Our guests Margaret and Lloyd arrived today (yippee) and we've got the boat all spit shined and polished – inside and out. Over the last few days Michael's tackled the outside – he cleaned and waxed the hull and did the underwater cleaning. Barbara's cleaned inside from ceiling to floor, rugs and curtains, and even bookshelves.
So Astarte was ready for company – looking her best and we were ready for company to relax and enjoy the boat instead of cleaning it. Like all our great guests, they came laden with boat bits and great snacks. They still haven't unpacked everything as we immediately got moving once they landed. But before we hand the computer over to our guests for "Guest Log" entries, we'll step back a few days.
Post New Year's Day we left the Eastern Holandes to actually clear into Panama and get our passports stamped. We had a lovely sail to Porvenir to accomplish that legal stuff then pulled anchor immediately and headed to Soledup. This ended up being a bit too rolly to get projects done so the next morning we again pulled anchor and went to Cambombia (no not Cambodia). This was the first time we went here and it was extremely lovely – unfortunately we were working the two days we were there. Non-stop. So we had little time to enjoy the reefs or beautiful beach. But we'll go back there – it was very nice.
Once all the work was done, we haded to Nargana to pick up a few items and then meet our guests when they flew in on Saturday morning. Friday turned into a most interesting day. We met the Captain of a Panamanian Naval ship "28th de Noviembre." He invited us aboard for a tour of the ship and we accepted. We saw the entire vessel from engine room to Captain's quarters. Then, we invited him aboard Astarte for a tour (from engine room to Captain's quarters). He accepted and we dinghied him out and shared a beer and some good spanish lessons. His english was very good, but he made us speak in Spanish to practice. Later that evening, he also joined us at a restaurant where we were meeting some friends and he had a few more beers with us. Barbara did bake a chocolate cake for the boat and traded it for a dozen eggs. It seemed there were no eggs on Nargana, so the Panamanian Navy came through!
These are the kind of meetings that make this life so interesting.
Now, we have company and headed to Esnadup for our first night. Our guests are a bit tired after having to get up for a cab to the airport at 5 am! Tomorrow's entry will be from them (hopefully). Tonight we'll dine on local (not Maine) lobsters that we bought from the Kuna.
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