Day 130, Year 1: Taking Care of Business
Date: Friday, February 24, 2006
Weather: Another Beautiful Day in Paradise
Air Temperature: 84 degrees F daytime, 78 degrees F nighttime
Water Temperature: 76 degrees F
Location: Balboa Yacht Club, Balboa, Panama

Today was another beautiful day in paradise spent taking care of business. We first went to the French Embassy to pick up our passports with our French Polynesia Visas. We then went on a taxi adventure to find Tropigas-the place where we could get our LP gas tank refilled. We have two LP tanks that are used for cooking and the first tank was still not empty, but we decided to take it in and get it filled as it is very, very difficult to get American tanks filled in French Polynesia because of the different in connectors. With both tanks filled, we should be fine until we reach New Zealand next November.

We brought the filled tank back to Windbird and then headed out with Margaret and Patrick from Aqua Magic to go to the Capitania’s Office to begin the check-out process. Because of Carnival, all government offices will be closed until next Wednesday or Thursday, and since we plan to leave here on Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest, check-out needed to happen today. We had to take a taxi to Port Captain’s office and then get another taxi back here to the Yacht Club. The Immigration Office is here and we thought we were almost done when we were told that we needed to go to a different Immigration Office to get properly checked into Panama before checking out. How frustrating! We had asked at every point if we had done what was needed, but we had evidently not paid a $20 required fee for a Panama Visa. By the time we got back to the Yacht Club, did the final check-out with Immigration, and had lunch it was 2 PM. We then discovered Roosevelt. He is cab driver that speaks English and will take you anywhere you need to go for $8 an hour. He took us to MegaDepot, like Sam’s Club, and we bought as much as would fit into this cab. He then took us to a couple of different boat chandleries to get those last few things on the “boat list”, and finally back to the fabric shop that sells boat awning material. Aqua Magic needed to buy Sunbrella to make a dinghy cover. By 5 PM we were back at the Yacht Club and headed to our boats to put the latest provisions away.

Mark and I then went back into the Yacht Club Bar for Happy Hour and talked with Dick and Meredith from California. Meredith is originally from the Boston area, and they are now sailing their boat to St. Augustine, Florida, where they have bought a retirement home. Great couple-too bad they are not headed our way. On our way back to Windbird, we ran into Doug and Sylvia from WindCastle. Sylvia was trying to arrange the trip inland for Carnival but has found that the cost is prohibitive, so we will go into Panama City with them tomorrow afternoon to experience a little Carnival craziness here.

There are still so many things I want to see in Panama City and so little time. We’ll catch as much as we can and then head on to the next port. It’s a big world out here and there is just not enough time to see it all, but we keep working at seeing and experiencing as much as possible.