Arrived at the Caribbean end of the canal on Wednesday after a magical sail in force 3 down from San Blas islands. We are in shelter bay marina [9.367, -79.951]. They bulldozed the Panama Canal Yacht Club that yachts have been using for many years on 1st March. Marina is very comfortable and runs a bus into Colon everyday. Everybody using the canal seems to be here now.

The check-in procedure was very bureaucratic and took us all around Colon. Most people use an agent but you don’t have the same feeling of arriving!

We have contacted welders and waiting for availability of stainless for the fabrication of the new rudder for the windpowered self steering. We are hoping to get this all complete so that we can get through the canal on Monday 27th April. We will need a couple of days in Panama city and then off to the Perlas Idslands and Galapagos. We will let you know when we plan to be in the canal and you can have a look at the web cams in the canal. We will leave late on the first day stay in the lake for the night and then do the rest the next day form an early start to get to Panama City late afternoon.

David