Merry Christmas
To everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I arrived last night in Virginia to spend Christmas with daughter #3 Jeannine and her family. We will be with my granddaughter Gabrielle my two grandsons, Mark and David and their partners and my three great grandchildren on Christmas. I have a one way ticket here and plan to return to the West Coast in mid/late January.
I have posted on this web site a chapter out of the “The Mastmakers’ Daughters” en de “De Mastmakersdochters” about the Christmas our mother and her prisoner friends spent in Dachau, exactly 70 years ago. It is a story of fear, despair and hope and also of a hilarious incident and a very clever escape.
You can find it under item 9) in the index, which gives some of the background of the events leading up to it, or go directly to: www.ComeToSea.Us/albums/Christmas1944inDachau.docx en www.ComeToSea.Us/albums/Kerstmis1944inDachau.docx
I have been trying to Reply to your Christmas email, but keep getting a Failure to Deliver message back. Here’s what I wrote. (I hope you receive it this way):
Greetings to you, too, Jack. I noted your intention to visit “Colombia via the Panama Canal.” Where would you go in Colombia, and why? I spent a month anchored in the filthy, exposed anchorage at Cartagena, which was about 3 weeks too long. Nice town to visit, but not so appealing for a boat.
If you come through the canal, do yourself a big favor and immediately hang a left. Within a few miles you’ll arrive at the Rio Chagres. Treat yourself to a few days up there with the ‘gators and howler monkeys. Considering its proximity to the Canal, the river is incredibly devoid of other boats, a genuine natural treasure. Then work your way up the Panama coast to Bocas del Toro, archipelago and town, about 50 miles before the border with Costa Rica. You may not want to leave for a long time. Of course, you’ll double back to the San Blas islands at some point, but it would be a real shame to hurry off to Colombia, where there is little to attract a cruiser, and skip by the best of the western, if not the entire, Caribbean.
Good luck.
Reef early,
Tor
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Captain Tor Pinney
http://www.silverheels.us
skipper@silverheels.us
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