Odour de Colon

Zepher
Chris & Lyn Darch
Fri 11 Apr 2008 13:28
Odour de Colon
 
11/04/08
 
Hi Folks ,
 
We departed a cloudy Portobello yesterday , Rob was in charge of the sail to Colon , I was on anchor duty , much mud on the chain as we hauled anchor and departed the bay , once outside we hoisted the new gennicker again , we are still refining its deployment and tried another combination with the 7m carbon pole , it set perfectly and we cruised down to Colon harbour entrance at between 6.5 and 7.5 knts in 15 knts of wind .
 After rounding the harbour breakwater we made our way over to the small craft anchorage , it was packed there are many more yachts here than when we left ten days ago , a slight whiff of graywater greeted us on arrival , we though it was Colon , wrong it was us , the gray tank had done its thing again due to the valve not opening properly so our first few hrs in Colon were bilge cleaning , otherwise it had been a pleasant trip , once this was complete we met up with Ike Becky Dan and Eteain for the latest news ... our transit date is still in the balance between the 14th and the 16th , Ike is trying to shuffle the dates back to there original then we wont have to get line handlers .
 We had a UNO invite over to Rhythm that evening and after a lovely meal we sat down to play " Rhythm" rules UNO , a strange experience , lots of points , Rob kept the end up though and won the 8 round game much to Dans disappointment , I still haven't won a game yet since my return !
 Whilst on passage we discovered that good old Barclaycard had rejected the payment I had called them the previous day to pay for the new auto pilot , back on the phone again .. its a must a sat phone , its very James Bond " any time anywhere" but it has certainly helped a great deal in sorting this problem out , anyway I called the Raymarine agent and they sent the payment again , voula it went through , so the goods will be with us next Thursday hopefully when we arrive on the other side .
 Colons atmospheric stench came back to haunt us last night , as they burn all the garbage off , plastics included , the wind changed in the anchorage and we were all smog bound again , what a welcome back ....
 
The irrigated crew ..