8.54 N

79.31 W

We got this picture from the webcam of the Transit of the Panama Canal. Take Off is right at the front on the left hand side.

After transiting the Panama Canal we anchored outside of Playita Marina in the outskirts of Panama City. Panama City is a city with many different sides: from extremely poor streets where people live in shelters to a beautiful Old Town being protected by Unesco to Down Town City with all the multi global companies being represented. The rumour says that Panama City is one of the biggest “money laundry” cities in the world...The Panaman people are very friendly and most speak English.

 

 

We were very quick to kit us properly in order to melt into Panama….

And just at noon we found this stand - A proper Mojito Bar!

  

We had a wonderful walk along the seaside with overlooking Down Town.

  

Nilla & Janne and Ellen with Inez.

  

  

When coming back from our tour in Panama City we could not find Take Off where we had left her. We were then told that she was drifting and some of our kind ARC friends went on board and anchored her safely elsewhere. We could not get it how the anchor had loosened. We have never had any problem and the anchor was definitely well anchored before leaving. We then missed to calculate the length of the anchor chain according to the difference of tide. The tide has a difference of at least of 5 meters on the Pacific side which means that we had missed to let out (5 m x 5) 25 m more of chain… no wonder she was drifting when the tide rose!

The Playita Marina being so small we all had one night in the marina. This was the chance to do maintenance having access to lots of fresh water. Here we are tidying the mess of the anchor being totally digged down in clay.

One of the nights we signed up for the “Party Bus”. We were told it is a typical Panaman tradition. Our friends on Heidi being happy to take our kids and the kids as happy to be with their French friend Raphaël having access to iPad and games and so on, we spent a crazy party night out on this bus! And CRAZY it was! For 1h30 the bus drove through Panama City with the best party music and rum and cola as much as we wanted. It was pretty sporty to hold on to the bus driving through town dancing as hell and holding to a drink! Can’t reckon when was the last time we partied so intensely!

 

City sky line by night.