Mexican / Mexican’t

Whilst we happily wax lyrical about all things Mexican, (see previous post) we’re aware that our views are not shared by everyone. When mentioning that his future granddaughter would be born in Mexico, James’s father was met with reactions of horror…

Reflections on a year in the Caribbean

From our first landfall in St Lucia on January 6th 2012 to our Panama Canal transit on January 26th 2013 we have had an incredibly varied sailing experience in the Caribbean Sea. Our twelve month tour of this area took us to 15 different countries…

Read the signs

Wow, Panama City really doesn't like you to feed anything [...]

The Panama Canal

So we talked about it, planned it and worried about it for so long that the actual Canal transit seemed like an absolute doddle (does this remind anyone of all our talk of the Bay of Biscay?). We had decided to use a canal agent as our month in the…

Adamastor Admeasured

Yes – we’re finally doing it. The path between the seas beckons, we have our transit date for the Panama canal. We returned from the San Blas islands to Portobelo and were greeted by a mountain of admin back in the UK that had accumulated from a…

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…

Clandestine mangos in the mangroves

Now that it is April we can relish the fact that its mango season. However, we don’t get our mangos from the shop or the market… no, now we get them in darkness in the bushes. Welcome to Cuba, communist land where no man owns what he works for. Here…

The slobbering explosives dog, the drugs bust, the salsa-dancing thieves and other notes on Cuban bureaucracy…

I’d just nodded off and am jolted awake by the incessant thumping of the officer’s fingers pounding the computer keys as he continues to write up our statement. It’s 5am and James and I are still at the police station, having escaped the drugs…