Sometimes you have to remember where you are!!!

I am sitting here in my cockpit having a wonderful dinner of Steak, roasted potatoes, and salad with fresh blue cheese dressing I made myself. It is 85 degrees and I dressed up for dinner. I am eating Filet Mignon because in Central America as well as Mexico the locals don't eats it and you can buy it for $4.20 a pound. They average 3.5 lbs for the whole filet and I bought 3 the before I left. I have a nice yellow shirt and green Columbia Sportswear shorts. I have been accused of being a Columbia Sportswear billboard. Oh I wish!!Most of my clothes are thanks to Bob at Columbia in Lake Oswego. I hope that is his name I know he reads my blog. I am 3100 miles away from Oregon as the crow flies and 4000 miles from Skagway when we turned around and headed south. I am in Panama, sometimes I forget just where in the world I am. Solstice I know you can relate you are much further than I. But I am here in the land of jungles, pirates, and incredible scenery. My current location is on the Rio Chagres it is 8 miles from Colon, but a world away from mankind. At the mouth of this river is a fort called San Lorenzo it was over taken by Captain Morgan, of the famed spiced rum Morgan. He knocked the crap out of this place. I'am not exactly sure why, I haven't look it up on the internet yet, it is on a bluff all by itself but he blasted away with bigger cannons and scored this piece of Panama. If I go up steam about 4 mile I run into the dam that forms the Lake Gatun which is part of the Panama Canal. Where I am anchored I am surrounded by jungle. There are parrots, Toucans, crocs, fish the size of my kayak(Tarpon), snakes, incredible amount of foliage plants that I had only seen in the DC zoo prior to this. Tuesday I am going to Portabelle. Columbus landed there. It was his first step on mainland America. They celebrate the Black Christ. They are the only people in the Americas who believe in a Black Christ. I choose not to go to the celebration last week because of the rumors of bad people taking advantage of good people. When Helen arrives here in two weeks we are headed to San Blas Islands. These islands are so incredible they are their nation within Panama, the land of the Kuna Indians. They have not changed there lifestyle in hundreds of years. They have their own laws which as cruiser we all obey. Their islands are nothing like we have experienced before. In the next year we will go Isla San Andres(Columbian Islands), Nicaragua offshore islands, Roatan, Cancun, Cozumel, Bocas Del Toro and back here to store the boat till next season.
I just wanted to sit back and reflect on who we are and where we are. What an incredible life we live. Sometimes we take it for granted, another beautiful beach or incredible island. Sometimes we need to just step back and look at what we have experienced. We are in Panama on our own boat. How cool is that. WOW

Life is so good

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I am out of here

After three months of either being in the work yard or at dock, I have finally cut the ties and left. Well at least for 2.5 weeks, then Helen comes back and I go to Shelter Bay to pick her up. I spent almost two month back in the states visiting Mike and Kelsey and helping Helen take care of her mom. Her mom passed away shortly after I left to come back to the boat. I was sorry I wasn't able to be there for the funeral or other events, but all of our permits to be in Panama were to expire in 5 days and it needed my immediate attention. Once that was taken care of I started on the boat projects. Fixing the boat after my damage during my crossing was a whole different story. When I broke the strut I also bent the shaft at the taper. I ended up with a new strut, new shaft and new coupling. The later two we machined here in Colon. Removing the broken strut took four days by it self. I wont go into details but I never want to attempt that again. All the parts went back together fairly well and was back in the water a week later. Shaft alignment turned out to be easy because it was so close to start with. It took another week to get the boat provisioned and ready to go. I tackled a few below deck varnish jobs and was good to go. The only problem was I was so nervous to leave the dock I didn't sleep much the night before. It was worse than being a newbe. I had been at the dock way too long. That morning my heart was pounding, my blood pressure dropping , and my head dizzy and spinning when I left the dock not knowing if everything I fixed was going to work or not. There were times I even felt like I could black out. I set it on auto pilot and tried to eat something and calm down. My whole passage was only about 8 miles but it was like crossing an ocean for the first time. I felt like crap the whole way and couldn't believe I was doing this to my self. I really was pathetic. I made it with no problems and am currently anchored about 5 miles up the Rio Chagres. This a jungle river about 50 to 75 yrds wide. There are parrots, Toucans, monkeys, snakes, and all sorts of jungle animals all along the river bank. I haven't put the dingy in the water yet, but I think I will put the kayak in first to explore this evening. It is so nice to be back out here and away from the dock. I enjoyed meeting new friends, and will probably be going a different direction than they are, but this is what it is about. Today I am relaxed and feel great.

My position report is finally updated.

Life is great

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