We’ve been in Panama, back on Graceland for 5 days now. I am sitting in the saloon, balancing ice on bug bites I got out on a night walk in the grass. Bug mistake!

I’m “itching” to make friends but it’s yet to happen, besides Ross (or maybe Russ), an older guy from California who’s very friendly but doesn’t look you in the eyes when he talks so it’s hard to nail down how interested he is. He told me how he got stranded on the coast of Colombia earlier this year with ripped sails and no diesel to motor with. The Colombia coast guard wouldn’t let him or his shipmate ashore so for 6 weeks they were stuck at anchor with dwindling water and food. They also had no working communication devices besides the vhf so their families were completely in the dark. The shipmates sister, in Texas, somehow had a drone find them at anchor to identify that they were still alive. Then after 6 Long weeks somebody hailed them to shore, threw water, food and diesel aboard and told them to push off as quickly as they came and didn’t charge them for the provisions. They made it here and all is well again. Wild! A few days after meeting Ross I saw him in the line to the vegetable truck excited to introduce the delivery driver, Charlie, to his young Colombian girlfriend that had arrived in time for Christmas.

I have been trying to keep the diet mostly vegetarian, despite Charlie trying to lure us with Chickens and pork chops a couple times. Christopher has been doing well adjusting from his Old mentality of “it’s not a meal without meat.” To help, I caught and cooked him a small Jack fish with dinner two nights ago. Then today I heard a huge school of fish splashing around the boat, jumped down to grab my hand line I had made, threw it in and caught another jack isntantly. I tried to catch more but they disappeared and I ended up throwing back two very tiny grouper. I also got some bites from a very large fish with very tiny lips \240that swims near the surface.

Meals on board worth noting:

Zucchini Gnocchi and dilly vinegar salad:

Last night I made some gnocchi that Charlie randomly had in his food truck last week and I had been holding onto.. At first I fixed up a tomatoes that needed to be used but then I realized I had half a zucchini that needed to be used. So I changed direction.

Sauté:

Zucchini

Garlic

Olive oil

Salt & pepper

Almonds (chopped)

fresh Basil

Cooked the gnocchi for 3 minutes, then threw in the pan to get a little crisp on one side. Added a little Parmesan. It was delicious!! Then I sliced thin red onion and cucumber and added it to the tomatoes I didn’t used. Added vinegar dressing with \240salt, sugar, and fresh dill. It was an awesome salad I remembered my mom making and I just happened to get dill that morning from Charlie.

Doing Laundry

Sooooo we have a new President and Vice President today!! it’s weird bc when you’re in the boat world suddenly news and politics are hardly noticeable. You can’t even get enough service on the phone to know what’s going ok anyway. So I’m glad I celebrated when the results were announced because yesterday just came and went without even talking to another American other than Christopher.

A lot had been happening in the last week. We have been making friends in the marina! It’s nice to share all these experiences with the people around us. Sometimes I am a bit embarrassed because I don’t speak enough Spanish and I convince myself that all the international people do not want to bother speaking English to get to know me. But, we actually have made really good friends. We’ve also accomplished a few boat projects. I made V birth sheets, and decorated our saloon cabinets. Christopher got the outboard motor working for the Dinghy, which is like a sailors car. Now he’s working on getting all the other broken outboards in the marina fixed 😂 impossible mission, they’re always on the fritz. He said he will get a business card for this new business that says “Christopher Johnson, Sucker” lol