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| Puerto Lindo |
Niklaus boat is located in a sheltered
bay in
Puerto Lindo, located about 1.5hour from the city of
Colon and 30 minutes from the small town of
Portobello.
Both
Puerto Lindo and
Portobello is where most of the
sailboats heading to
San Blas islands and
Cartagena
departs from.
Puerto Lindo is where we had
spent most of our days at, having a meal or drinks at Han's (an open air restaurant by the sea side), if we
were not on the boat. Most of the people residing here are blacks
(vs the fairer skin Panamanians residing further inland) and
had a more fishing village feel.
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Niklaus with the infamous
village pig |
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| Scene from local village |
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| Look at the piglets! |
Met lots of interesting people during
the last few days, many of whom were foreigners who either own a boat
or working on some boats in the sheltered bays, as well as some
travellers coming through either going or coming from
San Blas
and
Cartagena.
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| Jim |
We also had some interesting few days
during the time I was here. Firstly a Canadian guy
(Jim) who
had arrived on the boat a few days before I did, started falling
really ill and looked completely pale for a few days. He claimed
that he had caught a bug from someone whom he had sat next to in the
plane. There happened to be a homeotheraphy doctor
(Bill) who
had just arrived at
Puerto Lindo, and we got him to take a
look at Jim.
It was only through the diagnosis and
treatment from Bill that we discovered that he had recently only just
completed his chemotheraphy session a couple of months ago, something
which he had failed to share with Niklaus about his health condition.
Considering that the passage to San Blas is expected to be
extremely choppy and not suitable for someone who was so unwell, we
had to ask him to leave the boat this morning, but welcomed him to
join us in San Blas when he get his flights to get to San
Blas from Panama city.
Secondly, we had numerous problems with
the outboard motor for the dinghy. The main outboard motor used was
not dispersing water as frequently as needed to cool the motor during
the passage. Parts were ordered when we were in Panama city
when I had arrived, but it would take some time to arrive.
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| Mangrove |
Not wanting to have any problems or
minimise possible paddling on the dinghy while moving around the
various islands in
San Blas, Niklaus borrowed a motor from a
friend of his
(Alain) at the marina and made our way back to
the boat, that was anchored in a sheltered bay
(located about 15
minutes away by dinghy through a mangrove).
What we did not count on was that
Alain`s motor also had problems with the dispensing of the cooling
water. Not wanting to burn the motor, we ended up paddling our way
back to the marina through the mangrove and called a service guy to
pick it up to have it repaired so that we can pick it up the next
day, while we pray that our original outboard motor will not break
down on us as we went about running the various errands needed to get
the sailboat ready for our sailing to San Blas.
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Paddling through the swamp
- I feel like I am in Venice! |
The next day, we went to pick up
Alain`s motor after it was repaired and while on the way through the
mangrove, the motor died on us again. We had to paddle through the
mangrove again, back to the marina – calling the service repair
again to complain about the problem. Apparently it seemed that the
repair man did not really change the parts needed to get the motor
working properly despite being paid.
Fed up of not wanting to have any more
problems with outboard motor, Niklaus bought a 2nd hand
motor from a guy from another boat at the marina, which had just been
sent in for servicing and was looking to sell it. It worked well for
the first few minutes and then it died on us.
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| Speeding through the mangrove |
We called the repair
man – the same person who had serviced both Alain`s motor and the
new motor we had just bought, to complain. Service guy happened to
be on his way to the marina, so we had him repair the new motor again
on the spot.
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| Olivier |
Olivier, an extremely good mechanic,
happened to be with us on this trip to the marina, and thus oversaw
the repair process of the service guy to make sure he fixes it up
properly this time. After numerous delays we finally made our way
again back through the mangrove, and got the rest of the boat ready
for the trip...
We set sail tomorrow morning!
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| Washing dishes |
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| Cleaning dinghy |
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| Chef Niklaus preparing dinner |
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