We are in the Panama Canal. We can be tracked:
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0A5fWAUd5dHbk2aZ
Our luck has changed for the better. We had a comparatively comfortable two-day sail from Isla Providencia to the Canal. We close-reached for two days in a blustery trade wind. The last 20 miles of the last leg in the Caribbean was spent with full sail and no water coming on deck. It was dry and easy. The Caribbean at last let loose her stranglehold she had on us since we entered her. This was the first time since day one we had a full genoa set. It was a parting gift from the Caribbean. Maybe she rewarded us for our tenacity.
A measurer from the Panama Canal Authority came by and measured Reliant/Relianto to assess the cost for her to transit. All total with agents and handlers cost will be about $2000. Part of our responsibility is to provide good meals for the required pilot that goes with us through the canal. Apparently, they are very serious about the quality of the meals being of the highest standard. It is possible to make the fifty mile trek in a day but at times, boats have to anchor in the middle of the canal overnight. We will have the three of us and two line handlers and a pilot. We have three berths on Reliant/o. We shall see how that goes. I am excited to make the passage through.The Pacific Ocean lie ahead only fifty miles away. Maybe it will be an easy trip or perhaps a new fresh hell to go through. That is what makes this exciting, you never know what lie ahead.
A strange number of incidences have passed regarding similarities to this trip and a book I wrote. I wrote the book last year. It is about a boy and an old man, forced by life circumstance to sail from Tampa Bay to Costa Rica. When I wrote the book, I no intent or thought about buying a boat band duplicating the trip. After I finished the book (nearly finished), Lindsey and talked about opening a charter business at home in Costa Rica. We decided to do it and now, I am now duplicating the very trip I wrote about. Life imitates fiction. A number of very uncanny events have happened that cause me pause. In the book (A Change of Course) the boy, Jeff, gets permission to remove one of the spreader lights off the mast. In the middle of my mast climb out in the Yucatan Passage, the halyard holding my bosuns’ chair, dragged across one of Reliant’s spreader lights and damaged it. I removed it leaving my real boat with one spreader light just like the fictional boat, Primo, that I wrote about. I will report the other similarities later.
I just learned that we are scheduled to go through the canal tomorrow afternoon. Dec. 23. Meredith has more information on her Facebook page, Meredith Brown.
22 Deciembre, 2013
Shelter Bay
Panama
Reliant/Relianto
Injured Reserve
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