We were under way by 8:00 motoring out of a nearly windless bay. By the time we were out a ways, there was enough breeze to make it worthwhile to unroll gennie, but wrong angle for spinnaker and not enough to really make raising the main worth the effort . When we were 4 nm. Out from the breakwater, I called Cristobal Signal and requested directions for entering the breakwater. He advised me to proceed to the W breakwater entrance “avoiding traffic.” Yeah, there's the rub. The w entrance is the main one used by ships bound through the canal, but to get there, we had to cross the E entrance which is used by ships bound for Colon. On the AIS I could see a ship heading out the E entrance as we approached. It didn't take long before we had visual contact as well and, of course, his bearing remained fixed as we closed. (That means you are on an intercept or collision course.) Not feeling the need to assert my right of way, I throttled back and let him pass in front of us. No sooner had we cleared his wake than we had another ship, this one inbound, and also on a fixed bearing and closing quickly, and this time he had the right of way technically as well as by size. I turned to his stern and again throttled back. That got us through the approach to the E entrance and we headed for the W (the breakwater is about 5 nm. Long). When we were 1 nm. From the breakwater I called Cristobal Signal again. I identified one ship approaching the breakwater from inside and was given permission to enter the breakwater as soon as he exited again “avoiding traffic.” All the ships on the outside appeared to still be at anchor although as we closed with the breakwater, I heard Cristobal Signal give permission for one of them to enter W entrance of breakwater. By then we were through the entrance and running parallel to it on the inside headed for Shelter Bay Marina, except that I could not get Shelter Bay to answer my call on channel 74 VHF which is the channel they told me to monitor. The entrance was pretty obvious so we just continued on and kept calling. Finally I told them in my hailing that we were at the entrance and needed direction to a slip. This time they came back and assigned us to D-7, nearly at the far end of the marina. This turned out to be nice as E dock is not yet completed so we had extra room to maneuver into our slip and no one behind us. We docked and tied up without incident. Shelter Bay is a pretty nice marina. They have a large swimming pool (over run by kids during the day, but the adults seem to drive them out around 5:00), very nice showers, a laundromat, and a very inefficient office. When I approached the office to check in, I was shocked to find a “take a number” machine like they use at the deli! So, I took my number and waited. Except they weren't really using the numbers today, people just when in more or less in the order they arrived. So finally I got in and got registered for my one night in the water and then was told that I needed to get another bundle of paperwork, complete that, review it with Dave, the yard manager, and return to the office to pay for the haulout and yard work before they would haul us. Why that couldn't have been done in one visit is beyond me. I got it done. Deb did laundry. We met our dock neighbors, one of whom is a garrulous old Englishman who was well into his cups by noon. He invited us over for a drink and I found out why - his rum & coke was 80% rum and 20% coke. I actually like it better that way! Around 5:00 we joined the other adults in the pool to cool off. We met a couple who had just come from Bocas. It turns out they are good friends of George & Sue in Tierra Oscura. Small world. Wednesday is “dinner and a movie” night at the marina, this week's feature “The Rock” - a great flick, and Friday is pot luck barbecue so it sounds like we will have fun even while we are working. I decided to put on the bottom paint myself as they charge $60/gallon to apply it. I also was able to buy the bottom paint from the Colon Free Zone at a great discount (~50%). I have to pay cash and they deliver it right to the Reys Supermarket where the shuttle from the marina picks you up, couldn't be easier. We'll do it tomorrow and check out the shopping center as well. Haulout @ 8:00 – more excitement.