Season Two is About to Begin

We left Segwun on the hard at Shelter Bay Marina and traveled from Panama City on the 30th of May heading first to Sweden and Denmark before stopping in Canada during our break.  My last post was just after our visit to Denmark in the middle of June.

Since then, we have been at our cottage in Canada for the past 71 days and have enjoyed a fantastic Muskoka summer.  We hosted more than 36 overnight guests which meant a lot of trips to the grocery store and the LCBO, a very busy kitchen and BBQ and our coffee maker working double overtime.  Not to mention the piles of laundry, bed making, vacuuming and so on.  But all of this is overshadowed with the fun and good times we had.  It was so wonderful to have the chance to share a few good dinners and sometimes a few too many drinks with family and friends.

It was a spectacular summer weather wise - hot and sunny with very little rain.  The only downfall of that was the fire ban that was imposed on us so we missed our usual late nights around the camp fire for a couple of weeks.  But we made up for it with music on the deck.  Thanks to Jaan we heard some brilliant jazz on the saxophone; Michael chipped in with one of my favourites on the bagpipes (Amazing Grace) and we ended our season with a little Hotel California on the guitar by Christian.

Anna and Christian (Jens' daughter and her boyfriend) have both just graduated and are taking a year's sabbatical.  After a visit to the US West Coast, they joined us in Canada at the end of July and have travelled with us to Panama.  They will come along sailing with us as we travel down to Ecuador and Galapagos.  So we now have two new crew members!

After a few tearful good-byes, a last dip in the lake and one last evening around the fire it was time to pack up the spare parts we purchased, a few books, a printer for the boat and our clothes and head to the airport for the flight back to Panama City.

We are now guests of Fredrik, a Tetra Pak colleague who is based in Panama City.  He has an apartment on the 26th floor with an awesome view of the city and offered us to stay with him for a few days.  Seeing a friendly face at the airport on arrival to Panama made the trip so much nicer.  Jens and I will spend the next few days getting things organized while Anna and Christian do a bit of sight seeing before we head to Shelter Bay and back to SY Segwun.  This time, Fredrik has promised to come along to see our boat and go for a sail.

So, the big question - what are our plans from here?  I hesitate to be too specific as we have really embraced the idea that we will go where we want when the winds are right and when we have spent enough time where we currently are.  No more pressure to sail against the wind and in bad weather.  The big picture plan is to visit San Blas, traverse through the canal to the Pacific, make our way down to Ecuador and Galapagos and then across the Pacific to French Polynesia.   Stay tuned - season two is about to begin!