12.31N 70.02W

JENNY
Alan Franklin/ Lynne Gane
Wed 9 Jan 2008 19:26
Hi everybody
 
Alan here on the BLOG in Peter's absence. I'm still in Aruba enjoying the 5* facilities and socialising with Big Blue, another BWR Rally boat that's here.
 
Its a strange quiet boat now that Peter and Jenny have returned to UK for a while but I thought I'd keep the dialogue going, especially as P&J might like to know where their boat is in the world!!  We now have the RIB (rigid inflatable boat) that Peter's been wanting for the Pacific part of our journey, a bargain being disposed of just by chance!, so now we have two dinghies!, two outboards, etc. in fact it seems we have two (at least) of most things we expect to go wrong, but not a spare for what does, but should not!!  with spares you have to stop somewhere either there'll be no room for us or the boat sinks!  Hopefully the generator part being delivered by Bon and John should get the boat back to fully functioning - but of course there will always be things to fix, and sort, even now we're still customising the boat.
 
We expect to leave "towards" St. Blas Islands on the 11th Jan, intending to get to Shelter Bay in Panama around the 18th, with some time for Bon and Jon to meet with P&J and Ellie, so we can all be together for a while - its been a very long time since the last meet up.  It seems that again we don't seem to have a lot of time for the trip, but I guess we have to consider the BWR almost as a whistle stop tour - finding out the nicest places we can return to later maybe......  You might think "isn't it funny that yachties say - towards" - it seems to infer we don't actually know where we're going!!, but its really that being at the whim of wind and weather we consider nothings 100% certain so we play it a bit cagey!!  I have to say downwind sailing is a little more certain!!
 
Anyway I'll sign off for now and have a beer - it's the least I can do - lighten the fridge to help our speed!!