Spring in Seattle – fixing potholes.
Thunder rumbles and rumbles outside as the pelting rain causes a flurry of cherry blossoms to scurry to the ground. Ah, spring in Seattle after a record-breaking winter of rain. We broke a 122 year-old record for rainfall from October to April and as the headlines said, well, of course we did. As could also be expected, just an hour or two earlier there was bright sunshine and it was finally warm enough to walk down the street without a coat. Briefly, that is.
It is wet out.
Our first thought as the thunder and pouring rain continued through the afternoon was, “Ah, conditioning us for Panama!” Yes, that’s right, we are headed to Panama! We depart verrrry early tomorrow morning to begin our journey south, flying through Houston to get to Panama City.
The other day we happened to see a sister ship, the Safari Endeavor, going through the Ballard Locks. Soon we will be going through the Panama Locks!
On Saturday we will board our home for the week, the Safari Voyager, part of the Uncruise small ship adventure line. We will be making numerous stops on both the Caribbean and Pacific coasts, even making a foray into the jungle, and also transiting the Panama Canal. There will be kayaks, snorkels, paddle boards and skiffs involved. How much they will involve us we don’t yet know. Stay tuned. There will be good food. Plenty of it. Otherwise we wouldn’t be going, as you all know.
As we started checking the weather forecasts over the past two weeks, we learned that Panama has very consistent weather patterns, and the pattern now seems to be thunderstorms on a daily basis, so we thank Seattle for acclimating us to this weather. But while they seem to occur daily, it also seems that they don’t last long. At least we hope not. And it will be humid, and it will be warm.
Preparing for Panama
In preparation we also had to get immunizations. Lots. Typhoid, Hep A, Hep B, MMR. Our consulting travel nurse also initially recommended Yellow Fever vaccination and Malaria medication, but decided maybe they weren’t necessary. We sure hope not! It makes us feel like we are heading out for a year-long trek down the Amazon.
One unfortunate aspect of being on a small ship in somewhat remote areas is that we will have no internet. Yay, no constant checking of email and news, but boo, we can’t update the blog daily. We will try and write our posts as we go and then upload as soon as possible, so who knows when they may pop up.