La Sirena is secure in her berth at Marina Club de Pesca. Although we arrived here on December 12, we neglected to post details and photos of our leisurely, ten day sail through the San Blas Islands of Panama and the overnight passage from San Blas to Colombia. It seemed to us an uneventful reversal of last season's adventure, without many of the unknowns.

The Christmas celebrations have ended and we are spending a quiet afternoon aboard 'La Sirena' so we may enjoy a late evening in the Old City. Last year's New Year celebration was amazing and we are looking forward to a similar experience this evening. (more later)

It's the New Year's Day, 2010! We returned to the boat at 1 AM, after an evening of dining and conversation with good friends and watching Cartagena's fireworks from atop the city's 16th century wall.

May the next decade be in every way better than the past.

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We leave Panama and the security of Shelter Bay Marina tomorrow morning. Our route will be easward along the coast of Panama to Islas San Blas. We hope to enjoy those islands for a few days before making the overnight passage to Cartagena, Colombia. While I was in Panama City awaiting Mary's arrival from her Cabo San Lucas "vacation" the weather improved for just long enough to get La Sirena's bottom painting done. We launched the boat a few days later, courtesy of the yard's 100 ton Marine Travelift.

This will be the last blog posting until we arrive in Cartagena, hopefully by mid-December. Mary and I are looking forward to that...renewing friendships there and enjoying the holiday festivites.

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'La Sirena' has been hauled from the water to the marina's dry storage yard for her periodic coat of anti-fouling paint and the numerous chores necessary to bring her back to life after our six month absence. I returned to Panama alone three weeks ago to finish the re-commissioning before Mary's arrival this weekend. In the meantime I have learned another 'inconvenient truth'. It is that Panama's average annual rainfall exceeds 130 inches, most of which occurs during October and November. To a midwesterner, the recent rainfall has been impressive, to say the least. At this writing, I have no idea when the painting will be done. Meanwhile, I've taken up residence in the marina's hotel. Living aboard a boat 'on the hard' is no fun. Above all, Mary does not like climbing a 15 foot ladder to reach the deck of the boat. Incidentally, in the above photo of the marina's dry storage yard, 'La Sirena' is the the one with a beige and green hull, just beyond the buildings.

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Leaving our boat in a marina for the summer is a time of mixed feelings and hard work. We hate to end an enjoyable sailing season but we look forward to the comforts of life ashore. Preparing La Sirena for storage takes more time and effort with each passing year...the aging effect. This time we gave ourselves more than a week to do the necessary cleaning and maintenance projects and to arrange for the boat's care in our absence. Then, we were off to Panama City on the Pacific coast.

We spent our last week here experiencing Panama's cultural and environmental diversity. A journey to the interior via dugout canoe to visit an Embera tribal village was among the highlights of this season. These forest dwellers live quiet, almost idylic lives. Modern humans have broken many links with the natural world. Our food and drink are pre-packaged, we take pills instead of chewing medicinal leaves, and we ignore our circadian rhythms. Not so with the Emberas. We enjoyed their food, handcrafts, music and dance as well as a lesson on the health and healing value of many tropical plants.

Panama City is at the other end of this panorama. Its tall buildings, mostly condominiums, are home to Panama's more afluent population and they overshadow the run-down barrios of the less fortunate. Still, it was exciting to be there for several days. We visited museums and the old colonial city, transited the entire Panama Canal, and dined in several of the city's fine restaurants.

We expect to return to Panama in late fall and perhaps repeat our experiences of the past cruising season. Ultimately, we must plan our return to the US via the Central American coast, the northwest Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

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It's Monday evening, 30 March, and we've moved to Chichime, the starting point for our westward sail to Colon, Panama. Our destination is Shelter Bay Marina where the boat will stay for the next six months or so. We will depart Panama for the US on 20 April, after a busy three weeks of boat preparation and hauling her ashore, packing and (finally) a week of relaxation and sight-seeing, including a transit of the Panama Canal on a touring vessel.

Early this morning we left the East Lemmon Cays and sailed to Porvenir, about an hour away, to deal with Panama Customs and the check-out process. That is really an "iffy" situation as the Port Captain here has a reputation for not showing up and delaying the well made plans of cruisers. This was our lucky day, all went well. Perhaps a carry-over of our previous day's good times when we enjoyed the activities of native "ulu" dug-out canoe races, happy hour, dinner and good company, all of which nicely capped our past several months in San Blas. We have a two day sail (and and overnight anchorage midway at Linton) ahead of us and we will depart before 7 AM tomorrow., Once we get settled in Shelter Bay Marina I will get on to the internet and upload the latest photos for our blog's albums. Stay tuned!

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The weekly cruiser's Monday potluck on a nearby beach was a made-to-order occasion for Mary's birthday celebration. Mary enjoyed the recognition and she couldn't have asked for a more lively bunch of well-wishers. Where else could she have heard "Happy Birthday" sung in English, Spanish, German, Japanese, etc? Of course, she would have been equally pleased to celebrate her day among home friends. Wednesday brought another birthday celebration ashore for Dianne, a single-hander aboard her sailboat "Takes Me Away". Incidentally, she teaches sailing in Bayfield, Wisconsin, during the summer. Her sister arrived earlier to arrange a luau- theme dinner, with games and music into the night. Now, Friday, we have just returned from an evening with Susanne and Hans, aboard their boat, "Nautibear". They are a delightful German couple whom we met at another anchorage last month. We will say farewell to all our new friends when next week we begin our sail west to Colon and then to Wisconsin in mid-April. By the way, selected photos of the past few weeks will show up in our blog's album after we reach Colon and our slip at Shelter Bay Marina.

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