In the morning Dave checks the location of AAL Dalian. She is parked “outside”. This is not good as outside the bay the swell could make maneuvering up to the ship really dangerous. Dave had figured she would come inside where it is calmer. Hopefully the swell is not too significant or it is going to be tricky.
Later in the morning she started moving. Perhaps she is coming inside the breakwater and she just parked out there last night because it was dark. Indeed, she is doing about 4 knots towards entrance as of 9:20 this morning. Around 10:30, she parked herself right outside Shelter Bay. Dave now realizes he has only a 1.5 nm course to get there.
Dave decided to head out and just hang out to watch the other boat offload. He heads out of the slip, turns the wheel, and almost nothig happens. Ever so slowly she starts to turn. Dave realizes he is headed over to run into the boats on the other side of the fairway. He hits reverse, and backs and fills inch by inch till he gets Apsaras turned. The problem is that Apsaras’s bottom is covered with a small forest of marine life. As a result, the rudder was super slow to respond. He finally makes it out into the main channel out of the marina. And now a big catamaran pulls in. Dave isn’t sure he can pass side to side with her as the entrance to the marina is narrow. But he doesn’t have manuverability to pull aside. He pulls as far to starboard as possible and the cat sneaks by – just barely.
He starts across the bay and realizes he can only make 3 knots rather than the normal 6 because of the giant forest attached to the hull. He reaches the ship and bobbs around for a couple hours getting totally fried. He should have put up the bimini. Ooops.
Dave watches them off loading the power boat.
Now it was time to start the loading procedure. They asked Dave to come along side. As he approached they indicated they wanted me to rig lines fore and aft. OK, turn around so he can drift and rig up the long lines. He gets them rigged, but as he hops back into the cockpit, he knocks the ship’s bell off its hook. It goes flying across the deck and rolls to the very edge. Dave thought it was going over, but it stopped just in time for him to grab it.
Then he pulled alongside the freighter such that the rope ladder was amid ship. They tossed down lines to tie my lines to and took them up. It got a little rolly at one point and the rigging was banging on the ship. Dave could just push himself off to make it stop.
Down came the diver who would place the straps under the boat in the right spots. Then came down another guy that did all of the raising commands. He had Dave loosen the topping lift so they could get the crane as close to the mast as they could.
They pulled the straps into place by lashing them back to the cleats on deck. Dave had previously marked where he wanted the straps with blue tape on the deck to make sure he agreed with their placement. Badly placed straps can mean the boat is out of balance and slips out of the straps. He had no intention of trusting an unknown crew. But when the diver hopped in, he knew they would get it right. They were ready to go up in about 10 minutes.
They raised Apsaras until her deck was flush with the ship’s deck so Dave could hop off.
The work boat arrived to drop the captain of the 80 footer. Dave had to go down the rope ladder about 15 feet to the deck of the work boat. They took him back to Shelter Bay. Dave had noticed that the AAL Dalian is flying a yellow quaranteene flag. Technically that means she never cleared customs into Panama. This makes sense as the cargo being loaded and off-loaded has to clear – not the ship itself. However, when Dave hopped aboard, technically he left the country of Panama and should have had to re-enter the country. No surprise that no one seems to care about this.
It was odd arriving back in Shelter Bay and realizing Apsaras wasn’t there anymore. It was like being homeless. Dave made the drive back into Panama City for another night’s stay at the Panama Hat Hostel. Along the way he ran into a big traffic jam. A truck carrying big cement blocks that were hanging over the side had to pass a bus on a narrow road. Alas there wasn’t actually enough room, and the cement blocks cut a big hole down the side of the bus. Ah, Central American driving.