Position: STILL IN THE SAME SPOT! Isla Pedro Gonzales of the Las Perlas Islands in the Bay of Panama. N8’24.05′ W79’04.93′ Mileage: Still at ‘0’, but promise it will change tomorrow…..if all goes well? Number of miles to go: Still 3810nm to go of approx. 3800nm
Fish count: The locals have been out today fishing the bay, but we have not had a chance. Still only 2 Mahi Mahi and 1 Cero. Going to the beach later to see how many mangos we can pick up.
VERY SCARY LAST NIGHT
Especially for doggies that hate thunder. Man-o-man we got loads of that in the wee hours. A few other boats joined us in the anchorage as a big storm come over. This storm dumped torrential rains and was full of lightning. It was near impossible to follow each strike as there were so many and the rain was so thick. The thunder so loud and so close it made your chest drum and your hair stand on end with every crackle. It was a miracle we did not suffer a strike. It is officially rainy season now in the Tropics. So perhaps this is a little remainder that we need to get going.
GOOD NEWS ABOUT THE WATER MAKER
Some times these things are simple. Considering how old, small and simple our water maker is (Power Survivor 35)what else could it be. Seems it was the seal on the secondary water filter. And this was one of the first things the silly humans checked. They cleaned the filter, so perhaps it was blocked the first try and not sealed properly for the second try. That is why it helps to have two humans aboard. When one gives up, the other starts from scratch again and checks it all over. So no worries about water supply now.
BAD NEWS FOR THE CHART PLOTTER
Just when the humans fix one thing, something else goes wrong. An occasional fault we had in the chart plotters picking up a GPS signal is now a ‘full on problem’. Heads in the electrical cupboard to track down the fault. Are these humans ever going to stop working on the boat and enjoy themselves? Just before I posted this, the humans gave up in finding the fault. They chose instead to wire the chart plotters to the new back up GPS antenna. It means they have to turn the back up GPS on first, to get a signal, but it is not the end of the world. They will find the fault on the other side of the Pacific.
SO WE HAVE NOT GONE ANYWHERE
The winds were set to shift around to make our next anchorage uncomfortable. Does not matter as the humans were too busy sorting out the boat today to enjoy any exploring anyway. They did have one good result. They had witnessed the locals sneaking into the ‘to be a resort’ property and having their hands full of fruit. So this evening, during my walk time, they had a look to see if there was anything left. It seems that storm last night knocked a lot of ripe mangos down from the trees. The local ‘guards men’ must have witness my ‘hapless’ human picking fruit off the ground, because they came down to the fence delivering arms full of freshly picked giant mangos and avocados. YUM,YUM for the trip. How lovely are the islanders to do that for a visiting yacht.
HOPEFULLY WE ARE OFF TOMORROW, WITH EVERYTHING FIXED, AND NO MORE PROBLEMS???? END
