July 17- August 7, 2025; 19463 nm and 2331 days after departure from La Rochelle

Yes indeed so much fun! Meanwhile we have been already two weeks in Shelter Bay Marina (SBM)/Colon working and sweating in the heat like crazy. (The feature pic has nothing to do with it, I just liked the relaxed position of that doggy. The pic was taken in Portobelo.) I can tell you we are both fed up with cleaning and are so much looking forward to fly home. I just can’t wait anymore!
Well, next to the usual stuff like cleaning even the deepest and most unreachable spot inside of Altimate, getting rid of old or unused items, bleaching mouldy fabric etc we also needed to check the big engine. Even though we did exchange the heat exchanger and elbow exhaust in Cuba, the engine still wasn’t able to perform higher RPMs under load, especially going backwards. Therefore we had organised a mechanic to check on the engine. He figured that the injection pump was not working properly. That was kind of a relief as it was a fairly easy solution. Either he could repair it or if not possible, we could buy a new one. Though for sure we’d prefer the first solution as a new one would cost of course, being a marine part, a fortune. But hey that is nothing new and just the way it is regarding boat related parts. So let’s cross fingers!
To get other repairs done we also had ordered a lot of spare parts from Germany. Getting that order delivered to SBM turned out to really aggravate our nerves. To NOT have any problems with the delivery we spend some money and used UPS express. They claimed to offer a fast and easy delivery to the recipient including customs duties and whatever was needed. You guess right! It didn’t work at all. We got the message from UPS that the package arrived in Colon but then – nada. After ten days of nothing happening we got concerned and tried to contact UPS. It was ridiculous! You never got anyone on the phone and when Norbert finally managed to have a real person on the phone they said everything looks fine or they can’t do anything or they will trigger a search. What??? It was in Colon and it was not possible for us to get it or at least get in contact with someone from local UPS. Plus, the UPS tracker told us things like: “it was the second attempt they tried to deliver and after the next time they would send it back.” It was so frustrating! Only with the help of Sheila from the marina office we eventually got it out of customs and delivered. Yet it still took another 5 days with poor Sheila calling every day to get them going. It indeed was nerve-racking but in the end we were just relieved to finally hold the package in our hands. Lesson learned no UPS delivery to Panamá!

On the other side there were also nice things happening. One of our flexible solar panel had a strange looking spot which we complained to the company we bought it from. They reacted super responsible. Told us not to use the panel anymore and that they would send us a new one immediately. What a great customer service! By the time we arrived at SBM the package was already there. To our surprise the marina told us we had three packages. Strange we thought but ok. Instead of replacing only the broken panel (of course we had still used it as it was working perfectly) they had sent us three!!! We couldn’t believe that. But of course we didn’t mind and were happy about the generous replacement. Now we had to find a place where to put the additional two panels. It was just about possible to put two more panels on top of our Bimini in front of the other three ones. And just like that I had a new sewing project. Luckily I still had enough left over fabric to do two more frames so I could start right away. Oh, and it was a delight to sew here in the marina. The bbq area provided so much covered space with big tables and power! I was protected from rain and sunshine and still had the luxury of a nice breeze. What a comfortable sewing area!
Next to all the working stuff we also managed to have some fun. The French family with the Ovni “Cistude” which we had met in San Blas was here too. They were switching their boat with his brothers family. They had to go back to work and the brothers family took over to sail to French Polynesia. Through Cistude we were as well introduced to another French family with a catamaran named “Zephyr”. So already in SBM we got smoothly adapted to the French community. We challenged our brains and dug out some French yet the best part was we could already enjoy a touch of French cuisine. We do like apéro!

the French crowd and us the day the San Blas family was leaving

But enough about SBM! What will come next? Interested in where we will be heading to the next year? Well, when coming back from Europe we finally want to go through the Panamá canal and sail into the big Pacific. Isn’t that exciting? It is for sure for us! So far our itinerary will be roughly like that: Beginning of October canal crossing, then soon after and weather depending sailing to the Galápagos Islands. That roughly 1000nm leg will take us about 10 days and we plan to stay there for 30 days max. (Staying longer would require another permit and reduce just a little bit more our pocket money.) After seeing the beautiful nature of the Galapagos we hope to aim for Gambier islands French Polynesia. The Gambier Islands are the southeasternmost extension of the Tuamotu Archipelago in the central South Pacific. It will be a southwesterly course and the 3300nm will take us probably 4 to 5 weeks. We hope to arrive there just before Christmas. If that all works out we will meet up with the kids there and celebrate El Capitanos 60th birthday. Hooray!!!!! And as I am already in itinerary mood I keep on telling further plans. After the Gambiers we will explore the further Tuamotus. The distances in the pacific are just crazy. No short 20nm hopping anymore, the least will probably be in average 2 day hopping or so. Which means we have to get going to be in time somewhere where we can leave Altimate in May. That might be in Apataki/ Tuamotus where we know we can leave the boat or if possible somewhere closer to Papeete Tahiti. Why? Because we want to fly home again. Jana’s wedding is coming up next year. Yipeeeeee. OMG that is all so very exciting!!!! So now you know what’s roughly going on on our side.

But first things first. I’m sitting in the restaurant of SMB writing the blog while the mechanics hopefully will get the engine running like it should be. Yesterday after they had built in the injection pump the engine managed to do a little more RPM under load. Yet by far not the 3000RPM which it should be able to reach. That was rather disappointing. Still to find out what else could be the cause, the mechanic dismantled the whole engine again and found out that an exhausted spring was causing the missing RPMs. They were able to find a spring this morning and are now building it back together. Cross fingers that it will be finished then!!!
Tomorrow, Thursday the 7th of August in the evening we will be flying out of Panamá to Paris. I’m sooooo excited!!! I’ll be off for a while like always – enjoy whatever you do.

Update

Being so excited (or getting old???) I had forgotten to send this blog last week. Therefore I will give an update regarding the engine before finally publishing the blog.
Aaalrighty! I’m not so sure who was more frustrated. Wikus, the mechanic or us. As it urned out after replacing new springs the damn revs still didn’t climb up. Thus Wikus checked everything between the pressure pump and the tank, including the lifting pump. By now the whole engine was checked and cleaned and whatever was necessary to get it running perfectly. Yet still nothing helped to speed up the motor. It was indeed frustrating! After all that, Wikus believed the only thing that can also cause low revs was the prop. He asked whether we had done anything to it. Norbert had explained that it was taken apart last year in Deltaville. The mechanic there had done so because after changing the bearings in the shaft and making a mistake by putting it back together, he thought that was necessary. Therefore Wikus decided that he needed to see the prop itself. As it was already late and he had to get the permission from the marina to dive, he had to come back the next morning (our departing day). I felt sorry for him to dive as the water in the marina seemed to be ok but didn’t look very appealing. And worse, there were sometimes crocodiles! Anyway, he survived the dive and figured that the pitch of our max prop was ok but the blades themselves were put on the wrong way. The propeller was literally turning into the wrong direction. Yeah! That meant he had to come back when Altimate would be out of the water to put the blades in the right position. I very very much do hope that that will be the final cause! It does absolutely make sense that the RPMs remained low with misaligned prop blades. But before mid September we won’t know for sure. On the positive side now we know that the engine got a complete makeover and works (apart from the speed) perfectly smooth!
But more about that when we are back in Panamá.