Lightning never strikes twice, right?

     Well, the good news is the Espiritu shake-down cruise to the Las Perlas Islands went off without a hitch after our 2 months in Panama City nursing the crippled Espiritu back to health after her lightning strike.

   What a relief. There are a couple of minor glitches, but basically she passed the test with flying colors and is back at sea where she belongs!

   So now, as always, the biggest challenge will be the mental ones.  I'm realizing that there are still several more weeks left in the rainy season here in Central America. Which means countless more lightning and thunderstorms to endure...

Wonderful.  :-/

  If you look back at my blog posts before we were struck by lightning back on June 28th, you'll find that when I thought about lightning, and my fear of it, I merely went to statistics and the randomness of it all for reassurance.

  But now that we HAVE been struck by lightning...and we've spent countless hours and dollars working aboard Espiritu nursing her back to health...I'm wondering, what will be my mental process now in dealing with my fear of lightning?

I could sing! "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens..." Hmmmm.
Doesn't really work on me like it does on the adorable little Von Trapp kids...

    A friend told me that when she was a child, her parents told her that lightning was simply Gramma and Grampa bowling in heaven.

"Hey kids! Gramma got a strike!"

Sigh. That thought, while amusing, doesn't really do much to allay my fears.

The scary fact is, there is no-freaking-where to go when a storm comes.

  And what if the nightmare happens -- and we ARE struck twice? Well -- the thought of it is just too horrifying to contemplate.

  I imagine the emotions I'm feeling now might be akin to parents who lose a child, and then have another one. How do you even let that child go out and cross the street, or drive, or walk to school by himself? Or a spouse whose loved one had an affair...how do you ever trust again?

 That sky...that beautiful sky, that has been the source of such inspiration to Chris and I since our childhood...well...

...she BURNED us.

   So how can we trust her again?

  Well, the truth is, we can't. She may strike again. There are no guarantees.

  So the only thing to do is just step out in faith and sail. Onward, ever onward.

  So that's what we'll do. We're in the beautiful Las Perlas Islands, and we'll spend a week or so exploring and just letting that damn mast stick 55 feet up in the air when the inevitable lightning strikes come...because there is literally nothing we can do...

...might as well just enjoy ourselves. And in the end, we'll just fall back on that little spiritual chestnut that so many of us rely on:

 

New photos: Tribal Council on Survivor Island, Panama

Beautiful Mago Mago Island in the Last Perlas Islands ("Pearl Island" in English),
site of the 2003 season of the CBS series "Survivor."

  While Chris stayed aboard Espiritu to continue her repairs, I was treated to a two night sailing trip to the Las Perlas Islands with our good friends Howard and Lynn aboard Swift Current.

The Last Perlas Islands are a mere 30 miles south of Panama City.
But with their pristine beauty and isolation, they may as well be thousands of miles away

     Many of our cruising friends whom have sailed south with us from Mexico and through central America have gone directly through the Canal to the Caribbean, skipping these islands entirely.

Honestly, it's a head scratcher. But, we all do crazy things that noone else understands, right?  

               My aim here is to make sure that noone else makes the same mistake.

Our first stop: Isla Contadora

 After being nearly capsized aboard our dinghy several times at the surf beaches of Costa Rica, beaching the dinghy here was a real pleasure. Yes, it's as calm as it looks, folks.

 FUN FACT: Isla Contadora became the new home of The exiled Shah of Iran after he was ousted out of his home country by the Iranian Revolution back in the late '70's. We never saw him during our trip, since we're pretty sure he's dead. But I kept my eyes peeled just in case.

We saw Abe Vigoda in an Upper West Side coffee shop a couple of years ago,
 and we thought HE was dead, too. So one never knows. 

     

The bustling beach of Isla Contadora

OK, we can live with this!

                    Isla Contadora is the most populated of all of the Las Perlas. There are a few charming waterfront establishments such as this one, the "Restaurant Romantico." Interestingly, many of the businesses on the island have the word "Romantico" built within the name. And why not?

It's golf carts only on the winding roads of Isla Contadora

                               

Orchids take root on the telephone wires

                     Even the weeds are beautiful here! If you look carefully, you'll see a
                    garden variety chain-link fence being overtaken by the flora and fauna...

               We looked for Turtle and Ari aboard this yacht named Entourage, but they
             stayed inside the cabin...probably watching satellite TV in the air conditioning. :-/

Flowers grow right out of the sidewalk on Contadora

Aerial view of the island

                                               

And like literally every little town in Latin America, there's a soccer field

             

       On day two we pulled anchor with our friends aboard Rapscullion and Precious Metal and
                     headed to the nearby islands of Isla Chapera and Mogo Mogo.

Aerial view of the islands

                                 Yes, "Survivor" was here, back when it was still cool (IMHO).
             We stopped watching it after the novelty wore off within the first couple of seasons.

I'm pretty sure this is what heaven looks like

We snorkeled this thriving reef in 85 degree water. Swift Current sits at anchor in the distance. 

We took the dink and went ashore on Survivor Island (Mogo Mogo).
No sign of Jeff Probst or Elizabeth Hasselbeck...

...but I think I might have smelled the remnants of Rupert...

Rupert and Zach Galafanikis: separated at birth?

Anyway, a big hug and special thanks to our wonderful friends Howard and Lynn, who generously took me along for this trip to the islands.

Are they cute, or what? 

So Chris and I remain here in the Flamenco Marina in Panama City working to restore Espiritu to her previous glory so that we can continue our sailing adventure. More to follow...