Here we are, on our way to Salvador. We left Panama City on May 7, and since that time we are still here in Panama, slowly sailing with either no wind or lightning. Neither are optimal for our purposes. I used to love thunder and lightning, but now I am in horror of it. I have too many friends and acquaintances who have been struck and lost all of their electronics - usually to the tune of at least $30,000 to fix, not to mention the hassle of trying to find someone who can actually do the work and do it right.
The night before last, we had to use the engine to literally dodge around lighting cells. Mike was masterful, handling this boat like one of those NASCAR drivers, only slower. We pulled in here at 3 am with no moon, so we couldn't see anything and had to navigate in using our radar. Then, to add insult to injury, it started to rain. The problem with rain is that when you are using radar to navigate, rather than to see what is way up ahead of you, the rain shows up on the screen and causes the screen to be one big blob, instead of several little clearly defined blobs that are indicative of things to be avoided. But here we are, safe and sound, so we managed. I mean Mike managed - I sat there helping him look out. Too bad I no longer have the excellent night vision I had as a kid. Moonless nights with cloud cover are difficult. A fact of sailing life. So now we wait, for some kind of break in the weather.
At least we are in a gorgeous anchorage. Yesterday we heard the howler monkeys calling. In fact, they have just started up again. The beach butts right up against a dense jungle, and the air is thick with the smell of plumeria. There are wild orchids everywhere,growing on the big ceiba trees. We can see and experience all this from the boat. We also have a bucket of mangoes that we picked at our last anchorage, so we are living well. Our only disappointment is that the fishing has been terrible. I have caught basically nothing this year. Everyone, including the local panga fishermen, are talking about it. Thank goodness we have a freezer full of store bought food. If it were solely up to me this year, we would starve.
The Panamanian military came by and checked our paperwork, which of course is in perfect order. Even though it is always in perfect order (except once when I lucked out) I still break out in a sweat every time someone in a uniform asks to see my papers. Too many WWII moves, for sure. Even though none of these guys sound like Claude Rains. And they usually smile. And they are usually 18 years old. But still.
But other than that, things could not be better. I do not mind going slowly,I just feel bad because there is some family business I need internet to take care of and I don't have it now, and won't until Salvador. I can send and receive basic email with no attachments, via SSB radio (the way I am posting this and why I have no pictures to accompany it) but that is all. So it is frustrating because I do not want to be a hold up to the process. It is one of those "serenity to accept the things I cannot change" things, and the virtue "Patience" has never been my strong suit.
Anyway, this will be a short post. I am fine, Mike is fine, Magda Jean is fine. Although our pace is slow, we are learning to stop expending energy fussing over what may happen next, but to simply accept and experience as deeply as possible what happening in this moment. Not as easy as it sounds, but when it works it is amazing. The adventure continues.
"Please don't understand me too quickly." (Andre Gide)
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Friday, May 29, 2015
Thursday, May 7, 2015
"I've been one poor correspondant . . .
I've been too too hard to find. But that doesn't mean you ain't been on my mind." Okay, quoting America of all bands is not going to win me any prizes for either the depth of my intellect or my level of music appreciation. And they had to be one of the most overplayed bands of the seventies or whenever it was. But it still describes how I feel about letting this blog go as long as I have.
And there is no real good answer - my usual general laziness mixed with what we had going on.
I think we left off with us in Panama. I did tell of our two guests/crew members who rode with us from Ecuador to Panama - Wayne and Marcos, hailing from Newfoundland and Australia respectively. We met them in Bolivia, on a bike and boat trip that took us from high in the Andes down into the Amazon basin. Marcos was the guide and Wayne was another of the participants. We had a blast with them on the boat.
After they left, we spent some time enjoying the Perlas Islands. At that point, we dove on the boat (which means diving under the boat to see what is going on down there) and discovered that when the Ecuadorian pilot caused us to run aground, we did suffer damage to the rudder skeg (part of the boat that hangs down to protect the rudder. Here, it did its job well.) To fix it required us to have the boat hauled, which was planned anyway for new bottom paint. So we spent most of the month of March with the boat on the hard (in the shipyard). We do not stay on the boat when it is on the hard, and I don't think this yard would have let us do that even if we wanted to. So we stayed in a nearby hotel, so we could go everyday and check on the boat. It is always sort of a treat to stay in a hotel - there is the big king-size bed, the unlimited water for showers, air conditioning (which makes one truly appreciate the HOT shower. We have the ability to have hot showers on the boat, but we never go there. It is too hot to want to take anything but a nice cool shower. I do not want any more warm water on my body, thank you. The constant sweat is warm enough.), and of course Cable TV, which usually includes the following English presentations: CNN International along with one other channel which seems to play the many, many permutations of the show CSI, as well as NCIS or whatever the initials are for the one about naval intelligence. We just sit there eating junk food and watching junk television, but who cares - it is never for very long. But I always miss the boat, especially sleeping in my own little bed with the nice soothing rocking motion.
So the damage was fixed, and insurance did pay fort some of it, although most of the work fell within the deductible. Then, right after we got back on the boat, I went to the doctor because I had a slight case of conjunctivitis, and knowing how icky it is, I went in right away to catch it before it got bad and before Mike caught it. So while I was in there, i decided to have the doctor take a look at two spots on my skin, one of which my sister (who is a nurse and knows about these things plus she is a survivor of two malignant melanomas) told my did not look good. I of course blew that off. Then right before I went in I noticed a spot on my upper arm that looked funny. You must know that I am covered with freckles and various other spots and skin tags and whatever, so it is hard to keep track of all the spots and what they might be doing at any given time. But I decided "What the hell, I am here, I might as well get this addressed now so I don't have to periodically think about it." The doctor looked at the one on my chest (we never got to the one on my arm) and she said "You need to see a dermatologist." "okay" says I. "No" she says. "you need to see one this week.) So I did, and of course you can guess the rest. I had a malignant melanoma on my chest, and a basal cell sarcoma on my arm. The dermatologist/plastic surgeon got all of the cancer, so I am right as rain currently.
It did give me a scare, though. I had been walking around with the melanoma for well over a year, and had it not been for the conjunctivitis, it would still be there. I have a cousin who died of skin cancer, and I am told it is a bad death. I feel like I dodged a bullet or something. I suppose I am making too big a deal out of it, but it scares me to think I really could have screwed the pooch here but for something completely unrelated. I guess this also messes with my master plan of getting through my fifties without any cancer.
Now I have no choice but to be careful with the sun and I would be horribly remiss if I did not warn everyone to be careful with this sun before it is too late for you. The price of a beautiful golden tan is not worth it! Go to the salon and get a fake one if you simply must have one. I was never one of those who baked themselves all summer, and was always pretty careful to use sunscreen, but it still happened. I endured my high school years at Laguna Beach High School in the early seventies being constantly asked (and always in a snotty tone) "Don't you ever go outside?" I would patiently explain that as a redhead tanning wasn't really something I would ever excel at. Then they would point out someone close to redheaded with a nice tan and tell me that I could do it if I really tried. I hope things have changed at that level, because that is when the damage starts that ends up with surgery and cancer. What I had is not the result of my being on the boat, it is damage that set in a long time ago. But I have now moved from tank tops to long sleeved t-shirts, and if anyone anywhere asks me why I have no tan I am likely to want to punch them in the nose.
But enough of that. I am fine now and that is all that matters. Things are fine, the boat is in great shape, and we are ready to move on to new adventures.
One thing happened that was very interesting and I doubt we will ever experience anything like it again. One morning we got in the dinghy and went in to the dock. Our plan was to do some shopping and then get a few beers and something eat. As we pulled up to the dock, we saw our favorite driver, Roosevelt, waving to us from the top of the ramp near the dinghy dock. He told us he had a favor to ask of us, One of his relatives had died, and the family wanted to ashes scattered in the Panama Canal. He asked if we could take two family members along with the ashes into the entrance to the canal in our dinghy so this could be done. Of course we said yes and so that happened. Our anchorage is right by the entrance, so we went up in there and sat quietly while that family said a prayer and then released the ashes into the water. I felt pretty honored that we were able to be of assistance. If my sisters are reading this, I would like to tell you it went smoother than it did when we took mom out on Islandia Sport Fishing.
Later on, another local friend asked if he could come on our boat, as he had never been on a sailboat. So we took him out for a couple hours just sailing around the bay (thank goodness we chose a day where there was enough wind to do so!). It was a fun time for all three of us.
Once the boat was fixed, it was time to think about what we are going to do. Staying in Panama is not an option due to the horrendous lightning once the rainy season is in full swing. (It is just starting now.) The best way to avoid it is to return to Ecuador, but there are two reasons why I do not want to do that. There are only two truly viable anchorages in Ecuador - one is in Bahia Caraquez (where we were before) and the other is near two towns called Salinas and Puerto Lucia.
I won't go back to Bahia Caraquez, and I have never said that about any other place, even those I was not fond of. The anchorage there is supposed to be secure, with round the clock security, but after we went to Colombia for two weeks, upon our return we discovered we had been burglarized. I did mention this before, but as time has gone on, we have discovered that more and more things were stolen, and all indications are that the burglars had plenty of time to not only go through the boat completely and then put things back the way they were. Right away we noticed the missing computers (three out of the four were broken, ha ha ha) and some of the boat equipment (i.e. our best ratcheting winch handle!). But it was not until later, much later, when I dug deep into one of the closets for the few pieces of jewelry that I saved. The thieves got in there and stole all my gold chains, plus (and this is the one that hurts and I cannot forgive) my sapphire ring that Mike gave me when we first got together. That is the only piece of jewelry i have ever really cared about, and I do not want to return to Caraquez and have to look at all those workers around the anchorage (and we know it was one of them, there are no other possibilities) and wonder which of those people I regarded as friends did this to me. And yes, I am taking it personally. We were not the only boat this happened to, and everyone else feels the same way. The people running the anchorage do not seem to care. So I am not going back. It would be too hard and I am not good at staying suspicious and angry, it is too hard.
The other place is an unknown entity. There are two yacht clubs there, and supposedly there are some moorings that can be rented, but nobody knows for sure and nobody knows how much it costs. The clubs do not answer emails (I have sent them in both Spanish and English), and the only person who has actually been there was on the hard for repairs and spent no time there in any anchorage. I do not want to get all the way down there only to discover the alternatives are really expensive mooring rentals or a crappy anchorage with no decent place to dock the dinghy. So that is out, since we really need to keep our expenses down and save up some money.
While we were ruminating over what we wanted to do, our friends suggested we go back up to El Salvador, but to a different place than where we were before. While El Salvador does have lightning issues, it does not seem to us to be as bad as Panama. El Salvador is very inexpensive, especially compared to Panama. I had been intrigued by this place (called Barillas) since before we went to Salvador originally, but we went to Bahia del Sol instead as that was where the El Salvador Rally went and where our friends at the time were going. Again we will be anchored in a river estuary, and will rent a mooring (affordable!) near a really nice resort where we have use of the pool, etc. If we don't like it, we can go further north back to Bahia del Sol. We can also go south when the rainy season winds down and stop in Nicaragua. I do hope we can do some travel in Costa Rica and Nicaragua while we are there - Costa Rica has a lot of lightning issues too, which is why we are not spending the season there. But I do want to see both of them, and who knows what will happen.
We had planned to return to Ecuador and go from there to the Galapagos and on to Polynesia, but the medical stuff and the boat damage through our scheduling off. So we plan to head back here (Panama) and do all the preparation for that big trip to begin in February next year. We need two new sails and a bunch of other things to make a sail that long and serious a true reality for us. This year, a number of boats trying to make the trip had to head back this way because of boat problems like rigging issues and things that MIke wants to replace on MJ before we head out. We know of one boat that sank and the couple aboard was rescued by another sail boat. Both of those boats were over 1000 miles from any shore. There is another one out there now that is creeping towards Polynesia with damaged rigging, and a mast that is swaying in the breeze. I don't want to be any of these people. And we could very well be, so the most important thing is to make sure the boat is in the best shape it can be in.
So now I have brought things up to date. This has been a really dynamic year so far - and even with all the bad things I can't say it has been a bad year so far. I don't feel that way. I (we, actually, Mike agrees) have had some experiences that taught us a lot, not only about the boat, but about each other. Things between the two of us may never have been better, and that is because both of us have taken some lessons from people and things we have encountered just in this very short time period, of less than six months. It is amazing how much one can learn when one wants to learn. But you have to be willing to accept and recognize the lesson when it comes to you. And for Mike and I, that is key.
Anyway, I am going to wind this down now. We are currently in the Perlas Islands, and are slowly meandering up to El Salvador. For those that worry, we are in touch every day on SSB radio, and there is always someone out there who knows where we are and can help arrange for assistance if everything went south, which it is not going to. So I wish everyone all the best possible.
"How sad to think that nature speaks and mankind doesn't listen." (Victor Hugo)
----------
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for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
And there is no real good answer - my usual general laziness mixed with what we had going on.
I think we left off with us in Panama. I did tell of our two guests/crew members who rode with us from Ecuador to Panama - Wayne and Marcos, hailing from Newfoundland and Australia respectively. We met them in Bolivia, on a bike and boat trip that took us from high in the Andes down into the Amazon basin. Marcos was the guide and Wayne was another of the participants. We had a blast with them on the boat.
After they left, we spent some time enjoying the Perlas Islands. At that point, we dove on the boat (which means diving under the boat to see what is going on down there) and discovered that when the Ecuadorian pilot caused us to run aground, we did suffer damage to the rudder skeg (part of the boat that hangs down to protect the rudder. Here, it did its job well.) To fix it required us to have the boat hauled, which was planned anyway for new bottom paint. So we spent most of the month of March with the boat on the hard (in the shipyard). We do not stay on the boat when it is on the hard, and I don't think this yard would have let us do that even if we wanted to. So we stayed in a nearby hotel, so we could go everyday and check on the boat. It is always sort of a treat to stay in a hotel - there is the big king-size bed, the unlimited water for showers, air conditioning (which makes one truly appreciate the HOT shower. We have the ability to have hot showers on the boat, but we never go there. It is too hot to want to take anything but a nice cool shower. I do not want any more warm water on my body, thank you. The constant sweat is warm enough.), and of course Cable TV, which usually includes the following English presentations: CNN International along with one other channel which seems to play the many, many permutations of the show CSI, as well as NCIS or whatever the initials are for the one about naval intelligence. We just sit there eating junk food and watching junk television, but who cares - it is never for very long. But I always miss the boat, especially sleeping in my own little bed with the nice soothing rocking motion.
So the damage was fixed, and insurance did pay fort some of it, although most of the work fell within the deductible. Then, right after we got back on the boat, I went to the doctor because I had a slight case of conjunctivitis, and knowing how icky it is, I went in right away to catch it before it got bad and before Mike caught it. So while I was in there, i decided to have the doctor take a look at two spots on my skin, one of which my sister (who is a nurse and knows about these things plus she is a survivor of two malignant melanomas) told my did not look good. I of course blew that off. Then right before I went in I noticed a spot on my upper arm that looked funny. You must know that I am covered with freckles and various other spots and skin tags and whatever, so it is hard to keep track of all the spots and what they might be doing at any given time. But I decided "What the hell, I am here, I might as well get this addressed now so I don't have to periodically think about it." The doctor looked at the one on my chest (we never got to the one on my arm) and she said "You need to see a dermatologist." "okay" says I. "No" she says. "you need to see one this week.) So I did, and of course you can guess the rest. I had a malignant melanoma on my chest, and a basal cell sarcoma on my arm. The dermatologist/plastic surgeon got all of the cancer, so I am right as rain currently.
It did give me a scare, though. I had been walking around with the melanoma for well over a year, and had it not been for the conjunctivitis, it would still be there. I have a cousin who died of skin cancer, and I am told it is a bad death. I feel like I dodged a bullet or something. I suppose I am making too big a deal out of it, but it scares me to think I really could have screwed the pooch here but for something completely unrelated. I guess this also messes with my master plan of getting through my fifties without any cancer.
Now I have no choice but to be careful with the sun and I would be horribly remiss if I did not warn everyone to be careful with this sun before it is too late for you. The price of a beautiful golden tan is not worth it! Go to the salon and get a fake one if you simply must have one. I was never one of those who baked themselves all summer, and was always pretty careful to use sunscreen, but it still happened. I endured my high school years at Laguna Beach High School in the early seventies being constantly asked (and always in a snotty tone) "Don't you ever go outside?" I would patiently explain that as a redhead tanning wasn't really something I would ever excel at. Then they would point out someone close to redheaded with a nice tan and tell me that I could do it if I really tried. I hope things have changed at that level, because that is when the damage starts that ends up with surgery and cancer. What I had is not the result of my being on the boat, it is damage that set in a long time ago. But I have now moved from tank tops to long sleeved t-shirts, and if anyone anywhere asks me why I have no tan I am likely to want to punch them in the nose.
But enough of that. I am fine now and that is all that matters. Things are fine, the boat is in great shape, and we are ready to move on to new adventures.
One thing happened that was very interesting and I doubt we will ever experience anything like it again. One morning we got in the dinghy and went in to the dock. Our plan was to do some shopping and then get a few beers and something eat. As we pulled up to the dock, we saw our favorite driver, Roosevelt, waving to us from the top of the ramp near the dinghy dock. He told us he had a favor to ask of us, One of his relatives had died, and the family wanted to ashes scattered in the Panama Canal. He asked if we could take two family members along with the ashes into the entrance to the canal in our dinghy so this could be done. Of course we said yes and so that happened. Our anchorage is right by the entrance, so we went up in there and sat quietly while that family said a prayer and then released the ashes into the water. I felt pretty honored that we were able to be of assistance. If my sisters are reading this, I would like to tell you it went smoother than it did when we took mom out on Islandia Sport Fishing.
Later on, another local friend asked if he could come on our boat, as he had never been on a sailboat. So we took him out for a couple hours just sailing around the bay (thank goodness we chose a day where there was enough wind to do so!). It was a fun time for all three of us.
Once the boat was fixed, it was time to think about what we are going to do. Staying in Panama is not an option due to the horrendous lightning once the rainy season is in full swing. (It is just starting now.) The best way to avoid it is to return to Ecuador, but there are two reasons why I do not want to do that. There are only two truly viable anchorages in Ecuador - one is in Bahia Caraquez (where we were before) and the other is near two towns called Salinas and Puerto Lucia.
I won't go back to Bahia Caraquez, and I have never said that about any other place, even those I was not fond of. The anchorage there is supposed to be secure, with round the clock security, but after we went to Colombia for two weeks, upon our return we discovered we had been burglarized. I did mention this before, but as time has gone on, we have discovered that more and more things were stolen, and all indications are that the burglars had plenty of time to not only go through the boat completely and then put things back the way they were. Right away we noticed the missing computers (three out of the four were broken, ha ha ha) and some of the boat equipment (i.e. our best ratcheting winch handle!). But it was not until later, much later, when I dug deep into one of the closets for the few pieces of jewelry that I saved. The thieves got in there and stole all my gold chains, plus (and this is the one that hurts and I cannot forgive) my sapphire ring that Mike gave me when we first got together. That is the only piece of jewelry i have ever really cared about, and I do not want to return to Caraquez and have to look at all those workers around the anchorage (and we know it was one of them, there are no other possibilities) and wonder which of those people I regarded as friends did this to me. And yes, I am taking it personally. We were not the only boat this happened to, and everyone else feels the same way. The people running the anchorage do not seem to care. So I am not going back. It would be too hard and I am not good at staying suspicious and angry, it is too hard.
The other place is an unknown entity. There are two yacht clubs there, and supposedly there are some moorings that can be rented, but nobody knows for sure and nobody knows how much it costs. The clubs do not answer emails (I have sent them in both Spanish and English), and the only person who has actually been there was on the hard for repairs and spent no time there in any anchorage. I do not want to get all the way down there only to discover the alternatives are really expensive mooring rentals or a crappy anchorage with no decent place to dock the dinghy. So that is out, since we really need to keep our expenses down and save up some money.
While we were ruminating over what we wanted to do, our friends suggested we go back up to El Salvador, but to a different place than where we were before. While El Salvador does have lightning issues, it does not seem to us to be as bad as Panama. El Salvador is very inexpensive, especially compared to Panama. I had been intrigued by this place (called Barillas) since before we went to Salvador originally, but we went to Bahia del Sol instead as that was where the El Salvador Rally went and where our friends at the time were going. Again we will be anchored in a river estuary, and will rent a mooring (affordable!) near a really nice resort where we have use of the pool, etc. If we don't like it, we can go further north back to Bahia del Sol. We can also go south when the rainy season winds down and stop in Nicaragua. I do hope we can do some travel in Costa Rica and Nicaragua while we are there - Costa Rica has a lot of lightning issues too, which is why we are not spending the season there. But I do want to see both of them, and who knows what will happen.
We had planned to return to Ecuador and go from there to the Galapagos and on to Polynesia, but the medical stuff and the boat damage through our scheduling off. So we plan to head back here (Panama) and do all the preparation for that big trip to begin in February next year. We need two new sails and a bunch of other things to make a sail that long and serious a true reality for us. This year, a number of boats trying to make the trip had to head back this way because of boat problems like rigging issues and things that MIke wants to replace on MJ before we head out. We know of one boat that sank and the couple aboard was rescued by another sail boat. Both of those boats were over 1000 miles from any shore. There is another one out there now that is creeping towards Polynesia with damaged rigging, and a mast that is swaying in the breeze. I don't want to be any of these people. And we could very well be, so the most important thing is to make sure the boat is in the best shape it can be in.
So now I have brought things up to date. This has been a really dynamic year so far - and even with all the bad things I can't say it has been a bad year so far. I don't feel that way. I (we, actually, Mike agrees) have had some experiences that taught us a lot, not only about the boat, but about each other. Things between the two of us may never have been better, and that is because both of us have taken some lessons from people and things we have encountered just in this very short time period, of less than six months. It is amazing how much one can learn when one wants to learn. But you have to be willing to accept and recognize the lesson when it comes to you. And for Mike and I, that is key.
Anyway, I am going to wind this down now. We are currently in the Perlas Islands, and are slowly meandering up to El Salvador. For those that worry, we are in touch every day on SSB radio, and there is always someone out there who knows where we are and can help arrange for assistance if everything went south, which it is not going to. So I wish everyone all the best possible.
"How sad to think that nature speaks and mankind doesn't listen." (Victor Hugo)
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
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