0900 hrs
Greetings,
The sun came out this morning. It’s been dreary and rainy for the last several days which hasn’t made dealing with this shipment issue any easier. And it’s still going on. After having spent two and a half days trying to deal with the port only to be told at every turn, “You can’t do this. Where is your Delvi (the company that did the shipping) agent? You don’t have the right paper work. They need to be here to handle this.” And many phone calls back and forth with Port officials talking to people at Delvi and getting nowhere, yesterday, Johne emailed the person at Delvi in Miami who was our initial contact person on April 23 when all this started. He sent Maria a timeline referring to all our email and phone requests for information over the pas six weeks, told her we had run up against a wall and asked for her help in resolving this and getting our stuff aboard the boat. At this point, She has sent the woman who told us we were responsible for dealing with the port from Panama City to take care of this and we are hoping the cargo will be delivered this morning…
June 14 2013
2300 hrs
Well, the cargo did get aboard yesterday but not until 1600 hrs. After all the headaches and hassles of dealing with this shipment at least, in the end, Delvi made it right. I’m very glad to be done with that saga and moving on.
Today we were back to the water maker saga. We had sent the problem part to the machine shop to get replacements made in stainless steel. They were supposed to be done on Monday but weren‘t back to Colon until Wednesday night. And with the Delvi crap yesterday we couldn’t get in to check them until this morning. Par for the course, when Johne check the new parts with the micrometer there were several problems. So back to the shop in Panama City they went. Johne spent the whole day with our new Panamanian friends, two sisters, one of whom had arranged for the work, getting the parts fixed. First thing in the morning we’ll put the water maker back together and see if (fingers crossed) this is the cure…
June 15 2013
1100 hrs
No joy with the new parts. They are just slightly too big so they have to go back to the shop to get small enough to fit inside the tubes. That probably can’t happen until Monday or Tuesday. We’ll be going into the city on Tuesday anyway to pick up our friend Kay who will be making the transit with us. We’ll see how is best to coordinate it.
June 20 2013
1030 hrs
Well, everything is going great right now. Tuesday, we took the water maker parts, and the tube they had to fit with, back to the shop, and they took just enough off of them to make them fit. We got some shopping done and picked Kay up at the airport and got back to Colon before dark. We got Kay situated aboard and had a lovely visit over dinner, and then we were off to bed.
Wednesday morning we put the water maker back together, crossed our fingers and held our breath. IT’S WORKING! YEA! So far we’ve run it 3 times for more than 2 hours each and it seems to be doing great. No leaks so far.
Wednesday afternoon we left the anchorage by the port and came back to the Chagres river. Last night and this morning we’ve been enjoying the peace and calm and all the jungle noises and sights here.
In just a little while we’re going to go to the marina where we will do the last prep work for the transit though the canal. Tomorrow we’ll be picking up the lines and tire/fenders and our friends who will be our line handlers. And then, at about noon we’ll be headed back to F anchorage to wait for the adviser to come aboard. At that point it’s just waiting for our turn. The first part of the transit will be made Friday afternoon. We’ll go through the first set of locks and to a mooring in the lake. Saturday morning we’ll finish the crossing. I’ll be leaving a SPOT trail, not every 2 hours like usual but as often as seems best to make a good track all the way through. If you want to follow the trip, click on “where is Second Star to the right of the Blog page.
Next entry will be from the Pacific side…
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