Monday 28th May

Balboa
Panama.

8 56.162 N
79 33.296 W

It was rather a humid night out on the mooring, there was no breeze blowing down the hatch to keep us cool and there were large ship going past all night on their way to the canal, as they went past they put out a wake which rocked the boat from side to side for a few moments causing things to bang around, luckily everything is pretty securely tied down and it cause no problems. We began our day quite leisurely doing very little except for catching up with email (the connection here is free as part of the yacht club deal but it is quite a week connection so loading the blog and answering email takes a while). Gerry contacted our agent to get the name and number of someone who could install our new hydraulic cylinder for us, having got the contact’s number he arranged to have the man come out to the boat tomorrow to look at the work. By the time mid morning came around we decided that we were wasting the day and made plans to go looking for water maker filters and do some shopping. We called fro the water taxi to pick us up and it arrived very quickly. We made our way into the dock, which is at the end of a long pier where the fuel and water are dispensed climbed out of the taxi and walked along the pier to the yacht club office which is half way along the pier. Gerry checked in with them and then we finished the walk to the land end of the pier where I spotted Mags from JJ Moon waving at us. We headed to the top of the incline where Mags, Barry (JJ Moon), Sue and Ross (Y Not) were just paying off a taxi cab driver, they had just returned from shopping. We snagged the taxi driver, Alex, and asked him to take us to an address that Gerry had been given by the agent where we would probably be able to purchase the water maker filters that we were running low on. It was a short drive into the center of the city, I watched out of the windows with great interest as the city went by, it was quite run down and dirty to begin with and as we went further the buildings and surroundings became cleaner and obviously better cared for. Alex found the address we had given him easily and I waited in the taxi whilst Gerry went into the store to try and purchase the filters. He seemed to be in the store for ages and I mistakenly thought he had been successful however when he returned to the taxi the news wasn’t good – no filters but he had another store to try. We got a little lost trying to find the second one but eventually after a phone call to the first store we got there and this time we were in luck they had just what we needed in stock and they were fairly cheap too. Gerry bought enough to last us until we get home to Australia – we have a better idea now of how long each one lasts! Having accomplished the hard part of our foray into the city we asked Alex to take us to the supermarket, he drove us to the Rey supermarket which was closest to the yacht club and dropped us off just as it began to rain. We asked him to pick us up in an hour and made our way inside the store where we proceeded to fill a trolley (cart to you yanks!) with all the things we really needed but limiting it to how much we could carry in the back packs as the walk from the shore to the end of the pier is fairly lengthy when you have to carry heavy shopping. This of course didn’t stop Gerry from buying a slab of Budweiser beer, each can worked out to be .46cents – cheaper than we used to buy it in the States! I’m sure those of you who know us well will be shocked to hear that we didn’t buy any more chocolate (I think we could supply the US army with what we have anyway!) Once we had completed our shopping Alex drove us back to the yacht club, giving us his card incase we need a taxi over the next few days. We staggered down the dock under the weight of the beer and took the taxi back out to the boat, the weather had kicked up a bit and the waves were a bit bouncy – not much fun trying to get on our boat from the taxi but we made it. Ross was also on the water taxi with us and we arranged to meet at the yacht club bar at 17.00hrs for a beer and to talk about the passage south and radio schedules so we could keep in touch. We had about an hour before it was time to call the taxi again and head into shore the waves had calmed down a bit and things looked a bit brighter. We made it to shore, collecting Mags and Barry on the way, at the yacht club bar we met up with Sue and Ross and proceeded to drink a small quantity of liquid amber whilst putting the world to rights. Unfortunately as we sat there it began to rain heavily so we had to drink more beer. We managed to set up a radio schedule so that we could keep tabs on each other’s whereabouts during the Pacific crossing to the Galapagos; with luck we should all meet up there to compare war stories – or do I mean travel stories, I’m not sure of the difference! During a short break in the rain Gerry and I made our way to TGIFriday’s for dinner, we had just ordered when Mags and Barry joined us; Sue and Ross had returned to their boat. We had a nice meal and then made our way back tour boat. Once we unlocked the boat and got below we discovered a disaster; we had left 2 ports open over the galley and the rain had found them; there was water inside the people bowl! We couldn’t believe how much had got in, and spent the next hour drying things and mopping up what we could, some cushions would have to go out in the sun to dry in the morning (pray for sun!) – We won’t make that particular mistake again. After the clean up it was time for bed.