Things are looking up. We have mitigated our boat crisises, managing the systems problems and finally took off for San Blas islands again. The sail eastward was spectacular with 15 kt on a beam, and 5-6 feet swell. It took us about 8 hours to cover almost 50 nautical miles, and snugly anchored in one of our favorite spots in Eastern Lemon Cays.

On Friday we reunited with our "new best friends" Jackie and Mel from "Feisty" who sailed almost 20 n.m. from Coco Banderas to meet with us, attracted by smell of freshly baked challah, Carol got them addicted to. We had great dinner with them and their guests from Florida aboard their beautiful vessel. Everyone had good time in good company toasting : "There are wooden ships and the steel ships, but the best ships are the friendships".

The weather is unusually cool (84F) and cloudy for this time of the year here, but today the Colombian Low moved to West and we had a full day of sunshine. I am happy, my solar panels are happy, ship's batteries are happy, we making water and Carol smiles. Considering how remote this area is, it is miraculous that we are capable to make air travel reservations and update our blog from here. We plan to move farther east from this area soon and the communication will not be possible any longer, so I am taking advantage to do this.

So you don't get too envious....we had some darker experiences of cruising lifestyle since our last report. Our "faithful" outboard motor was stolen at the little dock in Rio Chagres, while we were shopping in town. That forced us to leave the river prematurely, and necessitated taking a dock side at Panama Canal Yacht Club in Colon. After extensive 8 days "Colonoscopy", we have secured a replacement motor and brought it from Panama City, completely provisioned, and left Colon for San Blas in a company of Mel and Jackie of "Feisty".