The last night in Panama was very enjoyable, with a full prize giving ceremony, entertainment from a winner of the Brazilian Pop Idol, hunky backing dancers that could fire-breath and a fireworks display (all a bit surreal).
We are not sure how we managed it, but we came in third in our division on corrected time for the Caribbean sea crossing and we won a prize for being the closest on predicted time of arrival. All I can think is that we were mistaken on our calendar dates! For the first time in my life I have had a taste of what being celeb is like, as there was quite a media presence and when we got up on stage they were all shouting at us to pose - they even demanded that we kiss (cheeky devils).
This was followed by another highlight, Joachim and Jutta (Chessie) very kindly gave us a lift back in a Kawasaki Mule (small 4wd) and we got ride in the tray on the back - great fun on those roads; sort of like a roller coaster in reverse.
We were 20 minutes late for the start the following day, mainly due to getting the para-sailor (our big spinnaker) set up, however once up we got to the middle of the fleet relatively easily. We made a dodgy decision to keep the Para-sailor up all night which eventually slowed us down and Jonathan did some amazing fore deck work in the wee hours - what a hero!
Instead of going South, as a recommended way to get to the Galapagos (and as we had originally intended) we have decided to go relatively direct. This may be a mistake but the GRIB files seem to indicate there is not much of an advantage in heading South, it adds about 100 miles and we want to get past a very quiet patch before it becomes even quieter - otherwise known as the doledrums. This is another decision we may later regret!
Spirits are high on board. Jonathan managed to overhaul the wind/water-powered electricity generator (Duogen) that we inherited and it is proving marvelous, not only supplying all our immediate onboard power needs, but with enough left over to top up the batteries. I never realised that these could be so effective and had we known would probably not have invested in the conventional generator that has given us so many problems (whether we get some form of recompense for that is still being sorted - however, we are refusing to let it spoil our trip any further).
We have also got the Hydrovane working, which is a wind vane on the stern which steers the boat for us using it's own rudder. We have had a problem with this since installation, but the issue was a design fault on the rudder itself. The company has graciously sent us a brand new rudder, with the amended design and it is working perfectly. This means we also don't need to use more power with our Autohelm. Yet another breakthrough for us!
We are just now settling down to another night at sea and getting dinner prepared. Look after yourselves, particularly those dealing with the icy temperatures in the UK.