5th May

08 56.256 N
79 33.418 W

Weather; hot and humid, wind n/a, waves n/a

MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY TO DALE AND LORIE'S BABY BOY JAMES
WISHING EVERYONE A GREAT MARGARITA DRINKING DAY ON CINCO DE MAYO!

I can almost take bets that today's photo has you ready for some salacious reading, so now that I have your attention I can tell you quite truthfully that you are going to be sorely disappointed but read on and find out for yourselves.
We have almost come to a standstill as far as fixing things on the boat is concerned, as we aren't moving nothing is breaking down or going belly-up which is good for the moment but we know that it's only a passage away from the next thing to need fixing so we aren't resting on our laurels and hoping for the best.
Gerry took off into the dock first thing today with water container in hand as we are entitled to free water as part of our yacht club mooring fee. We only have a 5 gallon water container so it's going to take a few trips to make sure that we are pretty well topped off before we leave here. As you know Gerry has taped our scuppers to direct any rain water into the tank as well but of course as soon as he did this the rain vanished into the distance and hasn't reappeared since, and in case you are wondering we aren't running the water maker here in the mooring field as the water quality where a heap of boats are moored has to be suspect to begin with at best and we really don't need to chance getting sick from making R/O water from it.
To keep himself amused Gerry rotated the dingy slightly in the davits as it had a bit of a lean on and had a bucket load of grotty green water in it which has been sitting in the bottom since we left Colombia and needed to be drained out. For the remainder of the day he was filling out forms and sending off to French Polynesia for the exemption to enter the islands and spend a bit of time there. We are hoping for a positive answer in the next couple of days which will set us up for the planning of our departures from both Panama and then Ecuador with the next stop being in French Polynesia. We understand from the Kamikaze site that French Polynesia has eased its restrictions a little and we should be granted the exemption as we have a planned exit, this being that we are on our way home to Australia and not just itinerant sailors. Whilst he was at it he has also contacted Fiji with a similar request, this one should be a whole lot easier to be granted as Fiji has kept its borders open to yachts to date but there is the threat of Indians returning home to Fiji from India and spreading the variant of Covid that is currently devastating India which may make Fiji revise their policy on border entry - it's a guessing game at this point in time.
So now the sex wax story, Gerry had been annoyed by one of our galley cupboard doors squeaking and got out the sex wax, yes it is a real product - used to wax surf boards but in this case it was to fix the squeak on the door - and just when you were getting comfortable to read about a porn moment, what a let-down for all you pervs out there, ha ha! Our afternoon was spent doing nothing of note apart from confirming that there were no light leaks behind the eyelids. We had decided that it was time to go ashore and hit up TGI Fridays for dinner so we hailed the water taxi with some trepidation and got dropped off at the dock. TGI Fridays is just a few yards walk from the dock and we made it there in record time, it was just as Gerry remembered it but to be honest my memory of it is very sketchy - it obviously didn't make a great impression on me back in 2007! The place was relatively empty and we had a choice of places to sit. The menu seemed to be somewhat reduced from the usual TGI Friday menu that I recall from the States but we managed to find something that we wanted to eat along with the usual beverages. As per our usual eating out habit we ate and left quite quickly, making our way back to the dock and getting the water taxi to take us back out to our boat where we watched some TV before retiring. Not a very exciting day but who needs excitement at our age anyway!