James Bond movie #22

The filming of the James Bond movie #22 continues.  Seems like the entire marina has turned into the movie production business.  All, that is, except the marina restaurant and the marina office.  They are entirely remote from all this movie activity.

I made a shopping trip to the new Mega Depot in Colon.  While I was gone the marina manager came and made Bill to our boat to another slip.  This was accomplished and I returned to find our boat missing from where I had left it.  But she was just across the dock so not hard to find.  In the first slip we were facing bow-to the wind and it was very comfortable.  Now we are stern-to the wind and don't get the nice breeze flowing through the boat since the hatches now face away from the wind. 

Yet another mega-yacht arrived today and we are now surrounded by mega-yachts.  They run generators 24-hours a day and the noise and diesel fumes are not pleasant.  Did not bother us when our boat was on the other side of the dock and facing the wind because the diesel fumes were being blown away from us.  Now the diesel fumes are being blown into our boat through the companionway.  Hope some of them leave soon.

Today they filmed a chase scene directly next to our boat.  S/V BeBe was in the camera line, but since we have not signed a waiver with this movie production company I am sure our boat will be digitized out of the movie.  Or maybe they will just change our boat name and leave the boat itself in the movie.   Will be interesting to see the edited result when the movie is released later this year.

Since our canal transit is scheduled so late (April 14 at the moment), Bill has decided to use this time as an opportunity to visit home.  He recently obtained VA medical benefits.  He was able to make an appointment for next Monday.   He has no medical complaints but it would be wonderful if he can get a script for Pentassa through the VA.  This is the drug he takes for Crohn's Disease.  Right now we have no insurance and we pay roughly $5200 per year for this one script.  If the VA writes the script, then it would cost only $9 per month.  So that makes it worth paying for a trip home.  I will stay in Panama on the boat.  We are hoping that our transit date gets bumped up before April 14, but seriously doubt that it could be before Bill returns to Panama on April 2.

This trip also will enable Bill to bring back even more spares and some of the things we have not found locally.  I ordered cans of powdered eggs and half-dozen cans of butter. to be delivered to our son's house and Bill will bring those back.  These will be great to use if we do the Pacific crossing.  I also ordered some MREs for our ditch bag.  For you non-sailors, a ditch bag is exactly as it sounds.  If we have an emergency and are forced to abandon ship and get into our liferaft, we will also bring along the ditch bag.  it contains survival items which are not packed inside the liferaft -- like the epirb, extra flashlights, fishing hooks & line, small rope, lots of granola bars and peppermint candies, handheld GPS, handheld compass, extra flare gun and flares, and numerous other things.  I thought MREs would be perfect for a ditch bag because they require no water to prepare and each pouch comes with its own little heating packet.  If other sailors are reading this, you might want to check out http://MREdepot.com