Puerto Lindo, Panama

Isla Linton Anchorage, Puerto Lindo, Panama

How things can change in the blink of an eye!! Everything was on schedule for a few days stay here in Puerto Lindo, a small protected bay about 40 nautical miles east of Colon, and then we’d move on up to Colon to provision before heading westwards along the Panamanian coastline. But……something happened!

We met a retired ex-cruising American couple, Roger & Binnie, who have settled here and built themselves a beautiful home overlooking the bay. They, in turn, were looking for a couple who would move into one of their other homes to look after the property and their animals whenever they were away, something they do not do too often. As we are nowhere near finished with our cruising lifestyle, we felt this would have been a wonderful opportunity had it come in another few years time, not now.

However, they were very persuasive and, after much deliberation, we realized that it needn’t stop us from cruising altogether, just take a slight sabbatical. Within a few day's sail of here, we can return to the San Blas Islands, head up to Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico and a few other islands, as well as allowing us to travel inland, perhaps down through South America. We haven't given up on our plan to complete our circumnavigation but there is so much to see and do in this neck of the woods, we won’t be bored for a second and Panama has so much to offer.

It also gives us another prospect too. We’re unsure of what to do once we’ve finished cruising as returning to South Africa may not be a great option. There are not many places in the world we’d be allowed to settle down but Panama is a possibility. There seems to be a huge community of retired folk, mainly from America but from Germany, France, U.K. and Canada as well. Panama welcomes retirees as long as they fit a certain criteria, one which is not too onerous. It may not be quite as simple for us, however it is worth looking into.

And the animals we're to look after?! Two dogs, one cat, a tortoise and, most importantly, three sloths! For those of you who don't know what a sloth is, I've included photos. There are two different kinds of sloths, two-toed and three-toed. This may not seem like much but they are amazingly different from one another. The three-toed (little Bandito in the photo here) is smaller, has more vertebrae, is totally vegetarian, has a little triangular tail and is soooooo huggable! The number of toes refers to the front legs (arms) only as they both have three toes at the back. The two-toed, is much larger, has no tail, eats mainly leaves but can nab a bird occasionally and can be a bit aggressive (the teeth are not to be toyed with). These three have all been rescued when their mothers were killed and have been brought up with a lot of trial and error as not much is known about sloths. They require a lot of special care so, hopefully, not too many people will think of them as ideal household pets, they're not - but you gotta LOVE that face!

The photos below are of Lightning, their female two-toed sloth, a wild mother with her youngster, Thunder, the two-toed male and another wild mom with a tiny baby taken in the trees around the garden.

Lightning, Thunder & Bandito are really pampered pets, living inside the house with their very own teddy bears which they usually refuse to let go. Ever since leaving South Africa and losing our beloved labrador, Winston, we have sorely missed having pets but felt it was unfair to them aboard a boat. This is giving us our pet-fix - how many people walk around with a four-armed, fluffy, smiley face wrapped around their necks all day?!