December 6, 2012
On crazy monkeys, hungry bats and lost camels…
Isla Linton is a sweet little island with a huge anchorage almost entirely occupied by French or German boats. Strange, first we found Bocas to be full of Americans, now Linton is full of the French – are there any Panamanians in Panama??? This huge…
November 23, 2012
Keeping up with the Joneses
Buddy-boating was a term that we had heard used but never fully understood until we left Bocas del Toro. We found ourselves in the fortunate position to have made some really great friends in Laurie and Damon of sailing vessel Mother Jones. We met…
November 14, 2012
Bye bye Bocas
The time has come. We have been in Bocas for 5 months now, had 4 sets of family and friends to visit, trashed and subsequently replaced our mainsail, done a full engine service, cleaned our keel and prop and even hosted a toddler. We've made amazing…
November 13, 2012
The family Edwards
Following the last post, I should have said it was the perfect break until...We got stuck at the border coming back into Panama. I was already anticipating issues as my passport renewal has resulted in me owning two valid British passports…
November 11, 2012
Me, James and mister raccoon
What are the consequences of staying in Bocas so long? Well, it means you need to do a visa run. In typical Panamanian style the rules for how to renew your visa changed in the week we were set to do it. It used to be that you had to leave the…
November 10, 2012
Going potty…
It turns out that one of the great perks of being in Bocas for so much time is that we have managed to amass a great big circle of friends. For the first time in the trip we have other cruisers all around us that can give advice, swap stories and…
October 13, 2012
The art of hibernation
Ah, an empty boat and no guests this month. What to do... what to do? Well, the first answer is, gratefully, nothing. Mary and Don left us and we stayed safely tucked away below deck in the same favoured anchoring spot for nearly 2 weeks before we…
September 25, 2012
This season at hotel Adamastor…
Visitors visitors visitors... We've been very lucky in Bocas del Toro as the enforced staying put (i.e. mainsail explosion) means that our friends and family have manged to pin us down long enough to come and visit. And visit they have in droves,…
September 11, 2012
Mainsail update
Say - weren't you two meant to be sailing round the world? Yup, that was and still is the plan but I thought I should explain while we're still in Bocas del Toro Panama. As mentioned in an earlier post, we shredded our mainsail on our way into…
September 10, 2012
The kinkajou, the geckos, the jellyfish, the shark, the ferret, the kitten, the ray and Bex and Toby
You know what they say about London buses? That you wait for ages and then suddenly three come at once. Well, Panama's Bocas del Toro has been a bit like that for us and visitors. We've just had our third set of boat guest here and are about to…
August 12, 2012
Ernesto and the dark month
Those of you who have been jealous of all our fine Caribbean sunshine will feel vindicated by this post. It is rainy season in Panama and we expected a lot of downpours during the time we spent here. However, what we didn’t know is that the locals…
July 26, 2012
Holiday-ish
Ish, our Texan stowaway, left us yesterday but I thought I should add a note in her honour as, thanks to her shutterbug tendancies, we have a whole stack of fantastic photos on the surroundings page. I am still without my little camera thanks to…
July 2, 2012
Lies, more lies and statistics
Our arrival into Bocas del Toro Panama is a bit of a milestone. It means we’ve been on the sea for 8 months (at the time of writing it was June 11th) and are almost done with the Caribbean. It’s a natural time of reflection as getting to Panama…
July 1, 2012
The Mouths of the Bull
Sod’s law that after covering nearly 8,000 miles in the last 8 months we would have our worst ever weather just 5 miles from our last major Caribbean destination: Bocas del Toro, Panama. I don’t think our families were particularly concerned about…
June 15, 2012
‘Tis the season to get moving
It’s May 27th and we’re still in Isla Mujeres, Mexico (see, when I said a few posts back that we needed a break I really meant it!). Trouble is, the earliest that hurricane season has been known to start is May 29th. What with the dragging incident,…