Not me. The day. And I don’t have enough days left to waste one.
I realized that once the mast is down, I will find it difficult if not impossible to fit the Torqeedo and steer to the travel lift dock, so I told Steve, the rigger, that we will not lower the mast tomorrow, but at the travel lift dock or when out of the water. He raised his eyebrows at the last, which causes me some concern. GANNET’s mast was lowered without difficulty when she was out of the water before being trailered to San Diego.
I then walked toward the boat yard office and came across Edwin coming toward me with another owner. I asked when he plans to haul GANNET and was told “when the materials to build the cradle arrive.” I was not told when that might be.
This afternoon I received an email from DHL that they had tried to deliver my tiller pilot order from Amazon but that “I was not at home.” What?
I took my laptop with this message in it to the marina office where a young woman whose name I do not know, but has always been extremely helpful, called DHL and seemed to establish that their driver had shown up at the marina office but said the package was for a yacht whose name was other than GANNET. Perhaps he couldn’t read it. I don’t know. Whatever he said, the women in the office said that no such yacht was there. Hopefully this has been sorted out. Another delivery attempt is to be made tomorrow.
So I spent the day reading THE PATH BETWEEN THE SEAS.
I know I wrote this yesterday. I feel it even more strongly today. And will try to resist writing it again tomorrow. The thing I have always disliked about Panama is that my life is no longer under my own control here. It isn’t in the canal. It isn’t going overland. I can only wait until others do their jobs.
And one of those jobs will be to sort out the jammed furling gear.
If I ever get out of here, I will never come back.
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My Bach this evening was The Orchestral Suites, subtitled “To a Young Prince.” Thank you, Johann. I don’t get called ‘young’ much any more. In fact men I consider old call me ‘sir’. It happened on the dock a few days ago, causing me to laugh and reconsider my obviously false image of myself.
