June 08 – July 17, 2025; 19369 nm and 2310 days after departure from La Rochelle

Indeed we kept enjoying the easy living atmosphere of the laid back pool vibe. Although I have to admit we were not just completely lazy. Especially me – I proudly have to mention! Our new beloved dinghy, which we hope to keep for the next decade was being pampered. To protect it from the merciless sunrays and some possible chafing it should get some -so called- chaps. A cover from uv resistant fabric to hopefully give it a longer life. For our previous dinghy I had already bought sunbrella and phifertex fabric back in Cartagena for having made chaps in Guatemala. As plans had changed and we never went there our dinghy never got chaps. Though since I have a new sewing machine, which just loves to work without complaining, as well as having all the necessary fabrics and tools, I thought I would give it a try myself. I knew it would be a pretty big job. Nevertheless – challenge accepted! Including research, patterning etc it took me almost 10 full days to complete. The biggest challenge was the limited space to work in. So it was a back and forth going to the beach patterning or cutting and coming back to do some fitting and sewing. Of course it came with a looooot of cursing on my part but “volleybeer” in the afternoon took my mind off it and reseted my motivation. That helped me staying focused and in the end -I have to say- I was pretty happy with the result and very PROUD! And don’t you dare say anything else but that it looks great!!!

Time was just flying again. Even after finishing the dinghy chaps project! There was always something fun to do. Snorkelling, fishing, trash collecting and burning, pot lucks and almost every day of course volleybeer. A really nice gathering for everyone -playing or not. The ones who didn’t like to play watched and chatted while enjoying a few beverages without being sweaty. As there were so many kids for a few weeks we tried to teach them how to play. Some did very well in a very short time and now even wanted to play volleyball when they would get back home. I would call that a volleyball training success 😁!!!
Already often said but also as often happening in sailing life was meeting friends again. This time it took us a couple of days to recall. When we had arrived the first day at the pool we had met a dutch couple, Eric and Karin. Eric had immediately mentioned that he thought that we had met before. But the rest of us could not recall any connection. Eventually after a few days of talking and chatting about where we had been etc. we suddenly realised that we had indeed met before. Quite a long time ago. In our first year of sailing when we were at Porto Santo/Madeira. And, rather embarrassing regarding our bad memory, we figured that we had even invited them on Altimate back then. What a nice memory and amazing luck to meet again.

Fun life kept on going with people leaving and others coming. And another highlight was coming up for us. Kellianne and Ty, a former colleague of Norbert were on their way to visit us. Back in Beaufort NC where we had met them last time, we agreed that they would visit us for some days when being in the San Blas. Now the time had come! For us it was the first time having non family guests aboard. Of course we were excited to find out how we all would cope being more or less squeezed together for 24h a day. I mean, it’s a fact for sure that there is not much privacy with 4 adults aboard Altimate. Whether you need to use the bathroom or you sleep and might make some nightly noises -ears are everywhere. I can understand that may give some people an unpleasant feeling or may even let your bowel refuse to work. But I think one just have to rise above it! We were of course at least kind of used to it and knew what two more people would mean but how would our guest cope with it? Well, I have to say they did very well. Neither of them seemed to mind the lack of space, the cosy squeezy situation or the uncontrolled noises that might have happened. Quite the opposite! They loved being aboard, enjoyed the San Blas with all the beautiful nature and the marine wildlife. Rain? Who cares, it was warm. A sudden squall – no problem. Sweating like crazy- a jump in the water cooled down. They just loved everything! The islands, the sunsets, sunrises, cloud skylines, Kuna passing by selling molas or veggies. For us it was as well a super fun week. First it made us move from the pool and visit other islands and second it made us appreciate again the beauty of the San Blas.

We had picked them up at the Lemons Cays and after breakfast we sailed back to the pool. Debbie had invited us for the next day, the 4th of July on Runner. As well we wanted to say properly goodbye to Ilka and Doghan and some other sailors who wanted to leave the very next day. As the pool was one of the islands with the best snorkelling possibilities we stayed another day and took our guests out to different spots. Sunday morning we moved to Green island. There, a huge turtle was attracted to our chain. It nibbled for hours bits of grows of it. What a nice spectacle to see and watch especially because two suckerfish were also following or rather sitting on turtles carapace. We have never had seen a turtle doing that before. So a first for us too. On Monday we sailed to Río Azúcar to show them a Kuna village. We had not been there before therefore. I was surprised and a bit disappointed to see that they were not at all traditional anymore. Mainly recognised by the women not wearing their molas anymore. Still it was a Kuna village and interesting for Kellianne and Ty to see. Kellianne bought some more molas (which they still wanted to sell) and I was able to buy a bunch of bananas, the small delicious ones. Somehow it was not possible to get any since we arrived in Panamá. As the anchorage was not the best and anyway not much to do there we sailed on to Waisaladup for our last afternoon. The island was only a two hours sail away from the Lemons where they would get picked up again and it was a great snorkelling spot. The weather goddess as well as Poseidon were very kind to us the last days. The sun was shining, we even had wind to sail and we were able to show our guests a lot of the nice marine animals. That was indeed great. In only 5 days they saw sharks, a sting ray and an eagle ray, the big turtle and on their last day in the morning even dolphins came by!!! Such a luck! Well then it was soon time to leave and we had to say goodbye once again. But we agreed, as we all liked being squeezed together and didn’t mind our odor, that they would come and visit us again when being in the Pacific. Thanks guys!!! We enjoyed having you aboard and are looking forward to seeing you again!!!

Once the two were picked up we leveraged the nice wind and sailed back to the pool. Here we wanted to spend another lazy week before heading to Shelter Bay marina(SBM)/ Colon. Our plan was to leave Altimate once again in SBM when flying back to Europe. So we enjoyed a last week in the pool but were also looking forward to get going again. Family was waiting for us in Paris and Essen.