We’ve been in Linton Bay for two and a half months now. Thats the same amount of time we had in Colombia.

It’s amazing how quickly the days turn into weeks. The time has flown, we have done so much.

This episode is a real mixture, from birthday fun, boat maintenance and everyday life to what seems to be the main theme ocean clean ups.

We are now getting into the wettest part of the Panama rainy season. It seems to rain heavily every morning, and then it clears up by mid afternoon. On odd occasions we get a full day of rain, such as what happened on Shawn’s birthday. These rainy days are spent relaxing in front of movies together, with a huge bowl of popcorn.

We are also getting a lot of lightning, and witnessed a boat being struck whilst we were on land in the marina. There was a huge flash and noise and sparks flying from a mast. This has made us all very nervous of lightning, especially Nathan, who insists on building himself a den under the cockpit table whenever there is lightning about.

People have always said to us, make sure you anchor next to a bigger boat with a higher mast, that way you will be safe. We’ve now realised that lightning doesn’t go for the tallest mast or bigger boat at all. It just goes anywhere. The boat that was struck was not the biggest in the marina or the tallest. It just happened to be in the lightnings path! Which makes us think it’s is all to do with luck. You are either lucky to not get struck or unlucky when you do.

After the storms there is always a huge amount of debris floating in the sea.

One morning we were sitting having breakfast when we spotted a strange object floating towards us. Shawn and the boys went to investigate. It was an old discarded fridge! We’ve seen many fridges floating in the waters of Panama. So we decided to tow this one back to land before it drifted into a boat or out to sea where it could have become a navigational hazard. Dylan had some fun riding in the fridge on the way to the marina!

The boys are now on their summer holidays. Before the holidays started we decided to put together a learning series called Adventure School. As they are learning so much everyday with all the things they see and do, we thought it would be great to incorporate into school learning. We choose a subject on whatever resources we have available in nature. In this case it was the mangroves and corals we see everyday. The boys then research that subject, and we go and look at these items in detail using the facts they researched to narrate for the video. This way we all get to learn more about the beautiful nature that surrounds us, and we get to share it with other children around the world. When we were filming the mangrove series we were very lucky to spot a sloth sleeping in the tree. He wasn’t very bothered by our presence and just slowly watched us from above. His hair looked so smooth and soft, and he looked so chilled and relaxed. We felt so lucky to have seen him. Since then we have seen a couple sloths, and have learnt that they are the most commonly seen wild animal in Panama, along with monkeys.

Halyard swinging is something the boys have always wanted to do. Sadly because of the width of a catamaran we can’t do it on our boat. So when they meet a friend who lives on a monohull, that is their favourite game to play. They boys got hold of the GoPro on this episode and managed to get some great footage of what looks like good fun!

Shortly after Shawn’s birthday it was Dylan’s. It was quite a milestone birthday for Dylan – 13!!

Birthdays have become less about what we get and more about how we can spoil each other on the day. We don’t have shops or Amazon really available to have endless present delivered, so its normally just a few small token gifts that I manage to find in the supermarket wrapped up and then a day of FUN!

On Dylan’s agenda was all his favourite things to do. Snorkelling, spearfishing, pizza, friends and wake boarding!

A real action packed day! He also got some money from family and friends which he put together to buy himself a second hand surfboard, which he is chuffed to bits with! He goes out surfing as often as he can with it, and is learning quickly! Thank you to all who contributed!

Boat life is not at all what everyone thinks it is – Sunsets and cocktails. Living on a boat is hardworking sometimes. The boat needs constant attention and maintenance. We were told before we left that living on a boat is just boat maintenance in exotic places! They couldn’t have been more correct! This months challenge has been blockages! We have had 2 blocked toilets, which we have spared you the repair on this episode and done a separate video on for this that are interested. Then we have also been battling a “system clocked” alert on our water maker. Living on anchor your water maker is one of the most important items on the boat. So when it wasn’t working it meant hard working getting bottles of water back to the boat everyday, or moving the boat to the marina to get the tanks filled every 2 weeks. Lucky Shawn is getting very good at troubleshooting problems, so he has got it working again – for now! So now we are happily making water again! Now we just need to keep an eye on the water quality when we turn it on, as sometimes it can look rather dirty!

Being in an area far from cities makes provisioning slightly challenging. We have a fruit and veg truck which comes to the marina everyday, which we use for all our fresh produce. But eventually we need to get to a big store to buy things like pasta, rice, flour, peanut butter etc. Some friends anchored close to us managed to borrow a car for a day and we all took the opportunity to go into Colon to do some grocery shopping. It is around an hours drive from Linton Bay and along the way you pass a few small villages. The countryside is beautiful, with jungle and rolling hills. Because the villages are so remote there is no garbage collection, so the road was covered in trash! As you enter a village you see it building up, and then the entire side of the road is just piled high! It was a terrible sight, and very sad. If there is no collection what do people do? They don’t really have a choice. We know it rains hard here in Panama, which means all this garbage gets washed away from where it is left, probably into the rivers and sea. It made me realise why there is so much on the uninhabited islands, as they just catch it all, before it heads out to sea. The supermarkets in Panama are massive! They are all the American supermarkets, so you can get pretty much anything you like. I did a massive shop which filled up all our lockers. So we should be fine for a long time before we need to do a trip into town again! Along the way we got to stop at a town called Portabello. This is where Shawn had to go to check us into Panama. It’s a very small town with a lot of history. There is a castle which was very important in the 16th and 17th century, and was fought over by the Spanish and English, which meant it had to be rebuilt a number of times. It was a beautiful historical site to see. I just hope we can take the boat there once it’s safe to do so because of COVID.

There are quite a few South Africans living in Panama. We have met more South African here than anywhere. Richard who is involved in a development project that is taking place in Linton Bay, lives on the edge of the anchorage in a house which has a stunning view. He has been so kind to us, giving us lifts into town to go shopping and also inviting us for braais, which the boys love! 

He managed to find an old kite board in a skip at work which he told the boys about. They were very eager to get it and are happily restoring it now. Its great that they are learning that we don’t always need new things. Old things work just as well and if you put some work into them you have more pride in owning something you have restored than if you just go out and purchase. We will share the pictures of the finished board as soon as the footsteps have been added.

We do get the odd perfect day, when it doesn’t rain! When this happens we take full advantage.

The last perfect day we took a long dinghy ride around the mainland to a secluded beach! We had 3 families and 3 dinghy, as it was a way to go you need to make sure you are not alone! We anchored the dinghy behind the surf and swam to shore. The beach was beautiful! It was in the middle of the jungle, we spotted sloths and jaguars.

Sadly there was an awful amount of plastic on the beach. As we had to swim back to the dinghy’s through the surf with bags and children it was not possible for us to pick up rubbish and take it home with us without risking loosing it in the surf. Also there was so much that we would have needed an army of people and bags to make even a small difference! I hate seeing what we are doing to these beautiful places. Its hard to believe that there is not a place on earth that is not touched by human pollution! I’d hate to think how these places will look in 25 years time! We are not sure what the answer is, and we feel a little helpless.

Perhaps all we can do is highlight the problem in the hope that people will become more conscious in their everyday lives, and stop using convenience items such as take away packaging or plastic drinks. If we all refuse to buy these items maybe we can slow down the production of them…

We’ve decided we need to try and make a difference and get these beaches cleaned up. So we are going to raise funds to get a local recycling company to come and collect the trash we collect. We are also going to try and get the help of the local community. We hope that if they can see what a difference we can make, the waste will not end up in the rivers and sea in the first place.

If you would like to make a small regular donation go to our patron page.

Or for a once off donation you can purchase a T-shirt from our website.

All proceeds will go to helping us clean these beaches and leave Panama having made a difference!