We took the Marina shuttle to the Colon shopping mall today to get a head start on provisioning for the next passage at the Rey supermarket - a huge American style supermarket with just about everything you could want, except maybe Tom’s toothpaste.


Then we met with our port agent to go over procedures for our canal transit. We are confirmed for a transit starting Sunday afternoon, with an overnight stopover on Lakw Gatun (no swimming allowed: crocodiles).

After that, we unfolded the Brompton bikes and went for a ride to Playa Diablillo for a swim. The quiet jungle roads here are quite and experience - an immersion into sounds and smells and occasional glimpses. Yesterday evening we saw capuchin monkeys in the trees. At the Playa, I saw a snake, almost certainly poisonous, maybe a false fer -de-lance, maybe a real one. Robin found an eel in a Ho,e in the exposed coral reef. We rode on towards Castillo San Lorenzo, with a soundtrack of troops of growling howler monkeees, and unidentifiable exotic birds deep in the forest. Got one picture of a howler in a tree.

The Castillo was closed when we got there, but we got some long distance pics and had a nice ride back through the jungle.

Port days pass fast and will spend the next few getting ready for our transit, necessary paperwork and cleanings for Galapagos, and getting caught up on life details.