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 readingOn Wednesday, February 5, we decided to start the day off with a walk in the jungle. We took the road that led to the former officer’s housing, but this time, we turned at the intersection where the church was.
The paved portion of the street didn’t extend very far beyond the church. The pavement ended at shed which marked another intersection. Straight ahead was fenced, but the gate was open and we presumed there was a pathway behind the gate. We didn’t go in there.
Dawn on Tuesday, January 21
We began the day with a minor crisis. Christi’s normal routine is to make a cup of coffee, grab some rags, and go out on deck. She wipes down the exterior of the boat while watching the sunrise and drinking her coffee. She normally finishes her coffee while she’s outside.
Today, for some unknown reason, Christi didn’t drink her coffee. When she went to open the starboard pilot house door to go inside after the sunrise, she had her phone and the rags in one hand and the full cup of coffee in the other. She needed a hand to open the door, so she gingerly transferred the coffee to the hand with the phone and rags — and lost her grip on the phone. The phone dropped onto the walkway and slid into the water!
Continue readingSunrise on Monday, January 20, taken from Mike and Kim’s hotel room:
Shelter Marina Bay is situated on the western side of the Panama Canal in what used to be an American military base called Fort Sherman. The City of Colon is on the eastern side of the canal.
Fort Sherman was constructed in 1911 to be the primary defensive base for the Caribbean sector of the Canal. It was 23,100 acres (93 km2). Only about half of the land was developed; the other half remained jungle. Ft. Sherman was one of the primary military training centers for jungle combat training, particularly during the Vietnam era. It was abandoned in December 1999 along with all the other American military bases in Panama. The Panamanian government turned the undeveloped jungle into the San Lorenzo National Park and deemed the developed portions as protected lands.
On Monday morning we were all up early to go for a walk in the jungle to see some of the ruins from the Ft. Sherman days, and hopefully, some jungle animals. As we were getting ready to go, our friend Teal stopped by to welcome us to the marina. It was wonderful to see him again!
Just outside the entrance to the marina, there was a fork with three roads. We took the road to the right, which we knew would lead us to what used to be the officer’s housing.
Thursday, January 16 — This morning, we untied and traversed the few hundred feet over to the fuel dock, which was located directly underneath the marina office.
Fueling up was uneventful. We took on 750 gallons at $3.54 per gallon, then returned to our slip. This fuel dock is unusually high.
