Hey Y'all,  We had a October Fest weekend and Karen and I went to drink and have a little fun. The little fur ball in this first shot is a friend of ours pet. She is 14 and Omar or what ever his name is follows her like a dog would.

 There seems to be a lot of Texans here, this a couple we met that are heading to Rockport in a day or two to spend the winter there. They will then start out for the eastern side of the Caribbean.

  Just a group shot of the party, there was over a hundred people there listening to the two bands that was playing. Maybe next posting will be more interesting.

  See Y'all Down the Road,
Mike & Karen

OK, I know that we have been silent for quite a while, well that's because a new camera and new program would not let me upload photos so I had to find a way.

 Here are some photos of the things we have seen and done. Now I still can't get them in order so just bear with me and I'll try to explain what we have been doing. The top photo is Karen in our hotel in Panama city on the patio. We stay here because it is next to the airport and a easy way to be on time. The hotel would be classified as a 4 star with a great bar and restaurant.

The next one is pictographs in a remote area of Bogette where we spent a week just enjoying the climate ant the hot springs, The hot spring are 4 different temps. going from 140 to 120. Karen and I could not stay in any but maybe 5 minutes. After that there is a jump into the ice cold river, we past that one up.

  This is still at the hotel, I couldn't get Karen to play a game of chess. She said the board was too big.

  OK we missed the coffee plantation in Colombia so we found on here. The first photo is the bean drying. This is a small plantation with nothing but speciality coffee. Now don't think this guy is that small, his beans sell for $ 500.00 for a thirty five pound sack of dried beans. What you are looking at is about $ 1000.00 worth of beans here.

 These are the trees that they grow on,I know they look like bushes but they are trees. They keep them top off to grow a thicker foliage there for more beans.

  While we were there our guide roasted the same beans to 3 different roast, as you can see you have light,medium, and dark. The roasting is timed and we where told the more you roast the less caffeine you get. So the light roast has more of a kick than dark. Well we learned a hell of a lot more about coffee than I wanted to know. I probably should mention that getting to the plantation we were in an open bed truck and we were in a down pour at the time during the whole time we were there.

  Just another look at what the poor folks are doing while y'all are all out there making your fortunes So OBAMA can redistribute it among his people. SO EVERYBODY WHO CAN GET OUT AND VOTE THIS NOVEMBER.

See Y'all Down the Road

Mike & Karen

Hey Y'all, We just arrived here in Bocas del Toro. As we came in from the sea and rounded the end of the island we are staying at we had our first smell of the aroma of the jungle here. They have a tree here that the make Chanel perfume from and it smells great.
  We are getting on the water taxi this morning and going to town, will let y'all know how it is.
See Y'all Down the Road
Mike & Karen

Hey Y'all,

Just a few random photos for you since we are not doing anything but waiting for Karen to finish all her dentist finished.

See Y'all Down the Road

Mike & Karen

Hey Y'all,
     I finished installing our new engine yesterday. It took me two and a half days to install but we have been waiting on parts for over a month.
     Karen fell or tripped on the dock the other day and chipped a tooth so we have to go to the denist Monday and start getting it fixed before we can leave here. I think we will be out of here in 2 weeks.
We are going to Bocas del Toro for the rest of the year, just to wait out all the big winds.
See Y'all Down the Road
Mike & Karen

Hey Y'all, Today our new engine is being delivered. After 30 days of waiting and a few phone calls it will be here. I think it will be about 10 to 15 days before we head out to Bocas del Toro and we start back with blog.
 I just had a small operation in Panama City so that will slow me down just a little. This is just an update so my one reader in KW who lives vicariously through this blog will know whats happening.
See Y'all Down the Road.
Mike & Karen

Hey Y'all just a little note to let you know what's going on with us.

We are sitting in Puerto Rico for some doctor appointments and enjoying Marina de Salinas. We will be here for about 2 weeks and then back to Panama to put a new engine in our boat. That's right we blew the engine up on the boat. Now our engine is 12 years old but only had 3000 hours on it and that's just getting broke in. It seems like the Yanmar 3GMs or not rebuild able.

So we purchased a new one in Panama and it will be delivered when we get back. One good thing about it this one fits in the same foot print.

Here are a few photos that in my computer that Karen and I have taken while touring Panama and I thought y'all might like. The top one is one of Karens close relations that she is proud of. The Toucans are all over and so are the monkeys. We are use to waking up to the howler monkeys but here in PR we wake to dogs barking,quite the difference. Well in a few days I'll post again when the mood hits me.

See Y'all Down the Road

Mike & Karen

Hey Y'all, Karen left out or lost a few of the photos of our tour of Colon. The Panamanians are making a new set of locks at both ends of the canal.

 Here are a few photos of the excavation that you can see on the Colon side. now they were planning on opening this in 2014 but as any of you can see they still have 3 or 4 to go. best laid plan and all that.

 Panama isn't doing any of the construction but are taking the credit for it until the delay came and then it all changed. Most of the financing is coming from China but not a well known fact.

 We are going on a little tour today of another fort, like we haven't seen any of them before. I guess I have seen damn nearly every fort in the eastern and now the western Caribbean.

See Y'all Down the Road

Mike & Karen

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise.  You are getting Karen today instead of Mike.  Wednesday we took a tour of Colon and we saw parts of that city that we had no idea were there.  The picture above is at a battery and it shows how the Panama Canal was built.  It's truly an amazing sight.

The gentleman in the picture with Mike is a friend of ours named Jerry and he gave us the tour.  He has been here for over a year and had a marina at the Rio Dolce.  This shows a picture of Lake Gatun that made the Canal.  It is truly beautiful.

Here is a picture of a hotel swimming pool on the lake.  It is 2 tiered and has a bar in the water.  I could see my granddaughter Rebecca and grandson Josh having the time of their life there.  Panama is full of beautiful birds and lots and lots of monkeys.  I had a picture of me but lost it so I thought I'd write this blog to let Mike Haskins know I am alive and well.  

See Y'all Down the Road

Karen & Mike

Chagres

 Hey Y'all, Karen & I spent a few days on the Chagres River. This is the river that feeds the man made lake Gatun for the canal. The river is part of the rain forest and is full of birds and monkeys.

I've tried to upload all the photos but it has taken 1 hour to put these on the blog. We ran up and down the river to look at the wild life. Plenty of Toucans and parrots. We looked for this trail that was suppose to be at a certain location and we could not find it. I guess I'm not much of a nimrod or pathfinder. Well without the trail we could not get to where the monkeys are located. I kind of thought that they would travel to the edge of the river but they don't. You can here them just inside the jungle but you can't see them. Well not to be out done by a bunch of Karen's relatives I found a few inlets that go inland. One of these are in the guide book so I guess I wasn't the first, anyway up one was suppose to be an old concrete bridge( not there) and no monkeys. We went up and down these inlets and could here the damn things but could not see them. We where so disappointed that we could not get monkeyed. I guess y'all don't know what monkeyed is, so here goes. Being monkeyed is when they either move over the top of you are you move under them.When they see you they get all excited and all bodily functions start to happen. Some of this is thrown at you plus leafs and sticks. Well for 2 days we could not get monkeyed. Now remember I'm not going to be out done. The day before we left late in the evening we jumped in the dingy and went to an inlet that we could here the monkeys. Guess what we were under a troop of howlers. The first thing that happened was they became excited and started to monkey around. After the first splash Karen is howling as loud as the monkeys letting me know that she wanted me to back the dingy up. We hung around fer a little while just to say we were monkeyed. I don't think we need to do that again.
        We are setting in the marina waiting on parts again and can't leave just yet so I can't say when the next update will be so.
See Y'all Down the Road
Mike & Karen

Hey Y'all, I tried to download some photos from our canal trip this morning but the Internet is too slow.
     We are sitting on the boat waiting on our new stack pack and paying out more money to the marina.
      This Shelter Bay marina is the most expensive we have been in.
I'll try to finish the canal trip tomorrow if I can load the photos, so don't think I have forgot about y'all.
See Y'all Down the Road
Mike & Karen

Hey Y'all Karen and I just went through the Panama canal. This is the lady from NZ. and just finished a circle of the Atlantic ocean and are heading home. We were rafted up with this vessel through the chambers 2 by 2.

Here are a few photos of the locks as we were transiting through the first 3. The first 3 locks on the Gatun side are all in one with 3 chambers, each chamber raises your boat 28 feet. The lake is 84 ft. above sea level. The lines from the boats are put on a bollard on top of the wall and all the line handlers do is keep the slack out and the boats in the center of the chamber. Really easy.

Here we are getting locked into the first lock and the rest are just the same so I'll just show more photos.

This is what it looks like from the bottom going from one chamber to the next. You can see the line handlers walking our lines from one to the next.

Now there are a lot more photos of the crossing but this blog will not let me put them where I want them so if it seems a little screwy it's not my fault. We had a good time and spent the night in lake Gatun. I'm going to close out now because the photos are getting totally out of control. Tomorrow we have to go to town so it will be a couple of days before I get back.
See Y'all Down the Road.
Mike & Karen

OK, I know I promised to get back to the blog sooner than this but we have been hauled out and been to busy to do anything. Y'all who have or had a boat on the hard you know what it's like.
We have been waiting for 2 days to be put back in the water, the ship yard's tralier broke a hydraulic line and here in Panama that is a major part. If were not in a third world you just go to the auto parts store and get a new one.
We had to pull the engine out of the boat so I could fix the gear. While thinking about what I had to do, i needed new motor mounts so I ordered them from the States. Well I amost had a heart attack when FedEx wanted $582.00 to ship to Panama. The package weighed 8 pounds. We had 2 more packages to be shipped here and each one was at least that weight so it was cheaper to send Karen to the States to pick every thing up and put in luggage and fly back. She didn't mind because she spent 3 days with the grand kids and Michelle & James.
Getting back to what's going on now, if we get the boat back in the water today we can move out of this hotel room and back to our normal life, if you can say our life is normal.
Friday Karen & I are going to line handle on a sloop thats going through the canal. She will take plenty of photos and I will post next week.
See Y'all Down the Road,
Mike & Karen

Ok we are still in Colon trying to find all the crap we need to haul out with. Everybody just said sofar good luck.
Karen and I are on Nagana or better known as Diablo village because of the Rio Diablo.
We where at a bunch more islands but if you have been to one uninhabited island you have pretty much seen them all. i'll post some more photos in a few days but all this conn. will allow is 2 at a time.
See Y'all Down the Road
Mike & Karen

OK, we left off leaving Ustopu for undisclosed islands and here we are in Tupile ( Too- Pee-Lee),we overnighted in Mono Island but there was nothing there so we moved on that AM. Tupile is a major market area for the Kunas and they bring there trade goods here for staples they can't grow on there own islands. Things like Spam and real heathy thing like cokes and candy.
The Kunas main tranportation is a dugout canoe and oars, some are more into using the wind that blows here at 17 to 25 knots every day as you can see from the photo.
We did a little shopping here and I found $ 14.50 a case beer and a bread that the Kunas bake thats ok but doesn't beat sliced bread at all. We met the young man that I played pool with in Ustupo and he carried us form store to store until Karen had everything on her list. I had to slow the boy down a couple of times because he liked to run and Karen & I are way to advanced to keep up with the young.
I watched the man from the boat work on the new dugout and the only tool he was using was a hatchet. That's all they use from stat to finish. This one looks like a 2 or 3 man canoe but they get bigger trees and dig one out that will be 5 ft of beam and 25 to 30 ft. long, raise the sides with hand cut 2 by 6 or 8 in. boards and slap a hand steered 85 or 90 HP. Yamaha and you have there version of a ferry and put 10 to 20 people in it to go from one island to the next.
Well that's about all for today Karen & I are going to sail to Colon today so I can Haul the boat out and do some repairs but I'll finish the San Blas Island while there and maybe catch up to the present.
See Y'all Down the Road
Mike & Karen

OK, just a couple of photos to show y'all two diff. villages, as you can see if you have seen 1 Kuna village you have seen them all,so no more photos of the villages.

Where did I leave off, I think it was Isla de Pinos. We left Pinos ond skipped on up toUstupu( S- Stew- Poo) where we met a few people and walked the village. This was a larger village with real restaurants and cold beer, the first cold beer on any island. I played a game of pool with a young Kuna and ofcourse let him win. We bought a few stables for the boat,(not much of grocery stores on these islands) and left the next day.

After missing all the reefs and skinney water we made another 5 or 6 miles, thats about as far as you travle in a day, to the next island. Now since I'm going to draw this out you won't find out for a day or two what that one is called.

See Y'all Down the Road

Mike & Karen

Hey Y'all

I'm going to start by saying it's been awhile since I had an internet conn. and this one is kind of slow. I'll just let you know what we have been doing. We left Santa Marta Feb. 9 and sailed for 2 days along the coast of Colombia arriving at a little bay on the Panama coast called ( Punta Perme).

The first couple of hours there we were visited by several Kuna Indians in dug out canoes wanting to sell us Molas and trinkets. We managed not to buy any at that moment but as you know things change. Next to visit us was 2 Kuna ladies in full Kuna dress and handed me a piece of paper with $ 10.00 on it. It seems you pay 10 to 15 dollars at each island for anchoring. We stayed there for a couple of days and started heading up island.

There is something y'all should know, there is no night sailing in the San Blas,daylight only. This is due to no charts of the area. My electronic chart plotter has blue areas and brown areas on it and thats all. When you are anchored at an island it may show you on the island are on the next island. This is not fun with all the reefs that are here. You look out at what you think should be open sea and all you see is breaking reef line everywhere.

Well the next island to visit was Isla de Pinos, a large bump in the road about 2 miles long and 1 mile wide with a small mountain in the middle. This is our first look at a Kuna village, we will see plenty more before we get out of here. Well because of the guide book we had to climb to the top of the little mountain because of the breath taking view. Nobody thought to tell karen that the guide book was published 12 years ago, you guessed it the breath taking view was all grown over with trees and scrub brush. The Kunas can care less about the view. Oh well we had a nice 3 hour climb anyway.

One of the Kunas came out to the boat telling us of his restarant that he had so we went in for lunch. Now this is a joke, here we are in a pole and grass hut with a dirt floor with the whole family eating at there table. I will admit that the food was good,but that's because it was coconut smoked fish, just because it was a Parot fish off the reef didn't mean anything.

I have uploaded 2 photos up top because I can't get the damn things to load where I want them, but as you see the village is rather primative and the restarant owner is short as are all of these indians. Ok thats enought for to day as I have a couple hundred e-mails to go through. I'll go to the next little island in a day are two with a couple more photos.

See Y'all Down the Road

Mike & Karen

Hey Y'all, well it's been a month since the last post and that's because for a while I had no computer and I had a trip to Pureto Rica for a Doctors appointment.


While in PR. I purchased a new unit but we still have nothing to post. For the last month we have not dune much except eat and drink. We where going to Minca for a couple of days to see the coffee plantation but the weather has changed and the wind has slowed down below 30 knots so we are getting ready to leave. We are heading to the San Blas Islands for about 2 months. Now I don't want any complaints about no postings because there are no internet or cell phones signals. I will post if we get to someplace in the northern end of the islands and can get a connection. There are 365 islands in this chain and 99 % are empty of people. There will be plenty of photos.


We did go out last sunday night to watch the super bowl at a hostal here in Santa Marta. Now this place is full of young people that are traveling through the carribbean with back packs and nothing else. As you can guess we were the oldest people there , but a good time was had by all. We didn't care how won so we just picked the side that everyone else was cheering against. our team lost.
See Y'all Down the Road,
Mike & Karen

Hey Y'all, here are some photos of Cartagena and ofcourse the all favorite potluck on Christmas day.

We spent 2 days last week in Cartagena looking at the old city and seeing to find some places to get some work done.

There are no places to buy anything for your boat,you have to bring everything with you from some other country. So what I found out was that the cruisers that say how cheap Colombia is for work on your boat, they must not need anything other than hauling out there boat.

On the right is the entrance to the old city. It is a complete walled city and kept up real well.

There we are with our guide taking the photo for our friend in K.W. so he will know that Karen is still weel and I have not got rid of her for one of these good looking Colombian girls.

Now this country like there bronze statues,they are everywhere.

Not to be left behind in the world in the old city they even have a Hard Rock.

Now as for as I'm concerned this is a 3rd. world country. They are trying to become one of the 1st.World countrys in South America but they have a long way to go.

The 18 th. I'm going to Puerto Rico for a few days and will be bring back cigars and meds. that you can get at any W.M. but not here. Now you can get any kind of controled meds by just asking for them,but don't get indegestion and need asn antacid.

The beer here is 4% and taste like it. Just as soon as I get back we will be leaving for Panama.

See Y'all Down the Road

Mike & karen