We are still anchored at Isla Linton, although we moved to a more protected spot in the anchorage a few days ago.  A cold front had been forecast several days ago and since we were in a fairly open part of the anchorage, we decided to up anchor and head further into the anchorage between the island and the mainland, just off the abandoned house on Isla Linton for those who know the area.  We are now surrounded by boats (not all of which are currently occupied) but we were hoping that we would have a bit more shelter from the forecast northerly winds of 30+ knots.   We are glad we did - Saturday night was a bit messy and in the morning quite a few boats re-anchored.  Sunday was a reasonably nice day, but the winds started to blow in the afternoon, and by about 5pm we noticed a French monohull had swung over the reef near the island - no one on board and it looked like his rudder was damaged.  Several dinghies went across to pull his anchor (by hand) and then we towed it with our dinghy out to the spot where we were previously anchored and dropped him there - not a great spot but better than where he was.  It was raining and blowing about 25 knots and I would have liked a bit more horsepower than the Yamaha 15 but we got him there eventually.  He was still there the next morning so I hope he is happy - he appears to be back on his boat.  Must have got a bit of a shock when he arrived back from Panama City on Sunday night in the dark and found his boat wasn't where he left it.  It got quite squally during the night, several boats appeared to drag and a couple had to re-anchor during the night but fortunately our anchor held OK and none of the boats around us dragged so all is good here. 

We managed to fill 3 jerry cans with rainwater during the night, and we were pretty pleased to have the new waterproof bimini cover on - at least we could stay reasonably dry out the back as we spent a bit of time out there during the night keeping an eye on things.  The downside of this weather is we haven't really seen much sunshine for the past 3 days and our solar panels are next to useless - having to run the engine each day to keep the batteries charged.

We went into Colon last Wednesday on the local bus, did a shop at Rey's and then Teddy picked us up and took us out to Shelter Bay Marina to pick up our 6 new batteries, spare alternator and new hand held GPS.  Teddy drove us back out to Peurto Lindo and then we loaded everything into Hans' panga and delivered it out to Five Islands - would have taken us about 3 trips in the dinghy.  We have fitted the new batteries so now all we need to do is wait for our gearbox rebuild kit to turn up - Marine Warehouse now think that they may have accidentally put it into their sea container (instead of FEDEX Air Freight) and if so it should arrive in Panama in about a week or so.  If so, then it will only be a simple matter of pinning down Guido to do the work and then we will be on our way, maybe.

Anyway, the weather seems to be slowly improving here, although we can see some big seas out the front and it is forecast to be pretty ordinary out there all week with another front coming from the north later this week.  A good time to be tucked up behind Isla Linton.

Well it's now Tuesday afternoon and i get to update the blog - John is upside down in the engine bay replacing the alternator on the starboard engine. We are hoping this may help to increase the charge being put into the batteries. We went into Han's restaurant today to fill up our water jerry cans, drop off an old battery for disposal via the metal man (we are told they are worth 40c per pound and we have 5 x 60lb batteries for Hans to sell) and drop off our rubbish. The shore is a mess with rubbish and vegetation having been deposited by the wind and waves over the past couple of days.