Stravaig's Travels

girls ashore to buy molas We snorkeled, walked the beach, had BBQ’s, did washing in a well on a small island and generally unwound after the hustle and bustle of Curacao and Cartagena . music evening on Reach Chichime Bill We then moved of down the coast of Panama , stopping briefly in Portobello, a fortified town founded during the time that the Spanish god ships were assembling on that coast. From there we headed down to Colon , which is on the Caribbean side of the Panama Canal . Since this was our second time with our own boat doing the canal transit, we expected it to be a lot more enjoyable and it certainly was! Galena on her way to the first lock Our good friends Gil and Lexi, who have a sister ship called Sunday, came through from Panama city together with Buzz and Maureen of Encore to be our line handlers. Gil and Lexi Buzz and Maureen Gil and Lexi we met in San Diego and we sailed down to La Paz with them; Buzz and Maureen were friends who Jeff had first met i

Here we are back on board after having had a wonderful time in Holland and Germany . It is quite a rude awakening changing from holiday mode back to boat repair mode and at the same time acquiring re-acclimatization to the tropics after the snow and ice of Germany ’s winter! Our very small Xmas tree with angel. In the two weeks following our holiday we managed to complete all the work below the waterline and after a lot of stops and starts the two rinky-dink old cranes managed to get us safely and virtually unscathed back in the water. Despite all our efforts however to ensure that the newly positioned engine and drive train were in full working order the salt water pump failed catastrophically within a few days of our launch. New Years Eve was coming up and our friend Wil who is an airhostess with the Dutch Martinair, came to our rescue by bringing in a new pump from Holland ! Along with the pump also came a first rate bottle of Scotch with which to celebrate the New Year.