On Wednesday morning, as predicted, the wind picked up and moved to the southeast, but the anchorage was still comfortable and it was pleasant to be onboard. This was just before sunrise.
The nice thing about the cooler water was that it slowed down the growth on the bottom and waterline (compared to the warmer waters in Panama), but it still needed to be regularly done. Eric donned a full wetsuit and did water line with our battery operated waterproof scrubber tool.
The sky looked like a massive bird just before the sun peeked over the horizon on Monday, March 31.
Yesterday morning, the wind was back down to 9 knots when we got up in the morning. The motion in the anchorage was pleasant compared to previous days, but there was still a notable amount of motion. It rained periodically for the entire day. The showers usually passed quickly, and several were quite hard rains.
In a previous post, we’d mentioned that we’d (relatively) recently bought new refrigerator and freezer units. We bought one dedicated freezer unit, where both drawers are only freezers. We bought two combo units: each unit has two drawers, and each of the drawers can be set to be either refrigerator or freezer independent of the other drawer. Since leaving San Diego in December, we’ve had all four drawers set to refrigerator mode.
Continue readingThursday, March 13 — In the early morning, before dawn began, the full moon looked like a spotlight
The sunrise was beautiful
The sunrise on Tuesday, February 11 again looked like there was a fire in the sky that was giving off a lot of smoke.
Tuesday was another quiet day. We’ve found another downside to being right in front of the marina. In the morning, the marina mowed the lawn, and the wind blew grass clippings all over the boat. Eric determined that the wind generator was working well, so after he cleaned off the grass, he turned off the wind generator and brought the dinghy back onboard.
On Wednesday morning, Eric changed the wing engine fuel filter. It was easier than, but also messier than, anticipated. In the early afternoon, Eric led a D & D session with Keith and several of the kids in the marina.
In the evening, we went on a nature walk with Carlos, who works at the marina. His hobby is botany, and he does these nature walks as a side gig. Several people had recommended that we hire him, but up until now, he’d been booked solid with ARC boats. Now most of the ARC boats were gone and he had time for us.
Carlos had been a young teen when the US military left Panama (in 1999). His brother had been working at Ft. Sherman as a contractor. Carlos had tagged along with his brother and remembered what the base looked like back then.
He started the tour by explaining that during canal construction, there was a lot of excess dirt that the military utilized to create land. He said much of the flat area within Ft. Sherman, particularly near the edge of Limon Bay, was man-made, including this cove. While Carlos was talking, the resident lizard came out to say hi.
On Thursday morning, February 6, Eric finally felt rested enough that he was ready to tackle some not-so-fun engine room projects. While Christi and Keith did school, Eric changed the oil on the generator.
Eric also arranged to have the bottom cleaned. It $3.50 foot, but considering the guy was literally cleaning with one hand while holding a speargun with the other hand, we agreed that it was worth the money. He was also wearing a full wetsuit, which had to have been hot given the warm water temperatures here.
In good news, he found one of the mats that had fallen overboard last week. It had a lot of growth given the amount of time in the water, but Eric was able to clean all the growth off.
It was now day four of no water, and people were getting desperate. The marina had arranged to bring in three tanker trucks of water to fill up the boats. They injected the water into the pipes. When we (and everyone else) turned on the spigot, very little — meaning virtually none — water flowed out. It seemed there wasn’t enough pressure to force the water to flow through the pipes.
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