Moving On

Hello, my chickadees.  I'm tired.  I've been stowing groceries for the past eight hours.

But more on that in a moment.  First, the news.  Papillon is due to go through the Panama Canal on Tuesday.  Exciting!  And you, the ultra-web-connected, savvy people that you are, will want to watch all of this.  As it happens!

Care of my father, who is awesome at these things, here are your instructions:

Start here, at the marine traffic site

a.     This will show Papillon when it is underway, (when they turn on their AIS) that is, after it has left the marina

b.     If you start with the World map you need to click on the green rectangle that is over the Panama Canal

c.     You can then click on the map and drag the part you want to look at into the centre of your screen

d.     And you can click on the slider on the left hand side of the map to zoom in

e.     When you point to the icons on the water the boat names pop up

f.      You can check a box on the left that will show all boat names

Now you want to check the webcams 

a.       The tabs, from left to right show images from Pacific to Atlantic

                                                               i.    Miraflores Locks is by Panama City, looking south to the Pacific, this will be the last spot Papillon gets to in the Canal

                                                             ii.    Miraflores Hi-resolution looks north. Click on the magnifying glass icon for a bigger picture

                                                            iii.   Expansion Program is not applicable

                                                           iv.     Centennial Bridge is a point just north of Miraflores

                                                             v.      Gatun is at the Atlantic end, looking south (usually, any of these cameras can turn, but they do so only rarely)

                                                           vi.      Gatun Hi-resolution looks north and this should be our first view of Papillon

Prizes awarded for the best screenshots!  (But don't send them to me until I ask - no bandwidth.)  I expect we'll get started in the late afternoon on Tuesday.  We will go through the Gatun locks, anchor in Gatun lake for the night, then go on through the Miraflores locks on Wednesday morning.  Hours of delight await you, my fine friends!

Now, back to me and how I am feeling.  A little punchy, thanks for asking.  Our canal date suddenly changed from Friday to Tuesday as of last night.  This meant today was a flurry of major provisioning - and I mean, for 3-6 months, because provisioning once we leave this place will be a pain.

But!  Your correspondent is a woman of forethought and planning!  I already had my three-page Excel printout in my purse.  Ha ha!

I had some witty stories to tell and took some lovely pictures to illustrate my food-buying awesomeness and mad packing-stuff-away skills, but, alas, my camera has walked off.  I really hope I didn't accidentally stow it with the oatmeal.  Anyway.  That sort of took the air out my me.  Some highlights: four-figure grocery bill.  Four heaping carts of food.  Twenty-eight cans of red kidney beans.  Indy making snow angels in the drifts of grocery bags on the floor.  Stowing canned peaches and peanut butter under Erik's bunk.

There.  That's all I can do.  Tomorrow is clean up day, and then off we go!  I'll return when we have internet again.  Otherwise, it is back to the shortwave radio posts as we sail to the Galapagos.

In the meantime, here is a picture of Erik, who is rapidly morphing into the Incredible Hulk, as he prepares to do some welding for a friend.

Hulk need new belt!