A post not about Namani but about another sailor this time... Nick Jaffe is a young Australian with some German ancestry. He worked in Germany in the early 2000s and chose to travel back to his native Australia by single-handing a 26-foot Contessa from Europe to "Down under" between 2006 and 2009. I had followed his travels on his blog and admired his determination to do this with virtually no prior sailing experience and on a very tight shoestring budget.

Some film and music making friends of his have now put together a feature length movie about Nick's journey which is about to be released on the web.

If you're interested - here's the trailer:

Now that we have an Internet connection and can post pictures again... we had a very nice dinner with Ken and Sylvia from Ann Lucia before we left for Las Perlas last week (they were our dock neighbors in Shelter Bay on the Atlantic side and Sylvia helped us through the Canal as a line handler). Nicky picks up some beautiful origami from Ken in the picture above. Ann Lucia should now be close to the Galapagos...

We had a beautiful sail today, from Chapera in Las Perlas back to Balboa. Close hauled in 15kn of wind and small seas, with Namani peaking at >7kn through the water :-)

We went to Las Perlas a week ago, figuring that we might as well do the work on the boat there in a nicer setting and it was well worth it. For one, we got a lot done (see picture above: Nicky and Papa in the cockpit locker/engine compartment installing the replacement bilge blower), but we also had a really nice time enjoying some very beautiful anchorages all to ourselves (think Maine coast with dry Panama weather, sandy beaches and lots of Pelicans).



Nicky got to build giant sand castles ...



... kayak with Mami....



... and snorkel with Papi



We also had two movie nights on Namani, with fresh popcorn and all. The picture below shows the popcorn preparation on Namani's stove (thanks Laura!).