I know it is surprising, two posts in such a short time period, but I am trying to get better, so this is a good start.
We are still at anchor in the Perlas Islands, and now there are a total of five boats in our anchorage, and all of them are Canadian. We are calling it Little Canada and there has already been a Prime Minister elected. Alas, since we are not Canadian, the best I think we can hope for here on Magda Jean is refugee status. Anyway, one of the other boats is having a birthday today (Feb 11) so we are having a party on the beach and then drinks and stuff on their boat. It will also be a good time to get acquainted with the boats we have not met yet, as two of them just came in yesterday and I have only talked to them on the radio. I am now doing one day a week as a Net Controller for the Panama Pacific Net, but one day a week is all I will do - I did it alone for several months, and had only one or two other Controllers for many months when we were here before. I love doing it, but not all the time.
The other exciting news is that we (yes, WE, I am actually learning something myself) are learning celestial navigation. We each have our own sextants. I have only just begun to actually use mine, and have to practice it a lot more, just learning how to get the shots lined up before we ever start trying to make real plots. Oops, it is time to try it again, I will be right back!
I am back now, and it only took me two minutes to go up on deck and get the sun in focus and lined up with the horizon. So now I have to get accurate. The math involved is not hard, just basic arithmetic, but the concepts are hard for me to get my head around. It is all geometry, lines and arcs and angles and points and I was never really good at that, but I do finally understand the concept of everything being measured in degrees and minutes, and these degrees can correlate with time and distance and all sorts of things. Luckily, most of the really complicated computations are contained in these almanacs, so you look up your numbers and find what you need to determine where you really are. It seems like (at this early stage) that the almanacs assume certain things, and you have to do the math that makes your numbers translate to the numbers in the almanacs. Something like that. I guess if I can't explain it, I have a lot more work to do.
It is HOT out here, and the humidity is pretty high. At least we have the whole ocean to swim in and cool down. The fishing has been terrible - in fact, I was reduced to buying fish from a local who brought his panga aside with a nice selection. I could not help but notice that most of the fish were reef fish, rather than the migrating ones that we usually catch. The more I fish, and the more I learn about fish, in some ways I don't want to catch them anymore. But I know that would be hypocritical, since I have no plans to stop eating them.
Otherwise, there is really no news to report. We plan to stay out here through the month if we can, but our stores are running low. The locals have plenty of beer and stuff like that, but the tiny village never has produce (other than potatoes and onions if we get there on a good day)or eggs for sale. We did get some papaya and some wonderful limes, but that is all. When mangoes are ready, we will be able to get plenty of those and there are a lot of mango trees on these islands. Mango season is not quite here yet, too bad for us. Oh I forgot - we did get some plantains, and Mike fried up some patacones, which are little plantain rounds. They taste a lot like potatoes when they are green like the ones we have. As they get riper, they get a bit sweeter, but never as sweet as a banana, and you always want to cook them. Anyway, with the stores running low and the fishing pretty bad, we have been reduced to going through what we have and trying to conjure up decent meals out of our meager produce and meat rations and canned stuff. So far it has gone pretty well. Mike made a dish with that colored pasta shaped like corkscrews with canned diced tomatoes, fresh onions and garlic, and spam (of all things). I was highly skeptical to say the least, but it was really quite good. We also found that a can of chopped up spam will flavor split pea or bean soup quite well when there is nothing else available. Who knew?
So anyway, that is it for now, and I am going to go up and take another sun shot, see how it matches with the other ones. I feel like Captain Cook!
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