Thursday, November 17, 2016

Captain Carrie Kintz

One hundred and two hours: the amount of time it took to travel from the dock in Christiansted to the dock at Shelter Bay Marina in Colon, Panama. Captain Gary split the nearly five day crossing into watches. Each watch was covered by two of the five on board, so you had better learn how to get some really good sleep in four hours! 

First dinner at sea on Sunday night was prepared by Jim and Kama: steak and mushrooms on the beautiful brand new grill (yes, TRILOGY III has it's own onboard grill! Swanky!), baked potato and corn on the cob. We continued to eat very well! We can wholeheartedly say our guests are going to love the new amenities as much as us.

The Supermoon was an incredible treat to see on the water and extraordinarily helpful on the night watches. The AIS and radar were proved especially helpful on Wednesday night since we had a few squalls on and around us. 

Thursday morning Captain Gary and I were on watch and noticed more and more boat traffic heading to and from the Panama Canal. The line up of ships waiting to go through from the Caribbean side was incredible.

About five miles out from this area, Captain Jim called in to request entry clearance for Shelter Bay Marina. We were told to head right in! We were secured to the dock around 2:00pm local time. Captain Kama immediately hooked up the hose and started rinsing all the salt off the boat.
We had not been tied up for more than 10 minutes when a man walks up, chats with Seth and says that he went on a Trilogy trip 30 years ago and was it still owned by the Coon family!! 

About 5:00 pm local time, we recognized the dry land Happy Hour call. Thankfully, Shelter Bay Marina has a cute little restaurant that hosted Happy Hour from 5:00-8:00pm local time Monday-Saturday. Mauricio, our fabulous bartender, has been in the restaurant industry "forever," so he says. (He was previously on cruise ships in the Caribbean.) House Sangria, wine, local beer and rum were all under $4!! Prices were such a deal & unheard of in Maui! The Dock Restaurant caters primarily to cruisers so we met a lot of transient folks making their way home or continuing around the world. 

The big item to cross off the list on Friday was laundry. Ugh! I figured I could grab everyone's laundry and get it done within a few hours in the marina's laundromat facility. I was incorrect in this assumption. Shelter Bay Marina caters to cruisers, so they undoubtedly know what they are doing. So, when the laundry lady looked at me and said only one washer for one customer, I knew this was not going to go by quickly. Luckily,  we got the boys to bring by their dirty clothes & sheets and we were able to get our laundry cleaned within three hours - not too bad! 
The marina also has an air conditioned gym. Free weights, medicine balls and just enough room for yoga. Did I mention the air conditioning?!?! Showers were just next door, so I think we all enjoyed these amenities while waiting to hear when we may be able to get in line for the transit.