Happenings since our last update:
Hurricane Dean passed through the Caribbean while we were in Bonaire, so we headed south to Chichiriviche, Venezuela, which turned out to be one of our favorite places to date. We wound our way through the mangroves and anchored in a huge lagoon directly beneath very high cliffs. We were the only boat there. A short dinghy ride took us to the petroglyphs and cave paintings by Indians who lived there 6400 years ago. A truly peaceful place. And we never felt the least bit unsafe even though there was not another boat in sight. Since we were so close, we also visited Morocoy National Park. It was gorgeous but the fast power boats and the fact that there were no charts for the area put a damper on our enthusiasm. So we turned around and left after only a few minutes.

Back to Bonaire and then over to Curacao, where friends visited us for a week. Unfortunately, Hurricane Felix passed just north of Curacao while our guests were visiting. This hurricane was a "non-event" in Curacao, thank goodness. Winds stayed calm and we experienced very little rain. Would that all hurricanes would be so calm! We were extremely fortunate because the hurricane reformed the eye wall just as it passed over Curacao. When the eye wall was reforming, the wind intensity dropped significantly and the bands tightened. This caused low winds in the outer band that included Curacao. It could have been much, much worse.

After Curacao we took the offshore passage over Aruba and down to Cartagena, where we stayed for 2 months. This offshore passage was a sleigh ride! Winds were 20-25 knots consistently and we were riding a strong current in our favor. At one point we had out only 2 feet of genoa (no other sails) and were still doing over 6 knots boat speed over ground!!! We were trying to slow down so that we would arrive in Cartagena after sunrise. Wanted good light when navigating through the underwater wall at Boca Grande entrance. The opening in the underwater wall is only twice the width of the beam of our boat, so we needed to be sure to be dead center when going through that opening. Scary thought, isn't it? This underwater wall was built by the Spanish to keep out invaders. It worked amazingly well. The city was never taken after building this wall.

Thoroughly loved the old walled city of Cartagena and would recommend it highly. Lots of history and lots of things to see and do -- like the Gold Museum, learning about the ancient Zenu Indians and the incredible drainage system and agriculture areas they devised, which the Spanish then destroyed when they arrived in South America (and now that region suffers from flooding each year during rainy season). And the House of Pain (Spanish Inquisition); lots of churches; La Popa; the enormous fort; and many other places. Cartagena is definitely a place not to be missed.

Early November found us motoring for 29 hours into the current from Cartagena to the San Blas Islands (Kuna Yala) of Panama, where we island hopped for about 5 weeks. We enjoyed lots of lobsters and a few huge crabs. Also bought some of the molas as gifts for family and friends. The Kuna people are quite unique and have preserved their traditional lifestyle wonderfully. This is a paradise destination for all sailors. There is not room on this blog to do justice to all our experiences in Kuna Yala. Definitely a place you would not want to miss if you ever have a chance to go there. There are now several eco-tourism places in the San Blas Islands. So if you can't visit by sailboat, it is possible to have a travel agent book a trip for you via airplane. There are dozens of tiny airstrips on the mainland near these islands where aircraft fly regularly scheduled flights from Panama City. These airstrips were built by the US a long time ago when building the Panama Canal. We are talking about tiny airplanes to reach these islands.

Our buddy-boat friends on S/V Blueprint Match were struck by lightning while anchored about 150 yards behind us in Snug Harbor. They sustained substantial damage to electronics. We were so close that we also experienced loss of AM/FM radio, DVD player, iPod, and laptop hard drive and DVD-RW drive. We shut down one of our freezers and loaned the control board to Blueprint Match so they could keep fridge and freezer operating. This worked fine. Lucky that both boats have Frigoboat fridge systems. They had a guest fly down to visit and she brought replacement control boards, plus a spare board for us. Can't have too many spares on a boat!

Near Green Island in the San Blas, Paul on S/V Blueprint Match caught a very large Culebra snapper -- about 30 pounds! He dropped a fishing line into the water one evening just after sunset while at anchor. Within seconds he had landed this huge fish! Michelle said that one should always fish for Culebra snapper just as it is getting dark on the night of a full moon. She was right! They gave us half of this fish and we enjoyed several meals of beer-battered fish. Delicious!!

We arrived at Shelter Bay Marina near Colon, Panama, on December 10, 2007. We flew home to Houston, Texas, for the holidays for 3 weeks. Returned to the marina on January 9, 2008

We treated ourselves to an AIS receiver as our Christmas gift. We think we will really enjoy having this nifty little device. Bill installed it and we checked out the ships near the marina. And, man there are a lot of ships in and around the Panama Canal!! Must be hundreds of them! Really cool to be able to see boat name, course, speed, etc., overlaid on our electronic chart.

As soon as weather allows we will depart for Bocas del Toro. Then back to here in March or April to transit the Panama Canal.