Well it feels like Linton Bay is our home now. We have been here for 4 months now as we wait for the rainy season to end and the sailing season to start.

Despite having 4 months to plan where we will go and when, we are still without a fixed plan. Not a bad thing though as we have found most plans we have made have had to change due to COVID so we remain open to change and accept that whatever plan we may have at the moment, it may have to change at short notice.

This video shows you where we buy our groceries as well as the excitement and stress of having your yacht lifted out and placed on the hard.

We have had some challenging shopping experiences since we started as well as some really easy ones. The easy ones are when there is a large supermarket close to where we are anchored and they deliver the food to the dock for us to collect in the dinghy. 

Other shopping experiences have been far more challenging and character building. We have walked kilometres to shops and had to buy as much as we can possibly carry between the 4 of us. The walk back is always full of moans and groans from all of us but despite this we still seem to have a good time and continue to laugh about them months later.

Now we have 2 ways of dealing with getting shopping back from shops which are far away from the boat. In Colombia we purchased 2 folding shopping carts which we can pack quite a lot into and wheel these back to the boat. The other thing we do is take one or 2 bicycles with us and we then hang the shopping bags off the handlebars and seat. This has worked out well. 

The shopping options here in Linton Bay go from the most basic to large supermarkets in Panama City. There is a wide range of choice depending on how far you are prepared to travel and how much money you want to spend. Panama City is an hour and a half drive away and unless you get a lift there, it can cost about $50 each way in a taxi so we avoid doing this.

You can get the basics in the local shops in Linton Bay and by far the best option is to use the services of Tatiana, a local lady, who will take your shopping list and go to the larger shops outside of Linton Bay and buy what you need for a small fee.

There is definitely a business opportunity here in the marina for a good shop. They have the space to do this and hopefully they will in the near future as the demand is here.

The sailing community is amazing. We love meeting all sorts of people. Unlike life on land, the community doesn’t care about what boat you have or where you are from. We are all on an adventure. Not necessarily going the same way, but we are adventure seekers and we help each other when we can.

There are some yachts in Linton Bay who spend a lot of time in San Blas and they worked together to host a fundraiser to raise money to buy food for the locals living in San Blas which they delivered there on their yachts and then came back to Linton Bay. A great achievement and we have a lot of respect for the people involved. Well done.

We have been on an incredible family adventure recently and have some amazing footage which we are working on at the moment. Look out for our next episode to see where we go.