Bats, Monkeys and Rain

We celebrated Thanksgiving on the dock at Red Frog with some 40 other cruisers with smoked turkeys and pot luck side dishes.  Only about a third of the cruisers here are Americans, but the several other nationalities had no trouble participating in this distinctly American holiday. On Friday AM we dropped the lines and sailed leisurely towards Crawl Cay for our departure anchorage.  Saturday AM we would get an early start for the 36 hour trip to our next anchorage so we were looking for calm waters and a restful night and the aqua blue waters in the lee of Crawl Cay (9°14.600'N/82°8.400'W) were perfect.

   

Overcast and grey greeted us at dawn, but we were anxious to sail so we ignored the less than perfect conditions and motored out into the sea.  By 10 AM we were being seriously bounced and rolled and looking at black clouds ahead.  Torrential rains hit and made visibility non existent so we decided to head for a charted, sparsely inhabited island for a little respite from the wind waves and water.  Even in the lee Isla Veraguas (9°5.754'N/81°34.446'W) was rolling heavily, and after only a short nap we opted to continue on despite the rain.  We upped anchor at 4 PM and again headed out for the inevitable all night sail.  The following dawn found us approaching Colon, but much of the trip was with the sails down in heavy, rolling seas. We continued on another 40 miles to a calm anchorage at Buenaventura (9°32.021'N/79°40.517'W) arriving some 33 hours after leaving Crawl Cay, and again acknowledged that over night trips are just not our cup of tea. We slept well however in the lee of a massive hillside that blocked all wind and seas.

More rain in the morning, lots more rain, so we scuttled plans to sail the final 50 miles to San Blas in one leg and instead made a late afternoon jump to Isla Linton (9° 36.795'N/79°35.084'W) (about 12 miles) and another familiar anchorage.  Remember we had gotten this far last year before our wire rigging parted and sent us scurrying back to Shelter Bay so we already knew of a couple of safe spots to stop.  Linton was notable this time around for the screaming of the howler monkeys at dusk (sounding very much like the fiercest of dragons in the woods) and for the swarm of bats that attacked the bunch of ripening bananas that we had hung from the solar arch. Starting shortly after dark and continuing until early AM these large bats kept dive bombing the bananas and then swooping through the cockpit.  We could do little but sit and watch since I did not want to spend time untying the bananas and moving them with so many bats around.  I really didn’t want to upset them.

 

Overcast again in the morning so we selected another anchorage to aim for and headed out once more.  We still had wind on the nose, rain squalls, and rolling seas and once more we chose to stop in the early afternoon.  We found a peaceful anchorage inside some reefs in just 6 feet of water at Escribanos (9°33.068'N/79°9.386'W). The particular feature of this anchorage was the remoteness.  We were the only boat in the area, we were tucked into a large mangrove lagoon behind the reefs, and there were absolutely NO LIGHTS visible in any direction. On a moonless night it was as dark as anything I have ever seen.  Even the water under the boat was invisible. Eerie.

Finally, on the 5th day of our two day trip we reached the San Blas and the island of Porvenir (No more Lat/Lons in this blog because Google does not have very good resolution for this area) where we would check in with the local Port Captain and the Kuna Yala comarca.  The native Kuna Indians “own” the islands as an independent comarca (think state) of Panama. Three tribal chiefs control the islands, and it is with their permission that we can anchor here. When we arrived we paid the first chief $24 to be able to anchor near his islands. Porvenir itself has an airstrip with a short (very short) runway built by the Americans in World War II , and there is another small airstrip further east, but the San Blas area has only a single four wheel drive road for land access. The road crosses a river (sans bridge) along the way and it is frequently closed making this a difficult place to reach except by boat. The runway at Porvenir is about twice as wide as my driveway and not nearly as smooth so I can imagine what the road must look like. The rudimentary runway with palm trees on each side coupled with the reefs all around the island make this look like the kind of place John Wayne would have been stationed in the Pacific.  While we were wandering across the runway, casually taking pictures, we were told to look up…  oops! Plane landing, time to move.

 

Our first San Blas anchorage was the Chichime Cays, two small islands set among the reefs which block the ocean swells from the North. The water was a pretty aqua blue even in the overcast afternoon skies, but the eeriest part was sitting in 15 to 20 knot winds with almost no waves because of the reefs.  It was a very secure feeling.  The two small islands are used as seasonal homes (fishing camps) for several Kuna families.  No running water, no electricity, no shelter other than the palm leaves that made up the roofs of the huts.  The Kuna fish in dugout canoes with nets and lines, and we saw at least one canoe with an infant and two pre-teens paddling between the islands. The Kuna are a truly water oriented culture. Several days after we left Chichime we heard that a sailboat had been blown onto the reef here (we have had some hellacious weather in the past week) and had to be abandoned.

We spent 3 days at Chichime walking the islands, snorkeling, and generally watching the rain squalls blow through the area.  Andrea got a chance to buy a “mola” from a Kuna selling (from his canoe) the intricately embroidered cloth that makes up a part of the traditional costume that all of the women wear. Among the Kuna the women run the families, have the largest voice in the community decisions, and still dress in the traditional garb with molas, dresses and fully beaded leggings. The men seem content in T-shirts and shorts which are most appropriate for the single industry here… fishing.

The past week has had but two sunny days and there are some bad weather forecasts for the coming week.  We will move on to other islands and hope that the weather clears soon. Did I mention that rainy season in Panama ends in November?  Hah! The next blog tells all.

Tom and Andrea

Back to Bocas

Another sailing season began for us with a November 3 departure from California. We had left Mañana in Bocas del Toro for the summer while we headed home for golf and farmer’s markets. We flew from San Jose, CA to Panama City, spent the night in town, and then caught a puddle jumper to Bocas. We arrived in to beautiful weather and in the midst of the Independence Day parade (Nov 5) in Bocas (Google Earth 9° 20.259'N,82° 14.434'W)  where, once again, we were struck by the “parade a week” atmosphere of Latin America. Just “one more fiesta” is the motto.

  

After sufficient celebrating we caught the water taxi to Bastimentos Island where we found Mañana floating serenely at the Red Frog marina dock (Google Earth 9° 20.188'N, 82° 10.650'W). Lobo and Erika had opened and aired the boat regularly while we were gone, and one of the ladies from the nearby Indian village had spent a full day removing the evidence of mold, mildew and heavy rains which had turned our decks green during the summer. Despite the rains and wet weather the boat has never looked better.

As with all of our “returns to paradise” we had several projects planned before we could start sailing, and we had lots of new gear in tow. We began by replacing our jib and mainsail with new sails from UK. Beautiful. We also installed new Lexan windows in the cabin and we made a minor adjustment to last year’s motor installation. We still have new wire rigging to hoist up the mast, but (before the water pipe broke) we had happily commented that this is the very best condition this boat has been in “ever”. The water pipe turned out to be minor anyway.

 

We will depart Bocas sometime around Thanksgiving headed for the very picturesque San Blas Islands (Google Earth 9° 32.578'N, 78° 47.718'W) which are about 200 miles to the east. The San Blas is still a remote, undeveloped province of Panama dominated by the autonomous Kuna Yala Indians. The San Blas archipelago is a prime Caribbean sailing destination with a vast system of reefs protecting the anchorages from the rolling seas. Overland access to San Blas is by four-wheel vehicles only, and the majority of visitors arrive by boat. Internet access and even electricity are rare amenities in the San Blas. They sell no liquor (yes, we are taking plenty) and fresh produce is scarce, but this is island sailing at its best. Sometime in January we will reverse course and return to Bocas.

We have filled our days prior to Thanksgiving with books, beaches, and happy hours although we had promised ourselves that we would try the zip line tour, hike the island, and even try the scuba diving. So far none of that. Rain is frequent and bugs are annoying, but that’s paradise everywhere. All plans we make have to take into account “rain delays”, and in fact the weather is the only thing keeping us from heading east sooner. We did find a tiny Thai restaurant tuc ked into the jungleat the top of the island and hiked to lunch with eight friends.

As previously stated… when we arrived in Bocas del Toro it was Independence Day. Panama was celebrating it’s independence from Colombia in 1904. That was the November 5 celebration. Parades, speeches, hot dogs, beer… typical Independence Day and very much like what we saw last year in David (okay, maybe they didn’t have hot dogs). Now we get to November 16 and we have another Independence Day celebrating?… yes! independence from Colombia in 1904. Sound familiar? Well Nov 16 is Bocas Day. It seems that Bocas del Toro celebrates both the actual Independence Day AND the day word of independence reached this outlying province (likely by mule or slow boat). This is very much like Kentucky celebrating July 4^th and also celebrating July 20^th because that’s when Kentucky first heard about July 4^th. Next week is Bastimentos Day which I suspect has to do with a canoe trip across the bay to let Bastimentos know about the same Colombian independence.

 

The celebration was again a day long parade (10 AM to 4 PM) filled with marching bands. There were local bands from the schools plus a fire department band, a police band, and even a Department of Public Works band. Bands also came from other communities and filled the two large ferry boats to the island. All of the bands wore uniforms and while the feature band at the end of the parade had saxophones, clarinets, trumpets, glockenspiels, drums, etc. almost all of the other bands could best be described as “two instrument bands”. The only two instruments were “big drums” and “little drums”. Everybody plays the drums. 50 or 60 band members with nothing but drums. We saw one little guy with a mini size uniform and an oversize hat who was about 3 feet tall banging away on a 2 foot drum with some serious attitude. You would have thought he was a Dave Clark (Ringo Starr?) impersonator.

    

The bands marched many blocks in some intense sun, and most of the pom-pom girls wore full nylons, yet the Americans watching the parade seemed to be the only ones affected by the heat. . The parade route was a little difficult to find at first because the parade crossed through itself at one intersection in town requiring the band from one street or the other to give way. Overall this was exceptionally entertaining.

  

The weather and procrasination have conspiered to keep us in Bocas a little longer than expected, but we have day sailed to try the new sails and we have completely stocked the boat for 6 weeks without stores, and we are ready to sail for San Blas. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you like the blogs) we will be posting nothing to the internet until we return from San Blas in January. Best to all.

  Tom and Andrea

Red Frog

The past two weeks aboard Mañana have been spent cruising the islands of the Bocas del Toro archipelago and enjoying the warm Caribbean spring. We are sailing in one of the prettiest spots we have visited on this trip, and we have had little to do other than relax and enjoy.

Mike and Liz flew in from Boston, and we met them at the small airport in Bocas Town. They arrived without bags having lost the fishing gear on the Boston to Panama leg of the trip and losing the rest of their gear on the Panama to Bocas leg. The Air Panama plane was so small that no carry on bags were allowed so even their backpacks got misrouted. Fortunately we were able to kill some time wandering around Bocas Town until the bags reappeared a few hours later. We then spent our time snorkeling and sailing and putting a serious dent in our beer supplies before the all important rods and lures turned up about two days later.

 

Fishing is not our forte on Mañana, but Mike was anxious to supply dinner so we headed into the ocean for a sailing/fishing trip. Good winds made the sailing fun and Mike managed to catch enough fish (both Cero and Frigate Mackerel) to provide dinner for four. Mike hooked all of the fish, but everyone got a turn at reeling in these “fighting monsters”. My contribution was to sail the boat over the fish and to provide the experience necessary to properly grill very fresh fish. The real bonus was that Mike decided to leave the gear with us until his next visit (rather than lose it on the way home, I suspect) so we should be eating fresh fish regularly. :)

 

We spent a couple of nights at anchor in some very remote spots with only the stars for light. Mucho awesome. One anchorage had a beach with the set for the Survivor show built on the sand and in the shallows. They film Survivor shows here for several countries around the world, and they are all very controversial. It seems there is little regulation of the shows because in Panama “no one owns the beaches”, and the TV producers have built (and abandoned) sets on pristine beaches, turtle breeding grounds and palm lined cays. The Russians even built and abandoned a set in a national park. Survivor is definitely persona non grata in Bocas.

I finally spied my first (and second) lionfish while snorkeling one of the shallow reefs off Isla Bastimento. They are pretty fish, but the lionfish is a non native predator that has been moving steadily across the Caribbean and has now reached Panama. There is a local organization called “I Spear Lionfish” that is encouraging divers to help eradicate this problem and even runs Lionfish tournaments. I may have to by a spear gun for our next trip.

We wanted to get some beach time so we put into a small marina about five miles from Bocas Town called Red Frog. Red Frog is on Isla Bastimento and has a hostel, a 20 slip marina (new), and a spectacular sand beach. At the moment only the hostel and the marina office have been completed so it is a very quiet place, but there are plans (controversial) for an entire resort on this island. The marina is on the leeward side of the island and is well protected from the Caribbean winds, while the beach is on the windward side, only a short walk across the island. There is a palapa bar in the shade, turquoise water, white sand and a few tourists from the hostel. The local Indian kids make some money catching the bright red frogs (small, about 2”, and very bright red) that inhabit the island and offering to pose for pictures with the frogs for $1. We fell in love with this beach and the marina location, and have decided to leave the boat here when we head home for the summer.

 

 

No trip is perfect (as you can probably tell from some of our previous blogs), and this almost idyllic vacation was no exception. We returned to Bocas Town to get Liz and Mike back to the airport for an early morning flight. While we were out sampling bars and restaurants for their last night aboard… we got robbed. Burgled is the correct term (since we were ashore when it happened), but it was a crime nonetheless. Someone came aboard while we were anchored out, cut the lock on the companionway, and found our cash stash. Admittedly we had gotten a little lazy about hiding the cash, but in three years we had had no trouble of any kind so we were very surprised to find we had been robbed while we enjoyed $1 beers ashore. Most expensive beers of the trip as it turned out. As an aside… when we made out the police report the next day (a very long process) we were required to provide both my father’s and mother’s full names as well as details of the crime. Maybe they are suspects!

With no guests and nothing but time on our hands we have been… doing nothing. We visit the beach daily, practice our Spanish, clean the boat, meet new people, and just enjoy ourselves. Erika and Lobo occupy the boat next to us and they are sail makers so we have been thinking about new sails for the boat when we return next fall. We have been taking measurements and talking prices (the sail will actually get made in Houston), but I did have second thoughts about doing business with a guy named “Lobo” on a dock in Panama.

 

We will be home soon. Once again the heat and humidity are becoming noticeably higher as summer approaches, and the rains are a little heavier and more frequent. Besides… no one can be on vacation all the time… can they?

Mañana.

Tom and Andrea

West to Bocas

In case you were awaiting the results of the May 16 census… there are 3.18 million people living in Panama. There are also a lot of tourists and foreigners scattered about the country so it may seem a little more crowded than that, but that is the official count. Despite the crowds it is still a beautiful place to be.

We have spent the past several days congratulating ourselves for getting our engines installed and working. They are not perfect, and it took us a lot longer than we planned, but we are moving, sailing, visiting new places, and generally enjoying Panama again (which we certainly were not doing last week). While we were on the hard we also applied new bottom paint to Mañana, and shortly after we launched the boat (note picture of yard hands working heavy machinery in flip flops) we hauled Andrea to the top of the mast to install our new rigging and to fix our wind vane. The boat looks great.

There are worse places than Shelter Bay to be stuck working. We had a small hotel with a large swimming pool that made the heat more bearable. We had a rental car that gave us access to Colon, and we found the town to be a little less dangerous that we had been led to believe. Almost daily we would cross the small drawbridge at the Gatun Locks heading into Colon to find parts and hardware for each project. We are experts at crossing the small drawbridge beneath the Gatun Locks. We are, however, very glad to be leaving the Canal Zone and heading for more tropical locales.

We are now in Bocas del Toro (9° 20.538'N/ 82° 14.154). We made an early AM departure from Shelter Bay in Colon, and sailed the Caribbean coast of Panama due west to Bocas. We picked a bright sunny day to start out and we got a great breeze. The trip was about 150 miles and took almost 35 hours. We had a beautiful sail for most of the trip, and we got to dodge rain squalls for the rest of the time. Because it is hot and humid here the rain is not an unwelcome occurrence, and the big downpours have not yet started.

Bocas del Toro is an archipelago of islands in western Panama. (Panama is shaped like an elongated “S” lying in its side with the Canal in the center.) In the Bocas archipelago there are three large bays with many low sand cays (islands) that have grown up behind shallow reefs as well as hundreds of mangrove islands. The off shore reefs absorb the ocean’s swells, and the waves then drop the sand that they have been carrying across the seas. Sooner or later some vegetation starts to grow on these sand bars and the next thing you know… voila!, a tropical island has been created. Our first stop in the Bocas area was Zapatillo Cays which look exactly as you might picture a Caribbean cay. Sand beaches set in turquoise water, palm trees covering most of the island, and shallow reefs protecting the ocean sides from the rolling swells. The living coral reefs protect the smaller fish so Zapatillo is a prime snorkeling spot in this area. The cay we anchored off was deserted, there were no other boats around, and we had the place to ourselves. A leatherback turtle and a LARGE barracuda were our only visitors.

Bocas Town itself is a popular Caribbean tourist area with a lively waterfront filled with bars, restaurants, dive shops, and small tour boats promoting snorkeling trips and trips to remote beaches. Many of the buildings are built on piers hanging over the water to catch the breezes, and all of the bars and restaurants are very much open air, driftwood construction. Because there is almost no tidal range here the floors of these buildings are less than 2 feet off the water. There are many hostels in town for the budget minded, and we read about the new resort villages cropping up on the islands and on the hillsides for the wealthier tourists. We are only 30 miles from the Costa Rican border here, and visitors can reach the area from both Panama and Costa Rica. While we thoroughly enjoy the solitude of anchoring by ourselves we confess that the occasional dose of nightlife does appeal to us also. Of course nightlife at our age ends around 9 PM, but in the afternoon and early evening we have managed to sample Rip Tide, Lilly’s, Pirato, The Reef, Aqua Lounge, Hundido’s, Barracuda… So many bars, so little time.

 

The town is actually fairly large, and everyone we’ve talked to seems very happy to live here. English is much more prevalent here than elsewhere in Panama, and the culture is more Caribbean and less Spanish. We have been at anchor near town for the past 3 days taking the dinghy ashore in the AM to explore, and coming back for happy hour each evening. Lively music sounds across the water until the wee hours each night. We are meeting other boats from all over the world, talking about places to go and things to see. We have tried some of the nearby snorkeling (lots of fish and some of the best coral we have seen), and tomorrow we expect guests from Cape Cod so we will be looking at several other snorkel sites as well as trying our luck at fishing. You may recall that we nearly starved last year when we decided to rely on the sea to provide all of our meals.

Yes, life is good.

Trouble in Paradise

What I would like to be writing with this e-mail is a picturesque travelogue about sailing the turquoise waters of a tropical island paradise. San Blas, Bocas del Toro, maybe even Cartagena, were all part of our plans for the spring. These are unbelievably beautiful spots that people sail around the world to visit. True cruising pleasure, and the reason we undertake trips like this.

What we have actually been doing is something just short of that, “way” short of that. We are back in Panama and into our second week here without having done any sailing at all. Actually we are in our second week, and the boat hasn’t even gotten wet (unless you count the occasional rain shower). We are high and dry and working through a series of mishaps involving our new motors.

We had two new outboard engines shipped to Panama over the winter and the thinking went “we’ll take a couple of days to install the engines and paint the bottom before launching, sailing, and relaxing”. Well the engines didn’t fit, the wiring harness didn’t work, and installation process revealed a few “minor” boat items that needed to be repaired before we could get underway. I feel like I’m on a Survivor show where they give you a hammer, a screwdriver, a piece of wood, and say “build an engine… and do it in Spanish”.  We did some welding, some fiberglass “alterations”, and some praying (swearing) while we took 10 days just to get the first engine installed (we have two, you know.) The good news is the weather is warm, the beer is cold, and there is a great deal of satisfaction a figuring this all out. Panama is still a nice place to be stuck building a boat.

We did rent a car and took a driving trip across Panama for two days. The town of Colon which is supposed to be one of the roughest towns in Latin America features what I call “No Way Stop” intersections. Just like four way stops except no lights, no stop signs, traffic from four directions, and who ever moves first wins. Slightly chaotic, but it does make for some of the most aggressive driving I have ever seen.

We re-visited Panama City and stayed at a very nice B&B halfway up Cerro Ancon (highest point in Panama City) where we could look down on the skyscrapers, neighborhoods, beaches and the Bridge of the Americas. We hiked to the top of the mountain in the early morning, and then watched monkeys off our balcony while eating breakfast. The B&B set out bananas each morning to entice the monkeys to come closer. These little white faced monkeys were about the size of small cats, and they climbed through the trees only a few feet from our breakfast table. The young monkeys looked very much like long tailed kittens scampering along the tree branches. These “cute” monkeys were a far cry from the ferocious sounding howler monkeys that fill the trees near the boat. Every day in the work yard we are treated to the loud roars that caused Christopher Columbus’ sailors to report “dragons” in the forests of Panama.

While we were driving we also observed that the buses in Panama have some of the most interesting murals painted on them. The recurring theme is to have a picture of Jesus painted on the rear door (very religious country) between the twin exhaust pipes. This may just be a form of accident insurance for the faithful (God protect this bus?). For the non-religious types J-Lo is also well represented as a bus icon in Panama.

Today, May 16, is National Census Day in Panama, and the entire country seems to have shut down. The country is small enough (3 million souls) that they actually count everyone, every single resident and visitor, once every 10 years (at home we count a lot of people and then do some statistical hocus pocus to come up with an actual “guess” about how many Americans there are). So today NO ONE could leave their home until they were counted. No businesses were open, no restaurants, no gas stations, no convenience stores, nada. You could not leave home until you were counted AND THEN you were given a pass allowing you to go out before 7 PM.

Would we move to Panama? It’s warm, friendly, inexpensive, a nice place to visit, but consider this… there are only seven golf courses in the entire country, and three of them are “opening next year”. That’s not paradise.

Best to all,

Tom and Andrea

Caribbean Panama

We have spent the past two weeks exploring the Caribbean coast of Panama, and we have enjoyed it thoroughly. Our original goal of reaching the San Blas Islands fell by the wayside when we parted some wires on our standing rigging near Portobello. (Standing rigging: wire rope supporting the mast). We rigged an emergency support with a spare halyard which has allowed us to motor along safely, but we are hesitant to raise too much sail until we can replace the rigging.

There have been plenty of picturesque anchorages along the way, and all of the stops we have made have involved very short hops from one anchorage to another. In the Pacific the protected anchorages were always much farther apart. Here we can move from one place to another with plenty of time for breakfast, swimming, snorkeling, beers, sunsets… It is a truly remarkable corner of the Caribbean.

We dropped off our Canal crew in Portobello (9° 33.349'N 79° 39.480'W) and took the opportunity to explore this historic town. Portobello was the main port for the shipment of Peruvian gold and treasures to Spain beginning in the early 1500s. The port was subsequently raided by a series of privateers and pirates including Francis Drake (who died in Portobello) and the infamous Henry Morgan. The ruins of the fortifications built in the mid 1700s (and which never got attacked) are in pretty good condition because they were merely abandoned (as opposed to being destroyed in battle) when Colombia gained independence from Spain in 1822.

 

  

From Portobello we proceeded to anchor in one beautiful spot after another. (Buenaventura, Playa Blanca, Isla Linton). The water here ranges from green to turquoise depending on the bottom conditions, and the winds have been stronger and steadier than what we experienced in the Pacific. Because the winds maintain a constant direction it is easy to anchor behind a reef so that while the wind blows all night, the water is flat and the anchor holds securely.  

For New Years Day we managed to find ourselves in a crowded Panamanian beach resort. We anchored off the small town and hailed a panga to take us ashore where we mingled with hundreds of Panamanians enjoying the vacation time on the beaches and in the small bars and restaurants. We also found two remote restaurants (i.e. in very small villages), one run by a French couple and another run by a Dutch ex-patriot, that gave us an opportunity sample some great food at very modest prices.

 

This area of Panama is a real crossroads for the sailing community. Of course the Canal is a big draw with the European boats headed across the Pacific, and the many Pacific cruisers headed for the Caribbean, but there are also lots of boats that never transit the Canal cruising the San Blas Islands as part of a Caribbean circumnavigation. We are in the Shelter Bay Marina in Cristobal (Colon), Panama where we will leave the boat for the winter while we are home working. About a quarter of the boats here show US home ports while the rest are Canadian and European.

Our last stop before Shelter Bay was the Chagres River. We motored below the ruins of Fort San Lorenzo and into the lower Chagres. The Chagres River was dammed to create Lake Gatun which is the main body of water in the Panama Canal, but you can explore the six mile stretch from the Caribbean entrance up to the massive Gatun dam. The river is awesome. Panamanian jungles line both sides of the narrow river and crocodiles and howler monkeys add to the mystique. We anchored in the river for two nights with only the monkeys for company. Eerie.

   

Our trip is ending. We will spend four days here in Shelter Bay preparing the boat for winter storage and planning next year’s maintenance.  We have decided to haul the boat and store on the hard so that we can paint the bottom (discourages little barnacle critters from traveling with us) and install new engines.  Next week we will be home in CA, getting ready for work, and missing some great sailing opportunities. This is the toughest part of the trip… leaving when the sailing is at its best. Right now the wind is howling (and has been for four days), but we know the winds will settle, the sun will shine and there are seas to sail. On the other hand we miss our CA friends, and we are looking forward to home and the comforts of home. We have multiple repairs scheduled (motors, new sails, new standing rigging, new windows) and parts to smuggle in from the States that will keep us busy in the spring, but next year we PROMISE…. The legendary San Blas Islands or Bust.

 

Tom and Andrea