Still in Panama,recovering from Shakira...

last night we joined many other Panamanian Shakira fans in an open air concert that was a FUN inoculation to relieve our symptoms of boat mania.
We have been here for too long,another stretch of boat repairs,provisioning,waiting,lists; a very very tense pressure and focus for our skipper,and therefore,all of us aboard Rhythm.
The heat is cloying,I described to Olivia as we walked together on Sunday,it feels like How it must feel when you are a new born baby: with a warm coating of vertex to protect our body from the amniotic fluid. It astounds me to see Panamanians in JEANS!!!! HOW HOW HOW can they!!???
Aboard,trying to work /not to scream it is like being hungover with hives in an incubator along with your Siamese quadruplet appendages. HOWEVER,we have moved from the shipping lane side,Balboa Yacht Club to the Las Brisas anchorage,much nicer,water a little cleaner,many cruising confreres Majority of the sailing vessels are heading to Galapagos as we are. we still have a desire to sail to Ecador first,park Rhythm for about a week ,bus to Peru,hike the Inca trail to Machu Picchu. I'm waiting for the decision to present itself to me.
Recently I have been hot with the bug about the plastic Pollution.We have seen plastic floating where you can see no land,we see plastic in otherwise pristine desert islands and my most loathed,styrofoam take out containers wedged in mangroves on the sea shore. I just feel sick about it. Initially,way back,I'd expressed to David that I would like, and feel it is important ,to be very conscious of the world,a perspective viewed through the filter of mass media back from my little world of Toronto.Here we see the sky,wake to the sound of the ocean against the thin hull of our home and eyes come to focus with tie dye like patterns of light reflected from sun to sea to a wall inside. We are on it,floating upon a tomb of garbage. It
makes me so sad I could cry. I know how it feels to read vigilantes and Debbie Downers,so how in Gods name am I going to use this ardent emotion ? I have some ideas and would welcome yours,another Blog...and Japan! I just read about the flotsam like a land mass with full houses,cars and bodies in a cruisers website cautioning vessels to, "heads up!"


So,today Im off to attempt to outfit the ship with enough stores to last 40 days!! Yikes,my perspective is this: at the cottage,weekly I would do the shlep to Perrysound,I would spend the day,and return with a ton,just loads of groceries...so it is that times 6?!!!

I've done enough complaining,now hear this,I am aware of the JUMBO ,boundless and immeasurable adventure that is as multilayered as our very human selves. Perspective -learning is the magic carpet we ride.It is hard to see even from a boat,with all that sky and all that sea.
The very key ingredients are the world class characters we meet,the stupendous geographic sights that surprise us and the however arduous lessons of love in commitment for us as a family.



Anyway,