At Shelter Bay Marina

Hi All,

16/6/2012

At Shelter Bay Marina

Early morning excitement was a alligator - not that big less than 2m - swimming amongst the boats.

Got booked in at the marina office and can now connect to the internet via WiFi. The Admearsurer - the person who measured your boat and takes all the details they require to slot you into the transit programme - arrived around 12:00, measured up the boat and filled in lots of forms. Our Agent, Roy Bravo, arrived a little later while I was busy with the dock master. He soon put the dock master to rights about our transit status and avoided the extra costs associated with him.

Rob and I took a lift from Roy to the canal. We paid our $5 and were able to watch ships passing through the Gatun locks into the Caribbean Sea. It was interesting to see the effect of the water flooding the lower lock.

Initially the turbulence caused by the in-coming water is sever but slacks off as the water level rises. For us this could be an interesting time.

Guess the line handlers will have to hang on tight.

So we wait for our allocation of transit - hopefully early next week. We plan to stock up here and not stop at Panama City.

17/6/2012

In Shelter Bay

Roy Bravo has advised us that we will transit on the 22nd. So we will stock up take fuel, transit and continue on our way.

Rob comes up with all sorts of hair brain schemes when in port. Today he wants to hire a bicycle and ride to San Lorenzo - a distance of about 9 miles through the jungle. Somehow he persuaded me to join him. So we duly hired two bikes from the Dock Shop a set off to San Lorenzo. San Lorenzo is in a National Park. The road looks flat but it has a habit of rising steadily if not steeply and in the heat that soon puts the pressure on. It took us about two hours to get to San Lorenzo, which is an old Spanish fort built in 1620 to protect the export route for the treasures plundered by the Spanish from Peru etc. The Chagres River was the main route for these exports and it enters the sea at San Lorenzo. The Chagres River was dammed to form the Gatun Lake, which provides all the water for the locks. Strange fort, its sits quite high above the sea but only has two batteries facing the sea while there are four facing the land. If the jungle that is there now was there 400 years ago, I don't know how anyone could have mounted a serious attack from the land.

From the fort we made our way down to a small beach round the corner from the fort. Lots of flotsam on the beach and no waves and very warm water.

However it provided a good rest from riding and the heat. The only drawback was the that we now had to climb the hill back to the main road. We both gave in and pushed. Once back on the main road things became a lot easier and we got back to Shelter Bay quite quickly. Three beers disappeared remarkably quickly, the a swim and finally I am just about human again.

Cheers

Chris