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Published: February 23rd 2009
After several weeks of repair we headed to the San Blas... shocked and in awe that we could pull off our first charter with the family that owns the boat. At this point we have replaced a battery charger and our entire battery bank. We have also had the refrigeration repaired multiple times and have dealt with several other issues as we feel we are being "tried" with our patience and energy. Though we do love working together and the marina and cruisers we have met have made it quite nice... there is still the amazement that it all seems together and we are off to the San Blas! We have stored sails and other gear to fit the family of 5 and two of their cousins for a very full boat of Christmas fun!
Dec. 18th, 2008: We depart for the San Blas in a lull of winter trades that created a glassy lake for us to easily slip away from the dock and head out to sea! We hit squall after squall though enjoy the sail and the coastline that plunges from lush mountain to rocky shore. We sail by lines of giant ships ready to transit the
canal or just picking up steam, rushing their goods to the far corners of the Earth. Only an hour out of Colon, we hear a pop and see the head sail flogging in the wind. We have blown our headsail and Cy tells me that he thinks we must turn back. My head is screaming "NO!! NO!! We were meant to leave!" We were already days late in departing! This can't be happening! Think outside the box... how can we make this work!?" Normally sailboats keep a back up store of sails at their disposal in their forepeak (forward compartment) for a situation JUST LIKE THIS... but of course just the day before, we had transformed this space into a double bunk space for guests. Great. I finally come up with a plan to have our agent who has been helping us with various plans such as flying in food to the San Blas during our charter... now we could ask him to go pick up our sail that is marked "VOLPAIA" and bring it to us in Portobello, a bay that has road access only about 40 miles from Colon. We call and he agrees that they can have
it to us first thing in the morning! Perfect!
As we enter the Bay at sunset, we see that Portobello is well named indeed. Named by Christopher Columbus.. it certainly is a beautiful port! As we drop anchor, you find yourself surrounded by lush mountains, the smell of fresh rain in the forest and hear howler monkeys roaring in the distance. A Spanish fort salutes all that enters with a perfect cannon view of the entrance of the bay. We anchor away from the village right in front of the fort where we can see cannons taking aim at us. One can easily imagine how sleepy this must be in comparison to other times in history when this was a bustling port full of giant tall ships sluggishly moving about the bay full of Incan Gold. Lines of Ibis and Herons brush the glassy surface of the bay in white and pink lines, making their way to their evening roost. The air turns pink in this humidity, swirling with your breath. I cleverly create Portobello mushroom burgers and finally mention it to Cyrus since he had not noticed that we were eating Portobellos in Portobello 😊 Yes, I find
myself exceptionally clever. We hear breathing in short breaths nearby and finally spot the lone dolphin sleepily circling us in the darkness. One of my favorite moments when sailing is to be onboard and at anchor, while smelling forest and hearing the singing insects and other nocturnal animals of the night. We happily retire early since we will need to dinghy across the bay at 6am to pick up our sail and get out as soon as possible so we can get into the San Blas with light to navigate the reefs!
Dec. 19th, 2008: Our agent shows up with a small white sail in the trunk of his car. We had been up at 5am pulling down the injured genoa, when we realize that he has somehow fetched the wrong sail and has now driven almost 2 hours for no reason. Our window to get to the San Blas is blown. So as he turns around to go get the sail that is actually labeled "VOLPAIA" we decide there is no reason we cannot check out the ruins. So we pick up some homemade cinnamon bread I had recently baked, spread a bit of cream cheese and took
the dinghy to shore. The ruins are fabulous, with roofs still standing and cannons at attention. A rain squall moves through and we find ourselves in the lookout tower eating warm cinnamon bread and listening to the rain. We can almost hear the shouts of men pulling gold laden carts up the stone ramps and smell gun powder in the air. We enjoy a hike around the grounds before returning to prep the boat for work. We are really behind in our preparations now since we are delayed another day. That afternoon we receive the proper sail and in a freakish lull in the wind, we find a way to get the sail on and furled without any disasters. whew!
Dec. 20th: In the wee hours of the dark morning, we pull up anchor and sail to the San Blas Islands. Rough weather and huge wind makes this a particularly miserable leg to date for me. But we find ourselves sailing into a postcard image of white sand lined islands dotted with swaying palm trees. With our hearts in our throats, we navigate around shallow reefs to Porvenir, where we must check in with custom & immigration officials. Colorfully
dressed Kuna Indians paddle up in dugout canoes asking us to look at their exquisitely woven Molas. These are patchwork layered panels that depict various colorful scenes or geometric designs. The number of hours this takes to hand sew absolutely is mind boggling! Two others take our trash for us and others ask us if we want to buy some fresh lobsters that are dancing around their ankles in the canoe. But we must get to our anchorage by sunset or we are in trouble indeed. The charts are not thorough and there are many reefs that are unmarked, so with our 12 foot draft (how deep our keel goes) we must be very careful. After we are saved by an elderly Kuna couple who are fishing and wave us to a safe spot... we are exhausted, it is getting dark and we have not washed down the boat for tomorrow's arrival of the Swiss family.
Mother Nature must of been listening and suddenly the skies opened up and a thick rich rain poured down for hours, rinsing the boat perfectly and giving us time to prep the rest of the boat. As this rain approached like a hazy
white curtain, the two Kuna's popped up a white patchworked sail and headed off to whatever island is home to them. The image was out of a Monet painting as all of the colors dulled and edges became hazy... the little canoe with sail flapping furiously in the storm, faded as the rain strengthened into a roar upon our hatches.
Dec. 21st: The Charter Begins! by chartered flight, our family does an early morning fly by the boat and we both wave at them from the bow of the boat in our Santa hats...We greet the owners of our boat at what is called the Carti airstrip. I feel this might be better named "the Carti field and trash dump by the beach". Cyrus awaits them off the muddy beach in our dinghy.. looking very "Captain Ron-ish" with a bright Hawaiian shirt, shorts and a santa hat on. They must walk across the huts falling down, a blue faded old cement building and piles of garbage that we hope will be picked up by a proper garbage barge. We spend a week sailing daily to new gorgeous islands, all picture perfect and friendly with thatched huts and Kuna Indians
sailing like leaves blowing in the wind from island to island. We taste their gorgeous crabs and lobster.. we have our two owners and their three teenage "kids" or young adults onboard and two other family members (ages between 15 to 22) We enjoyed exploring uninhabited islands and swam with shoals of fishes. I enjoyed snorkeling with the "kids" and laughing as they screamed when stingrays would burst from the sand and brush along their legs while Cyrus and I are yelling at them "DON'T RUN! DON'T RUN!" "MAKE SURE YOU SHUFFLE YOUR FEET! DON'T STEP ON THEM!!!" And we laugh at the complete freakout they are going through. Knowing that when you travel you have "moments" and we were watching a "moment" happen. Other moments were watching them dinghy themselves ashore and tromp across the island in search of whatever their imaginations could think of. With a shipwreck in the background and clear blue waters surrounding them.. how lucky they are and the best part is that they were very aware of it.
We sail and fish and snorkel and dive and windsurf and get toed on boards behind the dinghy... and have many long dinners full of
laughter and stories... some in French and some in English. The Kunas are soft spoken and kind. They live in beautifully thatched huts and use coconuts for currency. There is nothing in their huts since they don't really need anything. Just a clean floor, some hammocks along the side that they will string up for the night and a cooking fire. No power, no refrigeration. They live day to day.. catch fish, crab or lobster and pick bananas and plantains. They can trade for rice and sugar or flour and make a lovely coconut bread that we enjoyed! Though much of our time was spent on uninhabited islands and in private anchorages, all of our interactions with the Kunas were wonderful (except for one elderly Kuna woman who clung onto the boat starting at 6am and kept badgering us for HOURS to buy her poorly sewn molas)(Cyrus finally gave her quite a bit of rice, flour and sugar and after awhile they had a few words when she would not leave us to a peaceful morning... at one point I had to remind him that he was arguing with an elderly kuna indian.. ha ha but she finally took her
large bag of groceries and paddled off) We could not of asked for a better time with our family and the boat handled wonderfully with a lot of work to balance systems while we are using them so heavily. On New Year's day we sail back West towards Isla Linton where we will stay one night to break up the sail. We are most amused by this island since it is now a home for these quite large spider monkeys that now live in an abandoned house (which I guess means it is not abandoned anymore) and they have their own private dock. They seem to hope to have quite the pad now. They wave over folks in their dinghy's in hopes of getting the odd bit of food and attention. And if they do not get the food or when it is time for folks to depart, they are known to bear their teeth and bite. Yes... bite. Now I have read this and have been calling it "Monkey Bite Island" for days. But when I see these creatures walking upright like humans... in and out of the house and along the shore... I realize they are almost my
height and there is NO way I would want an angry monkey after me. Cyrus and I decide that it would be great fun to put one of the boys on the island and tell them to run into the water if they come after them. I would take my camera and capture their horror stricken faces if the monkeys were to turn on them. So we get in the dinghy.. I have my camera (though with a zoom lens.. which ends up being a mistake) and some victims. 😊 As we approach the beach, one of the monkeys comes running out of the house waving her hand at us. "helloooooo!!!! come over little food-bearers!" (I can almost hear her calling to us!) Of course we would not bring food since that is the reason they have become more aggressive, but our curiosity is peaked and we approach the dock at which point she has run upright down the dock waving us in. Seriously. I am not exaggerating. There is a large monkey waving at us and beckoning us over. oh my. Of course we send in the eldest son to greet her and as she sees him wading in
towards the beach, she runs around the dock to greet him.. and we enjoy watching him fearfully plunging into the water! ha ha! But then others decide she is kind... including Cyrus and they step out onto the dock. Cyrus sits down and she approaches... then bears her teeth! He stands up in slight alarm, but has already exclaimed that he would have no problem finding a stick and beating a monkey if it attacked him. Of course I see he has no stick nor close proximity to one... so I am curious how this will play out. Suddenly I realize I am sitting in the dinghy by myself... running the motor and trying to take photos at the same time. Not an easy task with people popping in and out of the boat in a hurry... and having the monkey coming right to me... of course I am thinking... what would I do with me and a monkey in the dinghy together? So I try to stay slightly off the dock and of course all the photos are too close for a zoom lens so it makes it difficult. At one point I see Cyrus and the monkey walking
side by side down the dock with one arm raised. I am not sure who is imitating whom, but she escorts Cy to the dinghy and he hops in.... no one was bit... though no one but Cyrus really wanted to get close enough to see. An amazing sight!
Back to Portobello where they will be departing for a drive to the airport... All seemed to be perfect and it seemed our boat mechanical problems were in the past when we heard a funny sound with the generator. Then a very weird sound at the same second Cyrus had opened the engine room door to check the generator. In a freakish second, Cyrus actually witnessed a rod being thrown through the block on the generator motor which meant, he opened the door and saw flames and smoke. Bad. He quickly shuts the door to limit the oxygen to it and looks up at me big eyed as I run out of the galley. "Do we have a problem?", I ask. "Why yes we do", Cyrus calmly answers me. "Do you need a fire extinguisher?" I ask as I watch smoke bellowing along the ceiling and out the companionway. "Why
yes I do.", Cy calmly states. As he is pulling the door to the engine room, I ask if he might want a respirator. He agrees and finally opens the door, armed and ready. The fire is gone and only smoke remains... along with the carcass of a generator that will no longer charge our batteries or help us make water. uh oh. So with a dead generator, we must run the engines to keep our refrigeration going and we have to go on extreme water conservation to handle the crisis. Not that bad of a situation except now we have a new project after our guests depart. The following morning crisis #2 presents itself. We have a day head (a toilet that you pump and whatever is put in it, goes to a tank) and this particular morning was a busy one for the head. Cyrus had just finished checking the tank and double checking our sensors that tell us when it is getting full and when it gets full. In a tri-fecta of failures... he hears someone pumping the toilet to make it drain and then we all hear a BOOM! and the sound of rushing water. Cyrus
is urgently banging on the door "STOP WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING! JUST STOP!" and believe it or not, we blew up our black water tank. For those who are not familiar with what I am talking about.. simply put... poo water. yes... all over that area. The smell hits us and people begin evacuating to get on deck and fresh air. Thank goodness it is the last day and we now have another project. But overall it was a beautiful trip and great sailing! The next chapter will be the multiple repairs back in Colon at the Shelter Bay marina.
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FREDERICK DICKSON
non-member comment
Way to go!
I just came across your blog and I love it. Congratulations on tying the (nautical) knot. Cyrus, you are a lucky man and I am sure Johnny is heart broken that you are off the market. That story of the holding tank explosion reminded me of the time Brooke and I were under the Raven Spirit, in the zodiac, unplugging the dump valve. When it finally went it was like being behind a romantic waterfall of raw sewage. O the life of a sailor. Please keep writing as I now will live through you and your stories. Right now it is wet and windy in Waimea. Best of luck Fred