Long pier used by the yachties and tugboaters

Taking advantage of the wifi on the veranda

The free water taxi takes us to shore

 

The showers very seldom have hot water (I’ve experienced it once, but I don’t think anyone else has).  I remember reading on-line in the cruising forums before we left about the various ways to install a hot water system on boats.  One person posted that if your cruising grounds were the tropics, a hot water system was just a waste of time, money, and space — nobody wants a hot shower in the tropics.  He was pretty much right.  The first cold shower I took actually wasn’t cold enough.  I kept thinking I’d get out when I still felt nice and cool after sticking my head out of the cool water, but it never happened.  You eventually start to adjust to the heat and humidity, but I’m still not quite used to the boat being so damp all the time.  It’s funny, but the cold showers are actually sort of a luxury.

There’s a TGIFriday’s across the parking lot with air-conditioning and a menu almost identical to the one in the states.  The service is quite a bit different, though.  They’re pretty laid-back and don’t mind you hanging out to watch a playoff game or just enjoy the air-conditioning and free Internet for the afternoon.  It’s not exactly a cultural experience, but the broccoli and cheese soup is good.

We’ve noticed that a few of the cruisers that we met at Shelter Bay have made it across the canal and are now here, but so far the only other cruisers we’ve been hanging out with are Zac Sunderland and his crew, as there’s no easy and obvious place to congregate.  On Friday night we went out in Panama City with Zac.  Since we know nothing about Panama City, we looked at one of the local tourist books, noticed that several of the discotheques were on a street called Calle Uruguay, so thought we might as well try it.  It was pretty similar to an upscale downtown nightlife district in the US with clubs, bars, and some great fare from street vendors who had setup food stands on the sidewalks.

We’ve been here long enough that we’ve been able to see the transition into the rainy season.  The days are all pretty similar now — generally cloudy although sometimes a little sunny in the morning and rain every afternoon that’s starting to become pretty heavy.  The rain lasts an hour or two and so far hasn’t rained in the morning or at night.

We would have left this weekend, but we were waiting to finish up our boat insurance for the Pacific crossing.  Although things didn’t get finished before the weekend, our insurer did respond to e-mails today and we’re pretty much done.  We should be able to leave for Las Perlas in the next day or two.  We’re hoping to have a day or two of good diving and pretty anchorages there before we head for the Galapagos.  We’re expecting the crossing to the Galapagos to have a lot of light and/or contrary winds, but once we get close, we should have some great tradewind sailing until we leave Fiji.