Hey there gang, we hope everything is going swimmingly in Ireland, you can’t even cool down with a swim here now with the ambient temperature being 28 degrees at night and 33 during the day. I’m contemplating going down with the anchor the next time we anchor to see if I can catch a cold current. Perspiration seems to be our paramount predicament leaving us short of sodium, so like licky calves we lick our salt licks and gulp down as much water and Barry’s tea as we can. Though the evenings do offer a cool respite and we always seem to recoup enough energy to get up to a few shenanigans and misadventures.

We left you the last time in the company of the tribal Khuna, in a little utopian archipelago called the San Blas. Well the next day early on Monday the 20^th of January at around 08.00 hrs we weighed anchor and made for the largest island in the chain of islands and the rendezvous for the World Arc fleet, before we made for the Panama Canal.  There was a good old knees up ashore, everyone prepared and brought food and were handed a prepared coconut with a straw in it with some particularly evil rum in it by the Arc organisers. There was a good crowd of sailors interspersed with day sailors and backpackers who were staying on the island. The local Khuna barman couldn’t believe his luck I’d say restocking his freezer box again and again with tepid beer that was flying out at a rate of knots. At around 7 we got word that a German boat Kathea, was in danger of going up onto a reef, everyone made for their tenders. Donnacha, Cian and I made it to our tender first only to realise the 2.5hp engine was about as much use as a wet sock hanging off the back of the boat, with us three big fellas in it. We might as well have been trying to push rope. Kathea made it off the reef at any a rate and we made it back to see them anchor in front of the beach party. We brought our own poison with us, a particularly grim 3litre box of Agricultural rum we picked up in Martinique which after imbibing it once we decided it wasn’t for our consumption, and we used it to kill fish. One shot in the gills and regardless of their size they succumb quicker than a good old hammer to the head, and are as dead as a doornail before you know it. Makes you wonder what it did to us when we drank it, well ye can wonder all ye want, some of what happens at the equator stays there. We decided the quicker we could get rid of it the better. We fuelled the party with this, played guitar and watched the scene around us degrade until we had our own little den of iniquity on this tropical shore. We of course were in good order, and snuck off early, just getting a little edge over the competition for the morning.

We left on Tuesday the 21^st at first light, hauling both our anchors in good order and joined the long line of ships on their way to Colon, the entrance to the Panama Canal. At one stage I counted 32 massive ships, ranging from reefers, to roro’s (roll on roll off), LNG’s (Liquid Natural Gas), Oil tankers and of course a few huge container ships. We made our way towards Shelter Bay marina at around 14.00 hrs feeling particularly miniscule after sailing around all the transportation giants. When you see the quantity of traffic coming and going you can really understand what’s involved in the logistics of the world. Panama is one of the places where you can feel the pulse of the global economy. Colon is an old relic of American Colonialism; the whole city is comprised of fortifications and bunkers, though once impressive is now home to extreme poverty and crime.  We came alongside at around 14.30hrs, after all the evolutions involved were completed we made our way to the marina. Outside the bar was a big clock permanently pointing to 5pm, the caption below read ‘It’s always 5 o’ clock somewhere.’ We liked the precept and went in even thought it was 15.00.

On Wednesday the 22^nd Margaret, Cian and Donnacha went for a walk in the National park to one of the bunkers. It was a nice 22km jaunt, which had Cian limping back and cursing his feet and the heat. Longest walk he’s ever done! They walked through rainforest and saw howler monkeys and an ant eater. Another day we saw a sloth on one hand something you’ll be lucky to see in your life, on the other hand he was a pretty uninteresting the lazy bugger and didn’t do much, how we saw him was a miracle. He just hung there up in the tree looking down at us with beady eyes.

Thursday the 23^nd was another day of waiting for the generator to be delivered; we prepared the living spaces for major disturbance again only to be disappointed when the guys didn’t turn up. At least we had a rum tasting to go to. Miracle of miracles it was actually good stuff, the Abuello sommelier brought us through all the flavours and notes in the different ages and barrelled rum. An interesting factoid for you, when harvesting the sugar cane for distillation they actually burn the whole plantation down before harvesting to get rid of excess moisture and concentrate the sugars increasing the bric value of the crop.

Friday the 24^rd, generator finally arrived, the guys came with the unit but without the remote start panel and the in line fuel pump. We’re getting used to these sorts of antics at this stage. Anyway Donnacha and Brian went to the quiz night with the crew of Hebe, only to find out it was not on general knowledge, but knowledge on the history of sailing in general and the islands of the pacific and Caribbean, we didn’t come first.

We celebrated the hell out of Australia day on the 25^th raising several beers to the country of our disenfranchised kin and ancestors. We played wizard sticks, a southern hemisphere pastime of taping your last can to the bottom of your current can. A pointless exercise, except that it helps you keep track of your tally, and makes it hard to drink later on in the night. We had a barbi on the beach, and played a game of full contact on kibbled coral, lots of grazes. Not a lot of sailing being done these days as you can see. At this stage we were dying to head away up the canal.

Monday the 27^th the admeasurer came and took the boats measurements and papers and clued us in as to what would happen when we went through Gatun lock. We were to get an adviser on board for the duration of each leg of the journey through the canal. The canal transit would be a two day affair, we to raft up alongside a much bigger Catamaran and another monohull. The configuration being mono, cat, mono. We were provided with lines fore and aft that would keep us adjoined to the bollards on the canal when filling or emptying, as well as tyres to prevent the avocet from coming up against the side of the canal.

Tuesday the 28^th, the boats we are rafting up next to are a seriously swish 62 ft cat called vivo, (imagine a luxury bungalow with a patio that sails) and another similar vessel to ours Trillium. We motored into the lock together. We were absolutely miniscule compared to the massive sheer sides of the canal concrete soared up on either side dwarfing even our masts, the holding lines were made fast fore and aft on both trillium and avocet. The sound of the klaxons alerted us that behind us the gates of the lock began to close, gigantic steel gates over 60ft high on big hydraulic rams, if you’re likely to get claustrophobic don’t go through the Panama Canal in anything less than a cruise ship. Once the gates were closed there was a huge upwelling of water that pushed and pulled at the boats raising us foot by foot, I got the distinct impression that if you fell in you’d visit the bottom of the canal pretty quickly then maybe you’d go look either side and back to the top. We went through two locks up to the Gatun Lake where we left our adviser Mc Lean, who was as Panamanian as you get despite his name, off to the pilot tug. We anchored for the night and got completely destroyed by mosquitoes for our troubles.

  Wed the 29^th, we awoke itching our ankles and any piece of flesh that was exposed to the ministrations of central Americas flying hypodermic needles.  We raised anchor and rafted up again with Vivo and Trillium. We had the Mira Flores left to descend to reach Panama. Our adviser for the day left us a present we wouldn’t find until after Las Perlas, and that was that he had switched our overboard effluent to the holding tank, it took a week to fill with 7 people and an afternoon to empty by bucket, but that’s another story. At any a rate descending is a more pleasant experience than ascending, apart from the linesmen on trilliums side not getting their lines on in time and the other two boats nearly crushed avocet on the side of the canal. We got away lightly with a chip in the gel coat about the size of a 2 euro coin. Panama is an amazing city to behold, massive high-rises dominate the skyline. I’m pretty sure there are some big tax rebates to be had for corporations here as the distribution of wealth here is grossly one sided, like a fat kid on a sea saw. The amount of 80ft motor cruisers costing 8,000 euro a day to run alongside here is mind boggling. We had drinks on our neighbour’s cruiser, he would use more fuel in one day than John Lar would use in an entire season ferrying people out to Skelligs and back to Derrynane. He has two Man BW 1800 hp engines and his boat/ship is capable of a 36knot cruising speed. The boat is registered in the Bahamas and flies no flag nor has any identifying serial number and has a man sized chest freezer. John was a nice fella anyway despite man sized deep freezes, he let us drink all of his scotches and whiskeys like Johnny walker blue label, glenmoranjie 25 year among others. Anyway I have to call it a day 2,000 words per entry should be enough. I’ll update you after the Galapagos, we’re due in tomorrow at 6, we’re hoping customs can bring us a 24 pack and a few snack boxes and gravy. All 7 of us are dying to stretch the legs at this stage.