Z E N I T U D E
                                                      
Blue Water Dreaming
San Blas was our last Caribbean  destination and we enjoyed it immensely. Leaving was a bit sad even though we were looking forward to the start of the Pacific crossing. But the day was perfect and we enjoyed a nice sail of 45 miles along the Panama coast to Linton Island for an overnight stop before continuing to Colon.

We arrived at Linton in the early afternoon and met several friends already at anchor in this peaceful bay.

There was enough time to take a dingy ride to visit Panamarina on the other side of the bay. The entrance to the little water way among the mangroves is quite difficult, but with Ze’s directions we managed to find it.

The dinghy ride is beautiful and we were told that sometimes you can see monkeys in the trees so we keep a good watch but we couldn’t see any.
San Blas to Colon - A stop over at Linton Island
Linton Island - 16 March 2010 - (09.36.80N-79.35.40W)
A dinghy ride through the mangroves
When we arrived to Panamarina we found many boats there. This is a place where people leave their boat to go home or to go travelling on land, as it is a quiet place and is not as expensive as Shelter Bay in Colon. Some leave their boat here for hurricane season and we found some known boat names, among others, our German friends from San Blas that were getting ready to flight back to Germany after having spent one season in San Blas. 

But our main mission at the marina was to have a chat with the French sail makers. We needed some repairs and reinforcement patches done in our main sail and they said they could do it but could not take the job straight away. This is a busy time of year for them with many boats getting ready for the Pacific. They finally agreed to come to Colon next week, as they had to go there for another job, and have a look at our sail, in principle they can do the job, but not before the end of the month.

With our mission completed we just needed to make sure we went back with enough daylight to find the way among the mangroves, back to the anchorage.

On shore, in the island, there is a dinghy dock where an old abandoned house stands. We read in the guide that the house has been invaded by some monkeys that are happy to see people about but can get very upset when you try to leave the place.

These monkeys have the characteristic of walking like humans, they really stand straight up.

We approached with the dinghy and yes, we saw them walking around, sitting in the windows and climbing trees but we decided not to risk upsetting them and just watch from the dinghy.

Apparently this was an excellent decision as we learned some time later that our german friend  Bridgitte (sailing Momo) was horrible bitten by these perfidious creatures.
Monkey spying on us behind a tree
The house of monkeys, can you see him?
The stand up monkey spying on us from the top of the tree
The last thing to do was to say good bye to some of our friends that were going different ways. Now we are back for a quiet night of rest after an intensive day. On the east side of the bay we can hear the hauling monkeys, no wonder why they are called ‘hauling’, what a scary call while the night is falling. 

17 March 2010

We left the anchorage early, together with Tutatis and had a fantastic day sail to Colon, arriving at Shelter Bay marina, to start a new chapter in our travels.