First thing this morning we called the canal office and Saltydog was given our preferred slot of Thursday morning! Whoo hoo!
Ok, so that means today we need to start getting ready for a transit less than 48 hours from now. But first we need food. No scratch that. First Joan and Steve need showers since their water pump is kaput. So they come to the hotel for showers. Then we head to lunch with Wanuskewin and Kia Ora. Steve is certain he hates Mediterranean food. But Melissa is on a mission to expand his food horizons. So we head to the Beirut restaurant - oddly enough a really great Mediterranean restaurant a few blocks away. Melissa orders falafel for Joan and Chicken Shawarma for Steve. Both were a huge hit!
Then Melissa has the bright idea (or so it seemed at the time) to make a fuel dock appointment for Saltydog at the Flamenco fuel dock right next to the restaurant. Idea being that Melissa and Joan go provision up at the grocery store. Meanwhile the guys take the boat around the point to the fuel dock to meet up with the girls and the provisions at 4pm. Melissa and Joan head off to the store with Luis the taxi driver. Luis does his usual routine following Joan around with the shopping cart, and placing each item in the cart ever so carefully. Then driving us back to the fuel dock. Where they promptly inform us that it will cost us $75 for use of the dock to load our groceries. Plus another $5 for each of us girls to walk down the dock and get on the boat. You are kidding us right? Cuz there is no way on this gods green earth that we are paying $85 to load stuff on the boat while we are also paying you to fuel the boat. Not happening. No way in hell. Unfortunately by this time, the guys were already around the point and outside the breakwater. So we girls decide there is only one clear path. Head back to the Beirut restaurant and order more wine and wait for the guys to get to the fuel dock. Cuz the girls are going to have to wait for the guys to fuel up and head back to the anchorage, and then pick up the girls and the groceries up on the other side. And that's going to be two hours from now. Ok, so maybe its two glasses of wine each. Meanwhile the boys pull in. Dave is at the helm as they have been testing the autopilot to diagnose what is wrong with it. Dave puts it on the dock pretty as you please. This is the girl's view from the restaurant:
We did manage to sneak one bag of frozen food aboard the boat so it wouldn't go bad while we were waiting to get back around the point and load up the groceries.
Meanwhile the trip for the guys was successful as they were able to diagnose the autopilot issue down to something in the linear drive component. Mike and Dave plan to take it apart tomorrow as Mike has a similar unit and has taken a couple of them apart previously. With luck what's wrong will be obvious.
Then, right before Melissa and Joan depart the Mediterranean restaurant, Melissa ordered some Baba Ghanoush to go. Ok, yeah, Melissa might be pushing Steve a bit with the Baba Ghanoush served as an appetizer tonight. Mediterranean eggplant dip with garlic and olive oil might be going a bit far. Fortunately he and Joan both loved it.