we had nothing to do at all today, just eating – sleeping – eating – sleeping – … i tried to listen to audio books (while enjoying the view out of my window) and read a book but after 5 minutes i fell asleep again. but i am not the only one: everyone is really tired and/or a bit sick. we are lazy and we like it!

inula had a few problems but arvid and his crew got everything under control. we are still sailing to malpelo (i even wear my ‘sailing glasses’ from ‘der langen wettfahrt’), we are sometimes accompined by dolphins and flying fish (sabrina also said that she had seen a whale in the morning but she has no witness so nobody believes her) but there is no other ship around. it’s really quiet and lonely out here!

the weather is not exactly superduper, we have to get along with big big waves. even though it was very cloudy and rainy i got sunburned… ouch! especially sabrina is very sea sick but our borddoc wolfgang gave her some good-working pills. hopefully she will feel better soon!

estimated arrival time: tomorrow 08.30 am. we can’t wait!

aktuell sind wir an coiba island vorbei. haben heute drei tauchgaenge absolviert.

auffaellig ist, dass wir seit der abfahrt in david bis jetzt ganz ganz wenig boote gesehen haben. wir befinden uns nicht auf einem ‘highway’. wie wir an bord gegangen sind haben wir noch ilses wunsch nach club soda erfuellt bekommen: allerdings kostet eine dose mineral vier mal so viel wie eine dose bier! ausserdem wurden noch die zutaten fuer den beruehmt beruechtigen apfelstrudel gebunkert. nur heute beim fruehstueck wurde uns gesagt, dass wir hoechstwahrscheinlich zu wenige eier fuer die gesamte fahrt haben. uuuje!

der weg aus dem hafen zum aussenriff fuehrte durch verschlaengelte wege umringt von mangroven (zitat wolfgang). apropos: wolfgang ist unser borddoktor, begleitet von seinem sohn max, einem ueberaus durchtrainierten 16jaehrigen schwimmer (zitat max).

besonders interessant war das verlassen der mangrovenwaelder durch eine schwer passierbare untiefe, aber unser kapitaen hat das hervorragend gemeistert.

nach einem herrlichen abendlichen sunset-swimming nahmen wir unser abendessen vor einem wunderschoenen strand (“suedsee in klein”) zu uns. nachdem wir die nacht mit dem schiff durchgefahren sind, haben wir heute um 7:00 uhr frueh das erste briefing. der check dive fand bei der isla montuosa statt, wo wir eine perfekte wurst-performance ablieferten, aber nicht viel gesehen haben. die naechsten tauchgaenge waren schon interessanter: weissspiztenhaie, ammenhai, muraenen, sehr – riiiesige! – langusten, alle fische sind sehr scheu hier in dieser gegend, da sie wahrscheinlich nicht an taucher gewoehnt sind.

nach dem dritten tauchgang wurden die segel gesetzt und nun geht es mit knapp 7 knoten richtung malpelo. viel zeit zum kartln und fuehrerschein lernen…

Today the bus picked us up at 8.30am and it took us only 20 minutes to go to the little so-called harbour at which the ship inula was waiting for us. After bringing the luggage on board, receiving the room numbers and getting housy in our new rooms, the four of us have the biggest rooms – thanks to peter! – we had around 2 hours off, which I spent sleeping. Then we had the briefing about the boat and our time-table, lunch and the the journey finally began.

we spent the trip lazy, lying in the shadow, reading or getting tanned. A couple of times a dolphin came along in front of the ship and we saw little monkeys on the trees.

At around 6pm we arrived at a nice beach and in front of it we spend the night till midnight and then the journey continues.

We were picked up from the hotel at 9.30 a.m and first we visited the old town of Panama. The buildings are very ruined but they are starting to rebuild the old town which is called casco viejo. It is the same than in havanna and old Panam-city belongs to the “Weltkulturerbe” as Unesco declared. There are nice places and once upon a time only the rich people lived there. I was really impressed by the Indian women, they offered handicraft souvenirs, and they were dressed in their traditional way, for example they had specially ornamented legs. I was astonished by a typical cold drink here: it was just an frozen water-ice block, the man scrached it and put some flavour on it – I’ve never seen it before but we didn’t dare to try it because we don’t know if the water is good or not.

After that we drove to the Panama-canal. A direct connection from the Pacific to the caribbean sea. 40 ships pass every day: for the big ones the fair is about 200.000 dollar and the ship needs 24 hours. sailing boats and yachts must pay around 500 dollars, once a man swam trhough the canal and had a special agreement – he only had to pay 36 cents. There is also a museum, where you can learn more about the history of the channel. It was build from 1904 till 1914 and 75.000 people worked on it but around 25.000 people died (many of them because of malaria). We have the same system at the river danube.

After that we started our voyage to David. This is a town near the border to Costa Rica and there is the harbour, where we will get on board. We stayed in the Grand national hotel, we arrived very late about 8 o’clock pm. We just went for dinner, a bottle of wine, some gin tonic and than fell asleep.

yesterday the rest of our group arrived, but one member is missing: he has pneumonia and could not join the trip. bad! :(

we went – surprise, surprise! – eating argentinian steaks in a restaurant nearby. ilse told us the latest news from home and after some drinks we all fell into our beds.

now we are waiting for our bus to david. on the way there we will visit the panama canal and the old quarter of panama city. after the sightseeing stops we will travel for maybe 6 or 7 hours to david where the ‘inula‘ is waiting for us. i guess the first dive will be tomorrow and our date with the hammerheads is in a couple of days. some of us are excited, some of us are frightened…

we don’t know if we will have an internet connection over there, so we wish you already a verry merry xmas and a happy new year! we try to stay in touch though.

take care,

ilgesasa