Our friends Jason and Christy came to visit us while we were in the Galapagos. Much fun was had and much shit talked. Mostly Jason let us know, on a daily basis, how upset he was about our poor preformance in the blog post region. Well Jason, you got your very own blog post…enjoy my friend :-)

I can almost feel Jason giving me this look right now!

I’m not sure who keeps track of these things. There has to be an official list somewhere. But, as of 6:57pm Friday 13 March 2015 could someone in charge please add Tawnya L. Midkiff, Robbie F. Robertson, and Kevin (CB) L. Midkiff to the list of official ShellBacks!

For those of you who do not know all things archaic and nautical. A Pollywog is a lowly sort of human that has not crossed the equator on a boat. Once one of these pitiful creatures has somehow managed to accomplish this feat they are elevated to Shellback status.

I’m not entirely sure what sort of benefits come with this, but at a bare minimum I should get 10% off (or at least free refills) at Long John Silvers for the rest of my life. Soooooo…..suck it landlubbers!

I wanted to get this post up and the pictures posted before we left the internet.

We wanted to haul the boat out of the water to clean the bottom and slap another coat or two of bottom paint on. It was one of the main things we wanted to get down while we where here in Panama City. The cheapest place to do that here is at the Balboa Yacht Club & Marina.

It worked, but you have to see it to believe it.

This picture was NOT taken in 1923. That is Tito and that is the winch he used to pull us out of the water.

These are the tracks we were pulled up on, and I believe those tracks were old as hell when that new fangled winch was installed.

There were some sketchy moments getting it all lined up and tied down properly. But we got it in and out of the water with minimal pants poopery.

I’ll just toss in a few more pictures and call it good. Enjoy.

I forgot to take pictures of the finished product, but Palarran now has a red bottom, instead of black.

We are officially cleared out of the country, have our exit zarpe and our next official port of call is the Galapagos Islands!!!

Tonight should be our last night in Panama City. We plan to stop for a day or two in the Perlas islands just to get the city off of us and chill out. We have been running around like crazy for the last week or so, trying to get the boat ready to go. And she is, but it will be nice to spend a couple days snorkeling and laying about on beaches for a day or two.

We will be out of internet range till we get there. My best guess puts us there sometime around the 15-17th of March. We are looking at a 8-10 day passage if all goes well and the wind holds. Otherwise it could take longer. Right now, my money is on longer than shorter.

As always we will have the Delorme tracker on, so you can follow us along in near real time at share.delorme.com/kevinmidkiff

I have the website set up so I can post blog post via email from my SSB/HAM radio. And will try to do that at least once a day while under way. No pictures, just text. They will most likely be short and boring, but at least it’s something. Also, I might not do it at all…so…..