Part of the reason we are stopping in Panama is to fulfill
some requirements by our boat insurance. We are coordinating with an agent
here. On Tuesday we had a fellow, James, come by and inspect our rigging. We
used our powered primary winch to take him up the mast, in the anchorage. We
thanked our lucky stars that it was not raining or windy and that the seas were
calm. He said that everything looks good so when we receive the report we will
sent it off to the insurance company and cross that off the list.
When taking him back to his vehicle the tide was out and the
less than well maintained concrete stairs at the dingy dock were very slick and
a panga was blocking part of the access. I slipped and got a bit of a dunking
but no injury other than the feeling of ‘Eww’, as the water here is filthy. I
could hardly wait to take a shower back at the boat.
Our next chore is to get our Givens life raft recertified.
We had thought about going to the marina to take it off the foredeck at a dock
but rumor has it that other government entities are at the marina and will want
to do inspections, fumigations, etc, which could cost as much as another $400.
So we decided to do it at the anchorage. This involved moving the life raft
from the foredeck to the aft deck slowly as it weighs about 65 pounds. Rich
used one of our spare lines to form a harness around the raft. With the help of
the outboard motor crane on the stern we hoisted it from the deck onto the
slightly pitching dingy with no problem. The slippery stairs at the dingy dock
was not an option but there is a ramp where boat work is done. With the help of
Reg and Phoebe and the timing of high tide, we brought the dingy up the ramp
and muscled the life raft up to the parking lots where the agent met us. The
life raft will be taken to the duty free zone in Colon for recertification. We
are waiting to hear when that will be done and Rich hopes to be able to witness
the process. So this task is still a
work in progress.
Friday we left the anchorage to do some testing on the
autopilot as well as filling our fuels tanks and new jerry jugs and topping off
the water tanks. The autopilot test was going well at the beginning. I had
moved our large crimper out of the Pullman hanging locker near the rate compass
of the autopilot, thinking that it might be interfering with the compass and
causing our s-turns instead of straight line from waypoint to waypoint. It
looked promising under auto move but when we switched to nav move and after two
waypoints it was back to the s-turns. Darn! I have been exchanging emails with
SimRad customer support but not getting very satisfactory responses. More work
is needed in this area.
Today, Saturday, we are running the engine to charge up the batteries.
There has not been enough sun or wind to charge them. We are over visiting with
SV Three Sheets this morning and left the hatches open. This guaranteed that it
would start to rain. And it did, so I went back and closed the hatches and
portlights. Shortly thereafter the lightning, thunder, strong winds and heavy rain
began. We said our quick goodbyes and went back to Windarra. It is still
raining a bit now but the lightning and thunder have stopped.
Bridge of the Americas and the new Frank Gehry Biodiversity Museum
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