Bahía Honda, Panama, 19 November 2007

My God! We’d arrived in paradise! Six days and 6 hours out Ecuador, we are alone at anchor in the most exquisite cove on the Island of Coiba.

Well, actually, it is a little, privately-owned island just off Coiba called Isla de Ranchería. Coiba was for a century a penal colony. Eventually someone noticed that it was the last stand of natural first-growth tropical forest and turned it into a national park. We did not plan to spend any time there so picked Isla Ranchería to stop and thereby avoid paying the $10 per head park fee.

Every arrival is special. To have the bouncing and heeling and the noise of wind and rushing water and engine finally stop. But this spot is really perfect. Kathleen has two glasses of red plonk before dinner and is literally blathering about how perfect it is. On three sides green, jungle-covered low hills. At the head of the bay a sandy beach. Nobody around. Only the sound of tropical birds and small waves hitting the beach.

It is late afternoon and I can hardly wait to jump into the crystal clear emerald water. It is so clear you can see the anchor sharply below us and the chain snaking out. The water temperature is perfect. You can see the whole of the under parts of the boat while swimming. Like the boat is floating in air. What bliss! Stretching out to dry on the deck afterwards!

I get to work making a vegetarian goulash for dinner, our first real warm meal since we started. The first few days we lived on sandwiches and fruit or the cold roast chicken we had bought before leaving Bahía. By the time dinner is eaten and the dishes washed up using salt water and a fresh water rinse, darkness and total silence enclosed us. The stars look close enough to touch. We hate to leave the deck but want to read below. By 1930 the lights are out. We sleep for nearly twelve hours. I go on deck once at night: the stars are still like fire in the clear sky above the cove.

We might like to stay here for a day or two but Kathleen is under some time pressure. She has told her proofreading customers that she will only be unavailable for a week. I wanted her to take two weeks but she didn’t feel she could. Moreover, she is flying out of Panama City on 27 November and doesn’t want to arrive in Boca Chica with only hours to spare. We decide, however, to make a few stops along the way.

The first one is here, at Bahía Honda (Deep Bay), on the Panamanian mainland about 16 Nm away. A weak breeze is already up by the time we finished our coffee at anchor at Isla Ranchería and once again exclaimed about the beauty. Last night as we were approaching it we could see lots of rain clouds and lightening over the mainland in the late afternoon. This morning it appears clear. But late afternoon tropical squalls are the norm, we understand. The winds are right: after a week of southwesterlies, the breezes are now NW.

We had heard of cruisers making the run from Bahía de Caráquez, Ecuador, to Boca Chica in 3-5 days. It took us over six days and even then, when we were becalmed, we motored about one-quarter of the 150-hour trip. Nearly everything worked fine on board although there were minor glitches. One of the less minor problems, though, was that our mainsail ripped apart at the patches while we were trying to reef it down. It is completely useless now and lies strapped to the main boom. This did not dispirit us particularly since we intend to have a new suit of sails delivered to us in Panamá before crossing the South Pacific next summer. Until we get to Boca Chica, however, we will be dependent upon headsails alone unless we rig the small storm tri-sail.

By 0900 we have sailed off our mooring and are on our way to Bahía Honda to the NNE of us 16 Nm. We have sworn to make as little use of the engine as possible. This is not just because we like the challenge of sailing in and out of harbours and because we dislike the noise of the engine in these silent coves; we also realise that diesel fuel in Panamá costs $3.60 a gallon as opposed to the subsidised $1.05 per gallon in Ecuador (always assuming nowadays that foreigners can even get fuel in Ecuador). We play with the windvane steering but eventually switch to the tiller pilot, which gives us no problems whatsoever. The day is sunny with a lot of watery clouds around. We see rain clouds drifting across the line of mainland hills ahead of us and suspect we might be getting a deluge ourselves this evening. November is said to be the rainiest month in Panama before the dry season on the Pacific coast starting for three months in December. This is certainly different to coastal Ecuador in the dry season with its high layers of grey marine haze.

At Bahía Honda we sail through the mile-wide bay entrance and turn north to get up into the upper reaches to find a quiet anchorage again. We make it under our genoa alone to within about a quarter mile before the wind dies completely under the lee shore. We give up, turn on the Lister and pull down the sail. By mid-afternoon we have anchored in another paradise of beaches and jungle-covered hills. We hear birds and a rushing stream somewhere under all that foliage. The temperature is perfect and I strip off and jump overboard as soon as we can get the swim ladder fixed into place. Perfection! We can’t believe our luck to be in such a beautiful place. We keep saying that it reminds us of British Columbia except the air is balmy, the water is warm and the hills are covered in palm trees and other tropical vegetation instead of Douglas fir and red cedars. Again, we are completely alone in this big land-locked bay.

Still lolling about getting dry, we first see and then hear a brightly-coloured dugout canoe with a small motor heading our way. Aboard are Edwin and his 10-year-old son, Kennedy, and some puppies, one of which is shivering from either the wet or from fright. Obviously not a sea dog! They come alongside and we pass the time of day. Where are you from? Do you have any children? Where have you sailed from? Edwin and others provide delivery services to yachties anchoring here: fruit and vegetables, eggs, fish, beer. Whatever. They want to barter for gasoline for their ancient outboard, for fishing lures, flashlight batteries. Anything, really. Bahía Honda has no road to the outside world, or at least it did not when the cruising guide was written. The village and the residents have electric lights. But these might be supplied from a generator. We ask them to get us a parga (sea bass) of about 2 lbs. and Edwin says he will be back in two hours at 1700 with the fish and some fruits and vegetable. He putters off.

On his way towards shore he passes another dugout (this one with a newer 4 hp outboard) that is on the way to visit us. The skipper is Kennedy (it’s amazing how many men in Latin America are named after American presidents: Kennedy; Washington; Jefferson; Wilson; Lincoln; Roosevelt; Truman; Nixon. So far I have not run into anyone named Reagan, Clinton, Carter or Bush). Aboard is his pretty wife Olivia and 8-year-old daughter, Melanie. They too want to barter and even bring some ripe bananas as a first instalment. I give them some fish hooks and a couple of lures and some AA+ dry cell batteries. Kennedy looks a little disappointed. But we have already commissioned Edwin for supplies. Eventually Kennedy and crew also motor off, though not before asking if we can repair his new outboard. It appears to be stuck at high speed. Of course, we carry no gasoline on board (we row or sail our dinghy) and haven’t the foggiest about how to repair an outboard. I have enough things to keep in good nick as it is!

Promptly at 1700 Edwin arrives back, this time in a tropical downpour and with a lively elderly man named Domingo on board. Domingo is the Lider and he has brought us fresh pineapple, spinach, bananas and oranges. But no fish. We dicker for a while and pay them $3 for the lot (the fish was going to be $1 a pound; we have no idea what the fruits and vegetables should cost herein remote Western Panamá. The smallest change we have is a $5 bill. Domingo takes it and promises to be back the next morning sharp at 0800 with the red snapper. We’ll see. I give Edwin some fishing hooks and batteries. What he wants, we find out later from the dictionary, are anzuelas, i.e., lures. He looks over my box of stuff but thinks nothing is suitable for the fishing around here. Salmon, maybe. But not parga or tuna.

It is still raining so hard that, as they leave, they disappear into the deluge and I lose sight of them after a quarter of a mile. I strip off again and enjoy a freshwater shower on deck. I also haul up the two headsails here at anchor in the windless bay and let the heavy rainwater rinse the salt off them. The squalls seem to come with no wind. But the skies seem to open up and the intensity and volume of the rain is incredible. It is amazing how much water is pouring off the sails, salty-grey at first and becoming clear in a few moments. The boat deck is streaming water and simultaneously slushing off all the salty grime from the week-long voyage. After so many months the old drips reappear beneath the sliding hatch, strategically placed to drop on the back of your neck whether you are facing the galley stove or the galley sink. No matter how much I have tired over the last six and one-half years aboard Vilisar, I have never been able to trace the source of these leaks. Because this is the tropics, the air and the water warm, and since I am already wet anyway, I decide not to be annoyed.

Dinner consists of noodles with the “creative” sauce left over from yesterday but much pepped up with a can of black beans, some tinned tomatoes and rather too much red pepper flakes. Our sunburnt lips protest but we sling it down with gusto. While Kathleen washes up near the cockpit, I go forward to flake down the still damp but now soft and clean headsails and tidy up around the deck. The sunset behind the nearby hill glows pink and gold. The birds give us a final chorus and then go silent. The nearby stream has increased its volume and is gurgling merrily after the downpour. Everything drips. Everything has been washed clean. There is a slightly rotten smell of wet jungle two hundred feet away. Everything seems ready for the night. The katydids pick up their high-pitched night song. By 2030 Kathleen is sound asleep on the starboard berth. A late night.

Isla Calvado, Isla Secas, Panamá, Tuesday, 20 November 2007

The silence in that large tropical cove at Bahía Honda was so complete that only the daylight woke us after so many hours. The loudest noise, seriously, was the clicking of the ship’s clock. Stiff from lying so long and from handling anchors and halyards over the past few days, I crawl on deck for a look-see. No change. We have not moved an inch. It is windless completely and everything is still drippy-wet. The t-shirts and towels we hung out to dry on the lifelines last evening after the rains are, if possible, wetter than ever. But the sky at least is a promising blue except a bit in the east where the sun is at present trying to gain the ascendancy.

Time for a coffee. Kathleen wakes and stretches at the smell of it wafting through the cabin. The best alarm clock. Everything feels much damper here than in Ecuador. We discuss about how to prevent mildew and moulds but I fear that may be a losing battle. I worry about the wood rot started by fresh water even though I love to get the superstructure rinsed properly. I shall have to keep slushing the decks and cabin down with salt water. Down below, however, we realise that cotton and leather are likely to suffer. Even in relatively dry Ecuador leather shoes and belts became covered in mildew unless used regularly.

We have both just finished reading E.M. Forrster’s A Passage to India. And, over breakfast, we talk about colonial attitudes and snobbery and our white, European arrogance towards other peoples. If nothing else, our travels up and down the Pacific coast where we have encountered indigenous and mixed-race people have given us much more awareness of how horrid we “Europeans” were and are as we/they expand around the world. The best solutions to racial tensions seem to have been fashioned in bed. In Venezuela, the mestizos (basically everybody except the ruling elites who like to keep themselves racially pure) can talk easily about different skin colours because they are all a mixture of some sort. This by contrast to the U.S.A. or Europe where, although there has been plenty of racial mixing (Slavs, Teutons, Celts, Picts, etc. etc. etc.), there has been so little mixing with darker races. In the U.S.A., it is almost it seems impossible to talk about race. Any discussion is a minefield. It was much easier to talk about it In Venezuela.

Except for the mandatory morning coffee, we have long ago given up traditional breakfasts. Kathy sometimes eats a bowl of instant oatmeal made with powdered whole milk and raisins. This morning, we throw the leftover noodles from last night into the sauce, heat it up, add some cut up bananas to the spicy mixture and eat it with delight while seated on the cabin top. We are determined to find some good uses for bananas since they are so plentiful and cheap. After the visits of the locals yesterday we have plenty – yellow, green and red ones - and they are ripening rapidly. This meal is an excellent first go. After scraping the bowl clean, I decide on another quick swim before we put out to the Islas Secas, our day’s destination. The water is refreshing. Terrific, in fact! I paddle around for a while and, when I come out, we are nearly ready to go.

I forgot to mention our encounters with the large freighters and warships in our voyage up to Panama. Of course, the entry and exit to the Gulf of Panama and the Panamá Canal is one of the most frequented shipping routes in the world. We ran into traffic on our first night out, ships headed north/south from/to Guayaquil, Callao and the South Pacific. But on our last night before arriving off Isla Coiba, the ship traffic was really heavy. Most of the ships were at a distance and running at perhaps 15 knots with only a few lights including navigation lights. Once I was calculating that we seemed to be on a collision course with a large freighter coming up from the port quarter. While I was still hesitating a voice came over the VHF radio without any identification saying we should go behind. Without actually responding on the radio, we immediately and clearly altered course to port. The disembodied voice thanked us over the radio. Obviously, his radar was able to calculate collision courses and, with this very informal advice, saved us a lot of worry. Since our alternator was again not charging the batteries (as it turned out, it was only a fuse), we frequently left the running lights off when we were alone at sea. But in this area we left them burning. No doubt, the freighters thought we were local fishing boats.

In the wee hours of the morning, one vessel comes steaming up fast on our port quarter - very brightly lit with a very long line of white lights from stem to stern. She was mightily huge and far too close to us. We watched her make a speed that was probably twice that of any of the other ships. It was pitch dark, moonless and cloudy, and we could not really make out the superstructure. But the red starboard nav light was much, much higher than the line of white lights and we suspected that the nav lights were on a darkened conning tower. Given this and the size and speed we guessed it must be an aircraft carrier. American no doubt, since who else has ships of this size? Who else even has aircraft carriers? In the space of 45 minutes it had appeared over the horizon, passed in front of us and disappeared over the horizon ahead bound for the Panamá Canal. I can’t say that its presence made us feel any safer.

Domingo, the local dugout chandler, failed as promised to show up with a fish at exactly 0800. They guys who showed up yesterday all more or less stated that we were anchored too far away from their base camp and this required a lot of tiempo y gasolina. I would have been surprised if Domingo had actually shown up after that comment. We didn’t seem to have much by way of trading goods that interested them anyway.

Inside Bahía Honda the waters are calm; no swells reach inside here. We pull up the anchor and start motoring about 0900, it taking some half hour or so just to get to the harbour mouth. There we encounter W or NW swells but they do not slow us down at the beginning. We have no mainsail at present so we hoist the staysail as a steadying aid and let Navico take over the steering, I go below to read and snooze; despite the bright sunshine, Kathleen stays on deck where there is more breeze. At our initial speed the little motoring voyage should take about 7.5 hours to an anchorage just inside the SE island in the Isla Secas.

But you have to be flexible if you are a sailor. As the day wears on the breezes blowing from the NW increase and so do the wind waves. I suppose you could say that we are lucky that the waves, the swells and the winds are all from the same direction. Unfortunately, they are at about 10 or 11 o’clock to our rhumb line. A sailboat with a small auxiliary engine cannot really expect to plough into winds and waves and swells and still maintain any sort of speed. Such a motor is really just for plain vanilla uses, i.e., calm waters, windless days, setting the anchor, coming alongside a dock, etc. Use your sails for anything else. Of course, that would have meant tacking endlessly to windward to reach the Islas Secas and we would unlikely have made it in a single day.

As we bump into the waves and roll around with occasional slop coming down the port side deck and through the cockpit and with occasional spray being flung up and then back across the foredeck, our speed drops from 5.5 knots down to about 3 knots. The voyage is starting to get longer. We wish we had got going earlier in the morning while the seas are still flat. Will we always have to re-learn that lesson?

When it becomes clear that we are not going to make our original target before darkness falls at around 1830, we cast about for another haven. On the southernmost island there is a little tucked-up bay which may or may not be open to NW swells. The problem is that, if we make a detour to check it out and it is unsuitable, we may not then have sufficient time to make it to the main island, Isla Calvado where there is a very safe and large anchorage. We opt for safety and make a beeline to Isla Calvado; inside the cluster of rocky islands that make up the Islas Secas, the water is calmer so that arrive well before sunset to anchor in about 8 feet of clear water over sand and rock.

As usual, I lower the anchor, Kathy backs the boat down while I lay out, chain, test the set, and then let out a big pile of chain. Normally, unless there is a lot of wind or current, we never move from this pile of chain. Over on the mainland we see the typical afternoon rain clouds massing around the mountains and then enveloping them. We had a taste of how heavy the rain can be last night at Bahía Honda. Here, farther offshore, we might actually be spared as we were at Isla Ranchería two nights ago.

As darkness and silence falls, we put together a spinach salad with onions and little green jalapeño (with nearly all the seeds removed), mixing an oil and balsamic vinegar dressing. I feel like a cow eating this stuff. I actually like spinach. But this batch tastes far too earthy for my taste and it’s leathery (to boot, I almost said). Kathleen is determined to eat salad today, however. After a bit of badmouthing of the salad by me, even she caves in to my offer to convert everything to a cooked dish. Unbelievable as it sounds, it turns out to be a great dish. I simply dump the salad greens, onions, peppers complete with salad dressing into a frying pan, spotted four eggs around the top and let all these ingredients get chummy with each other until the eggs yolks are nearly hard and the spinach and onions soft. Delicious with toast or bread.


We stick it out until about 2000 before the lights go out. My last check around the foredeck before turning in reveals light scattered clouds and bright stars overhead. There is enough breeze still coming over the yoke of the island that Vilisar remains pointing straight at her anchor and towards the beach. Back in bed, I can occasionally hear the anchor chain on the bottom and, of course, the ticking of the ship’s clock.

Sometime in the night, however, I am awakened by the loud patter of raindrops on the skylight. Coming out of a deep sleep, I rush to lower the skylight openings and push the sliding hatch closed. I have at least learned to put everything away on deck that might suffer from the rain and to close the lazarette hatch when I am not around to pull it closed. I have no idea how long the squall lasts: I pass out after drinking two glasses of water. Those jalapeños!

The long day either on deck in the lovely breeze and the sunshine or below in the shade but the heat from the engine takes a toll. The signs of dehydration are inability to complete basic physical tasks or outbreaks of frustration and anger. Yesterday afternoon Kathleen and I wind up shouting at each other about some minimally important GPS issue. In no time we are nearly screeching at each other. I recognise the symptoms, though I am not immune to getting them myself. We both need electrolytes and lots more water. Once, while sailing in the Adriatic with some other guys, I spent four or five days in 40oC daytime temperatures. Coming into the harbour nobody was in a position even to tie a bowline and the helmsman, a man with First Mate papers in the British Merchant Marine, rammed the stone jetty nearly head on., fortunately, at only a couple of knots. (Fortunately, too, it was a rentaboat. But I digress.) Still sitting with his hand on the tiller, he apologised in a rather dozy English manner while the rest of us just stood around stupidly instead of tying the boat to the dock. A German cruiser asked us if had been taking our salt pills. That was the first clue. So take your electrolytes and drink lots of water, hear?

For those of you who do not know this stuff, you can get little sachets of electrolytes or sueros at pharmacies in Latin America. They are designed for babies who have had serious diarrhoea; there is usually a picture of a baby on the front. Normally, sueros consist of sodium chloride (table salt), potassium, calcium and magnesium or at least some of these. In Mexico (and perhaps elsewhere, though I did not see it in Ecuador) you can also buy sueros in bottles of flavoured water (apple is the best) but it is a lot more expensive that way and, of course, it takes up more room on your boat and is heavier to carry home from the supermarket. We mix the powdered stuff with some sort of sugar-free Kool-Aid-type drink (B-Light or C-Light) by the glass as needed.

Promising ourselves to get going early, I have had one cup of coffee, a swim, prepared the boat and pulled up the anchor by 0800. We ghost out of the anchorage, trying to make the gap between the island and a subsidiary rockpile. Even with both headsails up, however, we are unable to squeak past the rocky out-island and need to throw on the engine. Our bearing to Boca Chica, today’s destination some 18 miles away, is to the NW again and therefore straight into the waves and swells. So we would have had to motor it anyway. The winds are so far light, fortunately. If we want to arrive at high tide we need to be there by noon.

Just as we leave we are hailed by a small sloop that had been anchored at the far end of the big bay when we arrived last night, I put the caller off for a minute or two while we deal with the rocks. Later we chat on VHF radio. The little red sloop is Merlyn from Hawaii. The (solo?) skipper has just spent two months in Boca Chica but was disappointed that the water there is so murky. Merlyn is now on his way to the Caribbean. “Oh, yes! I also do electrical and engine work, if you need it,” he adds. (Later I hear that his engine has failed him completely and, still at Isla Calvado, other cruisers and fishermen have been bringing him engine parts and food.)

Arrival at Boca Chica
As we get closer to the land, the winds change to come at us more strongly from the NW. Our bearing to Boca Chica puts us too close to the wind to sail. So, we motor. Anyway, although it is definitely possible, you don’t get much drive with only headsails and without that big mainsail (the mainsail ripped along one of the patches around a sail batten when I tried to reef it down. Since then we are using only the headsails.) In the end we motor it. The day is sunny but hazy. I tend to stretch out on the berth in the main cabin when I am not on watch. Kathleen, on the other hand, likes to sit on deck in good weather despite our open, i.e., unprotected cockpit. When the Navico or the Cap Horn handles the steering for us, she will sometimes move forward from the cockpit to find some shade near the mast. But her skin has definitely darkened noticeably over the past week.

Our aim is to be off Boca Chica at high tide around noon. The approach obliquely from the SE brings us past a broken coastline of rocky but green muffin-top islands: although everything green flourishes there, there is always a somewhat narrower base of dark rock to mark the tidal zone. Ergo muffin tops. The waters off Boca Chica are being combed by large shrimpers. They drag the bottom, bringing up everything they find even though only about 10% is actually shrimp. The sea bottom, we have read, is apparently an eco mess after only a few passes, and the harvests of shrimp declining. The skipper of one rusty shrimp-boat waves to us as we pass him close by.

We arrive betimes off the entrance. There are no marker buoys or navigational aids although we do have a sketch of the entrance. It points out that there are a lot of hazards and to stay on this side for one part and closer to that island for another part and don’t hit anything if you must. We make it in one piece though I realise that the little floating buoys we passed at one point were not after all crabpots, as I had believed, but markers for submerged hazards. A good thing we are nice guys and skirt them.

At the dogleg where the fast-flowing ebb tide meets the estuary, we see the little collection of five sailboats ahead of us. One of the boats is S/V Carina out of Seattle (Leslie and Philip) who we are eager to see again after Bahía de Caráquez. There is Canadian boat there too, S/V Aquastian out of Campbell River, BC, as well as the little tri-maran, Sparta, and a very long (60 feet?), canoe-shaped, three-masted, ferro-cement schooner called Marco Polo. There is also a very salty looking gaff schooner called Kirkham Annie out of British Columbia.

We make a circle of the anchorage and head up-river towards the village of Boca Chica itself. But we decide to turn around in the swift current while the river is still broad and head back to the “suburban” anchorage. The sailboats lie under two luxury resorts and actually use the floating dock of one of them to land. Our first attempt at anchoring fails: the anchor seems to be to be dragging. Up it comes and we go in a little closer to shore and get settled in about 16 feet of brownish though moving water.

First we bag the sails and rig the awning. The sun is already getting hot. While I continue to putter away and then to enjoy a can of warm beer in the cockpit, Kathleen is eager to get online to notify both our families and her clients that we have arrived safely and that, as far as work is concerned, she is back in Cyber Space. Her frustration at failing to get online from the boat is exacerbated by the dehydration from so many hours and days in the wind and sun. She is on the verge of both jumping ship and tears. We decide to wait until the next morning to check out onshore facilities. By that time Philip and Leslie might have returned to Carina.

Sure enough, in late afternoon several inflatable dinghies put out from the dock not far away, stopping at Vilisar to chat. One of them has Leslie and Philip aboard. We also meet Michelle and Dennis (Aquastrian), Jim and Suzie of Sparta/Marco Polo and Mike and Kaye of Finisterre. They have just returned from a shopping run to David. The first answer to internet access is that we can get it onshore for usurious rates ($3 per hour) at Gone Fishing Resort (aka Gwine Phishin’). We have to take our own laptop. At least access is possible thought the days of cheap surfing are over.

The late-afternoon sky is filling up with high cumulus and lightening has been spotted. The others head off to their boats. Sure enough, just after dark we are the beneficiaries of another enormous downpour. We have already had a light wash-down in the afternoon. But this is really intense. Now, even with the awning to cover the cockpit and aft part of the cabin, we have to batten everything down including the sliding hatch and the skylight. I get my fresh-water shower for the day. We have already finished our frittata for dinner in the cockpit and have started a new canasta tournament below. Kathleen hesitates and then decides that the opportunity is too good to be missed and heads out on deck with her shampoo. The awing catches water so she could simply tip it over her for the rinse. We shall soon find a way to catch and cache that rainwater so we do not have to lug jerry jugs from somewhere.

It is only a few days now until Kathleen flies to Baltimore and on to Germany. She will be gone for three months this year with several weeks to visit her family in the States and to work on the musical in Frankfurt for two months.

Not sure what I shall do. I would like to get back out to the islands, which are really seriously gorgeous. On the other hand, I need to deal with some boat issues. I would dearly love to get Vilisar up on the hard, strip all the paint off her hull, topsides and bottom, possibly treat her with penetrating epoxy and repaint everything. There are several spots on the topside planking to which paint will not adhere. I have sanded them, treated them with thinned down varnish. And still they blister up. I have come to the conclusion that the Alaska (yellow) cedar used for planking is so resinous that paints will not always stick properly. It is the old grey paints nearest the wood that have picked up water blisters. The wood looks like new when you expose it. Perhaps I shall move up to Puntarenas in Costa Rica and haul out there. It would be a nice solo voyage.

It is a day-long bus ride to the airport at Panama City. Since Kathleen’s flight is the morning of the 27th, she would likely have to travel there the day before and find a place to stay. I don’t like that idea since the big cities in Panama are notoriously dangerous. Maybe she can get a feeder flight from nearby David. Anyway, we have a few more days together.

We have talked about the trip up here from Bahía and how easy it seemed to us. We are regular old salts now. However, we both believe that we need to make some improvements on the boat. Some of these are for convenience: one of the toughest jobs for somebody my age, for example, is climbing out on the bowsprit in all weathers and sea conditions to bring in a headsail. The bigger ones, the genoa or the drifter, for example, can be a real b…. to get down and tucked away. It is physically very demanding and Kathleen is also frightened that I will go overboard some night leaving her alone to find me (or not). We are considering purchasing a furling genoa. Classical sailors pooh-pooh them. Others say they are prone to jamming at the wrong time. But, if I am honest, when I see how easily solo sailors roll out that big genny, I sigh with envy. And, from what I hear, the latest ones are pretty reliable. But they are quite expensive and need a rigger to install properly.

An hydraulic or electric anchor-windlass would also be nice though I don’t actually mind hauling in the anchor chain in by hand. That damned windlass is almost as much work and has never performed properly anyway. Even the builder, George Friend, said it never worked well and he never used it.

Our new mainsail will be batten-free, loose-footed and with a soft head. This means I can use the lazy jacks again. I finally took them down in frustration because the heavy metal head to the mainsail was constantly catching itself up in the lazy jacks. No battens will also mean fewer weak areas for the sail to tear. (All our tears – play on words intended - have started at the batten pockets.)

Inside the cabin, it is definitely way past time to get some decent mattresses and upholstery. We wake up most mornings with lower-back pain and sore hips and shoulders. We use normal cotton sheets to cover the existing (increasingly old and flat) sponge rubber. Something more durable would be good. We don’t mind being without a refrigerator; they are expensive to operate making a cold beer the most expensive drink you will ever enjoy. Even on long runs we are quite happy on our vegetarian (fruits, vegetables, pulses, nuts, etc.) and fish diet. But it is probably time to get a new galley stove. The one we have works on top but we have never trusted the oven.

Finally, the wiring for the whole boat is overdue for replacement. Although the electrician was very complimentary about whoever did all the existing wiring, the actual (untinned copper) wire was now corroding badly inside the insulation and has been spliced and added on to so many times over the years that it was vulnerable. Maybe we could incorporate some energy-efficient LED lights.

So, we are making priorities, making budgets. Who knows? We might even get this all stuff done. For the moment, we are just enjoying the tropics.