This morning, at about 0700 I started preparations for departure.

ALW, my deckhand to Shelter Bay Marina, got the introduction to lifting the anchor, getting the anchor buoy in and tie up things in the right place.

It was today the 4th passage of the Bocas Channel so I plotted the WPT along the previous, safe tracks.k

Wind was only around 2 – 3 kn TWS. Thus sailing has no chance today.

MaRe makes her double track in a flat sea, which is in the meantime dotted with raindrops. Only a swell of 1/2 – 1 m rolls in from a quarterly direction at PRT.

Also today there where fishermen in their dugouts far outside from the coast. One was even further away from land then MaRe, heading straight to the Isla Escudo de Veraguas, our anchorage for the night.

As this writing is slow because of the conversation we have, weather changed. Rain stopped and the sun is peeking through the first small holes in the clouds, making a friendly sky ahead of us.

An hour ago we saw a small group of dolphins and just now there was a group of fishes at our STB side. No dolphins I can sayz but I could not recognize the fishes.

Next we had to carefully go through s group of fishermen in their dugouts. Most important it was to see if they have a net between their boats. No nets, just friendly waving hands and we passed at reasonable distance between their boats.

But this was not the last obstacle. There was a long “string” of garbage floating in the water. More than a kilometer long and 1 – 3 m wide. It consisted of natural things like seagrass, branches, even trunks of trees. However, there was also a lot of plastics included. Coca-Cola etc. just sell their junk in plastic bottles/containers and don’t care about the environmental impact. Make money and run. Plastic and other garbage is simply put in dumps and burned. I recently saw it during a walk through the jungle. How long can life on this globe can deal with that?