Karl & Kara Go Sailing

  Wednesday 11 th January, Banedup Island, Holland Keys, Comarca de Guna Yala, Panama. Having been in the Dutch Caribbean since arriving in Statia last May (Statia-Sint Maarten-Curaçao-Aruba) Gráinne has finally escaped to Panama only to find herself anchored at the Holland Keys! Even though we're still technically in the Caribbean we have clearly arrived in Central America. After months of busy civilisation we're in a quiet anchorage among barely inhabited islands (a handful of local families, or maybe just one big family, who are running a couple of extremely low-key tourist businesses) with only the sound of the surf breaking on the reef and a couple of unusual bird-calls to break the peaceful silence. The Comarca de Guna Yala is an autonomously governed region of Panama belonging to the Guna Indian people who maintain an insular and fairly traditional lifestyle despite their forays into the world of tourism. But more of that later, first let's continue the updating. ...

Friday 30 th  December 2022, Oranjestad, Aruba. So it seems it's been over six months since the last blog entry – not entirely sure how to get you up to speed! Since you last heard we have: -stored Gráinne in the yard in Curaçao -visited Amsterdam, the Singapore Airport swimming pool and Brisbane (and Karl Sydney) en route to Perth -worked (well, one of us worked) for five months in Perth -one of us became an Aussie! -visited Sydney, Brisbane, the Singapore Airport swimming pool, Amsterdam, Galway and Amsterdam yet again en route back to Curaçao -were reunited with Gráinne, did lots of spring cleaning, gave her a quick layer of antifoul, splashed, fitted the new radar, explored Curaçao a bit, watched some World Cup matches (vamos Argentina!!!), were the most Christmasified boat in the marina, spent Christmas at the beach and eventually left for the neighbouring island of Aruba (or Aarrrrrrruba as the pirates say). So I think I'll cover the first five points in this blog...