I really don't know how to write the latest on the details of Jim's trip to Sunshine without making it sound so horrible! I've been waiting for him to email pix to me, but of course he's been extremely busy, he's not sleeping well- one of the boats next to Sunshine that's being repaired has tarps all over it & it's been windy. So I'm sure w/ just a little bit of imagination, you can hear the potato chip crumpling sound in your head right now from the tarp!
He spent the 1st two days, Monday & Tuesday, cleaning up the inside of the boat so she looks spiffy for Bob's arrival. Only to get a phone call from Bob that he just realized- the day he's suppose to come down, that his passport had expired. Ugh!!! The prop shaft he had made here, he was not able to take w/ him on the plane due to a oversized luggage embargo that started 3 DAYS, yes, 3 days before he went down! Ugh!!! Thankfully he was able to get one made down there cheap, but now we are the... proud? owners of a custom made prop shaft in Michigan! Any takers!!??
The new prop shaft was ready Thursday morning, and he also got the bottom paint on Wednesday. Once he found out he could get 1 or 2 more cans - I can't remember for sure, of black bottom paint for $200 less than the marina was going to charge us for 4 gallons of RED-(yuk), he opted for the better deal, even though it was going to take a couple extra days to get it. All this time too, he noticed a couple new areas on Sunshine's hulls that showed up since we left 2 months ago, that now needed repaired. Sooooooooooo, in a nutshell, Sunshine will be staying right where she is to get a little more work done until Jim & Bob return in a couple weeks to meet up & move Sunshine. He did still have Les & Lea come from Portobello, they arrived on Wednesday around Noon. At that time he was still hoping to get Sunshine splashed & moved to Bocas. They have been very helpful, cooking & cleaning, someone to bounce ideas off of & give some of their own, just great support for Jim. We are doing our best to remain positive that this current delay is again for a good reason. There is something better planned, whatever that may be. What else ya gonna do in a situation like this?.... sulk, cuss & curse? I suppose that would be one way to deal w/ it, but that doesn't really help in the long run. We'll see where this leads. In the meantime, I'm here in Michigan, property hunting. Think we might have found "the one"- piece of land for us to build our home. Looking forward to driving out to it later this week w/ Jim & seeing what he thinks!
His flight out of Panama is tomorrow (Sunday) morning-we're counting down the hours!
I'll make sure to post some photos later in the week.