2295.2 Miles from La Cruz, Mexico

Panama City!!!

We're here, and all is good.  I guess all the useless worrying I did about the boat, the crew, the weather, lightening strikes, and all the rest of the things I have no control over has paid off. 

Now we have to figure out what's next.  But before that I want to take a look back at some of the favorite places SV Grace has been lucky to travel through. 

First, Behia Honda in Panama....it was about the kids.

As soon as Grace dropped anchor off the village in Behia Honda kids showed up rowing thier little dugout canoes, as they do for all arriving boats, looking for candy, pencils or anything of value.  Some brought coconuts, mangos or hand made trinkets for sale or trade. 

One day while we were having beers in the local cantina, a doll came in dragging a shy little girl with her.  The big Nikon camera was drawing it like a moth to a flame.

The shyness began to evaporate........

And was gone.

A friend showed up moments later, and suddenly we had a photoshoot going.

They loved posing with a pair of glasses.

This is the biggest smile I could coax
her to make.  She had lost her two front teeth.

I would take a picture, show it to the girls, they would laugh and giggle, tease each other, then demand another photo.  It was like catching lightening in a bottle.  These may be my favorite pictures of the whole trip.

The village the girls live in is on an island in Behia Honda, comprised of a few tiendas, a couple cantinas, a church that is visited by a priest once a month, a police station and a very nice school.  Most of the homes are scattered about the forested island.  Recently paved paths wending through the jungle tie the community together.  It's an incredibly idyllic setting.

Across the bay and up a narrow but deep river is another village.  A group of us Gringos made the trip up river following a panga.

About half a mile up we came to the village landing.

We created quite a distraction at the village school.  Students saw us walking by and came boiling out of class to watch the strange sight.  The teachers were quite nice and invited us in.  None of us spoke Spanish, so it was a bit awkward. 

On another day we were guided by Phillipe, a young man who adopted us, to a waterfall visible from the boat.  We scrambled upstream from the beach for a quarter mile or so to the falls.

Felipe

Niether village is connected by roads to the rest of the country.  Everything is brought in by uniquely designed pangas.

The most popular personal transport are elegantly carved dugouts.

Finally, we have a new contestant for the worst bathroom award.  These are in the cantina where we spent afternoons on the very slow national internet system.