On Saturday, February 15, Christi decided to take a video of the sunrise so everyone could hear all the different birds in the marina:
We went for a walk along the jungle loop. We usually see coatis, but there were even more out than normal.
We also saw several capuchin monkeys in the trees.
Continue readingThis week has been interesting. Saturday we went to an old Spanish fort. It was destroyed and rebuilt three times! It was really hot that day, and I wanted to go back pretty soon.
Cette semaine était intéressante. Samedi on a vu un ancien chateau fort espagnol. Il a été cassé et re-construit trois fois! Il faisait très chaud ce jour là, et je voulais rentrer très vite.
Continue readingThere was no visible sunrise on Thursday, February 13.
The day started with a power outage. It lasted less than an hour, and there was another outage later in the day that only lasted for a few minutes.
On the day that we’d arrived, Eric immediately regretted not backing the boat into the slip. He has been wanting to flip the boat around ever since, but given how shallow the spot was, it has simply been too windy to do so safely. Today the wind finally died. Flipping the boat around went smoothly. We are all happier with the boat backed in – the ventilation is better and its easier to get on and off.
After lunch, Eric and Keith went for a walk, then Eric ran a kids D & D session. In the early evening, we had dinner with Basik again. After dinner, Eric and Keith played Civilization with the Ocean Posse group online again.
On Friday morning, the full moon was glowing brightly before the sun rose.
The sunrise on Sunday February 9 almost looked like there was a fire in the sky that was giving off a lot of smoke.
Sunday was another quiet day. In the morning, Eric got dinghy down. He went for a ride around the marina, looking for crocodiles, but didn’t see any. He wanted to go out to the anchorage, but it was too windy. With the dinghy down, he turned on the wind generator to make sure it was still working properly. He ran it all day on Sunday and Monday and was pleased that it was working fine.
Some of the cruisers had talked about a secret beach behind the boat yard. On Sunday, Christi decided to look for it. She saw a trail along one of the fences.
Sunrise on Saturday, February 8, 2025
We decided to visit the Castillo de San Lorenzo el Real del Chagres, which are the remains of a Spanish fort from the colonial era. It’s located at the mouth of the Chagres river in the San Lorenzo national forest, just a ten-minute drive from the marina. Taxis hang out at the marina, so catching a taxi to the fort was easy. However, taxis don’t hang out at the fort, so getting a taxi back out would be challenging. We were advised to pay our taxi driver to wait for us at the fort to ensure a ride back out. He charged us $35 for the round trip, including a wait time of up to 1.5 hours.
The parking lot was situated along the edge of the Chagres river, with lovely views. There were areas that were closed off and covered with tarp that were apparently currently under excavation. A sign said that we were standing on what had been part of the town of Chagres, which had co-existed alongside each iteration of the fort.
