Oh Panama

Such a country, some people love it here and there are things I can really understand about that, but some of the time it is so beyond frustrating it isn’t true!  Some of Panama has been breathtakingly beautiful.  We’ve seen dolphins, iguanas, butterflies, incredible birds and yesterday a family of 2 toed sloths, incredible!!!  Mama and baby in one tree, daddy in the other, we are going to try to go and see them again today.  Even more amazing, we saw them when they were awake, apparently a rare treat!  Bad things have included flocks of vultures, I have never really seen a flock of vultures and it isn’t pretty.  They were burning weeds for the first week we were here too, so every day smoke and ash covered the boat. It felt like hell.  On a brighter note we have also had some amazing adventures, including the mall (where I was stumped while trying to order a baked potato from Wendy’s another crushing blow).   Luckily our Spanish has gotten marginally better, making communicating simple things easier, but more complex ideas are still beyond us.  The gutting news of the day is that we can’t get the boat hauled out, even more sad because we really thought we were organized and ready for it all a week ago.  That means in the next two days getting ready for fuel/water/food then heading off to Las Perlas then Galapagos!  We have never had the boat so full of food and drinks, not sure where we are going to fit more.  There are so many more adventures to do here too, always the way, you discover more the longer you are in a place.  Hopefully will try to do some research about good things to do (for not that much money) in San Cristobal Galapagos, from the sounds of things it can be really expensive, but I’m sure we will find some good adventures none the less.  Really looking forward to good clean water and a snorkel in las perlas, apparently the diving is incredible, but with this head cold I don’t think I’ll be trying to equalize my ears any time soon!  It will be nice to be in a beautiful place to clean the boat (groan)…  at least we will probably get faster at it! Phil has just gotten back from cleaning out our poor engine on the mighty Quinn.  The boat SANK while tied up behind the yacht the other day, phil says it was just swamped but still!!!! He got in and bailed faster than someone in a Bermuda fitted dinghy! Amazing, he got it up and floating and had it driving like a race car not long afterwards. 

That’s all for today, I’m going to go curl in bed, 32 C, feels like 37 C outside, or maybe a fever, who knows. More soon