" A LADY TRIP" SAILING AROUND THE WORLD, avoiding the recession ( presently the San Blas Islands )

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Fri 22 Jan 2010 13:39
Thursday 21st January  2010
 
07.00  The skipper was up bright and early,  To day is Paul O'Sullivan's Birthday  . ( Paul is married to our daughter "Sarah" )
          
          HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL
         
          Its a beautifull morning at this tiny little island, with just 4 boats around us, one being " Pylades", our friends Fergus and Kay.
          We spent some time catching up on emails and swimming around for some exercise.
          We went aboard " Pylades" for morning Coffee, and catch up on the news, & swopping  stories about our adventures so far,
         This was followed by a trip ashore to this picturesque Island and Aileen bought some dainty hand made covers, Almost the entire crew bought
          some items of local culture..
          The amazing thing is, even though these people live fairley primitive life styles, they all have their mobile phones,
 
         MANILA , the capitol of the Phillipines came to mind, Abject poverty , but everyone had the mobiles as witnessed by Aileen and Skipper
         a few years ago. when on a visit to " Hector " in his home country. 
 
11.00hrs  We raised anchor and set sail for " Nombre De Dios,"  A harbour approx 40 miles away.
              
13.00       Richard caught a large fish, but alas he managed to escape, to fight another day.
13.30       Donal did the lunch , consisting of  " KEVINS " delicious home made bread , which he made on board yesterday,
               potatoe salad, smoked salmon, corgettes, tomatoes & onion, etc,
               ( this trip is becomming more like  " eating our way around the world" )
 
15.00hrs  The day was now very dull and humid, but then again, Richard caught another fish, but escaped again, this time when he was close to being
               landed onto the boat.
          
               The Skipper made contact with Cooney Marine who confirmed our thinking regarding the malfunctioning DAVIT.
               they also told us how we could deal with it , so in the morning , hopefully this will be back in operation again
               and we will be able to lift the rib out of the water for the next trip.
 
               The wind was fairly light, 12  /  14 knots (  we are not used to this light stuff on the trip)
               so we motor / sailed along at 7knots.  by the way , the boat is getting a bit scruffy underneath, she needs a scrub and antifouling..
 
17.00hrs  We arrived in what we would consider " A pritty remote"  harbour, Donal took Aileen, Richard and Grattan ashore to explore the town,
              but! alas they could not land ashore as the sea state was too rough, with big waves breaking on the beach.
              There were two other boats here also, and like ourselves, were in transit and just stopped for the night
 
Later        We had great fun opening the "Coconut."and when finally we had all the white insides totally extracted. it got gobbled up
               by a limited amount of the crew.  The youngest model was not impressed ( Richard)
 
We had a Chicken dinner on board, prepared by " Donal" who was getting a wee bit touchy by the end of the day. ( nap was obviously not long enough)
 
An early bunk zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz