Gidday Everyone ,

So we are done ! (We hope) !

For those of you who are not experienced in preparing for such a journey , here`s how we spent the last 2 weeks ;

Countless trips to various supermarket resulting in countless hours trying to cram lots and lots of food and drinks into every available nook & cranny
Countless visits to the various boat parts stores
Countless taxi rides all over Panama
New batteries purchased and installed ( all 16 of them)
New anchor chain purchased and installed
New autopilot motor & hydraulic ram purchased ( as back up )
Every pump serviced
Every filter changed and many spares purchased
Water maker serviced & New water-maker membrane installed
1200ltrs of fuel purchased and stores above and below decks ,
Downloaded and found books to read
Downloaded and stored movies to watch
Navigation charts and cruising guides bought
Radios tested
Running and Standing Rigging inspected
Sails inspected
Hull Cleaned
Permits and Fumigation certificate for Galapagos obtained
Bond exemption for French Polynesia obtained
50 ltrs of oil purchased and stowed
Computers replaced / repaired reconfigured and tested
Autopilot Calibrated
Fishing gear replaced
New Spear guns purchased
Surfboards stowed
Courtesy flags for 10 countries sourced and purchased
Copies of boat papers and passports made
Visits to the officials
And the list goes on !!!!!!

All in all it has been exhausting and stressful and very HOT not to mention the language barrier ,, we can speak and understand some Spanish but when your needs are as great as ours have been the last couple of weeks it gets frustrating and as is usual in this part of the world time has no value , 45 mins usually means 4 hours and tomorrow usually means next week thus we are 3 days later to depart than we had hoped

On a positive note we have been able to get every thing we wanted and everything we think we needed

Tomorrow morning we will depart Panama and head to the Perlas Islands where will meet up with our friends Nick and Lynn who we plan to travel the 800nm to the Galapagos. We hope to depart for the Galapagos on Tuesday Morning

We are back to satellite email as of now , emails sent to the moody54redsky@gmail.com should still be accessible but please don`t send any attachments or pictures.

You can if you need to call us on the Sat Phone which is expensive or can send a free text message to the sat phone via the following website ; http://messaging.iridium.com/. Attached is a screenshot of the webpage with our number and what to do.

The sat phone number is +8816 31 681 196

We intend to be doing daily blog updates and will continue to do so daily until we arrive in Galapagos http://www.sailblogs.com/member/redsky/

So that`s it let the adventure begin !