Panama sometime today - we hope. Yesterday's Roll Call was disjointed; Peter Turner from Asolare tore himself briefly away from his snorkelling and diving to take the positions, but after a short while the lure of the deep got to him, and he hastily handed over the duty to Cleone before plunging back into the clear waters of the San Blas islands, apparently one of the best and most beautiful spots to visit along this part of the Columbian Coast. Several of the other yachts have gone or are going there, but no such luxury for Cleone ? even if we did have the necessary chart, we need to make straight for Shelter Bay in order to carry out one or two essential tasks before we transit the Panama Canal. These include sorting out the leak through the rudder-stem, which has been getting steadily worse. (This leak sounds much more serious than it is; the remedy is simply to re-stuff and re-pack the stuffing box with teflon string. But it involves taking the steering apart and delving in the aft cabin, so it's not a job to be undertaken at sea unless it's really bad). Then we need to thread a new co-axial cable for the Mizzen Mast VHF antenna. This is important as we use this for the AIS, which shows us when large ships are in the area. And we also need to sort out some pipe-work on the holding tank, which is another of those revolting tasks which when started, all the crew suddenly disappear when the skipper needs a hand! And we also need to replace the damaged shrouds and hatch cover, spares for which we hope Will Anderson, one of our extra Panama Hands, will be bringing in his hold baggage.
Many of the rest of the fleet have arrived already, and three should have completed their transit as I write. We are in the chair again for the morning roll-call, which we expect to be very sparsely attended. And if the wind holds (its about 15-20 knots immediately aft at the moment) we hope to be joining the others for a beer at Shelter Bay Marina this evening, hopefully in the company of Andante who have been shadowing us all night and report that we show up nicely on their radar!
So beers drunk and stories told, and probably late to bed, there will be a busy few days before we set of on what could be, although motoring through a land-locked and probably dirty waterway, one of the most interesting parts of our trip.
All crew are well ? Elizabeth did not enjoy her cooking last night; it was particularly rolly and difficult to keep everything from leaping from the galley into the Chart Table, but she managed.
All well, and looking forward to stationery showers and properly cold beers and food that is only put into and taken out of the pan once.
James, Chris & Elizabeth
Yacht Cleone
At Sea
09.48N 79.16W