Another trip to the Las Perlas islands

Chris’ schedule to take off for work was pretty up in the air, so decide to a do a few more days in the Las Perlas.

  On the way we had to pass through the ship anchorage. This Greenpeace boat was hanging with the big boys.

Like the Densa Tiger

Approaching an anchorage in the Las Perlas. The weather was good, the swimming warm, the diving not so clear.

Local fish boat on the way back from the Las Perlas. Clearly a bird friendly operation.

When we left the Las Perlas to sail back to Balboa I slyly noticed that we didn’t have a lot of fuel. No problem, we’ll just make sure we sail most of the 35 miles back. Of course the wind was on the nose. After about 3 long tacks and 8 hours of sailing we were approaching the big ship anchorage off the entrance to the Canal. Not wanting to push it, we decided to roll up the head sail and motor the last hour in. I gave a good tug on the furling line and it came in nicely. Unfortunately the line came in but the sail didn’t furl. I head to the bow and we dropped the head sail on the deck and tied it off. Turns out the 3 screws that hold the furler drum on had all fallen out, leaving the drum to free spin. Back to starting the engine. It started, but the raw water pump wasn’t pumping water. No problem, I head below and work on the pump while Chris drives with the mainsail through the anchorage. I took the cover off the pump and the impeller had self-destructed – picture above. I’ve had a blades come off before, but never the whole thing just come a part. I put a new one on and we tried again. No joy. Then an hour of screwing with it and still no joy. We decided it was getting late and we would just sail into the anchorage. An hour of short tacking, some friendly mast light flashing from our friends on Sunnyside Up and we did a pretty graceful under sail anchor set. Too bad it was dark and the crowd couldn’t see.

We did a trip into town to the walking street to see the shops and the older part of town with Tom and Carolyn from Sunnyside.

Checked out the old church.

It had a nice glass window of my namesake, San Pablo.

Here’s Chris trying to see how much money she has in her purse so she can go shopping at the SAKS over her head.

Kite boarder with the Panama City skyline from the anchorage.

Chris left a few days ago to head to Washington DC for work. Sometime in the next week or so she will be off to the garden spot of Africa, Nigeria. I’m expecting interesting e-mails from her new found rich uncle with a special bank account. Me, I’m left to hang in the anchorage, do boat projects and use up the free WiFi.

Paul