hopefully he’ll be back to the boat in time for us to leave to Las Perlas. Otherwise we’ll be off early Thursday morning. All we have to do before then is fill the freezer with food (today) and load up with diesel, including all our jerry cans as this will probably be the cheapest diesel this side of New Zealand.

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Cleaning Day

Posted on January 18, 2010 by KC2RIY

Most of yesterday morning was spent cleaning the filth from the boat. A steady layer of soot had descended onto the boat while we were in Balboa Yacht Club and as hard as we tried our feet would bring in dirt from the shore each time we arrived. Helen and John cleaned the outside of the boat while I tidied up the navigation area.

Early on we moved the boat to reduce some of the chop we were in and see if we could find a better internet signal. We succeeded on the former but no success on the latter.

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I also spent some time trying to position my Iomega TV Link so that we would have less to do when watching movies/shows from digital media as well as being able to play them out to our chart plotter (for passing time while on night watch). Success was only partial as I was unable to get it to output on the chart plotter no matter what I tried. I have one or two things left to try but hopes are not high.

As we have no internet here John and I went ashore to catch up on a few things, including looking for some ideas for my TV Link. Here, we have to pay to use the dinghy dock. It turned out to be $30 for the week – minimum. We also ended up chain our dinghy to the wrong place as it had to be moved in our absence. Looked like someone took a club hammer to our lock – it survived the ordeal – then broke the link in the chain. In hindsight the area of the dock we tied to was obviously used commercially but at the time I just figured it looked good because of all the money they were making from the folks who payed up to use their dinghies.

Today we have a bits and pieces shopping day. I have a few parts to hunt down. The one item holding up our departure is our sail repair. It is supposed to be finished by now but we don’t know if it has been. Once this is done we’ll be doing our final food shopping, fill up the freezer and head of to Las Perlas.

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Three on a boat

Posted on January 17, 2010 by KC2RIY

Yesterday we said goodbye to Annie and Sam. We all went ashore in the launch and walked to the main road. Normally we can’t go too far without a taxi driver hailing us but this time we were able to reach the main road without any approaching us. We eventually hailed a cab – perhaps the most run down one we have seen. Nevertheless it was good to go to the airport. We had our hugs and said our goodbyes. After nearly a month it was hard to part but life must move on. Sam is our youngest and hence the one we worry the most about.

Before our goodbyes I’d been ashore to drop off two propane tanks to be refilled. On the way back I paid up for our mooring at the Balboa Yacht Club so we could move on later in the day. While I was in the office the UPS guy came, this time with our package. At least things seemed to be working out. Only when I opened the package I discovered the couple of breakers I’d ordered as spares had the wrong posts on them. More chasing to do.

Once we’d said our goodbyes to Annie and Sam we waited for the laundry to finish. I called the taxi handling the propane to find out how long he’d be. I think he said he’d be back by 11:30 so I agreed to wait. Helen and John went back to the boat to sort things out and make her ready to leave. The taxi didn’t come until about 1pm.

Back on the boat with our propane we were soon off to anchor at and anchorage towards the end of the causeway. This was to save on the mooring fees as well as to get away from the shaking around from the tug boats and motor boats. Unfortunately, here in the anchorage we have very poor and sporadic internet and we have more movement on the boat although less of the violent kind.

Today we’ll move the boat within the anchorage to see if we can improve matters. I need to inspect the bottom of the boat and maybe clean it. I want to do an inventory of our key spares to make sure we have what we need so that tomorrow we can run around and close any gaps.

Now that we’re down to three thoughts are focussing on the next few months. We have a rendezvous with John’s girlfriend in Costa Rica late February. Giving ourselves a week’s contingency at the end that gives us around four more weeks in Panama. We’ll split that evenly between Las Perlas islands and the trip/stopovers to the border.

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