Back at Shelter Bay Marina, our primary goal was to ready Elevation for haul out. We spent a week completing all the necessary "on water" tasks - cleaning & polishing, both inside and out; engine and generator maintenance; sorting out food supplies and vacuum packing provisions as necessary; and prepping for our "on the hard" job list. Paul was unhappy with the performance of our engine - he had tweaked the fuel flow whilst we were out in the Guna Yala which, instead of giving us additional speed actually decreased output. Fearing either an issue with the injectors or fuel pump, he decided to consult Greg aka "The Engine Whisperer" who is a cruiser and long term resident at the marina. Both agreed that the best course of action was to remove the injectors for testing. The weekly SBM bus run to Panama City had been cancelled whilst we were out on anchor, meaning that we needed to engage a driver for the day. Greg recommended a guy called Roger (Rogelio) - very reliable, reasonably priced and very knowledgeable about marine suppliers and other service providers. So, off to Panama City we went. Testing the injectors was our first mission; all ok, with the guys at Rivas Picas not even charging us for checking them! The technician suggested that Paul make a further minor adjustment to our fuel pump (there is apparently a small grub screw that may also have needed to be tweaked - the fuel pump was rebuilt in Bali in 2010 in some difficult conditions and this screw may be the reason that the engine was being overfuelled after Paul's initial adjustment). The rest of the day was spent chasing Yanmar spares (as it turns out, they are very well priced here at around 1/3 of the cost in either Australia or the USA), purchasing oil and other miscellaneous items. Navigating your way around Panama City is pretty tricky as for some reason, there are no actual street addresses and the locals locate places via landmarks. Luckily, Roger has been a resident of PC for over 30 years and if he doesn't know where something is, it isn't worth finding! He helped us track down what we thought was going to be a retail outlet for Nespresso (it was actually someone's apartment and was several storeys up in a building undergoing significant renovation). He also introduced us to a great chandlery - Centro Marino - and a fabulous hardware/department store called Discovery which was filled with so many items we hadn't seen in ages, including Foodsaver bags and rolls for our vacuum packer. We certainly would never have stumbled across such a treasure trove on our own and knowing what's available means we won't have to cart masses of supplies back from our Aussie trip!

Working through the last of our freezer supplies, we invited Mike and Leanne from Ooroo 1 - another Aussie vessel home ported in Fremantle - for a lamb roast. What a fun night .... we love other cruisers company, and to have dinner with some of our own Freo tribe and fellow Dockers tragics was especially enjoyable. Needless to say the wine and the conversation flowed !!!!

With all our onboard work completed, we hauled out on 23 August. The yard guys were prompt and professional and our lift was a seamless process. Our major jobs were to swap out the cutlass bearing and the PSS shaft seal; this meant that we needed to remove both the propeller and the shaft. Two very long days of work ensued however we completed everything successfully plus stripped and polished all prop blades. Next was some bottom painting - due to the constant rain that fell in Jamaica whilst we were painting our new rudder, over 1/3 of the antifoul had simply "fallen off". With all our land based tasks completed, we oversaw the installation of a dehumidifier in the galley - an absolute essential in the tropics to ensure that mould is held at bay internally - plus set cockroach baits in a number of strategic locations. In the nine years that we have been liveaboards, we've been super vigilant about keeping vermin at bay and having seen a couple of roaches fly in whilst in our slip, we were not keen to have them move on board!

With our bags packed, it was time to say goodbye to our beautiful girl; she is to be transferred to the secure hardstanding area, where full shrinkwrap will be applied in order to minimise grime and moisture for the 6 months she will be land based. We're now off to Panama City to play Turista!