Aboard Independence of the Seas
- Community Shower
- Enjoying a Beach Day
The first few days of December we spent exploring the Perlas Islands, aiming to get back to Balboa for my flight to David to inspect the progress of the Panama house. It was very strange to find ourselves back in the land of tides and current, given in the Caribbean our tides maxxed out at about 18 inches, and at the Perlas it was as much as 12 feet. Have to break out the Chapman’s and relearn the rule of 12s, for sure. And it made for some interesting perceptions, anchoring with a view of one landscape and six hours later seeing rocks and islands that weren’t there when we dropped the hook.
That last few days onboard prior to joining Independence were a bit stressful, with the generator conking out AGAIN, and Ole having to special order another actuator and related parts to be flown in and cleared through Customs the very morning we were to leave for Ft. Lauderdale. I don’t know how many hours he and Dale worked on it, but it didn’t help that we might have had to leave the boat with the Bixlers with a non-functional and vital piece of machinery. Dale has nicknamed it the “Westerbeast.”
On December 11, we flew up to Ft. Lauderdale, staying overnight at the Marriott Biscayne Bay, right next door to where we used to live. We had a great sushi dinner and caught up with Svein and Lise before boarding Independence on December 12, and reconnecting with shipboard friends.