Panama City - July 2006

A quick update before we grab a taxi to go and see the old city ruins.

We have been in Panama City for just over a week now. The temperatures have been in the early thirties but the killer has been the humidity. We are constantly dripping sweat- day and night!!

We have had a little swap in crew. We found we were not very compatible with Mike so he has joined another yacht bound for the US/ Canada . We have now two young ladies on board, Shylo and Katie. They were on another yacht bound for Australia and found the skipper's skills 'not what they expected'. They had been in St. Maartan, for a season, working on race yachts.

Daryl has used much of the time for maintenance - catching up on fiddly little bits. We also needed to replace our entire bank of 9 batteries, which has solved a lot of issues. There are great taxi drivers that know where to try for all the parts that we have needed.

Today our final list consists of finding- a lead weight, an Ecuador flag and a place to illegally photocopy a marine chart.

I have had time to do a spot of shopping in a real shopping mall, even air conditioned!! Clothes were a bit disappointing though. Both Daryl and I are in need of cool clothing, but it seems that we are the only big people out this way and our size is not catered for. Looking around I see that people tend to squeeze into their clothes – not what we're after.

Like Colon the old architecture here is gorgeous but not always well maintained. The beautiful colonial houses in the inner city seem to house low income people- I would say many building having been condemned. The taxi driver assures us, though, that the government intends to restore them as a tourist attraction.

The Panama Canal museum was great. Like a lot of places, we're disadvantaged not being able to read or speak Spanish, but we get by.

I am disappointed I haven't seen the Panamanian men in their pale linen trousers, embroidered linen shirts and a panama hat. Obviously a dying tradition!!

We have still been eating and drinking too much and all of us on board are looking forward to getting on our way to Galapagos and back to onboard cooking.

Food is relatively inexpensive here so we have provisioned to the max. Our living area is currently piled with food and alcohol with no home.We had a fabulous morning yesterday at the local fruit and vege market. I can hardly lift the stalk of bananas we chose. I'll keep you posted as to how many ways we can come up with to use ripe bananas!!

Debs gave us one for starters.

Split the banana down the middle

Place on tin foil

Drizzle with rum and chocolate sauce

Seal and bake

A sack of oranges, lemons or grapefruit $3 – so we have to find storage for 4 sacks!! And on it goes. We are going to be such healthy eaters in the next few weeks.

All the eggs have been sealed with Vaseline to help them keep.

Meat is all vacuum packed and frozen prior to us getting it.

We've heard most issues with the officials in the Galapagos can be fixed with 2 bottles of rum – so I'm still trying to find storage space for them.

We are looking at leaving, with the other yacht Archangel, early tomorrow morning and will probably need to motor for about a week to get to Galapagos. We are looking forward to being back in clean water and clean sea air.

Talk to you again soon.