Right now I am sailing off the coast of Costa Rica, and it is gorgeous! We have had a pod of dolphins around us for a whole day now, including last night. We have seen jumping marlins, a Giant Pacific Ray, all sorts of interesting birds and butterflies, and a host of other sea life I am happy beyond belief to report that the lightning is noticeably decreasing as we get further north. The last couple of nights it has only been behind us, and not close enough to make us nervous in the least. That is not to say we are ompletely out of danger, but we have mitigated our risk somewhat.
As much as I love Panama, it was good to finally be able to put it behind us and get moving. It is very unusual for there to be such a lack of wind in the area. That is why we are a month behind - when I looked a over our logs, I realized that it too us over a month from the time we left Panama City until we finally cleared out of western Panama. We did get to see some beautiful new anchorages, and we have vowed to return on our way back and check them out again. Panama really does have something for everyone.
We are not planning to stop in Costa Rica other than to wait out the winds, and hopefully that will not be for more than a week. Then we will head on to our destination, Puesta del Sol in northern Nicaragua. We decided to go there after talking to some friends about it. Sine it sounded really nice, we decided since we had been to Salvador we should try some place new. If we don't like it, we can continue north. But I have wanted to check out Nicaragua, and I also want to have visited every country in Central America. We may seem to be inconsistent, but that is just the way we do things, changing our minds on the fly.
Everything is fine here with us Our food supplies are holding out just fine, and we are nowhere near running out of coffee, which would be the only thing we would really hate to do without. I don't want to jinx anything, but we also seem to be losing weight nicely. So no negativity here, and we are both simply enjoying the cruise. Today the wind keeps going up and down, in a pulsing sort of way. We think we are starting to feel some of the winds we will be avoiding later. They are called papagayo winds, and are caused by strong winds in the Caribbean blowing through a gap in the land area across and over Lake Nicaragua, in southern Nicaragua. This is something everyone out here has to deal with, as they used to occur solely in the winter, but now seem to blow almost all hear round No one can tell me there is no such thing as global climate change For proof, I can tell you that all the cruising route books are practically useless now, as the weather patterns are no longer reliable at all. There have already been three hurricanes in the Pacific, and that is way too many for this early in the season.
But enough of that. As I said before, we are fine and happy. Here is a little quote on what is required of a sailor
"And last on this short list, he must heal well Scrapes, gouges, bruises, cuts, sprains, strains, and occasionally burns appear as if miraculously, often without my knowing their cause; a kind of stigmata of the sea." (Webb Childs, "Storm Passage: Alone Around Cape Horn.")
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Saturday, June 27, 2015
Saturday, June 13, 2015
A Slow Progress
We continue our way on towards either Salvador or Nicaragua, but I think we have decided on Nicaragua. We haven't been there yet, and the facilities sound like we would like it. And if we don't, we can always head on to Salvador later. The place we are heading is called Puesta Del Sol, which means sunset. There is a marina, mooring field, and a hotel complex which means there is a pool, to cool off from the hot Nicaraguan weather. Friends of ours have been there, and speak highly of it. And I planned to visit there anyway, at least on a land trip from Salvador. That also means that the trip will be about 100 miles shorter than to Salvador, which helps with our fuel consumption issue. We also had a great discovery in the fuel realm - we have been averaging about one half gallon of fuel per engine hour, which is damn good.
Right now we are in an anchorage called Bahia Honda, and I think it may be the prettiest anchorage I have ever been in, bar none. We are surrounded by jungle, with birds and moneys calling out to us. The fish are jumping all over the place, and the rays are also throwing themselves up out of the water and landing with a loud splat. If you have never seen a ray jump, you have missed something. I have never seen anything that looks so simply joyful. A local man came by yesterday right after we got here, and sold us some avocados and limes. He is supposed to come by today with pineapple, onions, and potatoes, as well as bread. We still have plenty of meat in the freezer, and the other day we caught a big sierra, which Mike was able to filet into eight separate meals. So with this new produce, we have better meals than ever. The onions were the most important part, truthfully. Almost everything we make uses an onion.
Mike and I are lucky in that we have pensions, and don't have to live off a "cruising kitty." All we have to do is tighten our belts for a couple of months, and we an afford pretty much whatever comes our way, especially something bad (like a lightning strike) because we are insured. But there are a lot of cruisers who are not insured, and when something really bad happens, they are completely out of luck. Sometimes it means the end of the whole thing. We know a man in Panama City, whose boat was struck by lightning last year and all of his electrical systems were completely destroyed He can't even really live on it anymore, let alone sail it anywhere The sad part is he lives on social security with apparently little to no savings, and he is stuck. Really stuck. He can't afford to get it fixed, and now I suppose he will have to sell it for a song and where he can live as cheaply as he does now, I do not know. I suppose he couldn't afford insurance if he wanted it, but I know a lot of people who say their insurance is "prudent seamanship" I have also heard it said (by one who is not insured but I know could afford to be) that people who are insured are not has careful as those who aren't. Prudent seamanship is all well an good, but it is no good whatsoever against a lightning strike. We are at least as careful as the uninsured, maybe even more so. Interestingly, there are a lot of libertarian types out here who simply do not agree with the whole concept of insurance, asserting it constitutes "betting against oneself" I don't think so, but maybe I am wrong. All I know is that if something bad happens, we will be pretty much okay. If I decide I want to stop cruising, so be it, but I want to make the decision myself and not have it made for me by some horrid accident.
The local guy just came by and brought us pineapple, more avocados, the potatoes, the onions, plantains, bread, and some delicious bananas. We paid for the stuff and also gave him some fishing line, a nice lure, and some hooks. He promised to come by tomorrow with some papaya.
So I guess that is all for now. We got some rain, enough to wash the deck off. Now we need more so we can collect some water. Nothing beats drinking rainwater.
"For what's the point of breeding children, if each generation does not improve on what went before?" (Hilary Mantel)
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Right now we are in an anchorage called Bahia Honda, and I think it may be the prettiest anchorage I have ever been in, bar none. We are surrounded by jungle, with birds and moneys calling out to us. The fish are jumping all over the place, and the rays are also throwing themselves up out of the water and landing with a loud splat. If you have never seen a ray jump, you have missed something. I have never seen anything that looks so simply joyful. A local man came by yesterday right after we got here, and sold us some avocados and limes. He is supposed to come by today with pineapple, onions, and potatoes, as well as bread. We still have plenty of meat in the freezer, and the other day we caught a big sierra, which Mike was able to filet into eight separate meals. So with this new produce, we have better meals than ever. The onions were the most important part, truthfully. Almost everything we make uses an onion.
Mike and I are lucky in that we have pensions, and don't have to live off a "cruising kitty." All we have to do is tighten our belts for a couple of months, and we an afford pretty much whatever comes our way, especially something bad (like a lightning strike) because we are insured. But there are a lot of cruisers who are not insured, and when something really bad happens, they are completely out of luck. Sometimes it means the end of the whole thing. We know a man in Panama City, whose boat was struck by lightning last year and all of his electrical systems were completely destroyed He can't even really live on it anymore, let alone sail it anywhere The sad part is he lives on social security with apparently little to no savings, and he is stuck. Really stuck. He can't afford to get it fixed, and now I suppose he will have to sell it for a song and where he can live as cheaply as he does now, I do not know. I suppose he couldn't afford insurance if he wanted it, but I know a lot of people who say their insurance is "prudent seamanship" I have also heard it said (by one who is not insured but I know could afford to be) that people who are insured are not has careful as those who aren't. Prudent seamanship is all well an good, but it is no good whatsoever against a lightning strike. We are at least as careful as the uninsured, maybe even more so. Interestingly, there are a lot of libertarian types out here who simply do not agree with the whole concept of insurance, asserting it constitutes "betting against oneself" I don't think so, but maybe I am wrong. All I know is that if something bad happens, we will be pretty much okay. If I decide I want to stop cruising, so be it, but I want to make the decision myself and not have it made for me by some horrid accident.
The local guy just came by and brought us pineapple, more avocados, the potatoes, the onions, plantains, bread, and some delicious bananas. We paid for the stuff and also gave him some fishing line, a nice lure, and some hooks. He promised to come by tomorrow with some papaya.
So I guess that is all for now. We got some rain, enough to wash the deck off. Now we need more so we can collect some water. Nothing beats drinking rainwater.
"For what's the point of breeding children, if each generation does not improve on what went before?" (Hilary Mantel)
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Saturday, June 6, 2015
Rain and More Rain
It has been raining every day here, as we sit and wait for some wind to come along and help us work our way to our destination, which seems at this point to be years away. Not really, but it does seem that way. So we download weather information, and what do we see? A crazy weather pattern, that looks for all the world like a hurricane where a hurricane should not be. We have been watching it for a couple of days now, and it is not really going to become a hurricane, but it is going to cause our current anchorage to become untenable. With no wind to speak of now, we are going to have to move to a safer place and we will leave tomorrow. There is a really good spot not all that far from here, and we will just have to motor there if we can't sail it. This diddling around would not bother me at all were it not for the fact that there is family business requiring signatures and I am worried that I am holding the process up. However, we will arrive eventually and then all will be well.
One of the benefits of being out in the middle of nowhere is that you an only eat what you brought on board when you provisioned up in Panama City. So if a person is smart, and not hungry when shopping, that person will not choose to buy him or herself a bunch of fattening snacks and things like that. And I am smart. When Mike buys candy and chips, I try to make sure he gets the kind I don't like. So that way, there is nothing but healthy things for me to eat. I am remembering the things I learned in Weight Watchers, like drinking a lot of water, using glasses of water when I get the urge to eat without really being hungry. I am only eating when I am actually hungry. So without jinxing it (I hope) I am losing weight. Hopefully on my next visit to the US, I will look as awesome as a nearly sixty year old woman can look.
Otherwise, I do not really have anything newsworthy to report. We listen to the howler monkeys every day, and one day we got to see them all perched in a tree that did not have a lot of leaves. Usually we can hear them but not see them because the foliage is too thick. That was a treat.
I am trying hard not to get edgy and nervous, but sometimes my generalized anxiety gets the best of me - it took me years to recognize free floating anxiety as something that just happens and is not related to anything being wrong in reality. It is something that will pass, especially if I sit quietly and take deep breaths picturing myself blowing all the anxiety out of me through my exhales. I used to sit and frantically review everything that was happening, trying to find a reason why I had that overwhelming feeing of doom. The only way I can describe it is this: it is the exact same feeling I got as a child when I was walking home from school with a bad report card, knowing without a doubt how much trouble I was in and how I was going to get yelled at. That sick feeling in your stomach, like you are going to throw up but not quite, and throwing up won't help anyway. Now I can stay on top of it, and just do my deep breathing until I can blow it away (most of the time, anyway). If anyone reading this has this problem, try the breathing - take deep breaths, hold them a bit, then blow them out hard like candles on a birthday cake.
But I digress. I am reading a lot of English history these days, so if anyone is curious about the Plantagenets, just ask me. Or the War of the Roses. When we still had internet access, I downloaded a three volume set of English history. If anyone has any suggestions for any good books about French history, let me know. That is going to be my next stop. BUt you know, I can't get over the fact that nothing ever seems to change. Just when things look like they are settling down, someone gets a bug up their ass and everything goes to hell again. Same hassles, new faces. And everyone has God on their side.
So with that, I will end this post - a rambling, pointless post, the result of too much time on my hands and too much time to think about things. But it is still better than the best day working, so I still feel lucky.
"Chance favors the prepared mind." (Louis Pasteur)
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One of the benefits of being out in the middle of nowhere is that you an only eat what you brought on board when you provisioned up in Panama City. So if a person is smart, and not hungry when shopping, that person will not choose to buy him or herself a bunch of fattening snacks and things like that. And I am smart. When Mike buys candy and chips, I try to make sure he gets the kind I don't like. So that way, there is nothing but healthy things for me to eat. I am remembering the things I learned in Weight Watchers, like drinking a lot of water, using glasses of water when I get the urge to eat without really being hungry. I am only eating when I am actually hungry. So without jinxing it (I hope) I am losing weight. Hopefully on my next visit to the US, I will look as awesome as a nearly sixty year old woman can look.
Otherwise, I do not really have anything newsworthy to report. We listen to the howler monkeys every day, and one day we got to see them all perched in a tree that did not have a lot of leaves. Usually we can hear them but not see them because the foliage is too thick. That was a treat.
I am trying hard not to get edgy and nervous, but sometimes my generalized anxiety gets the best of me - it took me years to recognize free floating anxiety as something that just happens and is not related to anything being wrong in reality. It is something that will pass, especially if I sit quietly and take deep breaths picturing myself blowing all the anxiety out of me through my exhales. I used to sit and frantically review everything that was happening, trying to find a reason why I had that overwhelming feeing of doom. The only way I can describe it is this: it is the exact same feeling I got as a child when I was walking home from school with a bad report card, knowing without a doubt how much trouble I was in and how I was going to get yelled at. That sick feeling in your stomach, like you are going to throw up but not quite, and throwing up won't help anyway. Now I can stay on top of it, and just do my deep breathing until I can blow it away (most of the time, anyway). If anyone reading this has this problem, try the breathing - take deep breaths, hold them a bit, then blow them out hard like candles on a birthday cake.
But I digress. I am reading a lot of English history these days, so if anyone is curious about the Plantagenets, just ask me. Or the War of the Roses. When we still had internet access, I downloaded a three volume set of English history. If anyone has any suggestions for any good books about French history, let me know. That is going to be my next stop. BUt you know, I can't get over the fact that nothing ever seems to change. Just when things look like they are settling down, someone gets a bug up their ass and everything goes to hell again. Same hassles, new faces. And everyone has God on their side.
So with that, I will end this post - a rambling, pointless post, the result of too much time on my hands and too much time to think about things. But it is still better than the best day working, so I still feel lucky.
"Chance favors the prepared mind." (Louis Pasteur)
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Monday, June 1, 2015
No Weather Today
That is about how things stand right now. We are waiting for some wind, any wind, to get us moving toward Salvador. we are still in western Panama, in a beautiful anchorage that we have all to ourselves. It is starting to be the off season now for cruising between Mexico and Ecuador,so when I run my radio net it takes way less time and there will come a time when no one checks in. A few of us just keep it going until the season picks up again. I have been doing this net for a couple of years now, although I couldn't do it from Ecuador and I am not sure if I can do it from Salvador. There is radio reception there of course but maybe not clear enough to actually run the net. The anchorages are up river estuaries, and there can be a lot of interference. To be honest, I know very little about how the radio stuff actually works, I just know how to use the mike and talk on it.
As I said, it is gorgeous here, so if we have to be stuck, this is the place. We are here alone 99% of the time, except for the monkeys we hear in the jungle. There are lots of birds, and there is always fish actiOn to watch. By that I mean big jumpers out towards open sea, which we don't want to catch. A really big fish is hard to handle,and our freezer is only so big. Our sport fishing days are over. Now we just fish for food. And even more fun to watch - there are schools of small fish that hide underneath our anchored boat and come out periodically to feed on alga or plankton, or other even smaller fish. Never a dull moment.
Although we do have an engine and fuel, we don't carry enough fuel to motor all the way to Salvador, at least I don't think so. We need to save the fuel for things like dodging lightning cells while underway, getting into tight anchorages, avoiding shores if the wind and currents are trying to push us there, things like that. Plus the engine is loud and it is almost impossible to get any decent sleep with it going. This is an especial problem for Mike, who never gets enough sleep anyway when we are underway. We ave a watch schedule, but if something goes south on my watch, I need to get him up to help me deal with it. There is no way around that. Certainly I do not get him up for every little thing, there are many things I handle on my own with no problems. It seems like everything goes smoothly on his watch, and then as soon as he is settled in the bed, everything changes. As time as go on, I have learned to handle lots of stuff alone, but some stuff requires more strength than I have. Plus, to be honest, Mike is a bit of a control freak, and there are things I am under orders not to even try to do alone. And I am too lazy and without enough ambition to complain about that. I get plenty of sleep while we are underway and there are few things I like better than being all comfy in my bed, listening to the water rush by outside the boat. It is an amazing feeling to think that only a few inches of fiberglass separates me from the open ocean. I really love it. Sometimes I just lay there listening. If only I did not feel so guilty about getting so much more sleep than Mike! But I guess it cannot be helped. But I must add that another great feeling is when Mike is asleep and I am running the boat. I feel very tender towards him, like I would fight anyone who ever tried to hurt him. There are times when my heart feels like it is full to bursting during my watches, like I am overflowing with love for him. Maybe this is too personal, too much about me, but it is one of the best things about being out here. It is just us, and we need to take of each other.
We have already run out of beer, but who care about that, it will help us lose some weight. I have not missed it at all. We did save two cans for en we arrive in Salvador to celebrate. We don't drink at all when we are actually underway, it is a generally bad idea. The only thing it would be a true tragedy if we were to run out of would be coffee. At that point we would probably swim to Salvador, towing the boat behind us. Otherwise, we have plenty of food aboard and can stay out here quite a wile if we had to. But we are hoping to get out of here at the end of the week, as the weather gribs look as though the wind might pick up then. Until then, here we float. As Vonnegut would say, "and so it goes."
"Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly." (Khaled Hosseini)
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As I said, it is gorgeous here, so if we have to be stuck, this is the place. We are here alone 99% of the time, except for the monkeys we hear in the jungle. There are lots of birds, and there is always fish actiOn to watch. By that I mean big jumpers out towards open sea, which we don't want to catch. A really big fish is hard to handle,and our freezer is only so big. Our sport fishing days are over. Now we just fish for food. And even more fun to watch - there are schools of small fish that hide underneath our anchored boat and come out periodically to feed on alga or plankton, or other even smaller fish. Never a dull moment.
Although we do have an engine and fuel, we don't carry enough fuel to motor all the way to Salvador, at least I don't think so. We need to save the fuel for things like dodging lightning cells while underway, getting into tight anchorages, avoiding shores if the wind and currents are trying to push us there, things like that. Plus the engine is loud and it is almost impossible to get any decent sleep with it going. This is an especial problem for Mike, who never gets enough sleep anyway when we are underway. We ave a watch schedule, but if something goes south on my watch, I need to get him up to help me deal with it. There is no way around that. Certainly I do not get him up for every little thing, there are many things I handle on my own with no problems. It seems like everything goes smoothly on his watch, and then as soon as he is settled in the bed, everything changes. As time as go on, I have learned to handle lots of stuff alone, but some stuff requires more strength than I have. Plus, to be honest, Mike is a bit of a control freak, and there are things I am under orders not to even try to do alone. And I am too lazy and without enough ambition to complain about that. I get plenty of sleep while we are underway and there are few things I like better than being all comfy in my bed, listening to the water rush by outside the boat. It is an amazing feeling to think that only a few inches of fiberglass separates me from the open ocean. I really love it. Sometimes I just lay there listening. If only I did not feel so guilty about getting so much more sleep than Mike! But I guess it cannot be helped. But I must add that another great feeling is when Mike is asleep and I am running the boat. I feel very tender towards him, like I would fight anyone who ever tried to hurt him. There are times when my heart feels like it is full to bursting during my watches, like I am overflowing with love for him. Maybe this is too personal, too much about me, but it is one of the best things about being out here. It is just us, and we need to take of each other.
We have already run out of beer, but who care about that, it will help us lose some weight. I have not missed it at all. We did save two cans for en we arrive in Salvador to celebrate. We don't drink at all when we are actually underway, it is a generally bad idea. The only thing it would be a true tragedy if we were to run out of would be coffee. At that point we would probably swim to Salvador, towing the boat behind us. Otherwise, we have plenty of food aboard and can stay out here quite a wile if we had to. But we are hoping to get out of here at the end of the week, as the weather gribs look as though the wind might pick up then. Until then, here we float. As Vonnegut would say, "and so it goes."
"Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly." (Khaled Hosseini)
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