Fai Tira Blog Sunday 14th February

Fai Tira Panama City 08:54.47N 79:31.60W

We arrived on the anchorage on Tuesday afternoon.  John prepared lunch for the crew and we sat down and chilled for a while before launching the tender and headed off to find the local internet cafe.  This turned out to be a grocery store with tables outside.  They had a couple of fridges inside with cold beer in, so we sat down and updated the Blog and contacted our loved ones via Skype.  We returned back to Fai Tira feeling thoroughly washed out and ready for an early night. 

The next day saw me heading off in the BWR mini bus back to Shelter Bay to be a volunteer line handler for one of the other boats.  John started on the boat repairs with the help of Peter from Peregrina and David from Enchantress.  The journey back across to the Atlantic was interesting, we past the part of the Gatun lake that keeps the locks filled with the massive amount of water needed feed them.  When we arrived back at the marina we dispersed to our respective boats.  I was to be going initially with Bill and Sue on Camomile but a change of plan saw me decamping to Chsalonina.  The team on Chisel consisted of  Jeremy the skipper his lovely wife Edith, Jeremy number 2 better known as “J” and Boot and myself as extra line handlers.

  Jeremy the skipper

We set off a lot later than Fai Tira’s earlier transit having to be at the flats by 5.00pm.  This meant that we would be in the Gatun locks during the hours of darkness.  Our advisor arrived and we headed to the first set of locks at Gatun and had to wait for over two hours for two ships to transit before we rafted up with Natibou and Camomile. Natibou being a catamaran it was positioned in the middle with us on the port side. 

All went smoothly although the amount of line pulling I had to do was excessive and I ended up straining my back.  We got to the top of locks at about midnight and tied up to one of the two buoys there.    We had a excellent meal before we started on the Rum and Cokes.  Later we were joined by the crew of Miss Tippy and Camomile.  The party ended at about 3am which just which gave us a couple of hours sleep before the next set of advisors arrived.  We headed along the 31 miles of the lake and Canal trying to spot crocodiles. When we arrived at the descending locks we contacted our loved ones so that they could see us on the web cam.  The rest of the trip was straight forward with Jeremy cracking open a bottle of champers under the Bridge of the America’s.

I arrived back on Fai Tira and discussed what we had been up to over the past couple of days.  John had sussed out what we needed to do with furling gear and we formulated a plan to effect repairs.

Damage to Fai Tira.  John took from the top of the mast.

The next morning John started on the boat maintenance whilst I with the help of Peter from Peregrina tried to contact a rigger so that we could start schedule the repair work.  Peter speaks fluent Spanish so he arranged everything for us.  Later he told us that he had planned a meeting with an Australian rigger.  We can speak Australian!!!.  We met him at 6pm and he said he would be at our boat next Wednesday after the carnival. Whoops sorry to mention that it’s carnival week here in Panama City.  PARTY ON.

Yesterday saw a big group of us leave the boats to head for the carnival. We arrived in the city to find the main thoroughfare completely fenced off.  We were searched before entering a pandemonium of street vendors selling all sorts of take away food and drinks, the main outlet being beer of course.  As the group of about 16 walked along the road it soon became apparent that the fun thing to do was throw paper hole punch confetti at each other, mixed with silly string out of a can. 

I have never seen so much confetti, the road was white with the stuff.  We were all not only on the receiving end but a quick purchase saw us with our own arsenal and were not only bombarding our fellow BWR crews but anyone else who past us. Shortly after we arrived the parade started which was very disappointing to be honest.  There were only about 4 floats and few marching drummer groups with dancers.  I did get the opportunity to have my photograph taken with the carnival queens.

 After the parade we all stood around drinking and being merry until the local celebrity rap singer took to the stage.  By this time it was getting late and the merriment was taking its toll.  I headed off to the toilets and decided to sit down for a short while and promptly fell asleep, the next thing I knew was it 11.30pm and all my shipmates had gone back to their boats but not until after John had made an extensive search for the lost Pete. I caught a cab and arrived back a short time after the rest.  This morning we woke up to a boat covered in paper confetti.  We won’t bother clearing it up as we might be back for the closing parade next Tuesday let’s hope it will be better than last nights. 

Bye for now Pete and John.