After 2 weeks of hot and full on working, less a day off in the hills and a trip to Panama city to collect visas we seem to be ready to go.
Shimshal is stuffed with goodies, every locker, spare bunk, box, nook and craney is full of food. There are even onion hammocks hanging in the galley and fruit nets on the davits. Fuel and water tanks topped up, gas bottles filled and Jerry cans stored away. Sails have been pulled out of storage and pulled up the forestay. Sally has navigated her way through the local bureaucracy, we think, so all the boat paperwork and our passports are stamped and all boxes ticked or crossed or shaded as requested.
Tomorrow we leave the marina which has looked after us so well over this hectic phase of the trip and sail away. Tonight is the last time we will be tied up to a dock or dry land for the next 4 months, its the anchor or sailing through the night from now on.
We plan to leave for the Pearl islands tomorrow about 10 hours sail and spend few days there and then direct to the Gallapogos islands, a trip of about 800 miles as the blue footed boobie flies. We should be there around the middle of February.
The real adventure is about to begin.