R&R in Isla Taboga

Above is the fine bottle of Port that Chris brought back to me from her Nigeria to Washington, DC flight during the stopover in Amsterdam. All I got to savor was the receipt as TSA in DC took the bottle from her carry-on bag. Apparently the unsealed duty free are meaningless. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, kind of.
We headed over to Isla Taboga to get in some quiet time R&R and to clean the boat bottom in the cleaner and clearer waters there. The fuzz on the prop in the picture is from 18-days of sitting. The stuff grows almost as fast as the mold and mildew does inside the cabin… errgghhh.
  Taboga claims to have the second oldest Catholic Church in the Americas. The shrines start while you are still in the water. This one is to Our Lady of the High Tides, patroness of fishermen and swimmers.
Here’s me gazing over the bougainvillea and the water while Chris gazes at me through the lens.
Busy week this week. We are getting prepared to do our Canal transit on Sunday. Got tires. Lines come on Friday. Need fuel and more food shopping. I’ll post a link and the approximate time where you can see us go through the first locks with the live Canal web cameras. Should have the schedule on Saturday night.
Paul

It Looks Like Jeorgia Measures Up

We picked up the anchor from muck of the Las Brisas anchor this morning and headed over to the other side of the Causeway, to La Playita. Here we had a date with the Admeasurer for the ACP (Panama Canal Authority). Ricardo, the measurer came onboard around 10am and spent about 45 minutes chit-chatting with us and filling out forms. They want to know if you have a working toilet, bottled water for the Canal advisor, strong cleats and lines and working horn and engine. All good. So Jeorgia was issued the Panama Canal Ship Identification certificate, above. It stays with the boat, even after we sell her, and is used on all future transits. Then we were off to the Citibank to pay the $1,500 in cash to go through. The actual cost is about $650, with the rest used for a buffer in case we damage their canal – like running Jeorgia intro one of the 100 year old cement walls and knocking it down.
Oh, yea, Chris got back from Nigeria --- to a warm welcome – even with her African cold.
Straight to the cruisers’ Turkey Day at the local Pizza restaurant.

Table of suspects.

Chris looking for the dark meat.

The plan is to transit the Panama Canal on Dec. 4th. Then spend most of Dec. in the San Blas Islands.

An out of sequence sunset shot.

Paul

Sister, this ain’t Kansas anymore - repost

Here's some pics from Chris' visit to the Emir's Palace for the Salaha celebration. Sorry I don't have good titles for these, but they were too cool to wait till Chris got around to putting in the words. A little touch of Nigeria.
     

The Emir’s nice and nephew Chris’ co-workers

The crowd that didn’t get invited in