We had all sorts of trouble getting out of Panama. Leaving any place on a long trip is difficult, but Panama seemed particularly difficult. We are low on propane and we found there were no place in Panama City to fill tanks... they have to send them out of town to be filled. The guy promised he would have it back in the afternoon, but we were concerned that if he did not follow through that would mean another day in Panama we didn't want to spend. We ended up buying a whole new tank and a hose that could be used to attach two tanks so we could fill our marinized tank from new one, perhaps using the new one as a trade-in elsewhere: it is easier to do trade-ins than to fill up an existing tank.

We got back, had some drinks and then Dana spent 8 hours cutting and bagging portions of meats that could then be frozen, filling both our large freezers. Mark worked on all the other boat stuff that had to be done, such as attaching the jerry cans of diesel we had purchased the day before, getting the various sails ready for when we left, including hoisting the genoa and getting it secured on the furler, it was pouring rain and we both got drenched. Mark saved the best part for last, which was to take apart the rear head, which was not discharging the contents of the bowl. Ultimately, this mean taking apart the pump, joker valve, and hose. He thought he had cleaned some blockage, but it still would not empty after being reassembled... there must be a blockage further up the line to the holding tank. The joys of owning a boat!

We ended up leaving the yacht club around 8pm. It was dark out but we could still see other boats. We followed the outside of the shipping channel, passing one freighter after another. We motored several hours until we got away from the shipping traffic and some favorable winds arrived. The winds we have to pass through to get to Galapagos are pretty tricky. We are still north of the equator so we don't yet have the trade winds to rely on, in fact the wind patterns are very unfavorable coming directly from where we want to go (SW). The strategy we are using is to motor and/or sail mostly south until the winds turn reliably southerly and then we'll follow a SW course to Galapagos, hopefully picking up some SE trade winds the last day or so. Right now we have 15 knots of W winds which we are using go south at 8nm with 0.3nm of current helping us.