A flurry of action in Shelter Bay took place as our day of departure approached.
Mark went up the mast to remove a damaged anemometer, a piece of gear that died while we were gone.
Whether from lightning or other reason we aren’t sure?!
We heard that there had been plenty of lightning in the marina, including a strike that destroyed the carbon mast on this Privilege 75.
Everything went as smoothly as can be expected, despite a brief water outage right when it was time to clean the boat and finish laundry. On the upside, every extra day allowed for another jungle walk and maybe just a wee bit more provisioning!
So Michele took a few more bus trips across the Panama Canal into Colón for some shopping ~
~ sometimes waiting for a ship to pass ~
~ and took in views of the incredible construction of the new Panama Canal locks being built in parallel.
As soon as we got marina water back Michele finished the last loads of laundry (along with the rest of the marina residents), while Mark cleaned Reach with our handy little pressure washer. Next stop, fuel barge to fill the diesel tank and she was ready to go!
The sights of the ships preparing to cross oceans in the Caribbean entryway to the Panama Canal are always a thrill!
We left the breakwall under a beautiful sail in flat seas for the first leg of the trip past Portobello and into Linton. Here we caught back up with Keith and Jaime on Kookaburra and even got a brief visit and parts trade in with Dave and Sharda who had just returned to Morgan. Ahhhhh, nice to be back at anchor again.
The next day we left under even calmer conditions to motorsail to the San Blas islands ~ truly, it beats the usual beat!
What fun to be traveling with Kookaburra side-by-side after 5 years. There were fish schooling everywhere with flocks of birds surrounding them, but only one boat got a hit on the lure (hint: it wasn’t us).
We approached the island chain on the horizon under cumulus clouds and soon entered the familiar picturesque islas with their beautiful palm tree profiles.
Now, this is the view we’ve been waiting for ~ to the left…
to the right…
and at sunset…
