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Said goodbye to Michael, Edie
and Bella |
This is it, the last time we'll be sailing in the San Blas, but it's time to move on to new adventures. Waiting for weather and want to take advantage of the marina prices by staying longer than 15 days. We left Salardup on March 12th to head to Porvenir to check out with the Port Captain, and had a great sail until the last two miles. By then, of course, it was 5-8' seas and on the nose. Dropped the anchor back out of the way, hoping for no roll, and Dave on Elysium picked me up to do our check-out. Sea Cycle pulled in a couple of hours later from their private anchorage off of Green :) Decided to wait an extra day, hoping that the waves would die down a bit. That extra day was pretty miserable with the roll coming in to Porvenir. Sea Cycle was going directly to Portobelo and into the marina before us, while we decided to stop off in Linton so that we could see Sid and Manuela from Paradise. Had a wonderful sail, still wondering why those 'backpacker boats' need to come so close when they have the whole ocean. Seriously, you need to come that close to pass behind me? At first I thought they were heading for mid-ships! Then, going into Linton there was another boat that decided he needed to be in ahead of us -- hey, knock yourself out. Turns out he'd never been there before so then they slow down right in front of us and grab the binoculars, doing circles in the anchorage behind us as we're trying to anchor. Hmmm, maybe I'm ready for a change!
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| Salardup |
Called Manuela and she was heading into town to do some shopping, so I tagged along with her, picking up a few things. Right now it's getting stuff off the boat instead of more on. Sold a lot of stuff in the San Blas and gave Manuela my FoodSaver sealer. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see Sid because he was busy working on Runner, but they promise to come and visit in Shelter Bay before we leave.
Left Linton at 8:15 on March 17th to head into Shelter Bay Marina. We had a reefed main and the jib, and it was an okay sail, but a lot of wallowing from the waves. Finally docked at Shelter Bay around 2 p.m., with Mark and Deb from Sea Cycle and Lili from LiWard helping us into our slip. Woo hoo, laundry facilities again, a fantastic restaurant with happy hours and catching up with friends.
It's amazing how fast two weeks goes by when you're busy working! We did have time to hit the pool once or twice, celebrate Dennis' birthday with Sid and Manuela at The Dock Restaurant and catch up with Mike and Linda on Casa del Mar. Mark and Deb are putting their boat on the hard for an extended time, so every time I turned around she had more food for us. I'm sure it will get eaten underway!
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Chris Young, Manager of The
Dock Restaurant with his
cute dog Cooper |
The time is getting closer to leave. Subscribed to Chris Parker for a 5 day forecast and he thought we should leave on the Thursday to avoid weather off of Cuba, instead of the Tuesday we had planned. I've been busy cooking and freezing meals for underway, and our last stop is for Deb and I to head into the grocery store Wednesday morning for some roasted chickens.
The big trip coming up!!!!
~~~_/)~~~
