mariaflores lock

by satillite:

hi all

we are going to go thru the miraflores lock gates at 4.15 irish time.

there was a big delay last night so we eventually went thru gatun lock at about 2am irish time. we are now crusing slowly down the river see the foot print... and are ahead of schedule. we will be passing under the bridge between 3.45 to 4pm.

we have flags up that spell something!

see if you can see us on the panama canal web cam site.

d,s,&c

Panama canal web cams

Hi all
we will be going through the canal in two stages. There are 3 cameras along the canal filiming all boats live.
We will hit the first camera at Gatun Lock at about 10pm Irish time, or 6pm Caribbean time, 5pm our time.
We will all wear red shirts and have loads of flags on the boat. We also have a big blue cover on the dingy on the bow.
Tomorrow we should pass under the Centenial Bridge at 3.30pm Irish time and the Miraflores lock 15 minutes later.
The locks take about an hour to get through. The bridge a couple of minutes to go under.

So if you have nothing to do go to and this web site early and leave it on till you see the load of plonkers with the red shirts!!
http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html

seaya
dc

How to find and track FARRFLY

Hi all
Here is the tracker for FARRFLY. http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0SVbx4zVkUVVXC6iVWJHOc3dor0T7ggXY
You should book mark it as it is hard to find via the findmespot website.
Now that we have email ourselves we can see how cool this little device is.
It is a pity that it only tracks for 7 days and then erases the track. Perhaps somebody could save the pages weekly for us so we can have a record of the whole trip when we get back.??
We will leave it on most of the time once we get going again.
Our Canal Transit is next monday.
seaya
dc

Curacao to San Blas Islands

 Agreat following sea.... 2 meters high. The video is great, hammering along at 9 to 11 knots, (max 14.3)

 Would not like to be going the other way..

 Life goes on as normal even at 12 knots... lunch with Katja

 Look at this very carefully, left top side, strange orange ball in the sky, o' the north east, not the moon, the sun had set in the other direction... never figured it out... very odd.

 Tony went bannanas early in the trip..

 Des Amsterdam ... T liked the chick on the bow...

 The old and the new.. Curacao...Williamstad harbour... not worth the visit... oiltankers everywhere. Its a big oil bunkering and refinary town...

 Simple and fast.. FARRFLY goes Butterfly....

 By Colon we had caught 4 Tuna, 6 suicidal flying fish, one wahoo, and released a huge sword fish.

 Conrad caught this one although he seemed a little dissapointed.. a bit small da.. or wha'.

 Real beauty... the perfect curves of a tall, slim, elegant, leggy, blonde. She's just my type...

 Farrfly meets her first 'dug out canoe'... Kuna people of the San Blas islands, live exactly as they did 500 years ago, and seem perfectly happy with that... or maybe... we were in the tiny grass hut village buying some 'Molas' from the traditional old ladies, when one got a call on her cel-phone.. I blame dennis o brien...

 Local naked native...

 Every thing here is pure untouched clean and natural... The Kuna do not allow development on their lands. They are semi autonomous from Panama..

 Cute... see he is getting hair... but the head is still growing.. need a new hat.. for a 4 year old..

 Pictures are worth a thousand words, even then they do no justice to the natural enviroment and the peacefulness. The Kuna do not have a word for steal, they share everything so theft is not in their culture. The Panamanians seem to leave them completly alone. No police, no coast guard, no patrol boats.. perfect.

 After another hectic day time for the boys to relax.

 Mile upon mile of turquoise blue, polka dotted with hundreds of tiny green islands.

 Old trees washed in from the rivers of south america..

 I didn't know we weren't allowed buld here.. its only going to be a small shopping center and a marina!

 Feeling blue, the Kuna have told him to knock it down... no planning permission...

 Looks like the team is growing...

 Indiana came along too...

 Conrads 'Pocket Socket'  just plug in the legs and get racing...

 Look closely, 3 Kuna fishing the traditional way.. They get upset if you photograph them.

 Don't let this fool you, he is as bad a driver as his mother....

 Little terrorist..

 Easy going by the camp fire light..

 We cook fish and lobser over smouldering coconut nut shells.. much better flavor than carcoal or wood.

 30 pound yellow fin.

 Dodgem Boats... Like an armada, the enterance to the panama canal... the rough town of Colon in the back ground.. As we were were sailing we had right of way... yeh right...

Conrad doing the ships accounts... or maybe watching 'Wonder pets', it has become essential to defuse him with a little telly to get him to bed... He is in his element on the go all day... 20 months and still cant swim or talk!! but he does have 5 words.. mamama,  boat, nein, out, down... interesting only one german word so far.. however I think he will kick off in german.. Katja his nanny is german...

So now we are in a nice little marina, about 10 miles from the town of Colon.. We are waiting for our transit papers and will know Monday when we will go through the canal. Could be anywhere from 4 to 10 days... there is a website where you can watch the canal live.. and will see us going through,,,. if you have absolutly nothing else to do!
thats all for now folks...
dc

Departure

Here at last are some pics of us just before we left...
We will fill in the blanks if the photos load...
Which they did in seconds!! This is my 3ad attempt, but have it cracked at last so now will bore you to death with pictures of Conrad...

Looks like a pumkin? Gally, not my department, hope its not fungus...

Rabbit hutch installed, we are relying on Mark heath to fedex a regular supply of carrotts...

 Sending off party... they heard we were taking no booze so came around to finish off the house stocks..

 I think they were 3 sheets when they arrived..

 They all seem a bit too happy to see us go.,,,

 Almost ready... wheres the other dingy?

 Looks a bit smug does our Tony

 Haul the Captain aboard... legl;ess as usual...

 Hmmm these winches are bigger than me...

One last pose... and lets go,,,
dc

san blas

hi all
every thing AOK.
 San Blas more beautiful than ever imagined.
Have the basics of the up loads figured out.. I think.. as we found a tiny island with a bar an WiFi the island is 50 meters square!! but have the info now to upload while on the move...
Conrad now has 4 words.. mama, boat, nein, out!! if he better not say tony before dada !!
dc xx

On the way to brisbane

And we are OFF, to Brisbane

Hi Everyone, all going very well so far. Can’t get a chart of the approaches to Panama but heck will make do...

A few pics of the gang that came over to the house on Friday night to ensure we actually left...

Food and baby aboard, slip the lines and we left our dock at 12.30 on Saturday, bound for Curacao.... about 55 hours sailing. The odd blue machine on the back of the boat is our new dive compressor, Tony is installing it. We plan to do a lot of diving. 

From the off we had a fine breeze, 20 knots which built quickly to gusts of 30 knots. Farrfly flew, Conrad squealed in delight.. “BOOM BOOM” was his call as he pointed to the sails, mummy took to the bed and was not seen for 2 days!! Dad put conrad to bed and stayed with him for the first 3 nights .. a little cramped..

First port of call Spanish harbor, Curacao.. lovely sheltered large cove.. very built up with million dollar houses. Arrived monday about 3pm. Slipped around to Willemstad next morning.. tied to the dock, nightmare harbor oil tankers and cruise ships going up river all night. Its like camping on a motorway roundabout.

So we are off again, no point in staying here, nothing but oil tanks and refineries.

Perhaps Aruba or maybe straight to Panama.. will decide on the way.. such is cruising life.

Till the next broadcast...

Dave