We arrived into Shelter Bay Marina at the entrance to the Panama Canal and who did we find but our good friends from Spirit of Argo; Cain, April and “our dog” Quinn. OK everyone around here has adopted Quinn and why not, look at this face. Life is tough.

April & Cain have been running the sail loft and are doing a great job of helping out cruisers that need work done in a short period of time. Thanks guys for good times yet again and of course our new water catcher. 😉

As with any marina it’s the people that make it a fun place.
April has water aerobics every day to whip us all into shape for the upcoming sailing season. The pool is definitely a bonus after working hard all day.

The nights while we were here were full with all sorts of social events incl games night, BBQs, movie nights etc. Even caught up with our friends from Guatemala; Brian & Sue from SeaRose and Stu & Steph from Matador.

Steph, Sue, Vicki, April, Manuela

Cain, Malcolm, Brett, Stu, Brian

Had a couple of great jam sessions at the Marina and lots of musical talent came out to join in. Was awesome. 

Our neighbor, Wakeem has a vehicle and took us out to San Lorenzo Fort past the Marina. It was built in the 16 Century to overlook the mouth of the Rio Chagres, which was used for commerce. The fort was taken by many pirates including Henry Morgan because it had excellent views of approaching ships.

On the side of the road we spotted a couple of gatosolo’s, similar to raccoons.

Well alas it’s not all play we had a few jobs to sort, including major provisioning for our pacific crossing. Our poor boat has lost its water line with food and alcohol but at least she’s looking shiny now and everything is in order.

Polishing the boat while in the water is difficult but it’s now done, yeah!

Yachts transiting the Panama Canal are invited to leave behind a memorial or lucky talisman of their boat on the outside walls of the Sail loft, so my artistic skills went to work. Here’s our image setting us off from the Caribbean with good luck for our Pacific adventure. We are ready for our canal transit with some friends who are joining us to do the transit as line handlers.