Our Journey

Friday, 15 January 2016

Many Things To Do...

Unfortunately after leaving the Rio Dulce we found that the stitching around our trampolines,

and around the zips on the windscreen of the clears was disappearing.

We were recommended Roman a sail maker, at Linton Harbour.
He took away our trampolines, windscreen and sides, returning them within a week.
Roman did a wonderful job for us!

Our Rose without her "windscreen" & "sides"

We headed to Colon on the Chicken bus to get a new phone

(sadly the iPhone didn't like going for a swim with me!)

Inside the Chicken bus was a display of croquet edged doily

Once our trampolines were back, we upanchored and headed to Portobello.

Though founded in 1597, legend has it that Christopher Columbus

originally named the port "Puerto Bello", meaning "Beautiful Port" in 1502.

A sleepy town of around 3000, that has many day tourists to visit the church with the black Jesus.

Some local "entrepreneurs" dress up on the weekend when there is a lot of traffic

They prance about in the middle of the street stopping traffic, until they get a "tip" to let you passed

We took our liferaft ashore, then by taxi to Colon to get serviced.

We sincerely hope this is the only time the liferaft needs to be off Our Rose!

The ruins have a specular view of the harbour

We headed to Shelter Bay Marina.

The ad-measurer came and we were then measured and ready to be booked to transit the canal.

Due to the World Arc arriving at the same time as us, we knew there would be a delay,

however, there were many days of provisioning to achieve, so that was just fine.

With this not only being one of the longest passage we will possible do,

it is also very expensive in the French Polynesia, so we are trying to fit as much as possible.

Everything has to be loaded by the two of us into a van, then onto trolleys are the marina,

then down to Our Rose and lifted on, the from there into the cockpit, then "without cardboard" into the boat ready to put away. It really is a pretty big mission!

It was great though, Reys Supermarket would deliver me back to the marina with groceries if spending over $300. This was achieved many times!

Shelter Bay Marina is about 45 minutes from the stores, so they offer a van ride in.

Crossing the canal a couple of times, you also cross the "new" canal that is purported to open by June. This new canal will hold the supertankers, which presently can't fit.

This is a view out of the van window of the building of the new canal

The time had finally come and we went into Panama City to meet Dean.

On arrival back to Our Rose provisioning from New Zealand arrived - yahooooooo

Beautiful placements above sent by Chris & Michael

and this "Absolutely Gorgeous" bag (and the necessary berocca) sent by Lynnette

The next morning Dean was put to work, fixing the grill of the oven
with the part we had sent to him in New Zealand, and cleaning the top inside...
Welcome to Our Rose Deano!

Monday, 4 January 2016

San Blas - Guna Yula

Three nights at sea took us from San Andreas

to the lovely San Blas Islands (Panama) actual name “Guna Yula”

They are made up of 340 islands, which are home to the Guna Indians.

There are around 55000 Gunas
(about 10% of what they were before the invasion of the Spanish Conquistadors)

It is a Matrilineal society – the women control the money

and the husbands move into the womens family compound.

We arrived 6 days before our guests from New Zealand were due.

Sarah (a 2^nd cousin of Richards & her husband) Steven.

It was lovely having them aboard Our Rose for just on 2 weeks

We were also thrilled to catch up with Eileen and Peter from Appleseeds – we first met in Cuba,
and Lynne and Eric from Amarula,

who we first met in Petite Martinique.

Christmas Day started with breakfast, bubbly and presents…

With Richard receiving all the way from Hils & Doug in NZ a toy chainsaw!

Along with lots of other very thoughtful gifts from Sarah & Steven
and of course our presents from Santa Claus!

Late lunch begun with drinks and nibbles on the foredeck with Eileen, Peter and their son from Canada Matt, Lynne & Eric and the four of us

We then moved onto our sitdown lunch

Smoked Crayfish, Roast Turkey, Roast Pork, lots of Salads etc,
(delivery of live crayfish by a Kuna, we are not allowed to dive in San Blas)

followed by my homemade Christmas Mince Tarts and Christmas Cake.

It was a fun day with everyone!

New Years eve took us to another anchorage
(where we started with Moet that Sarah and Steven had brought)

and enjoyed the end of 2015 into 2016
with Appleseeds, Amarula and Michelle, Alex, Noah & Fern from Jade

Plenty of alcohol refreshments that night

Finishing on Our Rose with (definitely not needed) Rum

The women make money selling “molas”.
These beautiful appliqué are intricately made by sewing and cutting different layers of colorful cloth.

Heading off with some other cruisers snorkeling

At a local village we saw this lovely Tucan...

Having a drink ashore on Sarah and Stevens last night

Sunday, 13 December 2015

Bay Islands of Honduras...

After Chris Wooley came to the rescue

and sorted our Clutch Cones on our sail drives (Chris really was amazing!)

we finally left the Rio Dulce.

We sailed as far as practical from the Honduras border and cleared in at Utila (the Bay Islands of Honduras – Utila, Roatan and Guanaja)

Clearing in was a simple procedure, only costing $20

We then made our way to Roatan, where we snorkeled and dived various locations, starting at West End. We stopped at French Cay, where we enjoyed a few beverages with Aussie Pete and the Cruisers there.

Guanaja was really different…

All of the dwelling are build on rock or have piles directely in to seabed.

We met “Hando” who took us on his “regular” trip around on the island

“Books on Wheels”

Hando has found that the children (and adults) are not learning English,

so he pushes his wheelbarrow around the island swapping 3 books a time to each child,
trying to encourage to keep up their English.

We had also crossed paths since leaving the Rio with Luc & Aline
a French Canadian Couple. Richard went for a lovely hike with them

Richard went up the mast to take a photo of our Spinnaker Halyard Sheath as we need a replacement from South Africa which is being sent for us to receive before our Pacific crossing
sure is a long way up there

Just before clearing out, we again caught up with Hando, who took us to see a Cuban boat that had just arrived with 26 political refugees

Unfortuately, I did not have the camera with me, however what they crossed the sea in was nothing more than an oversized shell of a hull, a motor and no cover. It was extremely primitive!

We cleared out of Guanaja – meeting a really lovely customs and immigration guy and headed off to Providencia Columbia.

The forecast was favourable, however the first 24 hours or so was like being in a washing machine!

When we finally had some gentler waters, we stopped briefly, as we had managed to get a line around our starboard prop.

Luckily Richard sorted dived in and sorted it with no problem with the saildrive.

Providencia was a lovely stop – we hired a buggy and drove the island

(3 times actually)

The public seating and bus stops have all nautical themes – just great

I started some bottling with Christmas in mind

“Boozy Christmas Mince – actually has Brandy, Rum and Amaretto in it

and Beetroot Chutney.

We left San Andres and had a really lovely sail from Providencia to San Andres – what a change – lots of “Perfumeries” etc – a place Columbians come for holidays.