After 15 days in Seattle, it was hard to get back into the groove of Panama. The lunches, brunches, dinners, happy hours, gifts, spa - spoiled the heck out of me. The vacation started with a day spa at Olympic Spa in Lynnwood - a treat from my sister Beth; followed by Chinese dinner treat by my sister Marcy; then brunch from my bicycle team (Elle, Marlene, Rosemarie, Cheryl and Darlene). Can't ask for anything more.

The trip to Seattle was accelerated by the repair of our GPS, Wind instrument and radar damaged by lightning. To ship these instruments from Panama would have taken at least 3 extra weeks. We thought that if we overnight them UPS from Seattle would save us those 3 weeks enabling us to take off to San Blas with our friends from SV Talaria and SV Blue.

It's been over a month since we sent out our instruments and here we are, sitting in Shelter Bay Marina twiddling our thumbs waiting for approval from our insurance company to either repair or replace our damaged instruments.

This place is not a bad place to hang out. There's a swimming pool, a gym, a nice huge cruiser's lounge equipped with wifi and big screen tv. There's a good restaurant, a small store, lots of hikes and good company. It's been raining a lot and squalls of lightning and thunder mostly at night. Walking Angel is so much easier than if we were anchored somewhere in the Pacific side. At night when it's not raining, a group of fireflies entertains us and Angel.

Because of United Airlines' cabin pet restrictions, our family will not be able to go home for the holidays. We've researched holiday activities in the marina and Chris, the restaurant manager said that the restaurant will provide the roast turkey and the cruisers will bring the side dishes and desserts. As for Christmas, we'll wear our Christmas hats and splurge on huge chunks of tenderloin. For New Year, we have a tradition of sharing a chilled bottle of champagne to a chosen cruiser. The first year we were out, we celebrated New Year with SV Feliz (Hannah, her husband, little Max and little Mia ). Last year, we toasted with SV Tequila Mockingbird. This year, we haven't picked a boat yet although the marina is full of them. If by chance we get out of Panama before the holidays (i.e Columbia or Costa Rica??) we will go home to celebrate with our families.

We'll keep our fingers crossed.