14th - 16th May

08 56.256 N
79 33.418 W

Weather; horribly hot and humid, wind n/a, waves n/a
It's taken me more effort to sit and type this blog than I care to admit to. Both Gerry and I are feeling a bit jaded at the moment, I think it's a build-up of the frustration of not going anywhere fast, dealing with various government departments and trying to please everyone. To give ourselves a break from the monotony of spending every day sweating it out in the heat on the boat I suggested that we take ourselves off to the mall for a chunk of the day and wander around the shops in the airconditioned splendour. We didn't actually need to go and buy anything it was more a case of being off the boat, somewhere we could stretch our legs, keep cool and get a coffee when we wanted one. As we were going ashore anyway we decided that we would strip the cushion covers off of the salon seats and pillows and drop them into the laundry for a service wash (the yacht club washing machines still haven't reappeared so we couldn't do it ourselves). Our taxi driver, Orlando was quite happy to pick us up and drop us off then come back later to return us to the dock so we met up with him and set off towards the mall but stopped twice along the way - at the laundrette to drop off the washing and then at the marine store where Gerry had asked them to order in the blocks that he had found online - therein lies another story of frustration! When he had originally asked the store about the blocks they said that they could order and get anything in from the USA in less than a week as they were a commercial enterprise, excellent we thought. Gerry found the exact blocks he needed on line and asked the store to order in two of them for him - all good or so we thought. Then on Thursday, I think it was, Gerry called the store to see when the estimated delivery day would be so that he could arrange with Orlando to go and collect said blocks only to be told that they hadn't been ordered yet as Gerry needed to pay for them first. This was the first time that pre-payment had been mentioned - it wouldn't have been an issue from the get go if we had known, Gerry would have paid up front at the time of asking them to order in the blocks if he had known that it was a requirement! I bet you can imagine the steam coming out of his ears. So we stopped by the store to prepay for the blocks and make sure that the order went straight away in the hope that we will have blocks in hand by the end of next week - yeah right, who am I kidding! So from there we headed to Albrook Mall, this is a massive American style mall, bigger than any mall I have ever been in in America, with a ton of shops and blissful air conditioning throughout. We strolled around, going into one of the bigger chain stores, similar to Target and did a bit of replacement shopping - tee shirts, shorts and underwear, managing to spend a massive $53 all up for the lot - everything was dirt cheap even compared to US prices. There were a few empty and boarded up shop fronts but not as many as I would have expected. The place wasn't too crowded in the late morning but there was a decided increase in school age kids wandering around in the mid-afternoon - we guessed that school was out for the week. As I already mentioned we weren't really there to have a spend up but we browsed a few shops - there are more shoe shops, sportswear shops and spectacle stores than were believable! I was in my element when I found the only fabric store in the entire complex and forced myself to only buy 3 pieces of fabric which I needed to make up new sarongs, at $2.99 a yard the fabric was a bargain and I could have bought so much more but I was restrained and stuck to my 3 pieces (there is always another day to go back for more!). Gerry managed to buy himself a new case for his glasses - he breaks the cases faster than anyone can imagine, so he was happy. There are several food courts throughout the mall and we picked the biggest one to have lunch in, opting for a couple of Bento boxes which at $20 for the two with orange juices and 2 bottles of water was well worth the money. We did a bit more strolling around and window shopping after lunch but we were beginning to flag a bit until we came across the Krispy Kreme and coffee stall off of one of the side aisles, of course we stopped, of course we bought an assortment of doughnuts to take home and of course we had to sample an original glazed doughnut right away - what did you expect, we are not fat for no reason! So a bit more walking to try and justify the doughnuts and then I needed to sit down for a while as my knee was beginning to ache. Let's have a coffee back at the central food court was the suggestion as we knew there were plenty of seats there, the trouble was that it seemed like everyone was having a late lunch and we had to snaffle a table as someone was leaving. The coffee was a Panamanian brand and was delicious but by the time we had finished it I still wasn't ready to move so we thought that we would have an ice cream sundae, any excuse to remain seated! Once the sundaes were finished though we noticed a guy looking for a table and we reluctantly gave up ours as his need was obviously greater than ours at that point. In the centre of this food court there is a carousel which wasn't actually running at the time but I just had to take a photo of it as all of the horses heads were covered in plastic masks which I though was too funny for words and a sign of the times - the photo will be in the gallery. We wandered around for a bit longer, killing time as we couldn't collect our laundry until 3pm, so at around 2.45pm we messaged Orlando to come and collect us at the point where he had dropped us off - just outside of Fuddruckers (yes there is one at the mall along with a TGI Fridays, Starbucks, American Eagle, Bath and Body works, Tommy Hilfiger's, Polo and a whole lot more American mall type stores and food places). If you were in a mood to shop I'm sure you would be able to find what you needed here as long as it wasn't marine spare parts! Being the sort of shoppers that we are we probably didn't do the place justice but we did make the most of the being off the boat, walking around and keeping cool. We stopped off at the laundrette where the last of our cushion covers weren't quite dry but we packed them away and headed for the dock, we needed to put our feet up and do nothing for the rest of the day. Of course we collected another 10 gallons of water in our containers on the way to the water taxi so we ended up with a fair bit of "stuff" to drag onto the boat when we arrived there in the water taxi. We were pretty well tired and settled for a very light dinner of cheese, crackers and fruit eaten in the cockpit as that was the coolest place to be. We noticed that the Cuzzie Bros had returned form their short trip over to one of the islands and were back on their mooring tyre - it seemed that they weren't away for very long. Saturday we had a lazy day on the boat again, it was hot and sticky even out on the cockpit so we moved around as little as possible, watched videos and I chopped up the material I had bought ready for stitching - that was a job for today, we finished off the doughnuts before they became stale - as if they would ever get that opportunity! We had planned on staying on the boat for dinner but had our arms twisted by Gavin and Shona who were going into TGI Fridays at the dock for dinner and wondered if we wanted to join them - we didn't need asking twice. The four of us headed in to the dock together at 5.30pm and joined the pretty well packed out TGI Fridays patrons for dinner. We had a bit of a catching up session as this was the first time we had gotten to chat with them since we left Shelter Bay, they had transited exactly a week after us so we had a bit of catching up to do. They are still planning on going to the Galapagos from here but if the stars align we might see them again in French Polynesia but the chances are we will miss each other due to the 4 day limit on each of our visas (they have the same). They had spent the day at the Albrook Mall but said there wasn't much there, we asked about what they had seen and it seems that they were dropped off at the Starbucks end where there is the supermarket (they did grocery shopping) but they didn't walk through the greater part of the mall - possibly because the supermarket doesn't open onto the mall. We told them how we had spent hours wandering around and of all the shops that are inside - they had missed out totally without knowing the extent of the place. I doubt that they were too concerned as, like us, they aren't big on shopping but they missed out on the food court and the air conditioning which is a good reason to go! So we have arrived at today, Sunday, it's a little cooler today thank goodness, we are having another day of nothing much happening. I have had the sewing machine out and stitched up the sarongs and washed out our face masks which I'm sure were harbouring more germs than I'd like to imagine. Gerry has finally taken himself off for a shower (at almost 1pm) and once I have finished typing I'm off out into the cockpit and hopefully into the breeze for the afternoon. These lazy days are becoming more frequent and we are both itching to get moving forward but this waiting around for parts to arrive is holding us up and frustrating the hell out of us, I'm sure that once we get underway on the long passage to French Polynesia we will look back and wish that we could have one of these lazy "doing nothing" days. Anyway that's my lot for now. Today's photo is especially for you Lee - wish you were here!