17th April, the day before the Easter holiday marked four years since we lost Dad and I took some time to reflect at the start of the day, before heading to Karla's for breakfast. Next stop was Charlie's for groceries and we were pleased to learn that he would be open on Good Friday and Saturday, only taking his usual Sunday as holiday.
We had planned to dinghy over to Panamarina for lunch but the wind was up and the water too choppy for our little dinghy and engine. Instead, Pete had a second shot at sealing the bathroom window with sikaflex, as it was still leaking and the sikaflex appeared not to have set first time around. It was Rivals Round in the Superleague, so we listened to the Castleford -v- Wakefield game online at BBC Radio Leeds. After the pre-game interviews and discussions and before kick-off, the commentators left the mic open, presumably by accident, as their very unsuitable conversation was being broadcast. As well as offensive language, they, or someone else within listening distance, discussed an unfortunate incident with a young lady, at a bottomless brunch event. I am sure there must have been complaints. The match was quite entertaining too.
In the afternoon, Tom messaged to see whether we wanted to go to Panamarina for dinner. The wind had dropped and the sea had calmed, so we agreed to go with him in his large and powerful dinghy. On the outward journey, we made it through the reefs with ease, following close behind a local boat. We sat outside the restaurant, chatting to a Dutch friend of Tom's and watching the spider monkeys coming and going across the track. As a result, it was after 6pm by the time we ordered food. The ribeye steaks were thick cut, tender and perfectly cooked as usual. You really can't beat it for US$13, including a plateful of fries. By the time we were climbing in the dinghy, it was dark. I laid on the bow of the dinghy, wearing my head torch, which was the only light we had. We located the entrance to the mangrove cut through and wound our way around the curves, with me angling the torch towards the shore so that Tom could see where to steer. As we approached the reefs it became difficult to see where we were and the light didn't shine far enough ahead to see the coral heads. We touched a few times, even moving slowly. Tom's dinghy has a solid bottom and survived but our dinghy would have been ripped to shreds. Pete and I decided that we would only go to Panamarina for lunch, from now on.
Good Friday started off wet and we spent a few hours listening to the rugby, Hull FC lost to Hull KR and Saints lost to Wigan. The intermittent rain stopped and the sun came out, so around 11 am we met up with Tom and went for a walk, missing the Leeds Rhinos -v- Huddersfield game, which Leeds won easily. From the marina gate, we turned left and walked along the road for approximately 40 minutes. There wasn't a pavement but traffic was light and nobody drives particularly fast and they are good at pulling out around you. We were looking for a small church, where we would take a right turn, along a dirt road, through a small village, with the requisite dogs roaming around and then uphill into the forest. We saw lots of different butterflies, including a beautiful, graceful blue morph, with its five inch wingspan. Pete had one in his collection but it was far better seeing one in the wild. Unfortunately it was too far off to photograph. Further up the hill, as Pete was photographing another butterfly, I saw something unusual. It was small and black, with iridescent turquoise markings. At first I thought it was a spider but then it hopped and I realised that it was a frog. Pete and Tom managed a quick look at it but it hopped off before Pete could get a decent photograph of it. Pete identified it as a poison dart frog. We continued uphill until we came to a junction. The dirt road went left, through an iron gateway. Straight ahead was a grassy track, which Pete and I climbed to see where it went. All we could see was more forest and jungle. We had no signal, so couldn't check the route on Google Maps. We decided to retrace our steps and look for the dart frog again, which we saw very briefly, in a flash of colour. We also saw another blue morph. When we arrived back at the church, we went straight across at the crossroads, down towards the sea. Here, the beach was covered in sargassam seaweed, several feet deep and the smell was horrendous. We quickly returned to the road and marched the 40 minutes back to the marina, where we ate lunch at Karla's.
We went to see whether Luis was around, to discuss our A-frame modifications but he wasn't there. Our camping gas bottle was in his container but still empty. We were also unable to find out whether our lithium batteries had been delivered as the marine shop was closed until Monday, Alex and Annabelle having a well-deserved three day break. Pete went to the Terpel gas station shop and was horrified to find that they weren't selling beer due to the holy day. However, he managed to get some and a bottle of wine from the liquor shop, in the white container, which was open for once. We spent a pleasant evening in the cockpit, had aubergine and mozzarella in tomato sauce for tea and slept comfortably.
On Saturday, we lazed around until 10am and then I set to deep cleaning the galley, taking the stove to pieces to get into all its nooks and crannies. We listened to the Catalans -v- Salford match, sitting in the cockpit, while watching the storks strutting up and down the pontoon, while next door's cats went berserk. Various wading birds came to balance on the lines in order to fish. Luis messaged to say he would come round in the morning; Easter Sunday!
Happy Easter! It's awfully humid and we spent the morning sitting on board, under the fans, waiting for Luis, who never showed up. We had an early shower, a beer at Nancy's and returned to cook a curry for tea. It was starting to get dark when Pete found a cockroach in the cockpit. He killed it with the roach spray and disposed of the body overboard. Our neighbours had left two bags of rubbish and an empty pizza box on the pontoon between us which was very likely what had attracted the roach. In the end, as it didn't appear that the neighbours were going to dispose of their trash tonight, Pete picked it all up and took it to the bins. They didn't mention it next morning but they haven't left any rubbish there since. We had torrential rain, so had to close up and go early to bed. It was uncomfortably hot and humid on board overnight, although the second half of the night was dry.
Monday wasn't a holiday in Panama, so everything was open and back to normal.