Shelter Bay Marina – Rumors of my death have been greatly exagerated

I am very happy to tell you that rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.  As you can see I am ALIVE AND WELL.

I never realized that my lack of correspondences would prompt a lovely couple from the US to fly out to Panama and come to Shelter Bay Marina looking for me.

“I am so sorry for worrying you Richard and Diana, but admit it, you were looking for an excuse for a holiday anyway”.

I really do not have a good excuse for neglecting the blog. I am sorry guys. It just seemed to me that the ‘day to day’ routine of the humans working was……well…..a little boring.

If you really are interested, than I guess I should take the time and tell you what we have been up to.

SHORT VERSION

Eat, drink, work, repeat

LONG VERSION

Of course there is lots more to living and working in Panama than that!

But the whole purpose of us all stopping here, before heading off to the Pacific, was to make some money and get some work done on the boat.

I am happy to say, with my help, the humans have managed to do both.

*Note to anyone with out a boat yet

*******************    You are never done fixing your boat!   *************

But we have had lots of fun along the way and made some great new friends.

Here is a little run down of how a typical day goes around here at Shelter Bay Marina.

Morning starts with me trying to get a bit more of a ‘lie in’ while the humans participate in the Marina’s morning net for visiting cruisers.

Broadcast on the VHF radio each morning it lists

-the weather

-canal notifications

-local information, discounts and the Marinas free bus service

-activities in the Marina

-and the popular ‘buy, sell and trade

Than we are all off, skipping the morning yoga classes so I can have a good run on the beach.

One of the humans heads over to open The Sail Loft for business and get the free herb garden watered.

The humans could not get the budget to paint the old theatre building, in which the Sail Loft is housed.  So they invited the cruisers  to paint it themselves.  It is quickly getting covered in boat images, boat and crew names and any other paintings the cruisers fancy leaving behind.

Day

While everyone else is having fun, I put the humans to work.  If they are not working in The Sail Loft than I have them working on our own boat.

4:15pm I have them leading Aqua-fit in the Marina pool.

Then it is back to The Sail Loft in the busy months or a more relaxing evening in the slower months.

Night

The cruising lot are social butterflies and many are willing to share their talents and skill.  There is something to do every evening in the Marina.  Movie nights, information talks, BBQs, games and music.

There are some specially organized trips, festivals and the occations shopping trip to Panama City, but that really sums up what you have been missing.

See, I told you it was all very boring.

But,

it is going to get a little crazy soon.  Lift out time.  The dreaded ‘life on the hard’.

A reminder of just two of the inconveniences when you are living on a boat lifted out of the water.

You think that is bad.  Well it gets worse.

The humans have decided to Copper Coat the bottom of the boat in preparation for our cruise around the Pacific islands.

Sounds like a great idea, until you hear that they want to do all the work themselves.

 

I am sure you will want to know how that job goes.

I promise I will keep you informed.

 

In the mean time:

If you have any questions about ‘stopping and working’ while you are cruising, please add them to the comments section and I will do my best to answer.