"A LADY TRIP " sailing around the world and avoiding the recession, (presently in Portobello, Panama )

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sat 23 Jan 2010 14:07
FRIDAY 22nd January 2010
 
07.00hrs Not a great nights sleep, too hot and humid, so up early.
              skipper sent messages , and did the Blog.
             We worked on the davit, removing the pressure plate and then crossing the wires, and WALLA ! it worked , we now had the davitt back in action.
              Now we took the rib out of the water and set sail westish. wind very much ahead and about 17knots
             We recieved lot of emails and even one from Aileen's sister " Anne"  who lives in Sweeden
 
 By the way, Its interesting that during the building of the PANAMA CANAL , the U.S. government asked for sand from the San Blas Islands,
and were duly told feck off, the local authority said to the U.S. that " The LORD had given them a treasure to mind and no one was going to be allowed
destroy them". A pity more places dont do that.
 
12.00hrs We drpooed anchor close to " Islay Linton" , a society island about 2 hours from Panama City.
             Donal, Aileen, Grattan,and Richard went ashore to explore the place and have lunch, while skipper and Kevin remained on board
             catching up on the scripts etc.and of course checking home regarding the MUNSTER match tonight.
             The weather is still very cloudy and humid, and Donal, ( still a bit touchy) stated that he had done enough cooking for now
             and not his turn today. ok ok ok
 
15hrs Weighed anchor again and motored about 6 miles to "POTOBELO", This place was once a very important stronghold for Spanish and British
         and Sir Francis Drake was burried here in a lead casket at sea off the harbour in 28 Jan 1596
         Needles to mention, the harbour is surrounde by lots of ruined forts.
         Around this time , the area was plagued with PIRATES , the most notable was " Henry Morgan" and one of the more notable carribbean
         rums is called " Morgans Rum "
 
19.00hrs We had dinned prepared by the skipper and included  :-  scollops rapped in bacon followed by roast stuffed irish " pork steaks" and all the bits.
 
 We were of course all very happy that our " MUNSTER RUGBY TEAM"  defeated North Hampton at Thomond park .. yepee  ( 12points to 9 points)
 
A generall discussion was had before going to the bunk . reasonably early  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz