In Transit From Columbia to Panama--4 1/2 days

The pictures are in reverse order, top, we arrive in the Panamanian islands southern tip of Isla Rey, climate is warm--yay, we are relieved to see and feel the sun!! The rest of the pictures show the trip from Columbia, starting on the bottom with chilly weather, rainstorms, and hitchiking birds.

Resin and Fiberglass to make mold of kayak

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!
Picture of Ron and Diane in Tumaco Columbia

Motorcycles, kayak building and friends

We met the Lenemberger-Dumas family when their son Miguel discovered us on the muelle. He liked our kayak and later his dad Carlos came down and asked us if he could make a mold from the kayak's hull. We agreed and in a couple days we had the klepper out of the water and they were putting fiberglass and resin on the bottom of the kayak. Today as we write this, they are making a mold of the topsides. Barrio houses on stilts
The following are pictures of Miguel 15 (not in the following), Carlos the papa, Andreas 9, Sara 13 and Jazmin the Mama and of course Ron and me.
Last weekend we shared a full day of events. We began with watching motorcycle racing in the town.The racing here was crude and dangerous for not only the riders, but also the spectators who lined the outside corners where the crashes were likely. They had FREE TIME, where anyone could get on the course with their cycles sin padding or helmets and have at it.(many accidents) Later we ate mariscoes at their favorite restaurant, camerones enconcado. We took a walk through the barrios where the houses are built on stilts and in the past were very dangerous places (there are whole barrios built over the mudflats joined by a single concrete walk barely wide enough for one small automobile, but luckily the travel here is by small motorcycles and scooters)



In town watching the races, Di and Jazmin Andreas
Hanging on the muelle waiting for the resin to harden, Jazmin and Miguel
Sara and cousin
Looking up words in the dictionary
Danse of the Afrikans in the neighborhood
Motorcycle racing
Danse

Andreas napping

We are all napping, when will that resin harden!!
walking down the street to the muelle
Carlos in the red hat and others who are making the mold
Then we went back to their house where daughter Sara's friend painted Diane's nails and we learned Latin dancing. Finally we participated in the night of lights where all the neighborhoods competed in putting out candles up and down the streets and decorating their houses. This neighboorhood placed third in the competition. We followed that with a very late dinner and then kayaked back to our boat after midnight. We had an incredibly full day for cruisers who normally go to bed at 8 pm.

Tumaco, tourists, beaches,narco subs

side view of confiscated narco subs
front view of the same

We are on the tourist route
Tying up the kayak
elegant shape of local dugout
more dugouts and fishermen

Here in Tumaco there is an island called Isla Morro. We spend time there walking on the beach and doing wi fi from a local hotel. Los Arcos is the arch on one end and the beach stretches to the several hotels built there for weekend tourists. You can see a local man with his pet boa and sandstone carvings.
Our boat Batwing is the only anchored boat here as you can see from the photo of El Contento. We tie up our kayak dinghy to the large rusty fishing/freight boat when we go ashore.
The pescadores fish from dugout canoes, they told us we could buy one for $300 it would 5 days more or less.





One day when we took Kiira to the vet we bought a newspaper and read an article about the discovery of a narco traffic submarine factory in one of their national parks. But then learned at the very docks near our Batwing that there were three of these captured submarines along with many other captured speed and freight boats including El Contento the boat pictured above. ( you can google the topic drug submarine and read more)