tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13242797927142609622024-03-13T13:11:26.009-07:00svavventuraUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger71125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-39515726381722203052009-06-28T14:07:00.001-07:002009-06-28T14:07:57.672-07:00Panama City InterludeFor cruisers Panama City marks a return to the conveniences of modern civilization and big city life. Supermarkets are abundant and filled with American products. Shopping malls are air conditioned, internet cafes are cheap and prevalent, movie theaters play Hollywood movies in English (with Spanish subtitles), a bank occupies every street corner. In short, whatever you’ve been missing and craving in your months cruising through the less-developed cities and countries of Central America you will find in Panama City. This extends to boat parts as well, making the former Canal Zone a prime place for cruisers to undertake various boat projects which have been put off consistently over the weeks and months of cruising. Many boaters find themselves lulled into the rut of routine, capping off days of maintenance and repair work with drinks in a bar ashore and meals at their favorite restaurants nearby, repeating the process day after day and soon finding themselves in the area far longer than they had intended. I planned to sail to a boatyard in Ecuador from here, so for me boatwork would be confined to a minimum amount of maintenance in preparation for the next sail. This left ample time for sightseeing and tourism. <br />The Canal Zone serves as a meeting place for boaters worldwide headed in every direction imaginable, and forms a bitchin microcosm of the worldwide cruising community. When we arrived at the Balboa Yacht Club I could already make out the familiar forms of two boats I had traveled south with from El Salvador, and many more were on their way. Added to these were boats newly arrived from the Atlantic, bound for ports both north and south. The flags of some ten different countries could be seen waving over the transom of the cruising fleet, and in the restaurants and bars ashore the hum of conversation was invariably filled with foreign accents and languages.<br />Neither of my cousins had been to Panama before, and with John set to fly out in a week we were determined to pack as much tourism as possible into his remaining days. But first there came the matter of officially checking into Panama. At first glance it looked as though this would be a breeze. Upon first taking the launch ashore I asked the launch driver how I went about checking in and he walked away, returning moments later with a big, overweight black lady who introduced herself as Itya from the immigration department. She told me the papers I’d need so I retrieved them from the boat and returned ashore. The launch driver first directed me to the Yacht Club’s office to check in with them, and by the time I returned to the pier Itya was nowhere to be seen. I asked a security guard where she was and was informed she’d gone home for the day. I was told she’d return in the morning, but quickly learned she keeps no regular office hours (despite what others may tell you), and is never on time for any set meeting.<br />Despite the frustration of not being able to check in to the country on our first day in port I passed an enjoyable evening on the Amador Causeway. The Causeway was built during the construction of the Canal using dredged materials, and forms a long isthmus leading out to Isla Flamenco, once home to a heavy American fortification to protect the Canal, and now home to numerous shops and restaurants. John and I walked the length of the causeway watching the endless stream of big ships enter and leave the canal. The lights of the city danced off the flat waters of the bay to our left and the Bridge of the Americas was illuminated behind us to our right. Ryan stopped part way out the causeway at a payphone and wasn’t to be found the rest of the night. John and I enjoyed the cool night air and fresh breeze, and stopped for dinner at Mi Ranchita, the first restaurant we came to situated under a palapa part way out the causeway. The food was tasty and the atmosphere great. A local band played Latin music and the restaurant was full of locals enjoying their meals. On the return to Avventura I dreaded the day that I knew lay in store for me on the morrow—a day of jumping through bureaucratic hoops.<br />My hoop jumping started at eight o’clock when I headed ashore to meet Itya. Office hours started at eight; she did not. I waited till 10:30, reading a book, before returning to Avventura, retrieving my computer, and heading ashore again with my two cousins. At the base of the pier we split ways. John was off to visit the tourist sights of Panama Viejo, Ryan set out to find a phone to call home, and I sat at the yacht club’s restaurant waiting for Itya. It was two o’clock in the afternoon before she finally arrived, and fifteen minutes later our passports were stamped and she directed me to the Port Captain’s office.<br />A short taxi ride brought me into the container ship terminal and inside a small office building I sat waiting for the Port Captain. When I showed an official my various papers and explained where I’d come from I was given a strange look and asked where a certain for was. I said they were looking at everything I had, and the Port Captain asked severely: “Who searched your boat?”<br />“Nobody. When I finished with immigration the lady told me to come here”<br />“Well we can’t search your boat here. Your boat must be searched. Can you move it to the container terminal?” <br />“Is there any other way?”<br />A pregnant pause. I dreaded the move and entering a large shipping terminal bustling with activity. Then the reply, “You wait for an inspector.”<br />Apparently the inspector was out on an inspection, because it was over a half hour before he arrived. A short visit with the Port Captain and Roberto, the inspector, told me to follow him back out the office. We loaded into his car and zipped through town back to the Balboa Yacht Club. It soon became quite apparent the inspector was nearing the end of his work day and was in a hurry to finish his day’s work. Standing on the boardwalk overlooking the moorings of the Balboa Yacht Club, he asked me which boat was mine. Pointing, I declared: “The black one.”<br />He saw it, nodded his head, and with that his search was complete. He turned and headed for the club’s restaurant, and I took a seat beside him at a small table. An awkward silence reigned as I wondered what the inspector’s motives were. He was first to speak: “If anybody asks I searched your boat.”<br />“Of course.”<br />With that Roberto began filling out a form and asking me a few simple questions at random. “Do you have any guns on board?”<br />“No.”<br />More form writing, referring from time to time to my folder of documents. “Any drugs on board?”<br />“No.”<br />His pen came to the bottom of the form, scratched out a signature, and he said it was time to return to the Port Captain’s office. Roberto offered me a ride in his car and I accepted, a bad feeling brewing inside me that this was a corrupt official and trouble lay in the offing. My fears turned out to be unfounded. Upon arriving at the Port Captain’s there was no request for money made on the part of the inspector. We hurried inside where Roberto walked me through the process. In one door where a secretary filled out my Panamanian cruising permit, then down the hall where I paid $29 for all the paperwork. By 3:30 P.M. Avventura was officially checked into Panama. I shook Roberto’s hand and thanked him for his assistance; a knowing smile crept across his face.<br />From the Port Captain’s office I walked through the quiet town of Balboa, past the familiar Mas x Menos Supermarket, the house of the local Mormon missionaries, the _________ monument, and the former YMCA building. Then it was on down the Amador Causeway, under the on-ramp to the Bridge of the Americas, and past the TGI Fridays restaurant to the Yacht Club. After John cooked up a spaghetti dinner aboard Avventura the three man crew of Avventura returned ashore and split ways once more. Ryan entered the TGI Fridays to watch a college football game while John and I caught a cab and found our way to a couple bars in the city for a taste of the “nightlife.”<br /><br />Bureaucratic bullshit complete, Friday became a day of tourism in the Canal Zone. From the town of Balboa John, Ryan and I caught a bus to the Cinco de Mayo district where we changed busses and boarded one for Gamboa. A half hour later we left the bus at the entrance road to the Miraflores Locks. From the bus stop it was a short walk up past the hyro-electric plant and the Miraflores dam till we arrived at the newly-constructed visitors center at the locks themselves. The five-story building charges $8 for admittance, and I felt like an old man remembering the good-old-days when you could visit the locks for free.<br />For eight dollars we had access to the museum, a disappointing video on the Panama Canal (not as informative or well-constructed as the one I’d seen on my previous visit three years earlier), and both the upper and lower viewing areas of the locks. By the time we found our way through the museum and stepped out onto the exposed upper viewing balcony a squall had moved in and a gentle rain began to fall. Within minutes of our first glimpse of a cluster of small boats up-locking the first rumblings of thunder were heard and the rain became a steady downpour. Ryan sought shelter in the comforts of the museum, but John and I stayed behind—the only people left on the observation deck, thrilling in the cold rain and wild conditions right up until a bolt of lightning struck too close for comfort. The clap of thunder seemed to reverberate through the building, chasing John and I back inside and down to the covered viewing area below.<br />After the small cluster of boats made their way across the Miraflores Lake a container ship entered the first lock and began its ascent. Watching the engineering marvel in action is a breathtaking sight, and one cannot help but stand in awe at the brilliant minds that dreamed the Canal into existence and the hordes of workers who did the actual digging, many giving their lives in the early stages to the ravages of mosquito-born disease. The names of a few key figures in the Canal’s history ran through my mind: Ferdinand de Lesseps (builder of the Suez Canal and the leader of the failed French attempt at Panama; but which got the ball rolling towards an trans-Isthmian canal), Dr. William Gorgas (the man who rid the Canal Zone of the yellow fever-carrying Stegomyia fasciata mosquito, and thus rid the region of a brutal and deadly epidemic; without Gorgas’s spectacular work it is doubtful the Canal would have successfully been built, and is certain many tens of thousands of more workers would have lost their lives in the process), and finally George W. Goethals (the man who oversaw the completion and opening of the canal and whose indomitable spirit and capacity for hard work got the job done). These men were true heroes. Everyone was essential to the enterprise of building the Canal, and yet few are known to the public today.<br />Once the container ship exited the second lock and entered the Miraflores Lake I returned to the visitors center and perused the various displays. I was stunned to learn the average cost of a transit was now $60,000, and that container ships were charged $49 per container! By my rough calculations the container relatively small ship we had just watched up-lock was carrying some 1500 containers. That would mean a fee of some $73,500 for their half day transit. While watching a second video presentation at the visitors center I learned that the Panama Canal is expected to be operating at full capacity within five years. Its locks are already too small to accommodate the world’s largest ships (after all it was only designed to fit the largest ships at the time of its creation some hundred years ago), so the Panamanian government was seeking to expand the canal by building a third, and much larger, set of locks. The multi-billon dollar proposal was to be voted on by the Panamanians on Sunday, October 22. As for my part I am a firm believer that private corporations could do a far better job than a government-financed endeavor, and believe that if the Panamanians fail in their endeavor or continue to let the current canal decay through poor maintenance, that a conglomerate of shipping companies will undertake the project of building a new canal elsewhere in Central America. In the end, taking into account the massive fees they would no longer be paying for transit, it would likely save them a great deal of money and hassle in no time.<br />After spending a long while at the visitors center we caught a bus back to the Cinco de Mayo district where Ryan took another bus back to Balboa while John and I set off on foot through the bustling shopping district. Street vendors line the roads hawking everything from fruit and vegetables to cell phone accessories and clothing. Hordes of Panamanians wander the streets, and everything is dirt cheap. At one point when the crowd closed in around us I felt a tug at my backpack. When I turned around a teenage boy was bolting away from me and I saw my backpack was partially unzipped. Luckily I was made aware of his presence before he could take anything, and for the remainder of my time in Panama I walked around with my backpack in front of me, always on guard.<br />Wandering through the Cinco de Mayo district, we found our way down to a “walking tour” of the Casco Viejo district described in John’s Lonely Planet guidebook. After admiring the beauty and architecture of a couple pre-Canal churches we decided to head for the Plaza Frances, the memorial to the French attempt at building a canal. Apparently we took a right turn not suggested by the guidebook, for as soon as we stepped off the main street and onto one filled with rundown apartment buildings an old man and his wife stopped us before we’d passed the first building. The man warned us that we needed to turn around, we were entering a bad area that no tourists should enter. He said if we continued down the street we would most certainly not return with our cameras and backpacks. He advised us to turn around, find a taxi, and get out of the area altogether; but we said we wanted to visit the Plaza Frances. With that he turned us around, directed us further down the main road, and explained a safer route. While thanking the man for his kindness, I cursed the evil side of Panama. Within an hour I had nearly been robbed and had been warned about being robbed or worse by an elderly man with no reason to lie. Panama City is one of haves and have nots; and the have nots were all I could seem ton find.<br />The old gentleman’s directions took us down through Independence Plaza to the waterfront where we turned in the direction of the canal and passed along a neat little boardwalk before arriving at the big gouge in the land which served as the lone reminder on the Pacific side of the French canal attempt. Beside the inlet in the Gulf of Panama a set of stairs led down into the Plaza Frances where a semi-circle of statues stood depicting the major men of importance during the French attempt, with Ferdinand de Lesseps in the center (“Born in Versailles, France, on November 19, 1805; French Consul in Egypt in 1833; French Ambassador in Spain in 1848; Creator of the Suez Canal 1855–1869; Inciter of the Panama Canal; President Director of the Company Universal of the Interocean Canal of Panama in 1861; Member of the French Academny; Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor; Died in La Chesnaye, France, on December 7, 1894”). At his sides stood the busts of Leon Boyer (“Author of the Garabit Viaduct; Director of the Work of the French Canal; Died in Panama in 1886”), Pedro J. Sosa (“Civil Engineer; Promoter of the interocean canal; 1851–1898”), Lucien Bonaparte Wise (“Deputy of the Navy; Promoter of the interocean canal; 1844–1909”), and Armand Reclus (“Deputy of the Navy; Promoter of the interocean canal; 1843–1927”). Also in the Plaza, a monument tucked into the side of the wall backing the French statues was dedicated to Carlos J. Finlay, discoverer of the means of transmission of Yellow Fever in 1881. The plaque beneath his likeness proclaimed in Spanish, “No single mark in the scientific history of the world has had more special significance to Panama [than his discovery]. Without this discovery which made possible the sanitization of the tropical zones, the great work of the Panama Canal could not have been done without enormous sacrifice of life.” A fitting tribute to a man of great importance to the region, whose discovery Dr. Gorgas applied to the Canal Zone in sanitizing the area.<br />Fleeing the French Plaza, we found our way down the coast to the waterfront home of the Panamanian president (Panama’s version of the White House). Armed guards kept us from entering the city block which contained the house, so after snapping off a picture we followed the guidebook’s map back to the Cinco de Mayo district and boarded a bus to Calle 50. Disembarking the crowded bus, we found our way to a small hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant, La Mexicanita. The name alone was enticement enough to have a meal there, and the food was quite good and certainly cheap. Returning by cab to the Balboa Yacht Club, we spent the evening at the Club’s restaurant listening to a band play and drinking beers. Unwinding from a long day of tourism, we watched the Panamanians let loose on the dance floor. Meanwhile the endless stream of freighters entered and left the Canal. The Bridge of the Americas was colorfully lit up, serving as a sort of gateway to the Atlantic from where I sat.<br />On the morning of September 30 it came time to visit the Gatun locks and the Caribbean coast of Panama. John and I (Ryan opted to stay behind) boarded a nice, air conditioned bus at the Albrook bus terminal and arrived in the dregs of Colon an hour later. An elderly gentleman guided us to a bus bound for “Costa Abajo,” and we took the hot, dirty former school bus on a bumpy twenty minute ride disembarking just before the bus passed across the bridge at the Gatun Locks. As we headed towards the visitors center a Panamax container ship was just entering the final eastern Gatun lock while a Panamax oil tanker was entering the first eastern lock and a second Panamax container ship was approaching the first western set of locks furthest from the visitors center.<br />I’d never visited the Gatun locks visitors center before and was pleasantly surprised. There was no big museum detailing the history of the canal, no diagram of the canal route, and no hordes of tourists beholding the action. There were just different viewing areas, all build right atop the lock walls so that you were looking straight out at the top of the lock chambers. At one point I was so close to the action that I reached out and touched one of the locomotives used to center big ships in the locks as it pulled the oil tanker from the first to the second lock on its way down to the Atlantic. We lingered at the Gatun locks till the oil tanker near us and container ship on the far side had taken off into the Atlantic, and continued to sit on a metal bench speechless. Being so close to the action, and witnessing such massive vessels make their transits, one couldn’t help but stand breathless at the awesome technology being put on display before his very eyes. If ever you doubt the engineering marvel that the Panama Canal is, just pay a visit to the Gatun locks and all will be made perfectly clear to you once more.<br />From the Gatun locks we caught a bus back to the Colon bus terminal, transferred to a second bus, and made our way towards the old pirate town of Portobello. The bus headed inland for the first half hour, and just as I began to fear we had boarded the wrong one the shimmering blue waters of the Caribbean Sea came into view and we emerged on the shoreline in the coastal settlement of Maria Chiquita. The remainder of the trip passed by the scantily settled coastline. Narrow beaches and periods of mangroves lined the road, with always snatches of blue in the offing. The Caribbean was flat, and not a wave washed her shores. There was no wind to speak of but a slight bump on the waters offshore showed the recent departure of the trades.<br />Our bus rumbled into Colon at 5:15 P.M., and with the last bus for Colon leaving in just forty-five minutes we struck off to cram as much of the sights as we could into our short visit. We took a brief tour of the old Customs House and snapped photos of the nearby forts of San Jeronimo and the more intact Santiago. Below Fuerte Santiago a short dock extended into the bay where two dozen sailboats lay at anchor. A group of brown-skinned local kids were laughing and horsing around on the dock, pushing each other in and diving of their own free will. Seizing the opportunity to say we’d swum in another ocean, John and I ran down the dock, parted the horde of giggling locals, and leapt into the bay of Portobello. The heat of the day was washed away and I floated on my back, looking up at the locals whose play had stopped and who were staring at us. Moments later they were all leaping into the water, climbing out and repeating the process. Emerging from the water, I did a flip off the dock one more time, and the kids all attempted to follow suit. Some of their attempts looked quite painful, and as I emerged from the water I questioned my new suggestion of fun as one kid hit the water on the flat of his back.<br />Still dripping wet as the clock struck six, we donned our T-shirts and I was a bit surprised when the bus driver allowed us aboard with a knowing smile. The bus ride back to Colon seemed to take an extra hour, and by the time we arrived in the dirty city night had fallen. John and I found our way to the bus to Panama City, but when we realized we had a few minutes before it left we decided to run across the street to a store to buy a snack and a couple beers for the ride back. As we stepped into the gutters a man working for the bus company yelled and stopped us. Turning around, he warned us not to leave the bus terminal—Colon was a dangerous place. I told him I knew, I’d been here before and was just crossing the street to go to the store. The man offered to buy me whatever I needed and begged for me not to leave the terminal; but I persisted, in the end leaving John behind to guard my backpack and buying a six pack of Cerveza Balboas and a bag of chips for the ride home.<br />Sitting in the back of the big air conditioned bus, the lights of Colon fell away and we climbed over the isthmus towards Panama City. Our appreciation of the wonder of the Panama Canal grew as the bus climbed higher. All the while we sat gazing out the windows, savoring our cold beers and rehashing an eventful day. A two hour bus ride brought us back to the Albrook bus terminal from where it was another fifteen minutes to Balboa, followed by a fifteen minute walk back to the yacht club. By the time we reached the club it was 10:30 P.M. and our full day of tourism had come to an end.<br /><br />For John’s last day in Panama we decided to cross the Bridge of the Americas and seek out what the internet described as a great tourist beach in the town of Veracruz. Thus on the first day of October we found the appropriate bus and rumbled across the famous bridge, snatching glimpses of the canal below and the locks upstream at Pedro Miguel where a big car carrier was beginning her transit of the isthmus. As the bus bounded onward I saw no particularly spectacular beach, and in the end failed to disembark before reaching the city itself. Thus we rode through the streets of Veracruz dropping off everybody on the bus before coming to the end of the route. Here we disembarked and took a different bus back towards Panama City, this time stopping at a sign for “Playa Bonita” with a dozen locals, also out for a day at the beach.<br />Playa Bonita was indeed a pretty stretch of coarse white sand lapped by the blue water of the Gulf of Panama. Isla Taboga stood guard offshore, and the fleet of ships at anchor could be seen stretching out from her. The coastline leaving the beach was wild and free from habitation, and though just a half hour from Panama City the beach was a world apart. One day after our swim in the Caribbean we were floating around in the Pacific and enjoying the cool waters. After swimming the length of the beach, we left the water and walked on the sand to dry. As the sun worked its magic we made our way out to a rocky point where a couple Panamanians were fishing and watched the action at the beach.<br />A bus load of yamaka-toting Jewish men rushed out onto the sand, stripped out of their nice clothes, and cautiously entered the water in suits that were far too small. They all seemed scared of the water and none ventured in past his waist, but in minutes they were all splashing water at each other yelling at the top of their lungs. When water was no longer enough pieces of clothing could be seen coursing through the air and I knew it was time to leave. Disgusted at the display, the Jews had ruined the beach for us and we retreated to a restaurant out of their view and sat down for lunch.<br />The thatched roof of the restaurant ruffled in the light breeze, the sand of the floor squished beneath my toes, and I was transported back to a better world. Still the image of the Jews haunted my thoughts and my mind wandered back over the years to my previous visit to Panama City. On my first visit to the Cinco de Mayo district I’d been approached by a wiry old black man who spoke perfect English and went by the name of Conrad. He was able to con myself and my traveling companion Bo into giving us a walking tour of the area. It was on this walking tour that he taught me a great deal about the situation in Panama in a short while. He spoke of how he used to work in the Canal Zone literally shining the boots of the soldiers and had made a better living (and been happier) doing that than any of his friends were able to eke out since the Americans had left the region. He also mentioned the day the Americans stormed into the city to oust Noriega from power, saying his beloved wife had died in the crossfire. In spite of this he didn’t seem angry at the fact, and held no resentment towards Americans. Then he got to talking of the nature of Panama City as it was now constituted. His remarks at first stunned me. I appreciated his blunt honesty:<br />“Ninety percent of all these stores you see are owned by Jews. They run the whole city. They sell their stuff dirt cheap, pay the Panamanian workers nothin’, and make millions.” We came to the waterfront and Conrad broke his quick stride, paused for a moment, and waved his arm in the direction of the skyscrapers downtown. “That’s where all these Jews live. They own the banks and the shops and the nightclubs and use the Canal to pass their drugs through and the shops and banks to launder the money. Then they go over to Colombia and snatch up some beautiful Colombian women to fill their nightclubs with as their slaves.” <br />Nothing of what he said came as a shock to me, but Conrad gave me a sort of proof of what he was saying. “I’m tellin’ the truth. They’ve laundered so much money that you’ll be lucky to find a Panamanian dollar bill any more. All we got is coins now. Used to be we had paper money just like your dollars. They’ve taken them all out of circulation. If you find a bill hang on to it; it’s worth more than it says.” Though I couldn’t follow how this fit in throughout the course of my three visits to Panama I’ve yet to acquire a Panamanian bill.<br />My memories faded as a waitress brought us a couple cold beers and took our orders. I passed on the turtle eggs this time (this was the scene of the crime of my tasting a surprisingly tasty turtle egg on my first visit aboard the Atair), instead opting for a couple fish tacos and a tasty order of ceviche de corvina. After enjoying our meal we flagged down a taxi and started the return towards Panama City. Along the way we had our driver stop at various points opposite the canal from Balboa so we could take pictures of the different views of the Bridge of the Americas and the yacht club across the canal. Our driver was very accommodating, and dropped us off in the center of Balboa where John went souvenir shopping for a bit before we returned to Avventura.<br />A brief jaunt ashore for dinner interrupted an evening of making C.D.s of all the pictures that had been taken aboard while John was around. This was followed by a handful of beers enjoyed in the cockpit beneath a star-filled sky. All the while the steady stream of freighters swept past on their way between the oceans. The Bridge of the Americas lit up the northern sky and the bustle of traffic across it could be heard over the stillness of the night.<br />John’s morning flight required us to be heading ashore by 7:30 A.M. We were already too late to take a bus to the airport, so we caught a taxi and made the long drive through and around Panama City to the opposite outskirts where the airport lay. Here I helped John through the check-in before leaving him with a hug and returning to the heat of the Panamanian day. We were bound for different worlds: he for the comforts and conveniences of California and me for the continuing variety and spice of life offered by Central American living. I wouldn’t have it any other way.<br /><br />As soon as my cousin John flew out of Panama City I was transformed from a tourist to a cruiser once more. I had seen the sights and now it was time to attack some boat work and begin making my preparations for the long sail down to Ecuador. On the way back to Balboa I took a bus first to the main terminal in Albrook where, while waiting for my next bus I penned a journal entry and confided that while I had a lot of fun while John was on board I was glad to have found some solitude at last and excited to be back down to just two people aboard Avventura. Three people who are completely different in most every way on a small boat is a lot to ask for, and when I did make it back to Avventura she seemed much larger to me.<br />On the day after John’s departure, October 2, I did little boat work beyond flush the watermaker with freshwater as a rain squall passed through the area. I spent the remainder of the day answering a series of questions a reporter for a small newspaper in my hometown had sent me via e-mail in preparation for an article he planned to write on my voyage and my book, The Voyage of the Atair. By nightfall I had finished the writing and headed ashore. To change my state of mind after a long day of writing I went for a jog down the Amador Causeway. A steady stream of people were out enjoying the night. Groups of friends were bound for the causeway’s clubs, couple walked hand-in-hand for the nice restaurants at Flamenco Island, and other joggers were out getting their daily dose of exercise. Meanwhile the lights of the skyline dominated to my left and the steady stream of traffic continued in the canal on my right.<br />After purchasing a phone card at Flamenco Island I jogged back to the yacht club where I called home. During the phone call I announced the good news that I’d be home for Thanksgiving. Puerto Lucia Yacht Club in Ecuador had confirmed that they would be able to hoist Avventura out of the water in early November, and I would soon buy my plane ticket home from Guayaquil for the holidays. The news excited my family as much as myself, though I now knew what sort of timetable I had to work with and that there was much to be done in the interim.<br />Two days later I listened to the morning “VHF cruisers net” for the first time since arriving in the Canal Zone, and wasn’t really glad I did. The news broke on the net that a mysterious disease was sweeping through Panama City and had already killed 39 people, though it was still not identified. Furthermore nobody was sure as to the means of transmission yet, but it was said to be either through the feet (walking around barefoot or in sandals was out) or through eating in local restaurants (luckily the boat was stocked with food). The CDC (Center for Disease Control, located in the United States) had dispatched a team to assist in this “epidemic.” (It would be another few days before word arrived that the “disease epidemic” was in fact the “side effects” of a tainted batch of blood pressure “medication” and that nearly all of its victims were the elderly. Thus the cruising community had helped spread panic for nothing.)<br />An array of boat chores filled my days. There was engine maintenance to be done, electronics to be repaired, cleaning chores to be carried out, provisions to be bought, and propane, water and fuel tanks to be filled. All required bus and taxi trips to various parts of town, some in conjunction with other cruisers bound for the same area. All took longer than expected, cost more than anticipated, and left me feeling drained and exhausted.<br />On October 4, after I finished stowing away $600 worth of provisions from Price Smart (a wholesale store similar to Costco) Ryan said, “I need to talk to you.” By his somber tone and the pained look on his face I knew what was coming. Bracing myself, I stayed seated at the nav station and asked him what was up.<br />“I don’t know how to tell you this. I know it’s going to make you mad and you’ll hate me for it…”<br />I cut him off mid-sentence. I knew what came next and hated to see him toil with his prepared speech. “You’re not coming to the South Pacific.”<br />“I can’t. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I came back to Costa Rica from my trip home, and yesterday I had a long talk with my mommy and she said something that made me realize I can’t go.”<br />No, I can’t promise those were his exact words, and yes I’m probably making him sound more effete in that moment than he was, but that’s how it sounded to me. All I could hear was a kid abandoning a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a part of the world most people only dream of visiting, and most do indeed dream of it. I had anticipated this, and had indeed been considering whether or not I would want him sailing across the Pacific with me at all, so in a weird way Ryan was giving me the easy way out. Still I sat silent for a while, playing out my options in my head.<br />Ryan broke the silence. “What are you thinking?”<br />The question bounced off the walls of my brain like a ping-pong ball mid-volley. This question always struck a nerve, ever since the days following my brother’s death when the well-meaning hordes of people plied me with these very same words, beseeching me to put in words the inexpressible grief I felt and the hollowness that overcame me.<br />My face tensed. I took a deep breath, held the exhale a bit longer than usual, and turned to Ryan. “Well I can’t say I wasn’t expecting this, but it does leave me in a bit of a lurch,” I returned. “But at least you told me before I return to San Diego so I can find somebody to sail with me.” Ryan seemed surprised by the fact that I wasn’t stunned by the news of his coming departure; but it didn’t take a genius to realize he was out of his element, plagued by perpetual homesickness, and built from a far different mold than myself. Over time these things wear on you, and living with somebody who is your complete opposite on a small boat becomes well-nigh impossible. The split was inevitable, and at the time I felt was truly for the best. But first I made it clear to Ryan that I needed him till Ecuador, to which he readily replied that he knew as much and planned to buy a ticket home from there.<br />After this conversation there was some diesel to be acquired and loaded into Avventura’s tanks, and with this done Ryan headed ashore and I relished the solitude it left me with. I cracked open a beer and washed my troubles away. Sitting in the cockpit, I stared at nothing in particular and became lost in deep thought. When the noisy yacht club launch jolted me back to consciousness and Ryan stepped aboard I stepped into the same launch, if only to extend my solitude a bit longer. I spent the evening wandering the Amador Causeway, and by the end of the night my spirits were soaring. I’d have a new crew for the Pacific crossing and the possibilities were endless.<br /><br />My remaining days in Panama City passed in a sea of routine. Boat chores, errands, and time spent wandering around the city. At night I had a couple beers among friends in the cruising community, and on October 6th I was delighted by the arrival of Celtic Dancer and Velella in the Canal Zone. Four days later Avventura was loaded with provisions and ready for sea. We were officially checked out of Panama, and just after six thirty in the early morning light of October 10 I let slip the mooring ball and waited for a Panamax container ship and a small dry goods carrier to steam by before nudging into the main channel where Avventura fled the Panama Canal, Pacific-bound once more.<br />The plan was to spend a few days in the Pearl Islands of the Gulf of Panama before returning to Santa Catalina for a couple days of surfing prior to our departure direct for Ecuador. But as any sailor well knows, best laid plans rarely come off without a hitch. As the morning wore on a squall began chasing us down, and we spent the bulk of the short crossing to Isla Contadora motorsailing on its leading edge. By the middle of the afternoon Avventura nestled into the lee of Isla Contadora and dropped the hook off the north end of the island. As Avventura settled into her new anchorage I relished the ability to dive in and go for a swim for the first time in weeks. The water was clear and warm and soothed my soul and I relished the solitude of the beautiful island. Seeking to unwind from the hustle and bustle of the big city life Panama City represented, I passed the afternoon relaxing and reading on board, taking brief swims when the heat became too much and as the sun slipped into the sea (or rather behind a neighboring island) enjoying a cold beer before settling in for the night.<br />Isla Contadora was once a place of refuge for the wealthy from Panama City and indeed much of Central America. Its large hotel was once considered among the nicest in the region, but the island had fallen on hard times of late and the hotel has been allowed to deteriorate—perhaps in part due to the new and exclusive Hacienda del Mar Resort on the private Isla San Jose of the same archipelago. The private homes on the island remain pristine and beautiful, but tourists and few and far between, granting myself free reign on the small island. I passed from beach to beach enjoying the solitude each provided, went for long swims, snorkeled, and walked around the island all in a single day; and with that had seen just about all Isla Contadora had to offer.<br />While anchored off Isla Contadora I relished the ability to relax and do very little boat tasks. I read voluminously and was thrilled to finally finish David McCullough’s The Path Between the Seas. The tome on the creation of the Panama Canal left me even more in awe over the technological achievement of the canal. The book left me with a tremendous amount of respect for the men behind the enterprise. First there was Ferdinand de Lesseps who had the gall to attempt and begin construction on a canal at Panama. Unfortunately his enterprise was brought down by an undermining of his financial backers, and his work languished for years before the Americans took over the enterprise. Then there was Gorgas who made the Canal Zone safe for the continued construction of the Canal by eradicating yellow fever and greatly reducing the incidence of malaria. And finally there was George Washingotn Goethals, just the stubborn strong personality needed to see the massive project through to its completion. And in the interim there were innumerable minor heroes in the endeavors down to the nameless souls driving the big digging machines, all minor cogs in the big wheel that produced one of the great wonders of man.<br />The island and its environs, drenched in sunshine and bathed in a perpetual calm, was the home to many a visiting humpback whale. Their spouts could oft be seen out in the channel between islands, and from time to time a fluke pierced the surface as the behemoths dove for the depths. One morning I awoke to a distant, but loud slapping on the surface of the water. Coming on deck, I scanned the horizon and spotted a whale a mile away slapping his side flipper on the surface of the sea causing the ruckus. A few others could be spotted rising full bore out of the water and falling again with a vicious splash. The majestic animals were spectacular to watch from afar, but I was all to glad to view them from a distance, fearing the destruction they could wreak on a such a small thing as a sailboat.<br />A handful of inactive days off Contadora was plenty for me, and on the fifteenth of the month we took our leave, planning to stop for the night at Isla Bayonetta a mere daysail away. After weaving our way through the cluster of island we emerged into clear waters where the wind began to fill in from the south. Before long it was blowing a steady twenty knots, and by the time we passed the latitude of Isla Bayonetta I feared the anchorage would be unsafe and decided the time was ripe to head for Santa Catalina. Thus we began sailing on-the-wind into a steep, building sea making slow and uncomfortable headway. The bashing continued through the setting of the sun and before long I was feeling seasick for the first time in months. A little rain squall came to further dampen my spirits, and just after seven o’clock my spirits were broken altogether as our autopilot ceased working.<br />Frustrated and furious, I refused to even look at the autopilot, let alone attempt to diagnose the problem. Instead I bore off the wind and sounded the retreat. Through the evening and into the black of night we sailed on, the motion improving all the time as we ran with the building swells. Just after two o’clock in the morning we entered the familiar anchorage off Isla Taboga and dropped the hook in the placid anchorage. An occasional gust of wind swept in over the top of the island, but there was little evidence of the near gale blowing in the Gulf. I was thrilled to be at anchor once more, but saddened by the fact that a return to Santa Catalina just wasn’t in the cards for me. Instead, come daylight Avventura retreated to the Canal Zone, anchoring out this time off the breakwater of the Flamenco Marina.<br />For a week the gale raged on out of the southwest. The usual anchorage on the west side of the Amador Causeway beside the entrance to the Canal was turned into a vicious lee shore with four foot waves sweeping through and crashing up onto the causeway itself. But the anchorage east of the Causeway remained a sheet of glass, and Avventura slipped right in between Velella And Celtic Dancer, reunited with old friends for one last hurrah (both were bound through the canal for the Caribbean).<br />As for the autopilot, as soon as we came to anchor beside Celtic Dancer Derek, the Godfather of cruising, came over in his dinghy, picked up the mechanism before I’d even looked at it, and found the problem in less than a minute. A cotter pin had broken, and once replaced we’d be good as new. Rather than curse the simple fix I was glad for the chance to be able to spend a bit more time amongst friends, and relished the relaxation that came with having no boat work to do, no sights to see, and no cares in the world.<br />Since Avventura and her crew were already officially checked out of the country we spent the week maintaining a low profile. We kept radio silence, and I never ventured far from the ship. One last 2-for-1 pizza night at the cruiser hangout on Isla Flamenco was in store for us, as was one last visit to the bar of the Balboa Yacht Club, and a couple more trips to the internet café; but for the most part our week back in Panama City was spent in exile aboard Avventura, reading and planning for our upcoming departure for Ecuador directly.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-86310785931330906172009-06-28T14:06:00.000-07:002009-06-28T14:07:01.371-07:00Ch 16—Long Hard Road to the Canal ZoneRounding Punta Mala and sailing north to the Panama Canal is rarely a simple and pleasant endeavor. People often opt for the sail to the Islas Perlas in the midst of the Gulf of Panama, as they are easier to reach on one tack with the persistent northerly winds. But John was set to fly out of Panama City soon, and Ryan was anxious to return to “civilization,” so we decided to leave las Perlas for later and head directly for the realm of the canal and Isla Taboga—in hindsight a mistake.<br />All started out beautifully. We picked up anchor and departed Ensenada Benao at 0830. The skies were sunny and clear, the morning air already full of tropical heat, and the morning’s weather faxes called for light southwest winds in the Gulf of Panama. Conditions seemed perfect as we picked up anchor and motored out of the cove. Within an hour the wind began to fill in from off the land, and with little thought of the wind being contrary to the forecast I set the sails and killed the motor. We were scooting along with a nice breeze, the low, rugged green land close aboard, and the water full of life. Dolphins danced beneath our bow and bodysurfed our wake and the fish began to strike. Bonita, Spanish Mackerel, Dorado—we had our pick of the litter. In the end we kept the Bonita and Dorado, throwing then in the fridge for later. Our nice day of sailing lasted right up until we reached the desolate form of Punta Mala. Here our troubles began.<br />When we rounded the point the wind was coming from the exact direction we needed to sail. As the day wore on it became shifty and gusty and continued from the worst possible direction. Meanwhile Avventura was plowing into short, choppy swells drummed up by the gusty winds. What’s more, the current flowing out of the Gulf of Panama slowed us further, bringing our progress to a near standstill. We spent the entire afternoon making very little headway against the wind, swell and current so by nightfall I decided to close with the land and fall off into Bahia Parita in the hopes of finding diminished swells inside. Unfortunately my plan didn’t work quite as I’d hoped. As we entered Bahia Parita the wind picked up to over twenty knots and we sailed slowly hard on-the-wind, spending a miserably slow night at sea in hellacious conditions. Flashes of heat lightning lit the sky all around us, and the small flickering of the lights of local fishing boats dotted the surface of the sea. Ryan snored the night away in the comfort of the cabin. John dozed off in the cockpit opposite me. I tended to Avventura and guided us safely through the night.<br />Finally at 0345 Ryan began to stir below, stepped up into the cockpit, and I asked him if he’d stand watch for a couple hours. He agreed and I was able to get an hour of sleep sitting at the navigation table despite the horrid motion. At 0545 I was back on watch. I told Ryan he could go back to sleep, and the wind took this as her cue to go haywire. I spent the next hour shuffling about on deck, reefing and un-reefing the main, furling and unfurling the jib as the wind gusted from 10 to 25 knots, then back down to 10. At one point I put out the fishing line, and as I right was tying it off a Bonita hit. Another wind gust required my attention as Avventura’s rail buried beneath the sea, and it was fifteen minutes before I could pull in and release the fish. A cluster of small fishing boats came into view, and we passed too close for comfort to each one, but there was nothing I could do in the fickle, gusty winds. Luckily we managed to avoid their long lines and Avventura plowed onwards. At 0730 the wind plummeted from 20 to 10 knots, then down to five and it was time to start the motor. Finally at 0930 we were able to tack out of Bahia Parita and head towards Isla Otoque, our new destination. After tacking, I headed below and sat at the nav station calculating the distance remaining to Otoque. I knew our chances of reaching the island in daylight were grim, but I was determined not to spend another night at sea. While below I switched on the Single Side Band radio and listened in to the Pan Pacific Net which was already in progress. Disgusted by my slow progress through the night I neglected to check in. As it turns out the weather in the Gulf of Panama had been so bad in the night that a boat named Triple Dolphin at Isla Taboga, who had heard me check into the net the previous morning, asked if anybody had heard from Avventura. Further embarrassed, I checked in and thanked them for their concern. Apparently it had been the worst night of wind and weather in weeks, and I just happened to pick that day to round Punta Mala! So much for NOAA’s weather faxes for the area and their light southwest winds!<br />As we left Bahia Parita the contrary current finally began to subside, the swells came from a more favorable direction, and a slight breeze returned allowing us to make over four knots motorsailing (we had averaged just two and a half knots since Ensenada Benao). My spirits soared as the prospect of reaching an anchorage for the night grew, and sure enough as the sun began to dip low in the west we arrived at Isla Otoque. Coming to anchor off the rocky south shore of the island wasn’t the easiest task in the world. The water was over forty feet deep and the seafloor strewn with rocks. In the low light of the late afternoon we couldn’t spot the rocks from above and had to drop the hook three times before finding a clear area. When the chain stretched out before us and held against the thrust of Avventura’s motor I settled in for a night of much rest but little sleep at the exposed and unsettling anchorage.<br />As the sun rose on a new day and the morning swept on we took our leave of the rugged and inaccessible Isla Otoque and made our way to Isla Taboga. It was a relief to motor over placid seas without any wind, and when the chain rumbled out beneath my feet in the early afternoon and Avventura came to rest once more the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders. A long, rough passage was behind me and I knew it’d be over three weeks before I’d spend another night at sea.<br />Isla Taboga sits just a few miles from the mouth of the Panama Canal, but feels a world away. The hustle and bustle of big city life is foreign to the island and the quaint colorful town tucked in its steep hillsides. Discovered by Balboa, Taboga was first settled in the early 1500s. Perhaps the island’s biggest claim to fame is its church which dates back to 1524, making it the second oldest in the western hemisphere. Anchored off a small beach on the northeast side of the island, a swath of massive freighters could be seen offshore, anchored and waiting for their time to transit the canal. From Avventura’s decks the island rose bold and colorful from the blue waters lapping her shores into the azure sky. The tight clustering of pastel homes at the foot of the steep hillsides reminded me of Cinque Terre, Italy and I thought for a moment that Taboga would be a nice place to settle down and do some writing.<br />The afternoon sun beat down with a vengeance, so to seek refuge I leaped into the water, swam down and touched the seafloor. Surfacing with a big gasp for air, I sslowly stroked for shore, landing in the middle of the sand spit isthmus which led out to the bulbous rocky point on the northeast tip of the island. There was nobody around and I laid on my back in the warm sand drinking in the afternoon sun and relishing the ability to relax once more. The passage between Ensenada Benao and Islat Otoque had been filled with stress, and I’d been unable to catch a good night’s sleep since leaving Santa Catalina, so my entire body was tired and crying out for sleep, but the brutal heat ensured I would get none till well after sunset.<br />Returning to Avventura, music was pouring out from he speakers, and as I climbed on deck John threw me a beer. Though it was a bit early to be drinking, we had reached the realm of the Canal and a little celebration was in order. I felt the stress wash away from my body as the first beer coursed through me. A second followed fast on her heels, and a third attended the sunset. With the setting sun, Ryan sat down to type an e-mail and I asked him to fill out a position report while he was at it. When he got to the comments section he asked, “What should I put for comments?”<br />“Anchored of Isla Taboga is fine,” I replied.<br />He typed something, then turned to the cockpit and read, “Anchored off Isla Taboga with a couple of drunks.”<br />“If you’re going to put something like that at least make it entertaining,” I returned.<br />“You should say, ‘We’re here to get druunnnkk,” John chimed in. A few beers aided my momentary lapse in judgment and for all eternity that position report hangs in the wind. But for the night ahead it set the tone, and before long I was feeling no pain and not the slightest stress as my blood turned to alcohol. By the time I retired to my bunk I was so far gone that I passed out immediately, and had finally found a way to sleep soundly through the night. Looking back, the entire night was one big lapse in judgment that relieved me of the previous two days of stress and tension for a brief period of drunken stupor.<br />Come dawn nature made sure she taught me a lesson. I woke still feeling tipsy, and before long the raging hangover set in. Anyone who’s tried knows there’s no worse feeling than a hangover in the tropics. Head pounding, alcohol-ridden sweat beading off my body, and an intense stomachache, I was determined not to waste the beautiful day. Just before noon I gathered all our cameras into my dry bag, threw in a couple T-shirts and some money for good measure, and we swam ashore for a day of exploration.<br />Walking through town in the bright and brutal sunlight, I was struck by its cleanliness and the atmosphere it exuded. Again my thoughts turned to Cinque Terre and Italy’s Isle of Capri—Taboga would feel much more at home in Italy than off the dirty, ugly metropolis of Panama City. Passing the old church, we came to the remnants of a hospital where workers on the building of the Panama Canal were sent when they acquired Yellow Fever or some like sickness. Among its one-time residents was Paul Gaugin, who’d stopped in Panama to make some money working on the Canal before continuing on to the Marquesas where he continued his illustrious painting career.<br />Leaving the small town behind, we walked up into the hillsides bound for a mirador, or lookout. Somewhere along the way we took a wrong turn and ended up heading towards the island’s garbage dump when a flatbed truck with a handful of locals in it stopped us and said the lookout was up the other way. They offered us a ride so we climbed into the bed of the truck, standing behind the cab and holding on with a death-grip to a steel bar. Thus situated we were taken up the bumpy road to the top of the island in the back of their truck, dodging low-lying tree branches overhanging the road the entire time.<br />Atop the island they dropped us off and turned around. We climbed up to an abandoned military bunker and were rewarded with spectacular views down over the anchorage below and off across Isla Taboquilla and the 30 big freighters anchored nearby awaiting their canal transit to the skyline of Panama City lurking in the haze. Over on the southern horizon, across an unbroken expanse of blue sea, lurked the low forms of the Islas Perlas twenty-five miles away. Off to the southwest, around the backside of the island, sat our refuge of the night before, Isla Otoque. As my eyes scanned the blue sea stretching between the islands a whale spout broke the blue expanse. The white plume lingered in the still air for a minute before dissipating. It took a few minutes for another puff to be seen. Hordes of brown pelicans circled above the slopes of Taboga’s southwest shore. The island is a wildlife refuge and the pelicans have found a sliver of paradise on the inaccessible steep slopes. The cacophony of bird sounds is overwhelming at times, and I found myself longing for the freedom and fun of the birds lulling around in the forest-clad slopes of the island between fishing trips to the offshore hunting grounds for the day’s meal. The water below was crystal clear and dark blue, a sharp and brilliant contrast to the bright green of the island itself. After taking an obscene amount of pictures from the bunker we walked across the top of the island to a small power plant and climbed out on a big metal screen of a roof for an even better view than before.<br />Descending from the peak of the island, we found a trail leading up a steep grass-covered hillside on its southwest point to a white cross at the top, placed there by the Spaniards hundreds of years ago. Standing at the base of the massive cross we soaked in one final amazing view of the town tucked into the green hillsides lurking above the deep blue of the Gulf of Panama. Avventura could be seen anchored far below, and the Panamanian mainland stretched off in the distance.<br />Descending into town at a near sprint, we stopped at a little tienda for some much needed water and a tasty ice cream cone. Cutting back through town, we spent an hour at the beach in the waning light of the late afternoon, swimming to rinse the sweat and grime off our bodies, and relaxing in the warm sand.<br />As the sun dipped behind the island we returned to town and found a place to eat at the Hotel Vereda Tropical. Clinging to the hillsides, the hotel looks out over a few rooftops to the anchorage below with Isla Taboquilla off in the distance and the Panama Skyline to its left. We sat on the patio, had the restaurant to ourselves, and enjoyed an okay meal with an unbeatable atmosphere. A light northerly breeze kept us cool and the scattered cumulus clouds were ignited by the setting sun. As night fell the color drained from the clouds and we sat there absorbing the beauty of the scene; a beauty I find hard to put in words for it stems more from a feeling than a sight. Theß combination of the splendid view, the coming darkness, the northerly breeze wafting through the palm trees, the perfect temperature of no temperature, the sound of birds chirping, and a million other things that went unnoticed but felt combined to give the restaurant its splendid charm. When we were finally ready to leave the restaurant we swam back to Avventura in the dark of night with the lights of the town shimmering off the water and guiding us along.<br />Back aboard my home, I sat atop the cabin and soaked in the scene. Stretching off towards the mainland sat the maze of lights of the freighters awaiting their transits. A beautiful blue-hulled tuna seiner pulled up to Taboga and came to anchor northwest of us with a great deal of clanking and commotion. Ashore, the lights of the town clung to the hills of the formidable hulk of Taboga. High above a thin sliver of a crescent moon dipped slowly towards the island’s peak, weaving its way in and out of the puffs of cumulus. Patches of stars filled the obstructed sky. The far off glow of Panama City ignited the horizon. A light north wind caressed my face and kept the courtesy flag beneath our starboard spreader slapping constantly. All else was quiet. <br />With dawn came yet another splendid sunny day and I asked myself where the rainy season was; because it sure wasn’t in the Gulf of Panama. Up well before my cousins, as usual, I climbed up in to the cockpit with my journal and captured the events of the previous couple days. By the time I finished the entry it was time to listen to the Pan Pacific radio net, and by the time that was over my cousins were awake and we took our leave of Taboga Island. Watching the town fall away astern, I thought the island in many ways idyllic, and imagined myself happily spending a month living in a small house overlooking the sea and writing and reading the days away.<br />Back to the task at hand, I guided Avventura through the maze of ships awaiting their transit of the canal, marveling at the many different types. Everything from Panamax container ships and car carriers to dry goods carriers and oil tankers lay at anchor offshore, all awaiting their turn to lock through the isthmus to the Atlantic. Entering the first set of canal channel markers off Isla Flamenco, I steered towards the Bridge of the Americas emerging from a light low haze. As the bridge grew before us we caught glimpses of the Panama City skyline peeking over the Amador Causeway to our right. The accumulation of skyscrapers put my hometown of San Diego to shame, and my cousins were dumbfounded at the looks of high civilization Panama City displayed for the world to see. Soon they would learn how these looks can be deceiving. As we approached the distinct form of the Bridge of the Americas Avventura veered off to starboard and we entered the moorings of the Balboa Yacht Club. One of the club’s launches directed us to an open buoy and we came to rest in the midst of the mass of cruising boats. Panama City at last.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-74408246054434943862009-06-26T07:37:00.000-07:002009-06-26T07:38:29.115-07:00Ch. 15—Panamanian Exploration, Part IIMy heart skipped a beat, then my pulse quickened. My mind played devil’s advocate. The voyage I had worked so hard to bring about, that I had dreamed into existence since I was a young boy, that I had served a three-year apprenticeship at the feet of great seamen to bring to fruition had come to a screeching halt. All was lost. Now I’d have to find a way to get back to San Diego, tail between my legs having failed on my great quest for the South Pacific. Time stood still. I felt like I was trapped in a B-movie where the great climactic moment developed in slow motion. Looking back I realize it all happened in a blink of an eye; but in that blink I saw my dreams come crashing down.<br />As soon as Avventura hit the reef I put the engine back in neutral, then into forward gear. Three distinct grinding sounds and three jolts could be felt. Then silence and a return to fluid motion. The reef fell away astern to port and we glided out into clear waters. I cursed for Ryan to get out of the cabin and stand on the bow. John followed him forward, and I ordered them to make sure clear waters lay ahead. Ryan mumbled something incoherent. He’s just not the type of person who performs under pressure. His mind simply isn’t built that way. Frustrated, I cursed at nobody in particular. My cousins got the point the John said, “Just keep going straight. You’re okay.”<br />“Thank you!” The depth gauge began a steep ascent as the sea floor fell away once more. In five minutes we were heading back the way we’d come in water over a hundred feet deep. It was time to survey the damage. The bilge pump had yet to come on, so I knew my initial fears were unfounded. The voyage would go on. I would reach the South Pacific. But did we need to sail straight for Panama City to make repairs? Could I effect a temporary patch? Or by some miracle (and I’m not sure this thought even crossed my mind before entering the water) was the damage merely superficial and nothing to worry about till I hauled the boat out in Ecuador a couple months down the line?<br />With the engine idling in neutral I donned my mask and snorkel and slipped into the deep blue of the open ocean. Fingers of light penetrated into the depths and disappeared out of sight. The red of Avventura’s hull was a sharp, spectacular contrast to the blue of the sea. I took a big gulp of air and dove. A quick scan of the base of the hull. Could it be true? No gaping hole? No long seam cut into the fiberglass? No way; I must have missed it. I dove again. A ten inch section at the base of the hull just forward of the rudder was missing its bottom paint. That reef may have gotten me; but Avventura fought back and killed a good portion of it with her bottom paint. I ran my fingers along the section. Scratches in the fiberglass, but very shallow cuts. Nothing requiring my immediate attention. I surfaced, yanked off my mask, and a shallow hoot escaped my lips. My cousins could sense my relief. The show would go on.<br />Before you have run aground or hit a reef you are never as vigilant as you should be when sailing close to land. No matter how often and vigorously you are warned, it seems impossible to truly heed the warnings. Only firsthand experience teaches you once-and-for-all this lesson. Never let your guard down at sea. Complacency kills. It kills dreams; it kills boats; and in extreme circumstances it can kill you. I learned my lesson well, and by erring on the side of caution in all future endeavors managed to pass the rest of the voyage keeping Avventura in waters deep enough to keep her floating. But mentally I wouldn’t be the same, as I’d soon find out.<br />Giving Isla Rancheria an unnecessarily wide berth, we circled around the south side of the island and approached Punta Machete with an abundance of caution. We dinghied ashore, checked in with the Park Rangers, paid to be in the park for a handful of days, returned to Avventura, picked up anchor, and moved to the cove on the south side of Isla Rancheria. Here my mind began playing tricks on me. In the low afternoon light I thought I saw the shape of the reef lurking beneath the surface and was unwilling to penetrate further into the bay. Thus we set the hook in unnecessarily deep water, and an often pleasant anchorage became quite rolly and uncomfortable.<br />With the hook set a great weight was lifted off my shoulders and I cracked open a beer and sought to forget about the entire days. With my first long sip I felt my body begin to relax. My heart was still beating hard and my mind replayed the incident over and over, but my body began to relax a bit more with each sip of beer, and before I knew it night was upon us and I was slipping into bed. Sleep was hard to come by. Every unusual sound my mind saw as us dragging anchor and running aground; every change in motion was the effect of the reef on Avventura’s hull. When my eyes finally did shut it was a measly two hours before the first nightmare came. I was at the helm guiding Avventura into the beautiful cove we were currently anchored in when a reef started extending out from every direction and squeezing in around us. We were being forced into it from every direction, and I awoke right as we ran aground.<br />The remainder of the night I was too scared to shut my eyes. I sat for a time on the foredeck beneath a star-filled sky rehashing the day’s events, thinking of the lessons I had learned, and cursing the men aboard the Mar Viva boat for telling me to go directly to the Ranger Station. Avventura kissing the reef was far from their fault; but then again, if not for them I had planned on going straight from Isla de Canal de Afuera to the anchorage at Isla Rancheria and not visiting the Ranger Station till the following day. Had the boat not spotted us who knows what would have happened and how the trip might have played out differently. But alas, what’s done was done, I said, and it was time to get on with the voyage at hand. There were still a lot of anchorages between now and Panama City, and many a hidden reef lying in wait to claim her next victim. Prudence would be the order of the trip was here on out, and when in doubt I’d stay out of the area.<br />With the dawn of the new day I pondered a new course for Avventura. My night of nightmares and little sleep brought me to realize I needed to find a good, safe anchorage where my crew and I would be happy to remain for a few days. The coral studded coast encircling Isla Coiba had lost its appeal, and despite the great natural beauty I knew the island possessed, I asked my cousins if they’d have a problem with heading straight for Santa Catalina. Their responses came without hesitation: we understand why you don’t want to hang around Isla Coiba; lets go surfing.<br />Santa Catalina was the one place in Panama I knew I would find good waves. Crazy Ray had told us so back in Bahia Herradura, and Cameron off Velella had been told so by another Panama-experienced cruiser. The prospect of finding waves made leaving behind the gorgeous white sand beaches and crystal clear waters of Coiba bearable, and as the sun claimed her dominance over the sky Avventura slid out of the cove on Isla Rancheria and set a course for Isla Santa Catalina some twenty-five miles away.<br />Isla Santa Catalina sits less than a mile off Panama’s mainland, a small chunk of land providing just enough protection from the south and west to make for a comfortable anchorage in its lee. A current sweeps through the anchorage at the change of the tides and you often lie nose into the current, so at times the anchorage becomes rolly as windchop hits you beam on. Nevertheless the anchorage is quite secure off the small beach on the north side of the island. On the mainland opposite sits the town of Santa Catalina, a surfer’s paradise tucked along the cliffs of the coast. The main wave in the area is a long righthander breaking just around Punta de Manzanillo, a short dinghy ride northeast of the anchorage. The wave is often likened to Hawaii’s Sunset Beach, and having surfed both places I can see the resemblance.<br />As we settled in at the anchorage a thunderstorm started to rumble inland. The big black mass of clouds overtook the sun as they approached the island and pummeled us with rain and wind. Bolts of lightning pierced the sky. The way things were going, it’d be a perfect time to be struck. I cracked open a beer earlier than usual and sat in the cockpit. The rain poured down and rolled off my exposed upper body. A slight shiver shot through me, but I threw my head back, opened my mouth, and drank in the elements. To hell with custom and comfort and decorum! Let Mother Nature purge my soul and clear my mind. She alone could put me back on the right track to a fruitful and fun voyage. My cousins sat in the cabin, out of the rain and protected from the elements. A look of disbelief etched across Ryan’s face. Five months with me and he still hadn’t learned how to be at one with what is. Some people just don’t get it, I said to myself as I stood and walked up to the foredeck. Solitude surrounded me and I exulted in the cold rain and bolts of frightening lightning.<br />The squall passed in due time and left behind a stable gray sky that blanketed the region in dreary misery. All nature’s colors appeared dull and forlorn. Rolling green hillsides looked ominous and unapproachable; beaches looked brown, cold and forlorn; even the ocean appeared menacing and unfriendly. My cousins joined me in the cockpit and I threw down another beer. I could feel the weight of stress release from my shoulders as the alcohol worked its magic. After a couple beers my surroundings started to match my mental state. The skies began to clear and a few stars graced the skies. Specks of phosphorescence ignited the sea around us. A light breeze ruffled through the coco palms of the island nearby. All was well with my world again.<br /><br />Six days of rest and recuperation for my scarred sailing soul lay in store at Santa Catalina. Six days without a thought of reefs or anchorages or boat work or repairs. Six days of surfing and swimming, immersing myself in nature and allowing her to cleanse my mind and carry me back to the joys I’d experienced before running aground. And for a surfer there’s no better place to spend six days in Panama than at Santa Catalina.<br />On our first full day at Santa Catalina I determined to get the full lay of the land. We started off the day with a quick trip by dinghy over to the main break, anchoring in the channel beside the righthander and paddling out to join the dozen other surfers. The waves were fun as can be: steep drops followed by long walls leading in towards a shallow inside tube section before you had to kick out to avoid the exposed reef on the inside. The wave was best on a high tide, and at low tide became all but unsurfable due to the shallow reef and indeed a few exposed sections; but when the tide was right the rides were beautiful. When the tide began dropping the crowd dispersed leaving my cousins and I out alone for a handful of waves before it became too shallow to be safe.<br />From the main wave we zipped north around Punta de Manzanillo, anchored the dinghy off a long stretch of sand beside a couple pangas, and paddled ashore. We walked inland up the main road (which leads inland for miles all the way to and past the town of Sona) till we reached a dirt road paralleling the shoreline a few hundred yards inland. This we followed through town (or rather behind the bulk of the town), winding our way through clear pastureland with dirt roads cutting the scene and leading back towards the coast. Just as the heat of the day was beginning to wear me down we arrived atop a bluff overlooking Playa Esterillos, a long swath of powdery sand with gentle waves rolling ashore. The beach serves as the beginner’s surf spot, and my cousins and I passed another couple hours surfing and bodysurfing the small closeouts, laughing and having a good time.<br />When we emerged from the water we walked the length of the beautiful beach and continued along the rocky stretch of coast to the southeast a bit before realizing there were no other surfbreaks in reach and turning back towards town. A local lunch of Panamanian cuisine left us far from impressed, and I was all too glad to return to Avventura in the late afternoon for a night of relaxation.<br />Day two at Santa Catalina saw the swell increase. We started the day with a long surf session at the main break. As I later recorded in my journal: “Me second wave found me in the perfect spot for one of the best set waves of the day. I dropped in, made a big bottom turn, and then pulled in under the lip, got a little cover-up, and had a fast, fun ride from there.” The crowd was an unusual blend of dark-skinned Panamanian locals and pale white tourists from all over the world. A couple of the Panamanians really knew how to ride the wave, and most were friendly and welcoming provided you stayed out of there way and off of the waves they were riding. The foreign crowd consisted of two young kids from Maui who made the pilgrimage every summer, a handful of Brazilians, and a boogie-boarder turned surfer from the coast of Wales who was thrilled by the warm waters and perfect waves without any wind.<br />When the tide forced everyone from the water Avventura’s crew returned to the boat, dropped off their surfboards, grabbed T-shirts and a couple empty fuel jerry cans, and made for the beach. I unloaded my cousins on the sand, anchored the dinghy offshore once more, and swam in to join them. We caught the 2:30 P.M. bus to Sona and off we went through the Panamanian interior.<br />I expected the bus ride to be a thirty minute jaunt to the nearby city where we could provision and return in just a couple hours. Boy was I ever wrong! For ninety minutes we followed the winding road through endless expanses of cleared fields where cows roamed free grazing at will and being fattened for the slaughter (the main source of income for this region of Panama). Few houses and less people were seen, and the bus didn’t stop for the first hour. Then a few pockets of homes began lining the road and their inhabitants boarded and disembarked from the bus as we continued on towards the big city. When we finally arrived in town I learned Sona was far from the big city I was somehow expecting to find. A single strip of drab businesses was the bulk of downtown; but the bus stop was right beside a nice supermarket, a gas station was right down the street, and a small produce stand was just up the street in the opposite direction. Everything we needed was within a few hundred yards of each other.<br />Halfway through our travels in Panama’s Western Isles our food stores had dwindled dangerously low, so restocking was a major endeavor. We loaded a shopping cart to the brim with all the necessities ranging from chips and salsa to tuna and canned beans to beer and juice. As we began the checkout process the loud pitter-patter of rain on the corrugated iron roof began. By the time we emerged outside it was coming down in torrents. I left my cousins beneath the dry awning of the supermercado, and dashed down the street with the pair of jerry cans. Once they were filled I returned them to the supermarket, and struck off in the opposite direction to restock our supply of fresh produce. I returned to the bus stop thoroughly soaked with fifteen minutes to spare before the last bus left for Santa Catalina.<br />The only other people waiting at the bus stop were a Panamanian mother and her ten-year-old daughter. The daughter wore a long skirt and a pink shirt with a ballet slipper on the front. Her hair hung long and straight and she had the cutest smile permanently etched on her face. When we decided to get an ice cream while we waited I asked her mother if it was okay if we bought her one and the little girl begged her mother till she said yes. The girl entered the supermarket and approached the ice cream counter and I immediately saw what was meant by the expression, “like a kid in a candy store.” Her smile was so big it threatened to rip her face apart and she couldn’t suppress her excitement. She looked at me as if to ask what she should get, and I told her as best I could to get whatever she wanted. She ordered two scoops with a wry smile, as if she had gotten away with breaking a lamp in the living room, and waited anxiously for it to be delivered.<br />Ice creams in hand, we emerged outside where the rain continued to pour down in hilarious torrents. It seemed impossible for the sky to hold so much water. All I could do was laugh at the sight of the river forming in the street and wonder how we’d make it back to the boat safely.<br />The little girl wasted no time in devouring her ice cream. As only a kid can, she wound up with it all over her face—there was even a dot on the tip of her nose—and spots on her clothes. As her mother called her over and wiped off her face I apologized, but she was quick to thank me in return.<br />Boarding the bus, my cousins and I took seats near the back and mixed up a drink to pass the time a bit faster. The little girl’s mother sat a few rows in front of us beside a couple other Panamanian women, and as the girl took her seat she pointed at us and waved. As we pulled away from the supermarket the wheels of the bus sprayed water off in all directions. With the windows closed it soon turned into the world’s worst smelling sauna, and the long ride home began. Before five minutes had elapsed the little girl was standing on her seat, her eyes just peeking over the back of it and looking at me. I turned as if to hide my face and she giggled. When I turned my head back and looked at her she pulled her head down quickly and disappeared. A minute later she was back and looking at me again. I stuck my tongue out ad made a weird face. She erupted in laughter and her mother turned first to her, then to me. I returned my face to normal and waved innocently at the mother. All of a sudden I was ten again, goofing off in the back of a van on the ride home from Disneyland. After five minutes of exchanging weird faces my cousins, myself, and the little girl were laughing hysterically. The bus driver looked up at us in the rearview mirror from time to time and a smile crept over his face. The Panamanian women in the front of the bus stole inconspicuous glances back at us and their stern faces broke out in smiles. All was childish fun and games.<br />Fifteen minutes into the ride the mother had grown tired of her daughter’s laughter and let her move back a couple seats to the aisle across from me. The bizarre faces had worn out their welcome and it was time to move on to other kid games. She motioned for me to put my hands up and started playing some typical little girl game, slapping hands in turn and making different gestures. I couldn’t understand the words she sang, and every time I messed up the motions her sweet laugh returned. Before I knew it an hour had passed and her mother called her up as the bus came to a stop and they disembarked at a small shack beside the desolate road. The rain continued to fall outside, but the little girl stood at her mother’s side, waving as we drove away. I returned the wave and smiled. I knew I would never again see that little girl, and here we were two complete strangers who had brightened up each other’s day. Throughout my travels I’ve found that I get along much better with young people than with grown-ups. Fun is easier to come by with them and they are content to laugh and love life. It seems the grown-ups lose something in the journey through life which makes them forget the fun and joys they experienced in youth and grow calloused to the world. Throughout the world it is the same—the grown-ups are weighed down with the cares of the modern world and the desire to get ahead; while the kids are about living life and loving life. I for one find myself far more at home with the children than the cold-hearted realists of the grown-ups.<br />By the time we disembarked beside the beach at Santa Catalina night had fallen and all was dark. The rain had ceased, but a thick cloudcover kept the night sky black overhead and visibility next to nothing. Standing on the beach, I strained my eyes into the black, but couldn’t make out the form of the dinghy anywhere. Lining up with where I thought it should be, I swam out a hundred yards, but still saw nothing. I moved a hundred yards down the beach and swam out again. Nothing! Frustrated, hungry, and tired, I returned to the beach, moved our groceries beneath the corrugated iron roof of a covered patio, and my cousins and I struck off in search of the local pizzeria. By the time we found our way along the pitch black roads the pizzeria was closed. We found a lone open restaurant and had some delicious chicken tacos washed down by a pair of beers. Then came the long walk back to the beach and the horrible prospect of having to spend the night on the beach.<br />Back at the beach, John and I waded into the water as far apart as we could be to still see each other clearly. We swam out together, scanning the black expanse between and beside us calling out to each other from time to time. When I could no longer see the beach I was sure we should have spotted the dinghy by now and was ready to turn back when John exclaimed, “There! I think there’s something out there further. Let’s just keep going.” I reluctantly swam on, and sure enough the dinghy rose up on a swell and came into sight. Relieved, we let out loud hoots as we climbed aboard and laid on the pontoons, exhausted from a long day.<br />It took two trips to get the groceries, fuel and people out to Avventura, and each time I looked in awe at the luminous green wake of phosphorescence we churned up. It was midnight by the time we were all back on Avventura. The skies had cleared and the stars shone in all their glory. The moon was not to be seen, and flecks of green ignited the waters around us. Curious, I dove over the side and opened my eyes to see streaks of green shooting away from me. I surfaced and watched the sea come to life as I circled my arms and legs. I felt like a magician turning the lifeless black depths into a brilliant array of life, or a painter transforming a blank canvas with strokes of bright green into a lively picture. John joined me and we circled Avventura, thrilling in the rare phenomena. It was well after one o’clock before my head hit a pillow.<br /><br />Daylight saw the swell pick up at Santa Catalina, and by the time I reached the lineup a little after ten o’clock the sets were over ten feet. It was the biggest it had been since June according to the locals. On my first wave I went to stand up and my leash was caught under my front foot. I tried to lift my foot and fell as the lip crashed down on my head. From then on I surfed better, and fit right into the rotation of the locals, catching wave after long wave, riding it through to the channel where a couple pangas sat watching. In one panga a little local boy surveyed the scene, and every time he thought he saw a set coming he’d yell out “Afuera!” Only problem was he was right about half the time. Before long the locals that knew him were yelling for him to quit; but the boy wasn’t what you’d call a quick study.<br />By paddling out so late in the morning we had missed the peak high tide and the best waves of the day, but the advantage was the crowd was thinning out all the time. After a couple hours it was just my cousins and a local transplant originally from the Basque region of Spain. We traded fun drops, but the tide prevented us from riding the waves very far in. When the reef inside looked too ominous John and I decided to try and get a wave in. I watched him paddle for a set wave, and noticed it begin to double-up and steepen. In a moment right out of the movie North Shore I was transformed from yelling for him to go to saying, “No! No!” But alas it was too late. He was locked in and I watched him stand up and miraculously make the drop before turning to position myself for the next wave. When I caught it I saw John on the inside, holding up the back half of my board and pointing for the rocks. My heart sank. The dreaded moment I knew was a long time coming had come, and the three men of Avventura were now down to just two surfboards.<br />I retrieved the front half of my favorite board from the rocks, and as we loaded in the dinghy asked John what had happened. “I saw you make the drop, and was amazed.”<br />“I know. It was one of the best drops of my life.”<br />“So what happened?”<br />“The wave just caught up with me. Lip came right down on top of me. I got worked.” I immediately realized the wave must have crashed down right on the weakest point in the board, where two dings had allowed water to seep in and weaken the foam and stringer for months. The worst part was we were now one board shy and John would be at Ryan’s mercy for when he could surf with me again.<br />After an afternoon spent basking in the sun and reading aboard Avventura (and yes, there were a few boat chores accomplished as well) we headed ashore as the sun sank behind the island. To prevent a repeat of the previous night’s dinghy search we landed up a small river towards the north end of the beach. Despite having to drag the dinghy over the shallow bar it was well worth the hassle to know we could find it come nightfall.<br />A big beer at a run-down bar near the beach where we landed the dinghy started the night off, and after John and I ordered another for the road we struck off in the direction of the pizzeria. The Pizzeria Jamming is the local hotspot at Santa Catalina, and everybody who was in the water in the morning had gathered for a beer, a bite to eat, and to watch the video and pictures captured of the morning’s surf. A local photographer and videographer hooked their computers up to a television screen and the crowd ogled the images, oohing and ahhing and pointing at the surfer captured. The pizza was tasty as well. It was a perfect way to end a nice day of surfing, and after sharing a beer with everyone in town it was much easier to get along with them in the water the next day.<br />Determined to catch all of what was left of the swell, I was back in the water before eight the next morning. The tide was still filling in, and the sets were still in the eight foot range. The two pangas remained in the channel and the photographers were back once more to capture the scene. I caught a dozen beautiful rights, picking off the rare set wave that would swing wide of the peak and staying out of the way of the locals. Meanwhile Ryan sat on his board in the channel, never even attempting to catch a wave but refusing to let John. John thus treaded water in the channel with a small waterproof camera taking a few pictures and still by all appearances having a good time.<br />Fleeing the surf, I dropped Ryan off ashore and returned to the boat with John. Within minutes a light rain began to fall and the clouds forming over the land were dark and menacing. I took shelter beneath the spray dodger and watched as the slow drizzle gathered steam until it was all-out pouring. After a couple minutes admiring nature’s fury I realized this was the perfect opportunity to shower, so I retrieved my shampoo and soap, headed for the foredeck, and lathered up. Within minutes I felt fresh and clean, and the rain continued to pour down. Finally at 4:30 the rain began to abate and John and I headed for shore. We landed the dinghy up the river and headed for the internet café where Ryan had spent the entire afternoon. John headed in to join him while I sat outside reading.<br />From the internet café we set about a repeat of the previous night’s activities. A return to the bar, followed by the long walk over the slick, muddy roads to Pizzeria Jamming where I was thrilled to see the photographer had snapped a couple good shots of me. I inquired about how much he was selling them for, selected the ones I wanted, and said I’d return the following night with the money.<br />One last day at Santa Catalina saw us back in the water early in the morning. The surf had dropped dramatically and was the smallest it had been since we arrived. What’s more, the crowd was out in full force and was as aggressive as they had ever been. Ryan again refused to let John ride his board, though he again never paddled for a wave, and I cursed his chintziness and for the umpteenth time realized there was no way I could sail through the South Pacific with him. It was a good thing I had decided to pull Avventura out of the water in Ecuador because this would allow me to return to San Diego for the holidays and find a new crew. On my final wave of the day I pulled into a tube on the inside, and the wave shut down on me, knocking me off my board and tumbling me underwater. In the process my knee hit the solid lava reef, and when I came up seeing blood I knew it was time to call it quits.<br />Our morning surf session was followed by a brief pit stop on the boat before we headed ashore. We walked through town, headed for Playa Esterillos, but halfway there Ryan dropped off, saying he was too tired and wanted to get something to eat. Toe ach his own; the beach was calling. John and I bodysurfed the beachbreak, enjoying the small surf and hot sunshine. Afterwards we stood by one of the many surf resorts and chatted with a guy who was from Cleveland. Turns out he had driven all the way down here, and was in the process of moving to Panama City. We exchanged tales of our adventures, shook hands, and parted ways—never to see each other again.<br />The remainder of the day was spent like all others in Santa Catalina: swims at the beach, brief stop at the internet café, trip to the store for some produce, drinks at the bar, and dinner at the pizzeria. I purchased my pictures, said good-bye to the locals and foreigners alike I’d met over the past few days, and returned to Avventura. The phosphorescence was back in full force, so one final midnight swim was in order. Floating on my back in the warm Panamanian water, I looked over at John and started to chuckle. Perhaps running aground was just nature’s way of ensuring we caught the swell at Santa Catalina. Our stay had been almost too perfect (broken board notwithstanding), and all we could do was laugh at our good fortune. Here we were with no surf forecasting materials on board and we just happened to stumble upon Panama’s best wave for the best swell in three months. Sometimes the elements flow together and life serves up a grandiose string of days. The laughter was contagious, and before I knew it I was laughing so hard I could barely stay afloat. Ryan emerged from Avventura’s cabin to see what was going on, only to see we were safe and return below. The adventurous spirit didn’t reside in his belly; his soul never caught fire from the elements; he never thrilled at the simple things in life. My laughter reached another level as he disappeared. I splashed John full in the face, and his competitive spirit cut the laughter short and an all-out waterfight began. Life was good. Santa Catalina was great.<br /><br />When first I laid eyes on Isla Cébaco I knew I would someday return. Her beauty and isolation captivated my soul, and the vast stretch of empty beach in Ensenada Naranjo called to me like the Sirens called to Odysseus. The star-filled nights and tradewind swept anchorage of my first visit only heightened Ensenada del Naranjo’s allure in my eyes, and upon leaving Santa Catalina there was no doubt about our destination.<br />(Is all of what follows in the paragraph needed? Likely NOT.???)xxx???) Awake before my cousins yet again, I penned a journal entry in the cockpit before getting ready to head ashore one final time at Santa Catalina. Ryan began to stir below so I told him I wanted to leave the anchorage soon, but first had to head ashore for a few last minute provisions. Once I’d procured the eggs, butter and milk I returned to Avventura where Ryan was below watching a DVD. Nothing aboard was ready for our departure. I put the groceries away and went about readying the ship. Sailcover off, swim ladder raised and secured, dinghy motor off, dinghy secured astern ready to be towed, and everything loose on deck secured or placed below. Ryan continued watching his DVD. John slept. I fired up the engine, weighed anchor, and motored back around the north end of Isla Santa Catalina the way we’d come. Ryan watched his DVD; John began to stir below. I set the autopilot and started the watermaker. Ryan, realizing he was in my way, moved from his berth to the quarterberth, his eyes never leaving his precious DVD. John was up and in the cockpit—somebody had to keep an eye out. I cursed the laziness of my cousins beneath my breath, and wished they cared a bit more about my boat and my voyage and took more initiative to lend a hand.<br />With the watermaker purring like a kitten a gentle breeze bid us nice sailing for the short leg out to the island. The gentle broad reach urged us across the deep blue water channel in two hours and by one thirty we were entering the lee of Isla Cébaco and the sails had to come down. The drone of the engine returned as we motored around the island’s rocky west end and the beautiful deep gouge of Ensenada del Naranjo came into view. Rounding Punta Tintorera, I thrilled to the sight of the empty bay and was quick to realize time had done little to change the place I recalled so fondly.<br />Upon closer examination much has changed, beginning with the cluster of mooring buoys (actually old car tires on the surface) installed by the Balboa Yacht Club for the use of cruisers. Seeing the bay was empty, we selected a buoy at random from the mass and tied off to it. Then, using the dinghy, we tied our stern to a second buoy to act as a stern anchor. All was calm and quiet. Blue skies were the order of the day and the waters of the bay matched the blue of the sky. The dark sand beach reached across the base of the bay, closely guarded by dense rainforest. The hills were filled with green vegetation and not a sign of dry grass was to be seen. Ah, the splendor of the rainy season. All was lush and vital as a rainforest should be. Waves rolling up the gentle slope of the beach broke the silence. Birds called ashore. Nature reigned supreme.<br /><br />Three days were devoted to relaxation and exploration at Isla Cébaco. Thoughts of surfing receded in my mind amidst the beautiful snorkeling and lush forest. We swam in the calm waters of the bay, bodysurfed miniscule waves at the beach, threw a football around in the surfline, and hiked a long ways up a small stream which bisected the beach. The last time I had visited the bay the stream was nothing but a dry riverbed infested with insects. The insects remained, but water filled much of the riverbed. After hiking in the water for a time we spotted a trail off to the side and paralleled the stream under the cover of thick vegetation. Big termite nests clung to the braches of trees adorned with nasty thorns, butterflies and birds zipped through the air, lizards dashed across the path; little was said.<br />A half hour into the walk Ryan was ready to turn back. Our trail appeared to lead to nowhere, and Ryan couldn’t grasp the idea that this might just be the whole point. Sometimes the glory and beauty is found in the path, not the destination. For me this was what the “cruising” life meant. Sure the South Pacific was the destination; but the real voyage encompassed everything along the way from long passages at sea to surfing big waves at famous breaks to meeting new people and becoming acquainted with different cultures. The words of Sterling Hayden coursed through my head, though I couldn’t reconcile them to the situation: “To the hunted; not to the hunter. To the passage; not to the path.” I was trudging onward regardless, after all it was still early in the day and the path was leading us deeper into the rainforest.<br />Fifteen minutes later the gentle trickle of water in the stream grew more intense and my heartbeat quickened. The air became damp and cool and, coming to the end of the trail we entered the stream once more. Turning round one final bend, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow was revealed in a roaring cascade of a waterfall (or at least a miniature version thereof).The heat of the day was quenched by wading in the small pool at the base of the falls, and for a long time I leaned back into the falling waters and let them massage my shoulders. The cold waters felt wonderfully out of place in the tropics; and after fifteen minutes in the falls my body was covered in goosebumps and I was shivering uncontrollably. I found a dry rock on the edge of the stream and sat down staring at the cascade. I could feel my eyes recede deep into my head and became lost in thought and dreams. Nature had me in her grips and I thrilled at the roar of the waterfall, the chill of the damp air, and the heat of the rock beneath me. A light breeze rustled through the trees, the hum of insects faint in the background; a pair of birds chased each other through the sky chirping as they went.<br />Back at the beach, we chopped down a pair of tiny coco palms and extracted the heart of palm. Captain Klutz had taught me how on my previous visit to the bay, and I saved the ritual for this island alone. Its seclusion and ample supply of small palms made for the perfect spot for a sumptuous meal many never know the likes of. The heart of palm secured, we opened coconuts to quench our thirst, bodysurfed to wash ourselves clean, and laid prone in the dry sand to warm up and refill our stores with the energy of the tropic sun. Days were filled with sunshine, afternoons with rainshowers, even with flashes of lightning, and nights were filled with stars. Nature showed all her colors, and made sure Isla Cébaco retained a special place in my heart.<br />It was with a hint of sadness that we left behind the comforts of Isla Cébaco’s Ensenada del Naranjo and headed for her mainland counterpart of the same name. But alas, the voyage must go on, and I knew there were many more beautiful anchorages to be explored and countless waterfalls to be discovered. Surely the best still lay ahead.<br />The short hop from Isla Cébaco back to the mainland and Ensenada Naranjo was easy and dull. We caught no fish and saw no other boats. A sloppy, choppy sea was running, and knocked us all over the place. Traces of seasickness crept over me as I began the process of making water in Avventura’s cabin. Luckily the crossing was a short one, and by noon we were anchored in the open bay of Ensenad Naranjo. The hillsides rolling inland had been cleared and cattle dotted the scene, munching on the expanse of grass at will. Clumps of forest trees broke the monotony and spiced up the landscape. The shores of the cove were lined by three separate beaches divided by stubby rock outcroppings. We anchored in the southeast corner of the cove and were soon ready to flee Avventura.<br />I led the way as we leaped into the water and made the short swim for the cove’s biggest beach, to east of us. I bodysurfed a wave ashore and stepped off onto the nearly black sand beach. The feel of the sand underfoot was perfect—coarse but not rocky, the sort of sand that sticks to your skin in big clumps but wipes off with the gentle brush of the hand. We walked north over the hot sand and collapsed towards the end of the beach. Lying flat on my back, I was too tired to move and simply drank in the tropic sun. Nothing was said. The only sound was the roar of the shorebreak rushing ashore.<br />For an hour I remained motionless, recovering my strength and enjoying the feel of the hot sand on my bare back and the intense sun beating down on my face. Ryan became restless and swam back to the boat. Re-energized, I leapt into the sea and bodysurfed a few small waves. Then, emerging from the water, I followed an inlet back to a small lagoon, and walked along its placid shores a while. The farmhouse for the cattle was tucked back in a cluster of trees and a few locals milled around outside. I waved and they returned the gesture, big smiles etched across their faces. Returning to the beach, John and I slowly walked the length of it, seeming to savor each and every step. When the rocky point halted our tracks we took to the sea and made the long swim back home.<br />I passed the afternoon shaving off a month’s worth of facial hair and emerged feeling like a new and better man. I read a bit from David McCulough’s The Path Between the Seas (a fantastic biography, if you will, of the Panama Canal), took a short nap (my nights had been filled with tortured sleep and vivid nightmares ever since kissing the reef off Coiba), and prepared a chili dinner as the sun dipped low in the sky. We ate in the cockpit in silence as the sun disappeared in her usual tropical splendor and a light rain began to fall. I finished my dinner, washed the dishes, and was quick to slip into bed. Sleep was impossible for me, and as I lay in bed thoughts raced through my head a mile a minute. I thought of my life, what lay in the immediate future, what work needed to be accomplished in Panama City, and what I would do with myself in the long-term. No matter how often I pondered this last point my mind drew a blank. I had no idea what I wished to do with my life; only that I wished to live it in such a way as to be remembered and to simultaneously ensure the lasting memory of my late brother and best friend, Lance. What the path was that would lead me there I hadn’t a clue. When my eyes did finally slam shut it was for but a brief while. I slept off and on for a handful of hours, passing more time awake than asleep, and finally resolved to stay awake as the clock struck five.<br />September 20 held a full day of motoring for us. With little to be seen or done in Ensenada Naranjo the time had come to press on towards the canal, and as the first traces of daylight formed in the east beneath a sliver of crescent moon I weighed anchor and directed Avventura out of the cove, cautiously passing between the mainland and the off-lying rocks of Islote Roncador. Rounding Punta Naranjas, open seas lay ahead, and the day was spend slowly rounding the big peninsula of southwest Panama. By eight o’clock the inconspicuous point of Punta Mariato slipped past and all on board reached their furthest point south in their lives. From here the land fell away northeast. John slept below, a pair of headphones drowning out the hum of the motor. Ryan was lying on the bunk opposite, portable DVD player in hands, oblivious to the scene. I marked the milestone in the logbook and returned to the cockpit to begin turning northeast.<br />A faint seabreeze shut down the engine in the early afternoon, but as we rounded Punta Moler and our anchorage at Punta Guanico came into sight the wind began to fade and the motor resumed her drone. We rounded Punta Guanico, and dropped anchor in the open roadstead to the north in twenty-five feet of water. A small town tucked into the corner at the base of the point on its south side, terminating at the mouth of a river a couple hundred yards to the north.<br />Before I could enjoy my new surroundings a pressing boat chore had to be performed. My single-aside-band radio antenna tuner had stopped working during the passage, and I needed to figure out why. This meant emptying out the quarterberth which served as a sort of garage for me and was filled with spare parts and assorted junk. That done, climbed into the sauna better known as the lazarette and unscrewed the cover to the tuner. Thankfully the fuse inside had blown, and after replacing it all was well again. I screwed the cover back on, took advantage of the empty quarterberth to tighten the packing gland a bit, re-filled my garage, and sent out a position report letting the world (and my family) know I had arrived safely once more. By the time my work was finished it was after six and my cousins were hovering around me waiting for dinner to be cooked. I took my sweet time, but prepared an easy meal which we enjoyed under the darkening night sky in the cockpit. Stars filled the sky, and the beautiful clear night foreshadowed a sunny and hot tropical morning.<br />Sure enough, dawn revealed clear blue skies and I passed the morning writing in my journal and reading till my cousins awoke. Then came time to explore our new surroundings. First order of business—finding somewhere to surf. On approach it appeared there was a series of beachbreaks lining a long stretch of beach stretching west behind on the south side of Punta Guanico opposite the anchorage, so John and I loaded in the dinghy with the two remaining surfboards and zipped around the point (Ryan said he didn’t want to come). Hovering offshore, there were but few waves coming through and it was clear there wasn’t much swell in the water. Thus we zipped back around the point, past the small town to the rivermouth where a small wave broke offshore. The water was shallow a good distance out, and the wave broke knee high a couple hundred yards offshore. The right had perfect form, and we spent a couple hours trading off tiny waves in the clear blue water. We had fun, true honest fun, despite the small waves. We hooted and laughed, quoted lines from North Shore, and reveled in the sunshine and tropical setting.<br />There was only so much small surf I could take, however, so after a couple hours we returned to the dinghy, dropped the boards off aboard Avventura, and asked Ryan if he wanted to come check out the river with us. Ryan declined. John and I zipped back past the town, through the line of surf, and entered the rivermouth over the shallow bar. Just inside the entrance a solid line showed where the ocean ended and the river water began. The water turned from blue to a murky dark greenish-brown color that made it look like you’d expect from a tropical river. As the water color changed we began fighting s slow current upstream and the wide rivermouth closed in on us in mangrove-lined banks. The cry of birds and hum of insects grew loud and all signs of human life disappeared as we snaked our way up the 75 yard wide river for a couple miles, enjoying the scenery and wondering where it might lead. I found myself looking down at the murky waters, wondering what god-awful forms of life lurked beneath, but none were to be seen. After a couple miles the mangroves parted and a vast tract of open land took their place with a small empty dock and a sign ashore. I read what I could, but we were going too fast for me to get further than “Private Property.” A couple hundred yards later a second sign came into view. The setting had the clandestine look you’d expect from a drug dealers compound and farm. A couple jokes were made about the insanity of the idea when I stopped to read the second sign. My literal translation came to: “Private Property Secured by a Private Navy.” The phrase private Armada hung over the scene like the sword of Damocles, and John and I turned to each other. What the hell had we stumbled upon? Nothing but cleared fields could be seen; but why the threat of a private navy to protect empty grazing land? More worried than curious, we turned the dinghy about and zipped away downstream, letting the engine run full throttle and skipping across the surface, scaring small fish out of our path.<br />An afternoon of relaxation and reading ensued as we enjoyed the second straight rainless day of the rainy season. The drought ended shortly after six the following morning with the arrival of a squall. The wind piped up and the rumble of thunder broke the morning silence. The squall lingered till half past nine, leaving a light north breeze in its wake. I decided to take advantage of the wind, so we weighed anchor without the engine and sailed away from Punta Guanico. Not an hour later the wind disappeared and the familiar drone of the motor pierced the quiet. In the early afternoon we entered the wide mouth of Ensenada Benao, slipped in close to the islet protecting its east end, and anchored in thirty feet of water just a stone’s throw from where I had anchored in the Atair a few years previous.<br />Nowhere else is the dramatic difference between the wet and dry seasons more evident than at Ensenada Benao. In the dry season the wind constantly blows hard offshore, sweeping massive rooster tails off the backs of the waves crashing ashore and sending ripples of whitecaps out through the anchorage. The hillsides surrounding the anchorage are brown and bring to mind the wheat fields of America’s heartland, at least to my un-knowing imagination. The cattle travel in clusters, forced to eat the dry grass, which helps explain why they all look so emaciated. In the wet season the winds are light and variable and frequent squalls roll off the land, sweeping the anchorage with rain and lightning. The hillsides are dark green and the grass grows tall. The cattle happily munch wherever they please and are spread out across the scene.<br />The only thing that remains the same at Ensenada Benao is the surf. Year-round it pounds ashore, among the most consistent places in the world I’d imagine. With the hook firmly set we paddled ashore, walked along the beach to the center of the cove, and launched off into the surf. The waves were only chest high, and as the tide filled in they began backing off, but there were still some fun sets coming through. A handful of people were out, all staying at the small campground ashore, and all friendly and welcoming. Ryan returned to the boat first, taking his boogie-board with him and only after he left did I realize I’d forgotten to put down the swim ladder. I couldn’t help but chuckle as I watched his numerous attempts to climb over the rail. Finally the right set of circumstances came together and he got a firm hold on a stanchion and with the help of a roll of the ship he climbed aboard.<br />After surfing I sat silent on the beach. Drained of all energy from three straight lousy nights of sleep, I stared out past the surf into oblivion. Out in the bay I saw the outline of Avventura three years previous and recalled my thoughts of abandoning ship right here, if only to be able to bodysurf the six foot waves that rolled through that day. In hindsight abandoning ship here would have saved me much derision from Klaus, but I doubt I’d have encountered this same bay again had I know remained steadfast and lasted till Germany, gaining an ocean’s worth of experience in the meantime. John stepped in front of me and broke me from my trance. He laid in the sand beside me and we cherished the warmth of the beach, and the tropical look and feel to the place. Nothing was said for a long while; then, at the same time, we rose to return to Avventura with a hint of sadness and regret. Our days exploring western Panama were drawing to a close. In a couple days we’d be in the islands surrounding the Canal Zone, packed with people and boats and the dregs of civilization. Between now and then lay what forecasts predicted would be a long, calm motorboat ride, with the possibility of some southwest winds to help us along. With a good forecast and dropping swell, there was no time like the present to take our departure.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-33427862602906205272009-06-22T22:49:00.000-07:002009-06-22T22:51:12.775-07:00Two Cousins; Two Countries: Costa Rican WonderMy father’s departure left me with just twenty-four hours of solitude before my cousin John was set to arrive in Golfito. I cooked up a hearty breakfast before firing up the engine and making the short hop across the Sweet Gulf to land-locked Golfito. Spits of rain greeted my arrival, and I anchored off Tim and Katy’s Land and Sea Services once more and passed the remainder of the day reading and relaxing on board.<br />On August 21 I passed the morning straightening up Aventura, filling her diesel and water tanks, and headed ashore. After a quick shower I caught a bus through town and got off at the airport. I sat beside the airstrip under the shade of a lone shack serving as the office and waited in the midday heat. Around noon the hum of a prop plane pierced the silence and I watched the small Sansa airplane circle around over Golfito and come in to land. Moments later the dozen passengers disembarked and I met my cousin on the airstrip. We greeted with a handshake and a hug, loaded his two bags into a taxi, and returned to Avventura. While John settled in I got to work replacing the boats charging system that he had brought down for me. With the battery monitor and regulator replaced, I fired up the engine and my heart sank. Not charging!<br />Frustrated, indeed downright pissed off, I headed in to the Banana Bay Marina and got on the internet. After failing to reach Xantrex by phone I delved deep into their website and at long last came across a troubleshooting guide. For my series of symptoms there were two possible causes: bad alternator (which I knew wasn’t the case), or a voltage drop in the positive cable leading to the regulator. Armed with this info, I returned to the boat and traced out this wire yet again. I replaced its fuse even though it hadn’t blown and fired up the engine. Still not charging. I jiggled the wire a bit and heard the alternator start to work for a second. Knowing I’d found the source of the problem, I sought out the more specific location and quickly isolated it as loose wiring in the fuse holder itself. Another trip ashore where I bought a new fuse holder for $1.50. Returning to the boat in a steady rainfall, I replaced the fuse holder as lightning began to strike about us, and lo-and-behold, all was well once more! After all my effort and worries and purchasing of new parts a simple fuse holder had held me hostage!<br />As if knowing I had prevailed over my electric problems the lightning storm passed on and the skis began to clear revealing an amazing sunset. I joined my cousin in the cockpit for a couple beers and we clinked beer cans in anticipation of the fun and adventures that lay ahead. The celebration continued with a bite to eat ashore at the Restaurante la Cubana, a beer and a guaro shot in a local bar, and the return to Avventura where we remembered the old days and recalled fun stories.<br /><br />There were a few days between when my cousin John arrived and when my cousin Ryan was set to return to Golfito. This meant occupying ourselves and seeing out adventure in a town seemingly devoid of much to do. We took a trip down to Playa Zancudo and spent a day at the beach, surfing and throwing a football around, just generally enjoying the sunny day. And we spent one day hiking through the foothills of Golfito hunting for waterfalls and wildlife and found plenty of each. We swam in the small pools at the base of each falls, showered in them, and generally immersed ourselves in the aura of the jungle.<br />The day after Ryan’s return we set about preparing to flee Golfito one last time. After our water and fuel tanks were filled it came time to check out of the country. My three month visa was set to expire in a few days, and our plan was to visit a bit of remote southern Costa Rica before continuing on for Western Panama. Our first stop was at an internet café where I typed up and printed a couple crew lists. Next stop: migracion. When we arrived at the immigration office a sign on the door proclaimed it to be closed from noon till one o’clock. We had arrived at 12:10. Thus we turned our attention to provisioning, found a nearby supermarket, and bought what felt like half its contents. The Ticos were all quite impressed with our burgeoning cart, but I knew our stockpile likely wouldn’t even be enough to get us to Panama City.<br />Once our groceries were stowed aboard Avventura we returned to migracion where a middle-aged overweight Tico lady walked us through the paperwork and stamped our passports before directing us to customs—the next step. The customs office was at the Duty Free Zone, but when we arrived there the man I needed to see was out. While waiting for him I visited the bank inside the Zone and paid the $20 for our International Zarpe. By the time I returned to the Customs office the man we needed to see had arrived. He looked at a couple of my papers, filled out a new one, and sent us on our way to the Port Captain’s office. At the Port Captain’s office (located in a small shack at the base of the Commercial Pier) I shelled out another 2,000 colones for a few colorful stamps which were put on my Zarpe, shook hands with the Port Captain, and was told to have a nice sail. With the check-in process complete I looked at the clock on the wall: 4:00—too late to leave for Puerto Jiminez.<br />One final night in Golfito, some beers with fellow cruisers on the deck of Land and Sea Services, and a morning departure for Puerto Jiminez. A north wind had begun blowing through the anchorage in the night and I was optimistic of a nice sail to our next stop, but as soon as we reached the entrance to Golfito the wind disappeared, and we motored for the entire crossing. A day of enjoying Puerto Jiminez was enough for me, and after a second night of northerly winds turned the anchorage into a lee shore the time had come to flee the Sweet Gulf once more. My first idea was to stop at Pavones, but when we emerged into open waters I realized there was but little swell running. This coupled with the possibility of more dangerous north winds in the evening caused me to shift our destination to the earthly paradise of Drake’s Bay.<br />Our first day at Drake’s saw us return to the Rio Claro by land, boards in hand. John and I paddled out in the head high surf and had the break to ourselves while Ryan went off exploring the forest. Alternating waves and thrilling in the atmosphere of the place, all John could say was, “We’re surfing in Costa Rica.” Life was good. After a few hours a couple guys paddled out and John and I headed in. We found a trail leading south from the beach and followed it along the cliff catching glimpses here and there of the blue Pacific below. The trail seemed to lead on indefinitely, so after a while we returned to the beach, retrieved lour boards, and followed the wildlife-riddled path back to Drake’s. Back at the boat in time for a spectacular sunset, a great day of cruising wound to a close.<br />With one last day at my favorite Costa Rican anchorage, the weather turned sour. Cloudy skies greeted the dawn, but after a morning of reading the skies began to clear and my cousins and I loaded in the dinghy and zipped over to the east end of the bay. Landing the dinghy, we bodysurfed some fun waves offshore, walked along the beautiful beach, and gathered a couple coconuts before returning to the dinghy and zipping straight across the bay to the Rio Agujas. After diving off the drawbridge a couple times, we each cracked open a coconut and savored its contents. John and I then hiked into the forest till we spotted on last troop of white-faced monkeys, said good-bye to the splendid fellows, and, after a brief stop in town, returned to the boat for the evening.<br />As our final day in the earthly paradise crept to an end the sun dipped in the west, painting puffs of cumulus and strips of cirrus clouds a bright orange. As the sun set beside Isla del Cano the clouds passed through the color spectrum from orange to fiery red to pink to a dull purple before night closed in. It was as though Mother Nature were bidding me one final farewell, ensuring Drake’s Bay was a place that not only myself, but my cousins as well, would never forget.<br /><br />Another day at sea, anchoring in the late afternoon off Pavones. As a light rain began to fall we paddled out for a sunset surf session. The waves were small, but the crowd was light and I picked off a few fun waves. Beautiful vistas surrounded me, and I thrilled at the feel of the warm water on my legs, the cool rain on my shoulders, and the light breeze caressing my face. Only darkness could chase me back to the boat.<br />After a night of light sleep it seemed as though nature were telling us the time had come to flee Costa Rica. The surf dropped overnight, and dawn revealed tiny waves and a small crowd in the lineup. I consulted with my cousins, and in the end we decided it’d be a good day to make our way towards Panamanian waters. A quick check of the chart revealed Punta Burica was twenty-five miles away, and we could be at anchor once more by nightfall. The decision made, we spent the gorgeous, sunny day motoring along the last stretch of Costa Rican coastline—mile after mile of deserted white sand beaches lined by dense rainforest. In California, I thought, this would be priceless prime real estate; but here in Costa Rica it went for miles without a single sign of human life.<br />In the early afternoon I cautiously crept in towards Punta Burica and anchored about a half mile offshore in thirteen feet of water over a poor-holding rocky bottom. I left ample scope for the bad anchorage, but once I was sure we were secure John and I grabbed our boards and jumped in the water. Ryan elected to stay behind. To each his own, I thought, paddling for the shore. Punta Burica is actually a series of small points, all of which appear to be home to its own wave. A series of lefthand point breaks dot the scene, though at the time of our visit the surf was too small to see them in action. The coastline was gorgeous, and the rocky reef reminded me of my home in Southern California. After making our way past two points and glimpsing a third identical one in the distance we turned about as the rim of the sun touched the blue horizon. We reached Avventura with the last minutes of daylight, satisfied after another nice day of cruising.<br />The anchorage off Punta Burica was exposed to the southwest wind and swells; but as long as the wind blew it held Avventura’s bow into the swells and kept things comfortable. I went to bed at nine o’clock comfortable that we were safe at anchor, but by eleven the wind died, Avventura turned broadside to the swells, and we began rocking wildly. Sleep was impossible. After an hour and a half of trying in vain to shut my eyes again, and while my cousins remained oblivious to the motion and slept soundly, decided we might as well be at sea if I were going to be awake. At forty-five minutes after twelve I fired up the engine, jolting my cousins awake. I told them my plan, and said they should go back to sleep. They each laid back down as I picked up the anchor and inched my way offshore with the aid of the depthsounder, and with the radar scanning the black void. After a little more than three months in Costa Rica the time had come to flee her majestic coastline for the unknown splendors of Panama’s western isles.<br /><br /><br />Western Panama—Fun and Foul-Ups<br />There are two ways to cruise Panama’s western isles: the legal way and the not so legal way. As the legal way entails a long detour around Punta Burica to Puerto Armuelles (where rumors were circulating of check-in fees ranging into the hundreds of dollars), I decided to forego legality for the practicality of a direct sail to my first desired stop—Isla Parida. Some forty miles northeast of Punta Burica, Isla Parida is a miniature cruisers paradise. More than a handful of anchorages encircle the island, all with a very secluded feel and all with spectacular scenery. Our destination was the little bay of Ensenada Santa Cruz on the west end of the island.<br />The new day blossomed beautifully as the first rays of the sun slowly ignited a swath of clouds overhead. A menacing squall lingered off to starboard, blackening the horizon and reminding me the rainy season was in full swing. No wind, and but little swell as Avventura glided along gently piercing the glassy Panamanian waters. My cousins slept below, and I thrilled in the solitude. Leaving the cockpit, a pod of dolphins greeted me at the bow, dancing and playing beneath my feet. As the sun leapt into the sky the dolphins disappeared, and all was solitude once more.<br />By seven o’clock the island came into view, and the remainder of the morning passed with it growing ever-so-slowly on the horizon. Shortly after eleven o’clock I guided Avventura through the opening to the cove, leaving an islet to starboard and a cluster of small rocks to port. As we dropped anchor in seventeen feet of water our friends, Cameron and Jenny off Velella, paddled over in their kayaks to greet us. With no other boats in sight, I asked what they were doing. “Just checking out the island a bit. We’re anchored up north in Ensenada los Negroes.” After a brief chat they continued on their way and I set about the task of shutting down the watermaker.<br />By the time my chores aboard were complete sweat was dripping from my brow. Without a word I walked past my cousins in the cockpit and leapt into the refreshing water of the cove. I swam in the direction of the beach to the east where Cameron and Jenny were exploring, and my cousins soon followed. Ashore a narrow concrete road led inland and we all followed it through the trees where it emerged onto the beautiful stretch of sand at Playa Grande. I was again quick to jump in the water and bodysurfed the fun little waves rolling ashore. From the water the beach looked spectacular. The long white sand beach was devoid of people and a row of coco palms guarded the sane from the onslaught of the rainforest. The beach ran a few hundred yards, guarded on its east end by a tall rocky point. Emerging from the water, I returned to Avventura, unwilling to leave her unlocked and unattended for too long.<br />We passed the rest of the day swimming around in the cove and exploring her small beaches. The beach on the cove’s south side was guarded by steep hillsides covered in tropical growth, and felt like something right out of the movies. Aside from the tracks of a couple birds it looked as though we were the first life form to pay a visit to the hard-packed sands. Here John and I laid in the cool sand, relaxing in the shade of a tree, thrilling in the silence of the scene. We returned to the boat as a squall descended upon the island, and emerging from the cove just as the rain began to fall, I retrieved some soap and shampoo and showered in the steady downpour. The squall lasted just long enough to rinse me clean, and nightfall followed quick on her heels. My first day in Panama drew to a close, leaving me optimistic about what lay ahead in the country.<br />A night of rest was followed by another morning of exploration. A panga had arrived early in the morning, unloaded a few things on the beach, and anchored just offshore. Once all was clear again John and I swam ashore and returned to Playa Grande. The surf had picked up and we had a blast catching the short rides, hooting and hollering as if the short closeouts were the best waves ever ridden.<br />Once we’d had our fill of surf we struck off down the beach to see what we could see. At the east end of the beach a second paved path led up into the trees once again, and as we climbed the steep road and approached the top of the point we saw three Panamanians planting grass on a barren hillside beneath a little house where the sounds of construction were ringing out. After exchanging greetings with the locals I asked if what I saw above was a private residence. When they replied in the affirmative I turned to leave, but was assured we could go up without any trouble. The owner was home, they said, and he was also a foreigner.<br />Our curiosity piqued, we continued up to the newly-built structure and saw the construction continuing on the larger concrete frame of a house beyond. From atop the point beside the house you had an unobstructed view down to Isla Paridita and the blue of the Pacific beyond. Around to the side the rolling hillsides swept inland and one part was covered in tall, wild grass. While admiring the view a gringo walked up and said, “Welcome to the yacht club,” a big grin forming on his face. He said he assumed we were off the yacht anchored beside his panga, and then offered to show us around. Introducing himself as Nico, the tall white-haired gentleman reminded me of an aged sea captain as he swept his hands out across the cleared hillsides and explained that he owned 300 acres of the island including most of what we could see and indeed had seen since arriving in Ensenada Santa Cruz. He was an eccentric Hare Krishna originally from Canada who had most recently lived in the hillsides of Hawaii’s Big Island. A couple years earlier he had begun the search for a remote island on which to raise his three children (1, 3, and 5 years old) with his wife. Hearing this I couldn’t help but utter, “what a bitchin place to grow up.”<br />Nico explained that the finished structure would serve as a sort-of garage and also the nerve center of their abode. He showed us the bank of batteries and the large inverters which would be powered by the solar panels already gracing the roof, and those which were still to come atop the house itself. He explained about three pumps he had down in wells in a valley beside the home which would provide their water, and stated that his goal was to become completely self-sufficient. This would be the fifth solar-powered home he’d lived in, and Isla Parida was his third choice of where to live. He owned an island in the Phillipines, he explained, but for various reasons found living their impractical. Next he attempted to buy some land in Fiji, but his bid was blocked by the Fijian government. He had found this chunk of land on the internet and was able to talk its old Panamanian owner into selling it. The house was now three months from completion, and he was clearly looking forward to moving in permanently.<br />After an hour talking with the man John and I took our leave and returned along the path Nico had built to the boat. After a late breakfast we picked up anchor and sought a new bay to call home for the night. Motoring north out of the cove, we passed the resort and mooring buoys in the wide bay of Ensenada los Negroes, rounded Punta Caña Brava, and glided past the pristine uninhabited north coast. Rock outcroppings separated stretches of white sand beach and the rainforest lurked omnipresent in the background. A pod of dolphins paid us a visit as we made the turn around Punta Jurel and a couple minutes later I guided Avventura into the cove off Playa del Socorro and anchored beside Velella. The familiar green hull of Celtic Dancer and sleek lines of Thulani sat anchored off the nearby chunk of rock termed Isla Gamez.<br />Our new surroundings was a veritable cruisers paradise. No houses or people to be seen, numerous secluded beaches in sight, ample coco palms bearing fruit, and clear blue waters all about. Unable to contain myself, I leapt in the water for a swim even as Derek and Zaraida from Celtic Dancer pulled alongside to chat. Derek is a classic cruising character. As I continued cruising the stories he told and stories others told of him grew more and more wild. Before reaching Panama City he had been dubbed the Godfather of Cruising thanks to his genial attitude and willingness, bordering on insistence, to lend a hand whenever possible. He knew everything, it seemed, about sailboats and cruising, and his Irish wit and heavy accent lightened every situation. Derek had met his girlfriend Zaraida in her native Mexico where he was working, and though by all outward appearances they were the epitome of the odd couple, their personalities meshed and they had more fun than almost anyone I’ve ever met.<br />After chatting for a bit the Celtic crew continued on to Playa del Socorro, and my cousins and I gave chase, swimming in. We were soon joined on the beach by Cameron and Jenny (Velella) and the cruising couple off Thulani, Jeremy and Danni (I had first met this couple in Manzanillo, Mexico whilst having problems with my fuel pump. Their problems were far more depressing than my own as they had been forced to turn around some six hundred miles into their passage to the Marquesas due to a cracked chainplate. By the time they reached Manzanillo and replaced all their chainplates it was too late in the season for them to head for the South Seas again, so the opted to put off the trip and cruise Central America and Ecuador first.) On the beach we talked story and enjoyed the beautiful surroundings while trying desperately to get some coconuts down from a tree without climbing it. We tried just about everything imaginable to get the nuts down, from chucking rocks at them to tossing an anchor and rode up, and in the end succeeded in retrieving but a handful. These were divided amongst ourselves, and once the spoils had been reaped the gathering of cruisers dispersed to their various boats while the crew of Avventura remained, lying in the warm sand and silently absorbing the beauty of the day.<br />Aside from its beautiful beaches and quiet isolation, the anchorages around Playa del Socorro and Isla Gamez were a veritable underwater wonderland. Sea turtles swam and floated past throughout the day, and below a mix of tropical fish bolted from rock to rock. Big starfish sprawled across the seafloor and oysters could be seen here and there clinging to the seafloor. A day of snorkeling and spearfishing ensued, at the end of which Derek had speared half a dozen edible fish while Cameron had collected a handful of oysters. A bonfire was in order.<br />The bonfire is the classic cruisers get-together. Find a secluded beach on a remote island, gather some driftwood, catch whatever seafood you can manage, corral some booze from your private stash, and the good times flow as fast as the stories that are told. The beautiful little beach on the north side of Isla Gamez was the perfect spot for a bonfire, and with four boats in the anchorage the gathering was bound to be a lively affair. We met on the island in the late afternoon where Derek took charge of the fire, and before sunset the flames were burning high and hot. A gentle breeze rustled the palm fronds overhead and the buzz of insects grew as the light of day dwindled. The fish were gutted and cooked whole, and Cameron and Jenny shared some homemade bread. The booze flowed and the stories followed suit. Laughter and merriment abounded and for a time the nagging bites of the “noseeums” went unnoticed.<br />Then the rains came. This was, after all, the rainy season, and we cruisers knew it all-too-well. Should we call it a night and end the bonfire prematurely? Not a chance. Danni off Thulani whipped out an umbrella, and we took turns keeping the rain off the fire, huddled close around the fire and beneath the overhanging coco palms. A few lightning bolts brought shrieks from the girls and a few chuckles of defiance from the guys, and fifteen minutes later the squall had passed and stars began to fill the sky. I passed around a bottle of rum and the merriment continued. But with the damp ground came the noseeums with renewed vigor. Before long everybody was slapping their legs and waving a hand before their faces. While I remained unfazed due to a thick protective layer of hair, a damper had been put on the night, and by ten o’clock scoops of sand were dumped on the fire, our trash was gathered up, and we returned to our respective boats.<br /><br />The return of daylight saw the departure of the cruising fleet from Isla Parida. Velella led the way, picking up anchor and sailing out of the cove without ever starting their engine. Celtic Dancer fell in behind them and Thulani joined the race. A half hour later it came time for our departure, and after a couple nights among a cruising flotilla we were all bound for different anchorages. Before an hour had passed Celtic Dancer had taken the lead, and radio silence was broken by the Irish call of “Dar she blows! Whales off to starboard.”<br />A quick scan of the horizon and the unmistakable spouts of a pair of whales. We glided on under sail alone, the sea a sheet of glass and the wind a faint whisper. The whales passed a football field to starboard as Isla Bolanos drifted past. As Avventura neared the Islas Secas a squall approached from off the land and the winds became fickle. As we approached Isla Cavada the rain began to fall and the wind picked up to fifteen knots. With the sails down I inched towards the anchorage on the north shore of the island. The cruising guide I was using proclaimed the best anchorage to be, “west of a point and the islets in the middle of the northeast shore. A narrow vee of deeper water penetrates somewhat into the bay, but the shores and the bay proper are very shallow.” Taking this advice I positioned Avventura midway between the islets and the point and slowly crept in, seeking to anchor in a direct line between the outermost islet and the point itself. Before I ever got there my depthsounder leapt up to fifteen feet, and I yelled at Ryan on the foredeck, asking if he saw the ground yet. “No, it still looks deep.” A pregnant pause. Avventura was barely moving now, engine in neutral, captain on high alert. Then, “It looks kind of shallow straight ahead. The depth sounder read ten and I slammed the engine into reverse. Eight feet deep. Six. “Stop! There’s sand right below us!” Four… three… two! A slight bump, but the engine was in hard reverse now and Avventura glided backwards. I wrestled with helm and pointed her bow towards open water once more.<br />I’m still not sure if we touched the sand off Isla Cavada or not, but the close call scared me away from the island. Under the thick gray skies and light drizzle we rounded the east point of the island, circled around to the southwest, and slowly entered an anchorage between two islets off the unnamed island to the southwest. When the depthsounder read twenty-five I yelled for Ryan to drop the anchor. By the time the hook was set I shut down the engine, took a deep breath, and leapt into the ocean to wash away the stress of a near grounding. The Islas Secas had quickly lost their luster in my eyes.<br />A quick swim ashore and nature had soothed my soul. The white sand of the beach was soft underfoot, and I retrieved a coconut from a low tree, opened it, and drank its sweet nectar. My heart ceased pounding in my chest and I laid on my back in the sand, watching the puffs of wind rustle the palm fronds overhead. Darkness was fast approaching, so despite spotting the beginning of an inland trail I returned to the boat for the night, leaving all exploration for a new day.<br />Sunny skies graced the Islas Secas the following day, and after passing the morning reading in the cockpit the time had come to explore the island. My cousins and I donned our masks and snorkels and jumped in the water, snorkeling our way over to the big islet guarding the north side of the anchorage. The water was as clear as I’d seen it since Mexico and beautiful coral formations fringed the tall islet. A wide variety of colorful fish darted about amongst the coral polyps and a lone sea turtle shot past, descending into the depths offshore.<br />After making a quick circle of the islet, we followed the reef ashore and landed on the beach. Leaving our snorkel gear on the sand, we struck off along the trail leading inland from the south part of the beach. A wooden sign proclaimed the trail to lead for Playa Blanca, but we must have missed a turn somewhere because, after winding through the thick inland forests and wiping tens of spider webs from my face, we emerged onto the rocky beach of Bahia Nespero on the east end of the island. Here the rocks were piled with trash that had washed ashore. Plastic bags and soda bottles, beer cans and food wrappers; the heap of debris wrecked the pristine natural scene and I cursed my fellow man for his insensitivity to the beauty of nature and the effect his littering had on nature’s canvas.<br />Leaving Bahia Nespero, we followed the slow trickle of a stream inland for a time before the forest closed in around us and forced us back to the main trail. I took the lead once more, again fending off spider webs which bisected the dirt path at random intervals. There wasn’t much wildlife to be seen, and I was constantly wiping the sweat from my brow as the intense midday sun beat down through the forest canopy. As soon as we returned to the anchorage I dashed for the water and leapt in, wiping the remnant spider webs from my body and relishing in the cool feel of the Pacific waters.<br />The devouring of a couple coconuts was the last thing accomplished ashore at the Islas Secas, after which we swam back to Avventura. Seeing the accumulation of life on her hull, I devoted the afternoon to scraping it clean. Meanwhile my cousins sat inside, and before I knew it music was blaring. Underwater, through the thick fiberglass of the hull I could hear the annoying pulse and persistent thumping of rap music. There’s no more unpleasant noise to me than this modern auditory pollution. I spent a hour cleaning the starboard side and emerged from the water fuming. The work alone was bad enough. My knuckles were scraped and bleeding, my allergies flared up from somehow ingesting the paint dust scraped off, and I was beginning to shiver from being underwater so often. Emerging on deck I exploded at my cousins, yelling for them to “Turn that shit off!” To my great relief they quickly obliged and silence fell over the anchorage.<br />Moments later, sitting in the cockpit beside my cousins, I apologized for blowing up, explained my frustration, and reiterated one of my very few rules aboard Avventura—don’t pollute the air with rap music. It’s enough to ruin most any tropical paradise.<br />The sun made her descent towards the horizon and I cracked open a chilled beer. One long draught and the cool liquid calmed me to the core. I scanned the horizon and stopped at the spout of a whale passing between the islands. Pointing it out to my cousins, we watched from the comfort of the anchorage as the whale made its way between the Islas Secas and continued on its way out of sight. A flock of birds circled around the islet to the north, diving for bait fish and squawking with glee. The hum of insects swept out from the forest, mingling with the scents of land. The sun set over the west end of the island and put me to work preparing dinner. Another good day of cruising was winding down, and come morning we’d be on our way to another remote anchorage.<br /><br />Four hours of motoring was all it took to cross the gap between the Islas Secas and the small chunk of land known as Isla Silva de Afuera. This small island was the first place crazy Ray had shown me in Costa Rica where we could find surf, and I was determined to investigate his claims. We dropped anchor in thirty feet of water off the island’s west shore, leaving ample scope in the unprotected waters, and launched the dinghy to hunt for waves. Whitewater formed off the south end of the island, and I quickly zipped over to see if it appeared surfable. A left pointbreak formed off a pile of rocks and zipped across a very shallow reef, looking marginally rideable at best; but, around the outcropping of rocks there stood a short, heavy slab of a righthander with no danger from rocks to be found. I watched a couple waves fold over the shallow slab of reef in thick, heavy tubes, and knew I had to tempt the beast. Returning to Avventura for my board and my cousins, we were soon paddling out to tame the beast.<br />As it turns out, taming the beast was not in the cards for me. Though the waves were just six feet on the face, the amount of water being forced against the shallow reef created a force comparable to that of surf twice as big. What’s more, the drops were beyond vertical. On the first three waves I paddled for I got to my feet only to air-drop down the face, lose control when I hit the water once more, and get swept over the falls by the monster. By splaying my body out like a starfish I kept from hitting the reef too hard, but I couldn’t find a way to make the waves. For my fourth attempt I tried taking off from behind the peak and zipping across its face that way. The only change in the result was that I airdropped sideways and was swept over the falls alongside my board. It didn’t take long for me to realize I couldn’t handle the wave at its peak, so I spent a couple hours shoulder-hopping with my cousins where the drops were far more manageable, but the waves were short. We traded off waves and enjoyed the wild wave breaking off the beautiful rocky hulk of the uninhabited island. The sun was scorching and the water felt perfect. After a couple hours we returned to Avventura in search of an anchorage for the night.<br />A light seabreeze blew out of the southwest and I decided it was enough for us to sail by. Thus I never started the engine. With seventy-five feet of chain still in the water I set the mainsail, and once the anchor was up all the way I pulled out the jib, and we fell off the wind. A school of bonita broke the surface all about us, but none seemed interested in our fishing lines. Puffs of cumulus clouds floated past overhead against the sky blue backdrop of the heavens. We skirted past the south end of Isla Siva de Tierras searching for surf. A right pointbreak was trying to form along its east coast, but there wasn’t enough swell to make it rideable. Thus we carried on under sail till Punta Entrada passed abeam and we entered the Rio Santa Lucia. All hints of swells disappeared as we passed close by the sandy point and began motoring upstream. The shoreline fell away in a shallow cove bordered by a long beach giving way to dense forest. We followed the deepwater channel cut parallel to Morro Naranjo, and when the land fell away into a second cove I nosed Avventura out of the channel and we dropped the hook in 25 feet of water over a muddy river floor.<br />The engine ceased her drone and silence reigned supreme. All about us was dense, dark rainforest beyond the row of sand lining the river. A few palapa hut lined the Morro Naranjo shoreline, and a couple native children could be seen fishing with hand lines from the shore, waving our way. I waved back and could hear their giggling drifting across the calm river. A troop of howler monkeys somewhere in the forest depths drowned out the children’s laughter. Nature reigned supreme. As the sun sank behind the small hill of Morro Naranjo the howlers quit their commotion and the hum of insects rose from the jungle. Darkness set in and the black canvas of the night sky was filled with stars. A more peaceful, calm and quiet setting I know not of, and I was thrilled with my first true river anchorage.<br />Awake with the dawn of a new day, we quickly weighed anchor and rushed out the Rio Santa Lucia before a two-knot current. The current formed a near standing wave close to Punta Entrada, but once past the spit of sand all was calm and quiet in the ocean once more. We zipped past Isla Silva de Tierras first, but when the waves looked too small for the right once more I turned to port and headed for Morro Negrito, home to a secluded resort catering to surfers. Dolphins followed us across the bay where we anchored briefly off the big hulk of Morro Negrito. A left pointbreak there looked promising, but upon further review from the dinghy we decided it was breaking dangerously close to the rocky shore. Disappointed, but still with high hopes of finding a rideable wave, we picked up anchor and motored around Morro Negrito where a rivermouth helped form a nice beachbreak. After watching a couple sets pass through I anchored Avventura in twenty feet of water, grabbed my board, and was quickly paddling in, my cousins at my heels.<br />There wasn’t another soul in sight. In fact there wasn’t even a trace of life anywhere to be seen. Ashore a long brown-sand beach ran from Morro Negrito for what looked like miles. Inland lay the omnipresent rainforest, dark green and uninviting as ever. Meanwhile the waves rolled through in an endless succession, and thanks to the flow of sand out of the river they had nice form and stretched out in a series of long rights. It was one of the longest, best-shaped beachbreaks I’d ever seen, let-alone surfed, and for two hours we traded off waves amongst ourselves, hooting and hollering like mad and having a great time. Then, seemingly out-of-nowhere, a panga zipped around Morro Negrito and a handful of guys paddled out. Our solitude was shattered and the patrons of the surf resort were reaping the benefits of the waves they had paid so dearly for. One of the guys had been working at the resort all summer and he told me that today was the best the surf had been in weeks, and that overall it had been a terrible summer. I couldn’t help but laugh at our good fortune, and after three hours in the water my cousins and I returned to the boat, turning the waves over to the paying patrons to enjoy.<br />Having found the fun surf we were in search of, the decision was made to forego our move to a new anchorage, and Avventura again made her way by sail and slipped back behind the menacing figure of Morro Naranjo to pass another night in her freshwater abode. After a gorgeous sunny day, and as if to remind us not to let our guard down, the rainy season struck with a fury. The storm descended from the rolling hills inland and within minutes had us surrounded. Lightning approached rapidly to within four miles where it lingered for the better part of an hour striking the hillsides in fabulous blazes of fury. I looked around at the lack of boats, buildings, or towers near us and my fear grew. How could we not get hit? But as with all other storms this one couldn’t seem to spot Avventura (a fact I liked to attribute to the “static-dissipater” attached to her masthead—though I’ve heard stories of boats with these same devices being struck) and after two harrowing hours the bolts of lightning disappeared leaving a steady rain in their place. By the time I crawled into bed the rain had let up and by dawn there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Such was my experience with Panama’s rainy season.<br />Sunny skies chased us down the Rio Santa Lucia one last time, and after again finding no surf off Isla Sivla de Tierras or Morro Negrito, we returned to the rivermouth beachbreak, anchored offshore, and quickly paddled in. The quickly falling tide and river outflow created a fast moving current that made staying at the peak difficult and kept us paddling at all times. I was able to fight through it and catch a couple waves, but my cousins were hardly able to even reach the lineup. After less than an hour of fighting Mother Nature I gave up and Avventura moved onwards.<br />The motor south was calm and uneventful. We hovered close to the shore, inspecting every stretch of beach and every point for the possibility of surf, but in the end found none worth stopping for. In the early afternoon we passed through the narrow channel between Isla Medidor and the mainland. The island had a couple beautiful beaches and was filled with thick forest, much as the mainland was. The waters offshore were deep and of a dark blue, inviting color, and, as we later learned from the locals, full of game fish—especially wahoo. Bahia Honda’s inhabitants usually catch small bait fish inside the bay before either paddling their dugout canoes or motoring their small skiffs out to the island in search of the big stuff.<br />Around Punta de Miel the expanse of Bahia Honda opened before us. Green hillsides encroached on all sides uninterrupted. Despite being on the mainland the bay was completely isolated due to the lack of any roads in, and the only thing connecting the bay by land with the rest of Panama was that of an old mule trail which led for miles to the nearest road. The lack of a road in has kept the bay pristine and lightly inhabited. A small hotel sits off in the northwest corner of the bay, a couple homes are scattered about the edges, and the small island in the bay itself boasts a tiny town of 300 people or so. Avventura glided over the glassy murky surface of the bay, and I brought her to rest in thirty-four feet of water off the northwest coast of Isla Bahia Honda, in sight of the island’s cluster of ramshackle houses. The inhabitants of the island lived a simple life of subsistence, fishing and farming most of their food, and wanting little in the form of the “modern” conveniences of life.<br />Once anchored the locals slowly came our way. Leading the procession was an old man, paddling across the bay from the mainland somewhere near the hotel. His name was Domingo. His canoe was a rugged dugout and appeared handmade. Attached to the stern was a small, new outboard. His wrinkled black skin and old bones hid a once formidable build. A big smile stretched across his face revealing a mouth missing more teeth than it had. He held onto the side of Avventura and struck up a conversation. Before long I had invited him aboard and we sat in the cockpit.<br />Domingo, it turns out, sells (or rather barters) fruit and vegetables with the many cruisers that pass by. In the dry season this can be a lucrative practice, but in the rainy season he can goes weeks without seeing anybody, and after passing through just such a stretch he was out of gasoline for his motor. He explained that if we desired fruit and vegetables all he wished for was some gasoline. Now unfortunately Panamas western isles aren’t burgeoning with gas stations and my reserves were down to two gallons; but we were already out of fresh produce, and the trade was well worth it. I filled Domingo’s bone-dry tank a little bit and he took his leave, promising to return shortly with our produce.<br />With Domingo’s departure came the arrival of inhabitants of the island. First came a middle-aged man in a small dugout canoe. He pulled alongside and spoke in broken English, explaining that he was a schoolteacher on the island, and asking if we had any books or magazines to spare. When I produced a small paperback he was ecstatic, but lingered as a canoe of three young kids, two boys and a cute little girl approached. The kids looked shy, nervous, and perhaps even a bit frightened. I got the feeling they didn’t see white people very often, and treated us with apprehension. As they lingered ten feet from the side of the boat I waved at them and called them over. It turns out their parents had sent them out to try and sell some beautiful wood carvings. Though they were quite beautiful carvings, I declined them, but didn’t let the kids leave before giving them a piece of candy for their troubles. As they paddled away the school teacher had a big smile on his face, and proclaimed those to be a few of his students. He then explained how the lure he used to troll for wahoo was missing a hook, and I realized he would probably try and get all he could from us, so I produced a hook from my meager supply and told him it was the only one I could spare.<br />When the locals finally had all departed I zipped ashore in the dinghy, left it tied to a concrete piling at the north tip of the island, and headed ashore. The rocky streets were narrow and the concrete home falling apart. It was a rough existence here, but I admired the seclusion and steadfastness of the islanders. Beside a big covered patio overlooking the bay a building was painted with a beer sign. A cute little black-haired girl was dancing on the patio. I approached her, and she stopped dancing and shyly backed away. A man appeared from the beer building and asked if he could help us. I told him we were looking to buy some beers and sodas (our stash having been drained already), and he disappeared into the building once more. While he was gone I tried talking with the girl. She was extremely shy. At one point I crossed my arms across my chest and her face was writ with fear. She pointed at my arms and said, “No!” It took me a minute to decipher her meaning, but once I brought my arms down to my side she relaxed again. Just then the man returned, producing three crates—two of Cerveza Balboa and one of Pepsi. I handed over some money and left, unsure what to make of the girl—surprised by her sensitivity and recognizing her pure, sweet heart, but sad at the thought of why older men posed such a menacing figure to her. Perhaps it was simply the rarity of seeing a white foreigner on her island; but I clearly scared her by my mere presence.<br />I returned to the boat just as Domingo arrived with two bunches of bananas, two pineapples, and a small bucket of sweet chili peppers. I thanked him for his kindness, and he promised to return in the morning with papayas and hot peppers. As he left the sun slipped away and darkness quickly descended on the bay. But few lights flickered ashore and all was silent in the bay. Stars spread out across the heavens and the air grew still. All was peace and serenity. Another splendid day of cruising had drawn to a close.<br /><br />Dawn. A light gray overcast engulfing the bay and dulling the greens of the land. The town beginning to stir, children beginning to play, fishermen heading for open waters reminiscent of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. And, a little after seven o’clock, the old man humming across the bay from the mainland in his rickety boat, permanent smile stretched from ear to ear, sun-beaten skin hanging loosely from his body. Domingo pulled alongside Avventura and passed off a few papayas and a handful of hot chili peppers in return for which I gave him some size D and AA batteries per his request.<br />With our business completed, Domingo turned about and headed for the mainland once more and I fired up the engine and cautiously crept towards open waters once more. Two hours of motoring was all it took to pass east of Isla Afuerita and drop anchor off the north shore of Isla de Canal de Afuera. On approach I could see the bottom when the depth-sounder still registered a hundred feet, and by the time it popped up to forty feet we dropped anchor, and I backed down in the direction of the island. The chain stretched out, and thankfully the anchor caught on the first try because our stern swung frightfully close to the shallows of the island’s vibrant coral reef.<br />The drone of the engine ceased, my cousins and I retrieved our snorkel gear, and we were over the side in mere seconds. The snorkeling was the best I’d seen all trip. The waters were as clear as any I’d ever seen in the Pacific Ocean, the rainbow reef sparkled in the morning light, and a variety of fish darted about the scene. We snorkeled our way around a rocky point of the island and landed on a beach covered in shells. The small island was filled with a dense covering of forest overhanging and shading the beach, and we walked in the shadows the length of the beach, re-entering the water and snorkeling back to Avventura as a gray powerboat approached the anchorage.<br />Emerging from the crystal waters, I was still dripping wet when the gray boat pulled up close to us. The words Mar Viva were painted on its side and a man asked us where our permit was to be in the park. Playing dumb, I asked what park he was referring to.<br />“This island is part of the Isla Coiba National Park, and you need a permit to be here.”<br />“I’m sorry. I had no idea. We are heading for Isla Coiba very soon.”<br />“No. You must go there right now. Go directly to the Ranger Station and check in. We’ll be watching you.”<br />The ominous warning hung heavy in the air. Sure enough the gray boat hovered around us while we weighed anchor, and followed us out the narrow passage between the pair of islands. Once in open waters again I descended into Avventura’s cabin to look at a chart. I had planned to circle south of Isla Rancheria and anchor there for the night, but after being told to proceed to the Ranger Station at Punta Machete directly I changed our course to pass north of Isla Rancheria, the more direct route. This, as it turns out, was a fateful decision and should serve as a warning to all to never second guess yourself. I watched as the gray Mar Viva boat passed north of Rancheria and followed suit.<br />Around the north side of Isla Rancheria, a cluster of islands were scattered amidst the channel before Isla Coiba. The chart in the cruising guide I was using showed a patch of reef attached to the west side of Isla Coibita with clear, deepwater south and west of that. Thus we’d circle Isla Coibita, giving her a fairly wide berth, but favoring the small island to avoid a second patch of reef shown to be a short ways offshore of Isla Coiba. The chart showed nothing under seventy feet deep, and I figured the passage would be smooth, straightforward, and easy.<br />Powering at our cruising speed, I began turning us around Isla Coibita using the autopilot and changing course a few degrees at a time. Music was playing softly in the cockpit speakers and now and again I was flipping through a surfing magazine admiring the pictures of wave I’d never surf. Glancing up from the magazine, I saw the depth-sounder jump up from not being able to read to registering 100 feet. My eyes remained glued to the gauge as it jumped up to 80, 60, 40! Trouble was dead ahead. I leapt to my feet, ripped the autopilot belt off the wheel, and shoved the engine into neutral. An ominous brown patch of reef could now be seen lurking beneath the surface ahead. I cranked the wheel to starboard towards open waters and revved the engine in reverse to halt our momentum. Despite my efforts it happened. A pregnant pause, then the hard grinding sound a sailor hates more than any other, a sudden jolt backwards, and panic swept over me. We’d hit the reef!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-55526678283517049012009-06-21T21:39:00.001-07:002009-06-21T21:44:01.010-07:00Sorry About the DelaySorry about not posting in so long. Life got in the way. Spent a week fighting various illnesses/ailments, then things seemed to keep piling up; but below the chapters continue and I'll try to get back on track. I have not stopped writing, however, in this absence of "blogs," and the book continues to flow with me now writing about Tahiti. It's hard to believe that it has almost been a full year since I returned to San Diego (which, if anyone is counting, marks this as the longest time I've spent in one place since I was seventeen--not that I'm counting, or complaining). I hope somebody enjoys this first draft, and remember that it's just that. I haven't so much as read what I've written yet. This is just what was written in the heat of the moment, transferred by copying and pasting.<br /><br />Pura Vida!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-26248450000742676882009-06-21T21:38:00.001-07:002009-06-21T21:38:59.415-07:00South through ParadiseQuepos. Manuel Antonio. Drake’s Bay. Puerto Jiminez. Golfito. The names rolled off my tongue as I contemplated our next stops. Only Puerto Jiminez would be new to me, yet I looked forward to every one in its own way. But, lurking above the rest, was the paradise of Drake’s Bay. Though I had only visited it for a short time previous I looked upon it as my favorite place in Costa Rica, if not the world. Before arriving there we had a couple stops to make—warm-ups to the beauty we would surely experience once more.<br />Quepos is a dirty little town that seems to be stuck in a transitional phase. The once bustling banana export port has yet to turn herself into a tourist Mecca, so for the moment poverty reigns and all appears decrepit and worn out. On my previous visit here the first person I’d met ashore was the local gun-toting drug dealer, and while watching a splendid sunset he’d told me all about the ins and outs of the local drug trade, and how abundant drug use was in the town. It wasn’t the greatest introduction to a new port, and I kept this in mind as Avventura came to anchor in the rolly roadstead north of the old wharf.<br />My previous experiences in Quepos kept me aboard Avventura through the first night and into the next morning. With the arrival of daylight I was up and loaded into the dinghy to explore the vast expanse of beaching leading northwest from town in search of surf. When I realized there were nothing but beachbreak peaks spread along the shore I returned to the boat, grabbed my board, and paddled in to the tiny waves forming off the rivermouth fronting Quepos. Here, with the patch of anchored boats just offshore, a little left reeled through with as perfect form as a wave can get. It was a longboarders heaven, and I spent a few hours surfing the miniature version of perfection with nobody else out.<br />Aside from this fun little wave there is little of attraction in Quepos for the cruiser. The anchorage is wide open to the elements and rolly in the best of conditions, and the main use of the town these days is as a jumping-off point to the Manuel Antonio National Park, but for the cruiser there is a vastly superior anchorage in Manuel Antonio itself. Quepos does have its share of modern conveniences such as grocery stores to provision, internet cafes, and ample restaurants and souvenir stands; but during my visit I spent but a couple hours ashore and that was more than enough to chase me on to Manuel Antonio.<br />On approach to Manuel Antonio I couldn’t help but think of the mythical Garden of Eden. The hillsides surrounding the bay are covered in dense green vegetation and a long swath of sand separates the deep green from the sapphire sea. Offshore a few islets dot the scene ranging from guano-covered rocks to miniature forested paradises. The islets force one to be cautious on approach, but once you have tucked in behind the southeast point of the bay you feel like you’re on another planet compared to Quepos. All is quiet but for the sounds of nature. Bird calls mingle together with the cries of monkeys and the rumble of surf ashore. The cacophony of sounds blends with the sweet perfume of the forest and sweeps you off into another world.<br />Manuel Antonio if one of the more popular of Costa Rica’s many national parks. Numerous trails wind through the dense forest of the area and wildlife is abundant. Just a couple hours ashore brings you face to face with two different species of monkeys, a handful of sloths hanging from tree limbs high above, and if you’re lucky you may spot a toucan or two in addition to the scarlet macaws gliding through the air. Tour guides lead their busloads of foreigners through the park each day, and only by tagging along with one of the group was I able to spot my first sloth. The animals looked nothing like I had imagined, hanging from their tail and appearing to be big balls of fur with mean black faces. Once I had been shown my first sloth I prided myself in being able to spot them easily, and after a couple hours ashore I’d spotted half a dozen, all dangling from high limbs and appearing at one with the tree. At one point a troop of monkeys descended low in the trees overhanging a path, and seemed to be mocking the tourists below. People would back away in fear as the monkeys cried out and threatened advance, but they never left their tree limbs, and hung above our heads in perfect photo range. All the while the scent of the forest was thick in the air. A sweet, musty perfume of indefinable scent found in rainforests throughout the world which immediately thrust you into the beauty of the scene.<br />The anchorage at Manuel Antonio, though far superior to Quepos, was squite uncomfortable. In the corner of the bay the swells seemed to bounce off the point and create a backwash that set Avventura to constantly rocking. But during daylight hours I was rarely on board, and after months of travel I was well used to a rough night’s sleep. With dawn came the time to surf, and the beach at the base of the bay provided the perfect place for the beginner to learn. The water was clear and inviting and the waves rolled through consistently and, after a steep drop, crumbled into your typical beachbreak.<br />My stay at Manuel Antonio was made all the more enjoyable by the presence of another boat, the gorgeous Hylas 49 Creola. Her owners, Bill and Linda, were a couple fantastic people and our first night at the anchorage they invited Ryan and I over for dinner. We accepted and I was thrilled at the prospect of a good home-cooked meal for a change. Linda is quite the chef and turned out a gourmet pesto pasta dish served alongside a nice salad and some tasty homemade bread. It was clear the couple cruised in a manner far above my means, and I was grateful they’d invited us over for a night of their way of life. Over wine at dinner we exchanged stories and afterwards they taught us how to play “Mexican Train” dominoes. Before we knew it the clock struck eleven and an enjoyable evening came to a close.<br />I could spend a month and more anchored in the pristine setting of Manuel Antonio, but Drake’s Bay loomed large on the horizon and I could hardly wait to return to that paradise. Thus, after two short nights at anchor, Ryan and I determined to carry on southward, motoring along the pristine pacific coastline full of rainforest and lacking in people or places to anchor. Just after noon I was standing in the cockpit, watching and cursing our fishless lures when I saw a fin break the surface and strike the lure. Dorado dinner! We had finally broken our Costa Rican curse and caught our first edible fish in her placid waters.<br />Ten hours of motoring was needed to cover the fifty miles between anchorages, but with the late afternoon sun pounding down and beads of sweat dripping from me, I guided us into Bahia Drake and dropped anchor far offshore in twenty-five feet of a sand bottom. After an absence of three and a half years I had returned to paradise. With the engine off the sounds of nature filled the air and the cries of the jungles beckoned me ashore.<br /><br />How does one describe paradise? That certain place of pristine beauty; of nature unadulterated where the pura vida spirit flows and fills all that visit it. This has oft been the curse of the writer. Pure beauty doesn’t lend itself to mere words. Our language isn’t colorful enough or rich enough to capture the essence of nature. So when I say Drake’s Bay was indescribably beautiful you, my dear reader, will have to take my word for it and thing of that certain special place of yours and how hard it would be to describe to a soul far removed from it.<br />On my previous visit to Drake’s Bay I had a mere hours to explore my environs before Captain Blye ordered his crew back to the ship. Thus, in the back of my mind, I wondered whether the bay would live up to the place I remembered so fondly. Would the wildlife be as abundant? Would the beaches be as deserted? Would people be as scarce? I was skeptical, for a place never lives up to the hype the second time around, but still I was determined to find out. Ryan and I quickly launched the dinghy and landed it towards the west end of the long beach.<br />In minutes we were traversing the same path I had followed years earlier, past the quaint cottage I remembered, over a small bridge once covered by a roof of palm fronds but not open to the elements, and on down by the first “wilderness resort.” Vibrant flowers ignited the ground and the scent of the forest began to fill the air. We circled around the wilderness resort and soon came to the old drawbridge spanning the Rio Agujas. The river’s banks were swelling with the fruits of the rainy season, and the gentle trickle of before was transformed into a steady flow. The same dull green water led upstream, piercing the thick rainforest. Towering trees shot up from its banks and the call of birds pierced the still air.<br />Across the drawbridge the forest closed in around us and the path became narrow. The air grew heavy and you could feel the humidity start to climb. A familiar squeal broke through the monotonous hum of insects. Up in the trees above a troop of white-faced monos leaped about, hopping from tree to tree and crying out with glee. A short walk brought us to a paved path leading off in two directions. We turned left and passed La Paloma Lodge, a new wilderness resort with surveillance cameras trained on the path. Beyond the beautiful lodge a small wooden sign pointed down a cinderblock staircase to the “Beach,” so Ryan and I followed it. The cinderblock stairs gave way to the damp earth once more, and at the base of the hills we emerged through a familiar shading of trees onto the gorgeous Playa Cocolito.<br />If you were to be dropped from the sky in the middle of Playa Cocolito you likely wouldn’t appreciate its beauty. The tiny beach is guarded by dense forest and a small stream marks its western boundary. The sand is an unspectacular light brown color and is coarse like sandpaper underfoot. But when approached from the land via the forest path, the beach is like a little oasis, perfect in every way. Her sands lead out to the inviting blue of the Pacific where small waves crash ashore in bitchin shorebreak. A few sparse coco palms jet out from the sand in the west corner, behind which snakes the gentle stream. And up on a grassy area behind the beach a little shack has been built and a couple Ticos were in the process of welding together a steel panga. I threw a wave to the boatbuilders and bolted for the sea. The water was the perfect temperature, and peering shoreward, the land transformed into a mass of thick forest. Scarlet macaws soared in the blue skies above the trees, and the Ticos watched as I swam for and plunged down the face of my first wave. Paradise!<br /><br />Later that afternoon, after having returned to Avventura, I grabbed my surfboard and paddled to the west point of the bay. Entering the Rio Agujas, I stroked upstream past the two wilderness resorts, plowed on past the drawbridge, and carried on against the quickening current. The forest closed in around me and the cacophony of sounds filled in—insects, monkeys and macaws and the flowing river all meshed together with the heavy-scented air and I was transported to another world. Nature was at her finest, and the cares of the world were faraway, like a bad dream from a couple days before. A pair of scarlet macaws followed the stream overhead and disappeared around a bend. I paused to watch a troop of monkeys n the trees bordering the north bank, but the current swept me downstream and forced me to carry on.<br />When I reached the next bend in the river a series of rapids began, forcing me to leave my board on the rivers bank and carry on by foot. The rapids continued, slowly ascending into the forest and the sound of the rushing water drowned out all else. When the bank became impassable I leaped into the rapids and slid downstream, feeling my way across the rocky stretches and eventually washing up beside my board. I retrieved it, laid on my back, and floated downstream watching the activity of the forest overhead. I couldn’t help but think of Disneyland’s Jungle River Cruise in the days of my youth. As a kid that felt like the real thing; but now I was learning what a far cry it truly was.<br />By the time I reached the drawbridge I was paddling once more. A Tico was standing on the dock of one wilderness resort and wave me over. He asked if I had seen the crocodile yet. Crocodile? Here? No! “Oh yes, he lives here and usually hangs out near the entrance. I thought for sure you must know of him.”<br />“A dios mio!” I exclaimed, and paddled like mad back to Avventura. The next day I returned to the wilderness resort on foot and, sure enough, a crowd of people was watching the crocodile stalk the banks at the river entrance.<br /><br />Bahia Drake is a long daysail from the nearest safe anchorage in the rainy season. To the south extends the big hulk of the sparsely-populated Peninsula de Osa, over 100,000 acres of which form Costa Rica’s second largest national park, Corcovado National Park. The trip to the south and east around the peninsula takes you along miles of endless uninhabited and unexplored coastline. At times the forest terminates right at the waters edge, other times white sand beaches run for miles without a soul on them, and then again there are stretches of steep cliffs bordering the sea, off which plunge little waterfalls into the sea. Wind is a rarity in this area, and aside from the possibility of a seabreeze the route is often undertaken by powering—a grim prospect under the heat of the sub-tropic sun.<br />Nine hours after leaving Drake’s Bay in the predawn silence Avventura rounded Cabo Matapalo and entered the Golfo Dulce (Sweet Gulf). The entrance to the gulf is lined on either shoreline by famous surfbreaks (Cabo Matapalo has a series of right-hand pointbreaks while Pavones, on the east shore of the gulf has a world-famous left-hand pointbreak), and the gulf itself is teeming with life. Whales can oft be spotted spouting in its calm waters, dolphins cruise the surface searching for food, and fish are plentiful. The shorelines are lined with more thick vegetation held away from the gulf by long swaths of sandy beaches.<br />Ten miles up the west coast of the Sweet Gulf lies Puerto Jiminez. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more strange, out-of-place town than this. It all starts with the roadstead anchorage offshore where a shelf plunges down from twenty feet to over seventy-five feet deep. When you do make it ashore you feel as though you’ve been transported into an early twentieth century western. Dusty dirt roads separate drab rows of low houses. The main street is lined with shops and restaurants all with the same dull appearance. And on the soccer field at the beginning of town a handful of horses pass the day grazing. Meanwhile a continuous procession of scarlet macaws circle overhead squawking and bickering amongst themselves. But perhaps most out-of-place of all is the delicious Mexican food restaurant in town.<br />Puerto Jiminez mostly serves as a jumping-off point for travelers bound for the Cocovado, and thus sports a number of hostels and cheap hotels, and boasts a small airstrip. For me it was a jumping-off anchorage for the surf town of Pavones. Leaving at dawn the next day, Ryan and I motored across the Sweet Gulf, landing a twenty pound dorado in the process, and dropped anchor in the channel beside the lefts of Pavones. The seafloor was strewn with rocks and finding a spot where the anchor would hold was difficult, but once it was set I was quick to grab my board and paddle for the lineup. The surf was small, but my first wave cleared my mind of all dryrot and waves of ecstasy swept over me. A handful of fun waves followed before the southwest seabreeze started affecting the surf and Ryan and I returned to Avventura.<br />The anchorage beside Pavones was too exposed to the elements for me to trust, so we soon picked up anchor and set sail with the breeze, bound for Golfito, up the east side of the gulf. Moments after setting sail I spotted a whale spout off to starboard about a half mile away. I pointed it out to Ryan and watched as it moved progressively closer. We seemed to be on a collision course. When it was a hundred yards away I could see the shape of the baby whale cruising through the water, still heading right for us. My heart sank in my chest as I worried about what would happen if he rammed us. Thoughts of what to grab first in case we had to abandon ship crossed my mind when finally, just thirty feet off our starboard side, the baby whale dove and I watched him pass safely beneath our hull and continue down and out of sight. I breathed a sigh of relief, and was glad I didn’t see another spout the rest of the day.<br /><br />Golfito, like Quepos, was once a bustling banana export port. Dole had set up a major operation in the bay and its environs and shipped the bananas off to places around the world from here. Then, in the 1980s, disease ravaged the banana crops and Dole moved their operations elsewhere. Since then Golfito has been forced to reshape her image and recast her lot as a tourist town. The local economy has yet to recover, but the inhabitants are upbeat and happy, and the forest-clad bay provides a beautiful, land-locked anchorage.<br />Three and a half years after my previous visit to the bay I anchored just a stone’s throw away from that very spot, off the big yellow home of the Banana Bay Marina. Though there are a couple different marinas where you can pull alongside a dock, the anchorage is so calm that I had no problem making the short dinghy ride in to Tim and Katy’s Land and Sea Services each day. Tim and Katy are former cruisers who stopped to anchor in Golfito and never left. They have been providing a place for cruisers to leave their dinghy (for a few dollars a day) and gather for years now and are a great source of information on the entire region of Central America.<br />The town of Golfito basically extends along the shore of the bay in a single main street. Downtown a side street parallels the main one lined with restaurants and clothing stores, and in places a series of roads extend into the hillsides denoting the residential areas. The hills all around are densely covered in tropical forest, concealing the numerous waterfalls which surround the town. At the north end of town lies the “Duty Free Zone,” a massive shopping complex filled with booze, electronics, furniture and appliances—all of which can be purchased duty-free; though beware, foreigners can only shop there one day a year.<br />Aside from the convenient location of all things from hardware stores and grocery stores to internet cafes and fuel docks Golfito doesn’t lend much to the cruiser. Safe anchorage and modern conveniences are his main attraction to the bay, which is quite polluted and discourages swimming in. Nonetheless I was destined to spend a god deal of time here spread out over the course of a month as Ryan flew home for a break, my father flew in and out, and my cousin John came down for a visit. While in the landlocked bay I made the most of my time, wandering around town and discovering a vast array of cascades on the forest-clad hillsides. I went for long walks in the forest, explored the bay and its mangrove-laden shores by dinghy, and made a couple excursions to nearby Playa Zancudo to catch a couple waves.<br />At sunset the cruisers gathered on the deck of Land and Sea Services for a beer and some chatter. Familiar faces arrived and left, stories brought laughter and joy to the scene, and the horrors of a day of boatwork were recalled and cursed. Engine and electrical problems were discussed and possible solutions bandied about, and by the time darkness set in all returned to their boats for a hearty meal and a good night’s rest. The community of sailors worldwide is unlike any group of people I’ve ever met. No matter were you are or what type of situation you find yourself in if there’s another sailor around you can be sure he’ll do all he can to help you, and come the end of the day there’ll be beers to cheers and stories to tell. Friendships are fast made and often long lasting. Truly one of the best parts of cruising under sail is the people you meet along the way.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-23118245391594290502009-06-09T07:59:00.000-07:002009-06-09T08:00:01.307-07:00Chapter 11: The Ugly Side of Costa RicaDawn revealed a soggy landscape all about. A quick scan of the bay and I could pick out the radio tower ashore and beacon in the bay that the lightning had struck. It was humbling to know I was so close to these things; so close to being electrified myself. For the first time I truly realized why it was that most cruisers avoid visiting a region during the rainy season. Most I had met were already south of the equator, in the dry comforts of Ecuador. But, on the other hand, if I were to visit Central America only in the dry season I would likely have found much less surf, and experienced fewer memorable adventures. For me it was a tradeoff I’d be willing to make again in an instant.<br />Seeking to put the harrowing night far behind me, Ryan and I boarded the bus for Jacó where we split ways. He struck off in town and I headed for the beach where I was introduced to the other scourge of Costa Rica—ladrones. Many cruisers I had met had warned me to be very careful about my things in Costa Rica for fear of thieves, but in my many travels throughout the country I had yet to be robbed of anything. Perhaps this caused me to let my guard down a bit too much, for I left a bag with little of value hidden in a bush atop the beach and headed north, going for a run. After little more than a minute I came to a rocky stretch so I turned around and started heading the other way. When I did so I saw a local teenager near the bush where I’d left my stuff jogging away with something black in his arms. I sprinted back to the bush, saw my stuff was gone, and followed the local. When I started following him I saw him toss the black object up onto the roof of a beachfront house. I stopped the kid and told him, in my broken Spanish, to give me back my stuff.<br />“No tengo. No tengo. (I don’t have.)” Was all he kept repeating. I said I had seen him throw it up on the roof, but the weasel refused to admit it. He reached for a couple cans on the beach and crushed them. Then he pointed at the can and told me it was only a bag of cans he had thrown on the roof. Now why anybody would be throwing a bag of cans onto another man’s roof is completely ludicrous to me; but apparently it made some sense to this Tico, and I played along, pretending to believe him. He said he had seen the guy who had taken my stuff and said he would go get him. With that he took off sprinting up a side street and turned out of sight.<br />I started walking in circles, trying to figure out how to get my bag back, when a couple locals who worked at a restaurant nearby approached me. They said they know the guy I had talked to had taken my stuff, and I motioned to the roof and said I knew it was up there. These friendly Ticos, as most I met were, hated to see a gringo harmed in their country and before I knew it they had procured a ladder and retrieved the black object from the roof. It turns out the thief had wrapped my bag in his black T-shirt. Thus, in the end, I was left with a free souvenir for my troubles, though I missed my daily run. I thanked the waiters for their help, and they warned me against leaving anything unattended on the beach. I had learned my lesson, and left the beach for the day, spending the rest of my time on the internet before returning to Avventura fed up with the dirty, touristy town of Jacó and eager to depart Bahia Herradura.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-46022671725898175292009-06-09T07:53:00.000-07:002009-06-09T07:59:22.935-07:00Chapter 10: Rainy Season Initiation—Part IIAll sailors who decide to cruise an area during its rainy season go through an ini-tiation of sorts at the hands of Mother Nature. Lightning. The word conjures up images of Zeus Almighty up on Olympus wielding his mighty thunderbolt of jus-tice. The Greeks thought lightning such a powerful phenomenon they ascribed it to their supreme God, Lord of the Sky. Such is the respect sailors allot the phe-nomenon as well. For any planning on cruising during the rainy season lightning is a foremost consideration I how they prepare their vessel and is usually the gravest concern throughout the season. I learned of its power firsthand one day towards the end of July, 2006.<br />Lightning is like big surf, beautiful to behold from afar, from a beast of fury when it gets too close. Such was my experience while anchored in Bahia Her-radura, Costa Rica. After a fun day of surfing at Playa Hermosa, Ryan and I boarded a bus to return to Avventura. The bus was overflowing with people, and I stood in the aisle, surfboard beside me, striking up a conversation with an expatri-ate American girl. As the bus dropped off its first passengers rain began to fall and the Ticos seated by the windows quickly slammed them shut. The bus was transformed into a sauna on wheels as the rain turned into a torrential downpour and the bus slowly made its way to Bahia Herradura.<br />Among the last to disembark, we emerged covered in sweat and grateful to be breathing fresh air once more as the first flash of lightning pierced the sky inland. A dull rumble of thunder followed moments later as we scampered down the beach, launched the dinghy, and returned to Avventura. Climbing aboard, my shirt was soaked through so I stripped it off, retrieved some shampoo and soap, and took a shower in the deluge of rain. As the rain rinsed the last of the soap from my body a burst of lightning struck a radio tower five miles away. The roar of thunder quick on its heels made me jump, and I ran back to the cockpit trembling from a mix of fear and cold.<br />Darkness descended on the bay and the storm persisted. Moments after the storm would abate I recalled: “I stood in the rain enjoying the downpour, hooting like mad as streaks pelted the land and Ryan sat in the companionway looking at me like I was crazy, but as the streaks came closer and I could watch where they connected with the ground the fear began to set in. Flashes of lightning were com-ing at ten-second intervals with just a few seconds between flash and thunder by the time I decided it was time to seek refuge inside. I dried off, stuffed both com-puters, my handheld VHF and my handheld GPS in the oven, and told Ryan to start praying and stay away from anything metal (all tricks I’ve heard other sailors use). We both sat in the middle of the ship looking at each other and then out the windows in wide-eyed disbelief as lightning bolts connected with the land and sea no more than a football field away. They were so close we could not only hear the thunder, but we could actually feel it, or at least so it seemed. The flashes were so bright it hurt my eyes to look at them, and so frequent I thought for sure we were going to be hit. I told Ryan it was time for a drink, but by the time he retrieved the liquor I couldn’t even count to one between flash and crack so I figured I better abstain, since if we were hit quick action would be needed and I’d need to keep my wits about me. So instead I retrieved a book and started reading about light-ning protection for boats, and thinking of what needs to be done to get Avventura properly protected.…<br />“Finally, after the longest ten minutes I’ve known in a long while, the storm carried on out to sea where it is now wreaking havoc on the Tico fishing fleet. It was a rough introduction to cruising Costa Rica in the rainy season, and just when I was starting to think that the rain and lightning storms were over-hyped! No; they’re not. If anything it is worse when you are here. Sitting helpless in the cen-ter of the boat avoiding all things metal and waiting for the strike when you will be called to action is perhaps the worst feeling possible for a sailor. But alas, I made it through that storm unharmed. One down, god knows how many to go.”<br />It would be impossible to count how many such storms did indeed follow, but the number is in double-digits to be sure, and the lightning seemed to like to in-troduce itself to any and all visitors aboard Avventura. My father flew down to visit for a week in southern Costa Rica, and while we were in Bahia Drake a squall hit bringing close strikes, loud thunder, and preventing us both from sleep-ing for hours. The radar screen was a vivid glob of green, and my father had a look of terror in his eyes. Thankfully the double-rainbow which had preceded the storm at sunset proved a good omen and we again emerged from the storm un-scathed. Later my cousin John came down for a six-week stay, and was intro-duced to the fury of lightning numerous times. The closest call came just after sunset (when most close calls seemed to occur, or at least begin to brew) on the evening of September 7 while anchored inside Panama’s Rio Santa Lucia. The storm descended from the rolling hills inland and within minutes had us sur-rounded. Lightning approached rapidly to within four miles where it seemed to linger for the better part of an hour. My fear was heightened by the fact that there were no other boats, buildings, or towers near us; but as with all other storms it couldn’t seem to find Avventura, a fact I liked to attribute to the “static-dissipater” attached to her masthead (though I’ve heard stories of boats with these same de-vices being struck).<br />When it came time to flee Panama for Ecuador across the ITCZ I was a sea-soned veteran of a full rainy season in Central America, but the prospect of en-countering lightning at sea still had me worried. Sure enough we encountered our share of squalls which brought along plenty of lightning, but luckily never had a close strike. Upon arriving in Ecuador I knew the bulk of my lightning days were passed and praised Neptune for keeping me on good terms with his brother, Lord of the Sky.<br /><br />Postscript:<br />To illustrate the devastating effects of lightning I need only relate the stories of two boats I met during my travels: Swell and Piña Colada. Liz Clark aboard Swell was sailing in Panamanian waters when a lightning squall descended on her. She watched as a bolt hit the water near her boat, and though it was not a direct hit and she didn’t feel the effects it was enough to wreak havoc on her electronics and break her GPS unit.<br />Piña Colada fared much worse. While anchored in Bahia Benao, Panama a lightning storm swept off the land and delivered a direct hit to her masthead. Luckily nobody aboard was hurt, but Patti was sitting in the cockpit and watched as the engine instruments were blown clean out of their holes. The damage was extensive, knocking out all of their electronics, disabling the engine, and eventu-ally costing their insurance company some $30,000. When I met them months later in the Galapagos Islands they were still dealing with the effects of the strike.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-44275166770147217022009-06-07T21:58:00.000-07:002009-06-07T22:01:38.844-07:00Cruising while Writing—An Introduction to the Gulf of NicoyaThe Coco Palms Hotel is the cruiser’s hotbed at Playa del Coco, Costa Rica. Hours after parting ways with Swell Ryan and I were seated at its poolside restaurant, ordering a small lunch and using their wireless internet. Many of the friends we’d met in El Salvador were still around, and chatter was constant between the tables. My future plans were uncertain; but one e-mail changed all that.<br />Before leaving San Diego I had completed the writing of my first book, The Voyage of the Atair, and had submitted it to many different publishers. After receiving a hearty fill of rejection letters and a couple more rejections by phone, somebody decided they’d publish me. I knew little to nothing about the company, Publish America, and with my departure imminent I neglected to do any real research. I just wanted to see my first book in print, and this company was willing to do so. Thus, before departing I submitted my manuscript in its entirety, and now after a couple months of lying fallow in the publishers hands I was e-mailed a copy of the page proofs. I had two weeks to peruse the proofs, note any and all changes, and submit the book once and for all for publication. By July 5, the day of my twenty-first birthday, my first book would be ready for publication. In the meantime I’d have to work hard everyday on one final rewrite. With this in mind I decided the best course of action would be to head for the Gulf of Nicoya and work while making the short daysails between anchorages. This would keep the scenery fresh and Ryan could explore new places while I worked my long hours. By my twenty-first birthday we’d be in the tourist hotbed of Jacó where I could submit the manuscript and celebrate with a few beers.<br />My plan set, I started the motor in the early afternoon of June 23 and Avventura motored out of Playa del Coco. It was a Friday, so to appease Neptune we turned 360˚ to port, and just in case I recorded the day in the logbook as “Thursday +1.” In most aspects of life I’m far from superstitious, but when it comes to sailing where so many things can go wrong and so much depends upon Mother Nature, superstitions fall into the category of “what can it hurt?”<br />Following my superstitions kept us from harm on the short motor west towards Bahia Potrero where I planned on stopping for the night. As the anchorage in Potrero came into view (off the remnants of the now defunct Marina Flamingo) I could see hordes of boats clustered together. Seeking some solitude, I asked Ryan if he’d be willing to motor another hour to find an anchorage to ourselves, and when he said he was we rounded Punta Salinas and entered Bahia Brasilito, giving the reefs in the middle of the bay a wide berth and anchoring off beautiful Playa Conchal in the south end of the bay. We were indeed the only boat around, and with no swell in the water the anchorage was flat calm.<br />Once settled on the hook I cooked up the slabs of fish Liz and Shannon had procured for us at Ollie’s Point on the grill in Avventura’s cockpit and enjoyed a beer as the sunk slipped into the sea. Silence descended on the anchorage as night fell, and only the gentle surge of the small surf ashore could be heard. It was the perfect spot to get some work done. After pouring my heart out into my journal about our recent stay in Bahia Potrero Grande, I settled in to a night of deep sleep.<br />When daylight illuminated the beautiful anchorage we couldn’t bring ourselves to leave it. Instead I passed the day working intensely on my book, taking breaks every couple hours to go for long swims or paddle around on a surfboard or do a bit of snorkeling. Rain showers passed throughout the day, the worst of which arrived at sunset and was preceded by a strong twenty-five knot wind. The squall caused us to drag anchor a bit, so I let out an extra fifty feet of chain, reset the anchor, and all was well again. Just as I was prepared for the wind to continue the squall passed and all returned to a dead calm. The night was sticky and thick, and the damp air hung heavy aboard Avventura making sleep difficult at best. When blue skies peeked through in the morning the time had come to carrying on down the Costa Rican coast.<br />Between the Gulf of Papagayo and the Gulf of Nicoya there are only a few scattered anchorages, none of which are very protected and all of which are uncomfortable with any swells (and often untenable in the rainy season). But if you travel when there isn’t any swell running you can sail all the way through Costa Rica without ever having to remain at sea overnight. This we accomplished by motoring south all day and arriving just before nightfall at Bahia Carillo, halfway down the Nicoya Peninsula. Bahia Carillo opens to the south, and while the east end of the bay provides some protection from the swells there are a group of moorings there for the locals’ pangas. Thus Ryan and I tried anchoring in various spots throughout the bay looking for any protection or comfort. In the end we anchored amidst the moorings and tied one to our stern to act as a stern anchor. Even thus protected and with a very small swell running the anchorage was rolly and uncomfortable despite its natural beauty.<br />One lousy night of sleep was enough to convince me to press on southward, and but for a short swim I never even left the boat in Bahia Carillo. A beach lies at the base of the bay, however, and the rainforest covers the hillsides, enticing one to wander off and explore. In the dry season I’m sure it would be a great destination, but one of the drawbacks of cruising Central America in the wrong season is that many a beautiful anchorage must be skipped or visited briefly. Thus it was another daysail south along the Costa Rican coastline as massive cumulus clouds drifted past and an array of rainbows studded the horizon. We rounded Cabo Blanco as the clock struck noon and, under the penetrating heat of the late afternoon sun Avventura chugged into Bahia Ballena.<br />We dropped anchor in the south corner of the bay beside a cluster of cruising boats off the decrepit pier of the “Bahia Ballena Yacht Club” and I rejoiced at the flat calm of the anchorage. For the first time in days we launched the dinghy and ventured ashore. The small town of Tambor is nestled at the base of the bay, and we walked around it a bit and used the lone internet café before returning to the yacht club. The Yacht club is now only a restaurant with a book exchange, but Ryan and I played a couple games of pool on the old table and had a nice dinner before retiring for the night.<br /><br />Over the course of the next week Avventura bounced from anchorage to anchorage throughout the Gulf of Nicoya. We visited a number of different islands, explored numerous beaches, did some snorkeling, met countless Ticos down on holiday from San José, and surfed a small beachbreak at Playa Blanca. Through it all I worked voraciously on the page proofs of my book and unwound at night with the help of Caldwell’s Desperate Voyage. After a pleasant stop at the Islas Tortugas and a few great days off beautiful Punta Leona the calendar turned to July and on the second day of the month I leapt with excitement as I finished up work on the page proofs of my book. A couple guttural hoots escaped my mouth and Ryan asked what was up.<br />“I’m finished! The damned work’s done.” A moment of silence ensued and I moved up to the cockpit. Surveying the scene, I thought of heading over to Playa Blanca for the day, but, realizing I had been strictly dictating our movements the past week and more I asked Ryan, “What would you rather do: stay here one more night with the anchorage to ourselves or move down to the less-protected, but more popular Bahia Herradura?”<br />When he said he’d rather go to Herradura I obliged. I needed to e-mail off my changes soon anyways, so the time had come to make a return to civilization. Avventura made the short motor south to Bahia Herradura and anchored in the center of the bay, south of a cluster of local boats and one lone sailboat. All was well with the world.<br /><br />As soon as the anchor was set the radio sprang top life. The sailboat was calling. I answered and met Ray, the single-handed skipper of Drivers Wanted. (Boat names are notoriously strange, quirky, and often downright weird. Ray worked for Volkswagon in some capacity for much of his life, so one of the company’s slogans began his boat’s name.) Ray had been anchored in Herradura for the last five months, he boasted, and said we should stop by so he could give us the lay of the land. Minutes later Ryan and I had gathered our things together and loaded into the dinghy.<br />Before I even climbed aboard Drivers Wanted the stench was unmistakable. Marijuana. Mota. Pot. Weed. Call it whatever you want—Ray was clearly a heavy user of the drug, and, I soon suspected, much worse ones as well. The tall, gangly man looked old beyond his years. His nappy long hair was graying prematurely and his sun-beaten face was wrinkled like an old grandpa’s. But the man was outgoing as can be, and tried to help out in any way possible. He told us about the hourly bus to Jacó and where to catch it, and before long we were giving him a ride in in our dinghy (his was motorless after he dumped it in the surf trying to get ashore one day). On the way in Ray tried to explain to me how to land a dinghy through the surf, but I refused to listen to a man who had already lost his doing that very thing. I rode a wave in, let it wash past beneath the dinghy, and pulled up the motor as the bow hit dry sand. Success.<br /><br />My time in Bahia Herradura was divided between Jacó, Playa Hermosa (a couple miles further south down the Costa Rican coast), Playa Escondida (a dinghy ride north of Herradura), and the little beach town of Herradura lining the bay.<br />Jacó. A bizarre surf town set on a beach with terrible surf. Bars, restaurants, surf shops and hostels line the main road with supermarkets and internet cafes between. I always tried to keep my time in the actual town to a minimum because it imbued me with a strange, awkward feeling. I never felt very comfortable in it, and spent most of my time in town on the beach.<br />Playa Hermosa is a well-known beachbreak in Costa Rica that is among the most consistent waves I’ve ever seen. Every time I surfed there it was head high or bigger, but as with most beachbreaks it was hard to pick off waves that didn’t close out on top of your head. Aside from this there were the jellyfish to consider. Each time I paddled out I was stung by at least one. Most people wore T-shirts while they surfed to cover a bit more of their skin. The beach was lined with hotels, one of which (Cabinas Las Olas) had a restaurant beside the beach which served up some delicious breakfast.<br />As for Playa Escondida, the beautiful little beach sits beneath an exclusive gated community. Sylvester Stalone is supposed to have a house with a helipad on the point overlooking the beach among other wealthy Americans. Off the north end of the beach a perfectly shaped A-frame wave curls over a shallow reef. There is no shoreline public access to the beach (to my knowledge) so the only way out is via boat from Herradura. Despite this whenever the surf is up there is a big crowd; but the waves are well worth it. On small days I had the place to myself and the fun was never-ending.<br />Herradura serves as a laid-back coastal getaway for Ticos from all over the country. There is a campground situated just above the sand and each time I have visited the bay it has been overflowing with tents and people. Open-air seafood restaurants line the road fronting the beach and small homes extend inland in the town. A couple small markets are scattered about, but there’s nothing of interest to speak of for the foreign tourist. The tourist end of the bay is the north corner where Los Sueños Resort looms large. A 4-star Marriot hotel stands ashore bordered by hordes of condominiums and fronted by a “world-class marina” complete with teak decks. The gaudy upscale resort seemes completely out-of-place beside the humble town of Herradura and the cheap tourist trap of Jacó, but the motoryachts need somewhere to stay and this is it. The marina is so pricey they wanted $40 a day just to leave our dinghy at their dock. Needless to say we opted to beach it through the surf instead.<br /><br />Fourth of July came and went almost unnoticed. I surfed Playa Escondida by myself in the morning, caught the bus to Jacó in the afternoon to send use the internet, and returned to Bahia Herradura early in the evening. At eight o’clock the marina shot off some fireworks and I mixed myself a couple drinks, sitting alone in the cockpit and absorbing the beauty of the night.<br />The next morning I awoke a year older. My twenty-first birthday. I was finally of legal drinking age back home, but since that didn’t matter at the moment I would have rather the day slipped by unnoticed. As it was I awoke in a deeply reflective mood. I thought back over the course of my life and what I had done with it. Tears welled in my eyes as I asked myself what it was I had done to deserve to outlive both my brother, Lance, and his namesake Lance Martin. I couldn’t help but think of how much better my voyage would be with my brother along for the ride, how much more fun I would have with a lively companion and good friend to share each new place and adventure with.<br />I was grateful to have a couple presents to open to shake these thoughts temporarily from my head. My mother, Carey, had left me with a card when my family flew back home and instructed me to wait till my birthday to open it. (xxx??? Find card to put in anything worthy???xxx) It contained a beautiful short note and sixty dollars for me to “have a fun day with.”<br />The second gift came from the girls on Swell. On the way back to Avventura after surfing Witches Rock they had handed me a big Ziploc bag with a neatly wrapped present inside and told me to wait till my birthday to open it. I had tucked it into a cabinet out of sight, and when I pulled it out I started with the card. The short note lifted my spirits and brought a smile to my face, and when I turned the single sheet over there was the great Mark Twain quote written out in big block letters. It alone was the perfect gift. The present was a stick of good sunscreen and a small bottle of rum. I appreciated them both, but immediately hoped the girls didn’t have the wrong impression; I’m far from being an alcoholic, though I do enjoy a couple drinks at to help unwind after a long day.<br />As soon as Ryan woke up I had him give me a ride in and took the bus to town. From there I took a taxi down to Playa Hermosa and surfed the day away. When the wind picked up and the surf became blown out I retreated to the beach (after being stung twice by jellyfish), laid in the hot sand and read. In the late afternoon I returned to Jacó for some lunch before calling home. I watched the sunset from the comfort of Avventua’s cockpit, enjoyed a few beers and the bottle of rum the girls had given me, and was only too happy for the day to end.<br /><br />Anyone who’s ever traveled outside the United States knows that it goes without saying, football is the world’s favorite sport. By no means is this the hard-hitting American version I speak of, but rather what we yanks call Soccer. It’s pretty telling that a sport the world loves so much we hate enough to call by a completely different name; but alas, even most American kids grow up playing soccer at some point. It is perhaps the only sport where all you need is an open space and a ball, and this convenience helps it attain its popularity in places like Central America. Every place I stopped I found a soccer field, to the point where in French Polynesia each towns soccer field oft occupied the prime oceanfront real estate.<br />Anyways, on the morning of July 9 Ryan and I took the bus into Jacó to buy some provisions. We planned to leave for a tour of the Gulf of Nicoya the following day and I wanted to stock up on groceries while it was still convenient to do so. As we went about our shopping I started to notice people stopped near the checkstands motionless. Before long the checkers had stopped working and nobody was shopping anymore. I came down the center aisle and saw before me what held everybody transfixed. The World Cup finals was on and time was winding down. Soccer’s Super Bowl had brought a country half a world away to a standstill, and there wasn’t a Costa Rican player on the field as France and Italy squared off.<br />With the regulation time over and the game knotted at one Ryan and I joined the Ticos in watching the “extra time” unfold. The Italian goalie made a nice save of the Frenchman Zinedine Zidane’s header and more excitement ensued when Zindane, seemingly out of nowhere, head-butted the Frenchman Materazzi in the chest for which the Italian was given a red card and kicked out of the game. As extra time came to an end the score was still tied and the world’s biggest soccer game went into penalty kicks. The first couple kicks were and, and it seemed as if the goalies didn’t even have a chance to stop one. Then, taking France’s second shot, David Trezeguet’s shot hit the crossbar and bounced back. A groan went up throughout the store. Each and every kick that followed went in, and when Italy made the final shot a wild celebration ensued, a cheer went up in the store, and everybody returned to their shopping and work. Only football could bring a supermarket to a standstill in Costa Rica, and I’m glad it did, for it allowed me to witness one of the most thrilling endings in all of sports—a shootout to end the World Cup.<br /><br />After more than a week in Bahia Herradura I got the itch to move on. The rolly anchorage kept me from getting a good night’s sleep, and though the surf was convenient it was high time for a change of scenery. After a two-day pit stop at the beautiful anchorage of Punta Leona, we weighed anchor early on July 12 and motored north to the famous surfbreak of Boca Barranca. Just outside the town of Puntarenas (the armpit of Costa Rica, as Liz Clark so aptly dubbed it), the long left pointbreak is often crowded, but it doesn’t take more than a couple good waves to make your day.<br />Dropping anchor outside the break was a bit unnerving because there is no sudden drop-off. Thus, though I anchored a good distance from the break the water was just seventeen feet deep and the swells approaching the boat looked menacing. Once I was sure Avventura would be safe I paddled in. The waves were in the chest-high range and rolling through consistently, and despite the slight onshore wind I had a great time on the long lefts for a full three hours. Towards the end of the session the Ticos began leaving the break and I was left with a handful of beginners, able to catch any and every wave I pleased. The nonstop paddling wore me out fast, and by the time I returned to Avventura I could hardly lift my arms and was cursing myself for not anchoring closer to the break.<br />Once the anchor was raised we immediately set sail and followed the coastline past Puntarenas and across the gulf. The wind picked up to fifteen knots and before long we were scooting across the flat seas in excess of seven knots. Once past Puntarenas, though, the wind began to die. I took advantage of the opportunity to climb into the dinghy as she was being towed, and snapped a few pictures of Avventura under sail. Almost as soon as I returned on board the wind disappeared, and we were forced to motor the final couple miles to the secluded anchorage at Isla San Lucas.<br />Isla San Lucas was a long-time Costa Rican penal colony, but in 1991 the inmates were moved to the mainland and the island now lies under the watchful eyes of a Tico family who live in a house near the main building of the prison. The anchorage is very well-protected in a bay surrounded by wild green vegetation with mangroves guarding the east side of the bay. As with many anchorages in the Gulf of Nicoya, thanks to its large tidal range, this one is quite shallow at low tide (9 feet where Avventura sat). Though I spent just one night on the island that was enough to explore all she had to offer. We met the caretaker of the penal colony (who warned us against entering the decaying building), hiked along a series of paths crossing the island, watched a troop of monkeys playing in the trees, circumnavigated the island by dinghy stopping at the various beaches, and opened a few coconuts on the wide sand swath of Playa el Coco. The island is a beautiful place to get away from the filth and grime of Puntarenas, and though just a few miles away feels a world apart.<br />Just a couple miles away on the west bank of the Gulf of Nicoya sits Playa Naranjo from where a ferry runs daily to Puntarenas. Having been told for weeks to avoid Puntarenas due to the many thieves in the town, and unwilling to attempt the awkward approach described in the cruising guides, I decided against anchoring in town and opted to take the ferry in for a day. Thus we came to anchor in the open bay off Playa Naranjo, once again the only boat in sight.<br />Behind the thin stretch of sand comprising Playa Naranjo sits the Oasis Paradiso resort. Friendly to cruisers, the resort had no problem with us leaving out dinghy tied to their pier, and let us use an outdoor shower. They also directed us to the ferry pier as hort hike north of the resort, and told us the boat’s schedule. On the 14th of July Ryan and I woke around six and headed ashore. We boarded the 7:30 ferry a half hour early and took seats in the air conditioned bottom deck near a big window overlooking the Gulf. Within an hour we were tying alongside the wharf in the armpit of Costa Rica.<br />With a few errands to run, my day in Puntarenas was spent wandering about the dirty streets of the town, talking to machine shop workers, dropping off my laundry to be washed, shopping, and finally using the internet. Once I’d finished all I needed to do I walked down the road to the Costa Rica Yacht Club to check out the facilities and anchorage offshore. Unfortunately the club is so secure that a couple gringos couldn’t even gain access. The guard at the gate kept insisting it was a private club, and finally we turned away and headed back towards town along the waterfront facing the Gulf.<br />A boardwalk runs along the Gulf coast of town at its west end, bordering a popular beach among the locals. Here I passed the afternoon reading as we waited for the ferry back home. Though Puntarenas was home to some tasty Chinese food, I saw no reason to return and think any cruiser is better served taking the ferry from Playa Naranjo than anchoring in the dirty, uber-hot, mosquito-infested bay. I was thrilled to climb back aboard the afternoon ferry and start the trip back to the peace and quiet of Playa Naranjo.<br />Aside from the ferry and the comforts of the Oasis Paradiso resort, Playa Naranjo provides little of interest for the cruising sailor. Thus the arrival of dawn on the 15th of July saw our departure. The idea was to spend the day surfing Boca Barranca before retreating to a safe anchorage for the night, but after watching the surf (or lack thereof) for fifteen minutes Ryan and I abandoned the idea and cut back across the Gulf bound for Isla Muertos. The trip across the Gulf was made interesting by the various currents which did their best to knock us off course. The big tidal range in the Gulf causes there to be lots of water constantly moving around, and with the tide ebbing the water was flowing out at an alarming rate in strange streaks visible on the otherwise calm surface. Electronic navigation was a huge help in keeping us on course, and preventing us from having to motor back into the teeth of the current. Aside from the currents themselves one must always be on the lookout in the Gulf of Nicoya for various floating objects. Everything from trash to entire trees float past, flushed out the rivers by heavy rains inland. I saw a number of logs and parts of trees bigger than Avventura’s hull float past, and knew it would be downright stupid to be on the Gulf at night.<br />Despite its grim name, Isla Muertos is a pretty little island separated from the mainland by a narrow channel. The approach to the anchorage between Isla Patricia and the mainland can be quite shallow (my depth-sounder read just 8 feet at one point) at low tide, but the anchorage itself lies in fourteen feet of water over good-holding sand and mud. Watching the shoreline transformed by the tides can be quite spectacular. As we came to anchor at low tide there was a pretty little beach lined by coco palms ashore, but by the time the tide filled in the water went clear up to the tree line and the island looked much less inviting.<br />One of the guidebooks I had on board raved about the Bahia Luminosa Resort on the mainland here, so after getting settled Ryan and I zipped across the shallow channel and beached the dinghy. To say the resort was a disappointment would be a massive understatement. The swimming pool was half-full of luminescent green water and by the look of things nothing had been tended to in years. It didn’t take long for us to flee the mosquito haven and return by dinghy to the island offshore. We started off circumnavigating the island, and while cruising up its backside I spotted a sailboat heading north. Apparently I was so focused on the sailboat and wondering where it had come from that I missed the end of the island. It wasn’t until the south end of Playa Naranjo came into view that I realized my mistake and turned around, frightfully low on gas. On the way back to Avventura I stopped by to say hello to the new sailboat which, it turned out, was a local family out for the weekend from Puntarenas. They were anchored off a beautiful white sand beach, and before leaving I jumped in to cool off. By the time we reached Avventura we were motoring on fumes.<br />Another day, another anchorage. By midmorning we had seen enough of Isla Muertos and were bound a few miles down the Gulf for Isla Cedros. We approached the anchorage from the north, passing between Isla Cedros and Isla Jesuita and dropping the hook in an extremely well-protected cove along the west coast of Cedros. Cedros is separated from the mainland by just a few hundred yards and a tall powerline spans the gap, across which monkeys can be seen walking from time to time. Despite the short distance the anchorage is as quiet and peaceful as any I’ve ever visited—the perfect place to come down with a violent illness. But alas, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.<br />A more serene anchorage one would be hard to come by. From where we sat there was not another soul in sight. Mankind was lost to our world. The islands were covered in dense forest and Mother Nature was everywhere putting on a display for us. The calls of birds and monkeys rang out from ashore while pelicans dove for baitfish offshore. Schools of fish could be seen in the murky waters, and every now and then a manta ray would glide past bound for the shallows. Come nightfall the true beauty came. As the sun set over the south end of Isla Jesuita the sky was transformed into an array of vibrant colors the likes of which I’ve never seen. The streaks of clouds were on fire with oranges and pinks and reds, fading to purples and, it even appeared blues. The sunset lingered till the skies above were black, as if unwilling to depart the beautiful setting.<br />Before my sickness was able to set in I was given a day to explore my surroundings. I leapt into the polluted waters of the Gulf and swam to the base of the cove we were anchored off. Here I crawled ashore beneath a couple hidden and abandoned huts. From the huts an abandoned path cut up into the hillside and wound through the forest. I traveled the trail barefoot, at times stepping over barbed wire, ducking under fallen tree limbs, and at one point climbing over the branches of a fallen thorn-covered tree. Before long I came upon a clearing where a group of huts were built. Through the huts I wandered till I came to a white sand beach. There wasn’t anybody in sight, though a few pangas were anchored offshore in a beautiful cove guarded by rocky islets at its entrance. After a brief swim in the cove I decided to follow the shoreline back around the island. The rocky coastline forced me to swim at times and after making it about a mile I still had no idea where I was or how far I had to go.<br />When I came across a pair of abandoned shacks and a path leading inland, I followed it back into the forest. Before long I heard voices and saw a family of Ticos seated in front of a shack drinking beers and chatting. A little girls saw me coming and pointed me out to her father, and the entire group looked at me as if I were an alien walking in their midst. Approaching the group, I waved and offered, “Buenos tardes.”<br />“Buenos tardes,” the paterfamilias returned.<br />In my sad attempt at Spanish I asked if the path I was on would lead back to the cove I had departed with the abandoned huts, an when I was told it would I thanked the family for their help and continued on my way. I was elated when I made out the form of Avventura through the trees, and upon reaching the boat I collapsed on deck for a quick nap.<br />Ever-seeking to take full advantage of every day, I awoke from my nap, loaded into the dinghy with Ryan, and we zipped through the narrow channel between islands and crossed to the mainland. We beached the dinghy beside the ferry dock at the town of Paquera and struck off inland along the road towards town. Before long the familiar chatter of monkeys could be heard, and within minutes a massive troop of howler monkeys was leaping from branch to branch atop the trees bordering the road. A power line stretched across the street, and the monkeys used this to pass from one side to the other, all the while calling out to each other and having a gay old time. I admired their free spirits and endless fun, but when a truck stopped beside us offering a ride I forgot all about the monkeys, loaded in its bed, and we were headed to town.<br />Only when I arrived in town did I realize it was Sunday. As a result the world was closed. No internet; no supermarkets; just a solitary pizza joint. While Ryan sat down to lunch I walked about town. The Ticos were all welcoming and courteous, though the town appeared to have fallen on hard times. The dirt streets coated the houses in a layer of dust and all felt old and decrepit. Nevertheless the football field was bursting with life as the adults gathered for an intense game and the wives and kids gathered to watch and played on the sidelines. After watching the action for a bit and kicking the ball around with a couple kids I met up with Ryan and we returned to the boat.<br />There isn’t much worse than being sick in the tropics. I awoke in the early morning hours with the chills and a sore throat and knew something was amiss. By daylight I was vomiting, coughing and blowing my nose. A miserable couple days were set to begin. The tropic heat only added to the severity of the alternating chills and heat I felt, and being confined to the boat in such a beautiful locale was hard to bear. As it was I wanted to get well soon, so for two days I laid around Avventura reading, writing and watching DVDs. The only source of illness I could think of was swimming in the polluted waters of the Gulf of Nicoya. The Gulf is fed by numerous rivers which dump their trash and debris into it and carry downstream all sorts of toxic waste from most of northwest Costa Rica. The water is always a greenish-brown at best, but for me staying out of it was out of the question. The heat of the day screamed out for relief.<br />Other than another short visit to Paquera to use the internet, I spent the remainder of my time at Isla Cedros admiring the beauty of the scene from the decks of my boat. After three miserable nights of sleep I decided the time had come to move on. My sickness was fast abating and my energy was slowly returning. A quick trip back across the gulf, one final day at my favorite Gulf of Nicoya anchorage of Punta Leona, and Avventura found herself back at on the hook in Bahia Herradura.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-44375704212932900982009-06-05T22:39:00.000-07:002009-06-05T22:41:05.528-07:00Ch 7: Guanacaste ExplorationBeautiful beaches. Fiery volcanoes. Lush rainforests. Fascinating wildlife. Spectacular surf. Superb snorkeling. Friendly locals. The Guanacaste region of northwest Costa Rica truly has it all, and when my family arrived I was determined to give them a real taste of the region. For two weeks we criss-crossed the area doing all the big touristy activities, while ensuring we strayed from the normal path from time to time. No matter where we were or what we did Mother Nature held us enthralled. From the heavenly hot springs of Volcan Arenal to the gregarious raccoons at the Hotel Ocotal, all was vivid and fun.<br />Some days we strayed far from the hotel and others we never made it past the pool or the decks of Avventura anchored close by. Other days we rambled around the region by rental car, visiting secluded beaches and going on the obligatory Canopy Tour. Perhaps the most unique day of all was our guided tour to Volcan Arenal. The long drive inland cut through vast expanses of open land, various crop fields, and finally climbed into the mountains of the interior. As we sped around Lago Arenal the volcano dominated the scene, rising like a perfect cone above the far side of the lake, and piercing the overcast sky. We paid a visit to the tourist attraction of the hot springs at its base where steamy waterfalls plunged through a picturesque setting of pristine rainforest. Deep in the myriad streams of hot springs the forest closed in around you and the sounds of nature dominated. Birds chirping, the stray monkey howling, and the steady trickle of water rushing onwards set your mind and body at rest and a blissful feeling came over you. The hot springs remain one of the most picturesque places I’ve ever visited.<br />As night fell we had a delicious buffet dinner at a restaurant beside the hot springs with an unobstructed view of the volcano in the distance. Towards the end of our meal nature’s display began as balls of fiery lava tumbled down the black sides of the volcano and broke apart into little specks and trails of orange. Each new ball of fire brought oohs and aahs from the diners and only added to the atmosphere of the place. After dinner we drove around to a side of the volcano with an unobstructed view of its face, pulled off to the side of the road, and watched as great balls of fire plummeted to their death and broke apart in an awe-inspiring death agony. Standing outside, the cold air of the high altitude sent chills down my body and I thrilled in the beauty of the scene. A swath of stars spread out over our heads as I stood beside my family watching another of nature’s spectacular displays. Before long the cold was too much to bear and we returned to the heat of the van and began the long trek back to our hotel. The tour was well worth it and gave me a glimpse of the Costa Rican interior I otherwise would’ve missed.<br />On a sun-filled morning, the first beautiful start to a day since my family had arrived, we packed a cooler full of lunches, bought some bottled waters, and set off in search of a nice beach. There was some swell in the water so we headed first for Tamarindo hoping to find some fun waves. Unfortunately there is no direct road to Tamarindo, and after heading inland for thirty minutes the skies clouded over and it started to rain. By the time we arrived at the beach a half hour later the rain was coming down harder than ever. The surf was out-of-control, but there was some nice shorebreak; and not one to miss an opportunity to catch a couple waves, my dad and I were quickly stripped down to our trunks and sprinting across the hard sand into the water. My sisters soon joined us, and we thrilled in the wild elements. Rain slashed our faces as we treaded water, the ocean warm but the rain cold kept us immersed most of the time, and the few waves that came through we rode in together, laughing and having a good time. When we emerged from the water a break in the rain allowed us to walk the beach as we dried off, and things were looking better. Who says rainy season is a bad time to visit Costa Rica?<br />Then came the drive back to the hotel. Not wanting to retrace our steps, we paid a visit to Playa Flamingo where my father and I had bodysurfed on our visit a few years earlier aboard the Atair. Here the shorebreak was considerably bigger and my dad and I delighted in the poundings we received as the rain slowed to a steady drizzle. Leaving the beach, we stopped for lunch at the poolside palapa restaurant of the Marina Flamingo Hotel (where on the Atair trip dad, Bo Harding, and I had brought Klaus for dinner knowing it was two-for-one Mexican food night and Klaus hated Mexican food), The Monkey Bar and on our way out asked a lady at the front desk if the road between here and Playa del Coco connected. She said it did, and implied it would be the quicker route to take. Thus with just an hour left before sunset and not wanting to remain on the wet roads at night, we set off on the new route home. Big mistake. Before long the pavement ended and the dirt road turned into a muddy slushy disaster. Our full-sized van didn’t even have four-wheel drive, and the wheels began spinning freely at one point as we attempted to climb a steep hill. We reached a plateau halfway up where a few cars were pulled over on the side of the road. One man was waving at us to stop, and when we did so he told us, in Spanish I only partially understood, to turn back, “the road is slippery like soap ahead.” With that he got back in his car, turned around, and began a slow descent of the muddy hill. Dad followed close on his heels, hoping to gain traction by staying in his tracks, but before long the Tico was out of sight, driving like a maniac and clearly used to these conditions. In the end we made it back to the main road and determined to avoid all further “short cuts” in Costa Rica—especially during the rainy season.<br />Often times a vacation is made great not by the big things you do but by the combination and accumulation of innumerable little things and brief moments of joy. Such was never more the case than in Guanacaste. Here the simple pleasures of drinking a couple beers on the grassy area before my parents’ hotel room and watching the resident raccoons play were enough for me. A short sail to a remote snorkeling spot was more than enough to turn a normal say into a spectacular one; and a daysail across the Gulf of Papagayo to the gorgeous anchorage at Bahia Portrero Grande where my dad was able to catch a wave at famous Ollie’s Point made for some lasting memories. Whether it be one of our many visits to a nameless beach, surfing behind the dinghy at Playa Panama, dinner at a restaurant where the main job of the busboy was to keep the wildlife off the tables, or simply sitting by the pool watching a troop of monkeys play in the trees—life was good in Costa Rica. Always and everywhere the pura vida spirit reigned supreme. Despite the days of bad weather and numerous days of seeming inactivity, in the end I think we parted ways thrilled at what was a fantastic vacation for everyone involved. It was with much sadness that, on the morning of June 15 I said good-bye to my family one last time. They were bound for home via the airport while my voyage had only just begun.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-6084827761301715812009-06-04T19:24:00.000-07:002009-06-04T19:26:04.732-07:00Chapter 6: Papagayo Pit StopsSailing with a deadline is never fun. No matter how lenient the deadline seems at the time you set it, it hangs over you like a Damocles sword often forcing you into decisions you otherwise wouldn’t make. But when the deadline is for something you look forward to with great zeal it can make these decisions palatable and even welcome. Such was the case when both my family and Ryan’s mother decided to meet us in Costa Rica on June 3. They booked their plane flights and hotel rooms months in advance, and at the time it looked like it would be perfect—Ryan and I would be in Costa Rica by mid-May and have a couple weeks to explore the Guanacaste region by boat before they arrived. But as we traveled through Central America we added stops at Punta Ampala and Marina Puesta del Sol where surf detained us longer than anticipated, and after a handful of days in San Juan del Sur we were suddenly in a rush to get to Playa del Coco and get checked in to Costa Rica before our families arrived. There were still a handful of anchorages between here and there and two famous surf spots, but with just a handful of days till our families arrival I cut our stops down to two—Bahia Santa Elena and Bahia Portrero Grande.<br />We left San Juan del Sur with the usual Papagayo winds sweeping off the land in excess of twenty knots and used the motor only to weigh anchor and charge the batteries. From there it was a fantastic day of sailing under clear skies with calm seas out Cabo Santa Elena to the isolated, calm waters of Bahia Santa Elena. We entered the quiet waters of the secluded bay at noon, nudged in close to the east shore of the bay, and dropped anchor beside Bob’s sloop in twenty-five feet of murky water.<br />Bahia Santa Elena is one of the quietest, calmest anchorages I’ve seen. Virtually land-locked, no hint of swell is able to creep into the bay, and the only motion inside is caused by the gusts of wind that shoot down the sides of the steep hills now and again. The bottom holds an anchor well, and rest is easy to come by. The steep hillsides surrounding the bay are full of wild brush, and there’s a constant chorus of birds and insects drifting out into the bay. At night the stars come out in all their glory with nary a light for twenty miles to disrupt their glow.<br />Despite the murky water in the bay Ryan and I passed the afternoon snorkeling out to the entrance of the bay where we emerged on a rocky beach. The rocks were hot underfoot from the afternoon sun, but beautiful shells were scattered among the rocks and we walked the length of the beach to where a tall cliff thwarted the way. Curious of what lay beyond, I blazed a trail up the cliff and was rewarded with a spectacular view east to an open bay with a gorgeous beach at its base. The bay had crystal clear water perfect for snorkeling, but the beach was another mile swim distant, so when I descended my perch we swam back around the point to Avventura.<br />A dinner of tacos and fresh, homemade salsa chased down with a pair of rum and cokes greeted the first of the stars, and I sat in the cockpit transfixed by the multitude of nameless dots of light filling the sky. I found sleep hard to come by despite the placid anchorage, and thus found myself lying in the cockpit for many an hour watching the stars slowly shift in the heavens and slip away beneath the hills to the west.<br />Dawn came quickly to the secluded anchorage, and by before the clock struck six Avventura was out of the bay and heading for the tip of Cabo Santa Elena. A pod of dolphins greeted us as we entered open waters and danced beneath our bow for a moment before continuing on their way. The rugged coastline slipped slowly past, and before long we hooked a dorado for dinner. After a couple hours we came to the Islas Murcielagos and, having been through them before on a previous voyage, I decided to take the short-cut once more. With the mainsail reefed and the motor still running due to our ever-changing course, the desolate islands slipped by and we emerged once more to open waters. The route I had drawn for us on my computerized chart passed close by an unnamed black dot. I wasn’t sure what the dot meant till I looked up and saw the massive hulk of Isla Piedra Negra staring me in the face. Once again the danger of relying too heavily on electronics was hammered home, and I altered course accordingly, rounded the island, and aimed for Bahia Portrero Grande.<br />Steep hillsides mark the entrances to the wide open bay of Bahia Portrero Grande and dense green forest fills her base, standing guard behind a long swath of brown sand. The rugged length of Cabo Santa Elena forms her northern boundary and the entire bay falls within a massive wildlife preserve. If it weren’t for the perfect waves breaking off the north point of the bay few people would ever visit it; but since The Endless Summer II made Ollie’s Point a household name pangas bring tourists out to the isolated bay on a daily basis.<br />Ryan and I dropped anchor in the southeast corner of the bay as close to the beach as we dared venture, devoured a quick breakfast, filled a backpack with water and snacks, grabbed our surfboards, and paddled into the beach. Emerging through a heavy shorebreak, we walked the length of the pristine beach, my heart skipping a beat as I imagined the perfection of the waves to come. By the time we arrived at Ollie’s Point there were four pangas and fifteen surfers out; but the head-high-plus surf made the crowd worth it. I paddled out and thrilled in the beauty of the scene. The sets rolled through consistently and as the day wore on the crowd thinned out. After three hours of surfing I was growing tired, but the last of the pangas left and I had the place to myself. Ryan had long since returned to the boat, and I surfed for another hour without a soul in sight. Wave after perfect wave I devoured, knowing such perfection is a rarity in this crowded world of ours. Only the setting sun could chase me from the water, and with it I made the long trek back down the beach and paddled back out to the lone light in the bay—Avventura.<br />Perhaps it was the anticipation of more perfect waves to come or the excitement at the pending arrival of my parents, or perhaps it was simply the pair of rum and cokes, but sleep was again hard to come by that night. I awoke before the sun and made the journey back down to Ollie’s Point. On the beach I came across the tracks of a big cat, possibly a jaguar, but there were no animals in sight. Nevertheless my pace quickened and I was relieved to paddle out at Ollie’s Point once more. For the next two hours I savored the beautiful waves by myself. The swell had picked up and it as in the six-foot range as I caught wave after perfect wave. As I later recorded in my journal, I “got the best backside tube of my life for the second straight day.” Of course there was nobody around to see it; but what did that matter? Surfing is a personal act anyways, and I thrilled at the fact that some of my best waves had come when there was nobody around to see them.<br />The first panga entered the bay a little before eight o’clock so I paddled ashore, ran the length of the beach, returned to Avventura, woke Ryan, and prepared to weigh anchor. I knew if I stayed any longer I may never leave, and in just a couple days my parents would be arriving. Thus, by nine thirty the engine was chugging Avventura out of Bahia Portrero Grande. The forest lurked behind the beach wild and free, and cliffs plunged into the sides of the bay. It was a gorgeous anchorage and a surfer’s paradise. My first visit to Bahia Portrero Grande left me wanting more; and for the moment I could only imagine what fun could be had at Ollie’s Point on a good swell.…<br />On our way to Playa del Coco we passed by Witches Rock to take a look at the anchorage and the surf, but a handful of pangas deterred us from stopping. By the early afternoon we nestled into the anchorage off Playa del Coco, dropped the hook, and settled in for a long stretch of relative immobility as we awaited the arrival of our families.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-34171379849238766132009-06-03T22:07:00.000-07:002009-06-03T22:08:23.393-07:00San Juan del Sur—A Rainy Season InitiationOn the morning of May 22 I fired up Avventura’s engine and pulled away from Marina Puesta del Sol. The current in the lagoon was less fierce this time around, but did help scoot us back into open water where a 10 knot southeast breeze was blowing—nearly the exact direction we needed to head. The wind remained on the nose for a full twenty-four hours, bouncing around from southeast to south-southwest and back again and hovering around ten knots. Unable to make much headway motoring into it we motorsailed around the wind, tacking back and forth until the sun came out the following day and the wind disappeared.<br />No wind—no problem. As the clock struck noon lunch arrived right on cue. Ryan reeled in a small dorado and within an hour it was cooked and eaten—fresh fish at its finest. As the day wore on I became concerned that we might not make San Juan del Sur by nightfall. I worked the engine a bit harder than usual and was happy to see the seas lay down before us. By three o’clock the side-effects of a beautiful sunny day were visible on the horizon as massive cumulonimbus clouds towered overhead dousing the sea below with rain and rumbling with thunder. An hour later I turned the radar on and watched as the thunderstorm bore down on us. Watching a squall approach on radar is like walking through the ghetto with shiny jewelry, waving a wad of cash—you know something bad is coming, but it’s hard to know just how bad it’ll be. Just after 1600 I was given an idea of the extent of the squall. We were still five miles from our destination, and all five would be spent in the midst of this ferocious beast.<br />The rain began in big heavy drops, and as it approached on the water I was reminded of the “rainsticks” I’d played with in my youth. Gradually the drops increased and I ducked below to put on a light jacket. (One common mistake people make is to assume that it is never cold in the tropics. Quite the contrary. Tropic rain is just as cold as rain elsewhere, and spending even a short amount of time exposed to it can leave you shivering.) As I returned to the cockpit the deluge had begun. The big drops seemed to merge into an endless stream of water, and Avventura’s scuppers were flowing with fresh water.<br />The deluge cleansed me in body and spirit and I transformed into a sort of primal beast. I began screaming and hooting like a wild Injun, inventing my own little rain dance, modified to fit the tight confines of the cockpit. My cousin sat below in the dry comforts of the cabin, looking up at me like I was crazy. Meanwhile my spirit exulted in what was perhaps the heaviest rain I’d ever seen, and my instincts cried out in jubilation.<br />But as the squall persisted with no end in sight on the radar screen a decision had to be made—enter port with very limited visibility, or risk spending another night at sea. Having passed one sleepless night already, I opted for the former and abbreviated my jig as I took Avventura’s wheel. By comparing the contours of the land on my chart with what I was seeing on my radar screen I was able to inch closer to land. Once I was within a half mile of solid ground I forced Ryan up onto the foredeck to be my eyes. Now unfortunately San Juan del Sur is not a deep gouge in the Nicaraguan coastline, but rather a gentle half-moon bay, and I first mistook an indent to the north for its entrance. When land was just a couple hundred yards away a black hulk emerged from the rain—“Land Ho!” My first reaction was to turn a full 180, but instinct gave way to reason and I followed the cliff south, found the entrance to the bay, and inched slowly in. Ryan called out the location of the various anchored and moored vessels, and with visibility under 100 yards we crawled in to an empty area and dropped the hook. As the chain rattled out its rumble mingled with the smacking of rain on the surface of the sea to form a riotous melody. When 150 feet of chain were down I backed down, set the anchor, and gave a massive hoot of relief. We had arrived!<br />The rain persisted for another thirty minutes before blue skies formed over the land and made their way out to sea. By sunset the squall was a distant memory, barely visible on the western horizon, leaving windless, unstable air behind. The squall had brought heavier rain than I’ve ever experienced and created the lowest visibility I’ve ever had at sea; but strangely there was no wind associated with it unlike most of its tropical brethren, and as I would soon learn, it lacked the scary punch of the beast that is lightning.<br /><br /><br />The storm’s arrival was heralded by sudden gusts of wind exceeding twenty-five knots, and in minutes the rain arrived with a vengeance. In the temperate latitudes rain usually builds up its strength, starting off as a drizzle and gathering strength till it is a steady downpour; but such is not always the case in the tropics. This thunderstorm hit of a sudden, and I went from dry to drenched in a matter of minutes. Big drops fell in steady streaks washing the decks clean and soaking through my jacket in no time. Though land was less than a mile away the squall hid it from sight, and I feared making a blind arrival. The miles ticked away and the fury of the squall continued. With the arrival of the rain the wind had disappeared, and by the looks of the radar screen the squall was hardly moving. Luckily it didn’t pack much of an electrical charge, and but few rumbles of thunder were heard; but it packed plenty of rain, and the downpour was unlike any I’d witnessed.<br />As Avventura crept ever closer to her destination I stood at the helm, guiding her in towards San Juan del Sur with the radar as my eyes. Visibility was little more than a hundred yards, and the anchorage made but a slight indentation in the coastline. I mistook a tiny gouge north of it to be the bay, and all of a sudden a thick black hulk loomed above through the rain. The cliff was less than a quarter mile away when I turned hard to starboard. I questioned whether or not I should put to sea and wait for the squall to pass, but the radar screen showed no signs of the end and doing so would risk making landfall at night—an even worse proposition. Knowing the bay was clear of obstructions if approached from the southwest, I ran south across its entrance till the south point came into view before turning and heading in. Ryan stood on the bow peering into the whiteout, and pointing out mooring buoys and anchored vessels. I led Avventura to a clearing behind a sailboat in the northern end of the bay, and when the depth-sounder registered thirty feet ordered Ryan to drop the hook. The sound of the chain rumbling out was a sweet relief, and when I felt Avventura swing to the anchor I breathed a sigh of relief. Just then a gust of wind struck, the rain began to ease, and blue skies formed inland. The squall was over; but we were safely anchored in our final Nicaraguan port-of-call.<br /><br /><br />A childhood friend of mine, Eric Ludwig, who I hadn’t seen in a handful of years had moved to San Juan del Sur with his family, and told me to look him up when I arrived. Before I could even think of doing so a man in a dinghy rowed over from the sailboat anchored nearby. He introduced himself as Bob and asked if I were friends with the Ludwigs. When I said I was he said he was also friends with the family and had been keeping an eye out for me the past few days. He pointed out the Ludwig’s house to me perched on a hill above the southeast corner of the bay, warned me of the dominant hard offshore winds, and we talked for a while before the rain started anew and he rowed back to his sloop.<br />Hearing of the offshore winds (the locals say it blows over twenty knots offshore 300 days a year), I let out an additional fifty feet of chain giving me seven-to-one scope, and as I was putting on the cover of the mainsail a small open boat with wording on the side declaring it to be the Nicaragua Navy pulled up beside me. There were a handful of men aboard but no guns in sight. One man held the boat off while another asked to come aboard for an inspection. I obliged. Two men climbed aboard and the boat shoved off and began circling in the bay.<br />While I showed one official my documentation the other called the port captain for me on the radio and checked us in with him. I was asked if I had any guns on board and when I said I did not they seemed to relax a bit. While one obtained copies of my ship’s document and both our passports the other looked through a few drawers before declaring himself satisfied. The left less than fifteen minutes after they’d arrived and declared us checked into the port. I thanked the navy for their help, and saw them off Avventura. Night was descending and it was high time I get some sleep.<br /><br />San Juan del Sur is not the place to go to get a good idea of life in Central America. The town is filled with expatriates from all over the world, and some half the population aren’t Nicaraguans by birth. This gives the town a touristy look and feel far different from the undeveloped north, and makes it difficult to taste the flavor of the country. The region has become a bustling hub of surf travel boasting numerous good breaks within driving (or boating) distance, and this only adds to the foreign feel. As soon as I set foot ashore I new the place was different.<br />Ryan and I ran into Eric while walking towards his house, and it was immediately obvious he was prepared to serve as our hosts and tour guides. Ryan and I spent the next five days sleeping ashore at the Ludwig’s beautiful home overlooking the bay and exploring the region with Eric. We surfed a couple different spots, saw troops of monkeys, visited Lake Nicaragua, and went to the Costa Rican border to check out of the country. We ate delicious home-cooked meals, took daily hot showers, and went out on the town at night. I tried to learn some Latin dance steps, but despite ample assistance from the local girls they never turned out right.<br />The highlight of our stay for me was the trip to Playa Yankee. A rough drive over dirt roads and through two dry riverbeds brought us down to the beach. Here fun head high waves rolled through, and a nice left formed off a pile of rocks at the south end of the beach. Backwash off the rocks caused the sets to jump up a couple extra feet, and there were many fun rides to be had with just a handful of people in the water. Then, on the drive back to town, we were cruising along on the road cut through a tunnel of trees when I spotted a monkey dangling from a branch above. Eric stopped the car and we watched a troop of 15 howler monkeys play and move about above our heads. When the monkeys grew complacent and dull and we moved on.<br />All things considered San Juan del Sur was a nice stop that very few cruisers pay a visit to. For the surfing sailor it is a must, and the anchorage provides good holding in perennial offshore winds. The cuisine is delicious and there is a strange, but in the end nice, blend of Nicaraguan culture with those of the many expatriates in the town. After being spoiled by the Ludwigs and four nights sleeping ashore it was hard to leave Nicaragua, but Costa Rica loomed on the horizon. In little more than a week our families would be flying in to join us in Guanacaste and I had two more stops in mind before we arrived there. Thus with the arrival of daylight on May 29th we picked up anchor and sailed the short trip from San Juan del Sur to the isolated Bahia Santa Elena, Costa Rica.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-59487599519215249122009-06-02T22:06:00.000-07:002009-06-02T22:09:45.055-07:00Chapter 4: The North Nicaragua ExperienceOnce clear of Punta Ampala the wind began to pour out of the Gulf of Fonseca to the east. Within an hour the sails were set and the engine shut down, and before I could get settled at the helm the wind had picked up to over twenty knots and I put two reefs in the mainsail. Feast or famine is the general state of wind along the Central American coast, and we were feasting once more. The dull gray sky and perpetual drizzle put a damper on the day and somehow reminded me of entering the English Channel three years prior. There the same ugly sky greeted me; except at least this time I was in a bathing suit rather than thick pants and a heavy jacket.<br />A more fickle wind is hard to find than that which chased us across the Gulf of Fonseca. Whenever we entered the lee of a distant island the twenty-five knot wind would be replaced by a light whisper. The longer islands required me to start the motor and motorsail through the dead air, only to shut down the engine again once we were in the clear. Ryan gave me an evil look each time I shut down the engine, knowing the wind would fill in to keep our speed up. I knew the end of the trip would be spent entirely un-der power and wanted to conserve as much fuel as possible. Thus I predicted, “Don’t worry, as soon as we’re across the Gulf here the wind will disappear and it’ll be flat calm.” Velella motored past us to starboard, wanting nothing to do with the putrid winds, and Ryan’s evil eye became more glaring.<br />Hours passed. The rain let up. The clock struck nine as we reached the lee of the Nica-raguan coast, and in five minutes the wind dropped from twenty-five knots to five. I started the motor, pulled in the jib, and resigned to a long day of powering. Surprisingly the wind showed some persistence and returned for another short stint before blowing itself out for good, and when the engine resumed her work the fishing line started scream-ing out. It took Ryan but a couple minutes to land our first Sierra Mackerel of the trip. I mistook the ugly fish for a barracuda and decided to keep it, so Ryan did his best fillet job on the foredeck as we neared the entrance to Marina Puesta del Sol.<br />The approach to the marina showed just how remote it is. Much of the northern Nicara-gua coastline is inaccessible due to sheer hundred foot cliffs, but the area adjacent to the marina is lined by a vast expanse of golden sand lined by dense green vegetation. There was nary a house in sight. The marina is located inside a lagoon, El Estero de Aserra-dores, which serves as the mouth for two rivers, and empties our parallel to a long beach. As we approached the entrance channel a nice wave could be seen forming off this beach with nobody around. Then, as we passed the marina’s sea buoy, a long left pointbreak could be seen grinding off the point which extended out to sea past the rivermouth. As we entered the navigation channel it became clear the left was the better of the two waves, and my mouth began to water as I watched wave after wave curl over the reef unridden.<br />The marina’s location inside El Estero de Aserradores necessitates an arrival that does not coincide with an ebb tide, else you may find yourself bucking a current in excess of five knots. Velella and I arrived at the entrance minutes apart, in the midst of the flood tide. It took me a number of tries to raise the marina on the VHF radio, and by the time I did we had already realized their first bit of advice, “The green #1 buoy is out of place, stay close to the red #2.” Lucky for us the green buoys had been washed clear into the surf line at the time and was obviously in the wrong place.<br />Once inside the channel I followed behind Velella as we wound into the lagoon. The channel snaked around to port, and as we swept past a pair of buoys at the turn Avventura fishtailed around the corner racing along with the current’s help at nine knots. Once in-side the lagoon the current eased, and within minutes I pulled into a vacant slip of the ma-rina and killed the engine. Bienvenidos a Nicaragua; third country of the voyage.<br /><br />Marina Puesta del Sol is like an island in the Chinandega province of Nicaragua. It sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the region, and has garnered the wrath of the local inhabitants. Claims of wrongdoing are bandied about by both sides, and the conten-tious relationship between the marina and the area’s inhabitants is made clear by the long barbed-wire fences and numerous “Propiedad Privado” signs marking their territory. I couldn’t help but think it a shame, for if gone about in the right way the marina could easily benefit the region and her inhabitants. Nevertheless the marina was a beautiful new facility when I arrived, and the prices were bearable.<br />A marina worker helped catch our dock lines and informed us that the officials to check us in would be here “mañana. With that weight lifted from my shoulders I set foot on the dock and met the blonde trio of Billy, his wife Sandy, and their son Cody. Cody was run-ning around on the dock with a little fishing pole, hunting for whatever he could get to bite. The family were cruising the region on their forty-foot catamaran, Hibiscus, and Billy was a surfer full of advice. His speech and mannerisms led me to believe he was the kind of guy that gave surfers their reputation of being “weird dudes,” but he directed me back out to the left as the best wave around as he zipped down the channel in his dinghy, board in hand. Within minutes I launched our dinghy and Ryan and I were zipping back down the lagoon and into the open ocean. We dropped anchor beside Billy’s and I leapt into the water, stroking fast for the lineup.<br />Eight-foot waves rolled through with picture-perfect form. Never threatening to close out, never too steep to make the drop, it was the ideal surf break. I dropped into wave af-ter wave, arcing out long bottom turns, racing down the line, and making big sweeping turns before the wave dissipated in the deep water of the channel. Paddling back out, I watched as Billy dropped in and laid out nice backside bottom turns, raced across the face, and joined me in the channel. Sitting in the lineup, all ashore was wild and green. A volcano pierced the sky inland and to the south, and to the west an unending expanse of blue reached for the horizon. More waves flowed past. The sun dipped into the sea. The air began to cool. Life was good.<br />Twenty minutes after sunset I could no longer see the dinghy from the lineup so I caught one more wave and headed in. Ryan was waiting for me, and we quickly started the motor and followed Billy back to the marina where Billy invited us over for a drink. After rinsing off and changing we headed over to Hibiscus and Billy tossed us each a beer. We got to talking and I found out he was a tug captain up in San Francisco and was soon heading back there to save up more money so that he could come cruising again. He had grand plans of buying a jet ski which he’d lash forward and use for tow-ins when he came across big surf.<br />Before long a few termites began to circle around the marina’s lights. Being in Central America, bugs were no new thing, so for a time they went almost unnoticed. But after finishing my first beer the bugs were everywhere. They were so thick at the lights that they looked like a single big, dark ball; and on the dock itself there wasn’t enough room to walk without stepping on a few. When they started swarming around my face it was time to retreat to Avventura, where Ryan and I quickly put up our screens in an effort to keep the termites out. Despite having every opening screened a few managed to find their way below, but it was a manageable amount. In talking with some locals the next day I learned this was a yearly event, and only occurred after the first big rains of winter (which had passed through the two days prior to our arrival). I can’t say I understand why it happens, but all I know is that for the remainder of our stay we saw but a few stray bugs.<br /><br />Sunrise at Puesta del Sol is a beautiful thing. The sky in the east brightens illuminating an active volcano, and as the sun stepped into the sky the next morning a trail of smoke was sweeping across the sky off the volcano’s peak. Watching nature’s display, I ate a quick bowl of oatmeal in the cockpit and asked Ryan if he wanted to go surfing. He de-clined, but as I was loading into the dinghy I saw Cameron paddling towards me in his kayak. He tied his kayak to the dock and loaded in with me and we zipped down the channel and anchored beside the left once more.<br />The swell had dropped considerably in the night, but Cameron and I traded off fun head high waves for two hours, enjoying the quiet solitude of the setting and thrilling in the clear skies and the beautiful day which lay ahead. The sea was a sheet of glass and there were no signs of people anywhere to be seen. The coastline ran northward wild and free, and the sandy point greeted us shoreward. After a couple hours Billy came out in his din-ghy, pulled up beside us in the lineup, and said, “Customs is waiting for you guys at the marina; better hurry in.”<br />We took his advice and paddled straight for our dinghy, thanking Billy for letting us know. In minutes we were back at the docks where I woke Ryan, gathered our papers, and walked up to the marina office. Checking in was complicated by the fact that both Customs and Immigration wanted original copies of both our zarpe and crew list from El Slavador. I finally convinced the officials that I had only one copy, but they could photo-copy it if they chose, and they agreed to let us enter the country after paying $30 in visa and port fees.<br />With the check-in off my mind it was time to enjoy my surroundings. I passed the day surfing the point, washing down Avventura, and exploring the area. Ryan and I walked up the long beach stretching north from the lagoon entrance where shells littered the water-line. The beach was empty as we walked down a couple miles to a point from where the coastline turned to high, inaccessible cliffs stretching as far as I could see.<br />On our way back down the beach we came across a group of three Americans lying in the sand. As seems natural when coming across a fellow countryman in a foreign land, we struck up a conversation. The group was from Minnesota where they went to Medical School. The two girls and one guy were down here volunteering at a medical clinic. They told us horror stories of the local diseases, warned us of their lack of hygiene, and made sure we knew venereal diseases were rampant. After scaring us sober, we turned to lighter topics like my travels to date. One of the Minnesotans made a comment that we must have a big medical kit on board, and when I replied it was as meager as they come and we lacked even the basic suturing kit, they promised to try and help us out. Ryan broke the conversation off mid-sentence saying, “We better carry on.” I cursed him under my breath, said bye to the two cute girls, and said they should come visit us at the marina sometime. If nothing else it was nice to meet some fellow English-speakers, and since my Spanish was rudimentary at best it was nice to carry-on a conversation without having to think about every word and sentence. (A couple days later the Minnesotans showed up at the marina with a big bag of medical supplies, including a full suture kit which I was grateful I never had to use. We bought them a round of drinks at he bar in return. Just an-other example o travelers helping each other out in foreign lands.)<br />On the way back to the marina I stopped at an empty beachside palapa and recorded the day’s events in my journal. While I wrote small shorebreak crashed on the sand and wind rustled through the nearby coco palms. A squall began to descend on the area, so I closed my journal and rushed for the ocean. I started bodysurfing as the rain came in, slow at first, slapping the water with big drops, but ever-increasing till it was pouring. A wave came through and I took off, cut left, and pulled inside the tube and it dumped on the sand. I washed up the beach, and when the water sucked out from under me I remained stranded on the sand, rain pelting my back, thrilled at life. Ryan was long back at the boat by now, probably watching a DVD and eating lunch. He didn’t feel what I felt; the raw emotions of life had been dulled in him through the long monotony of years in school, and I felt bad about it. I stood on the beach, faced to windward, and shut my eyes as the rain pelted my face. My body began to shake in the cold downpour, so I opened my eyes and rushed for the ocean once more. Down the beach I could see the two Minnesota girls huddled under a towel. Then, seemingly out of nowhere one rushed into the ocean and jumped in. I gave a hoot. We were children of the elements. Life was good.<br /><br />The bus to Chinandega passed by the marina three times a day. Anxious to see some of northern Nicaragua, and in need of a few basic supplies, Ryan and I decided to catch the second bus to town at nine o’clock. This left just enough time for a quick surf session with Cameron off Velella before I rushed back to the boat, gathered Ryan and my things, and headed for the gate out of the marina complex. We arrived at the necessary intersec-tion just in time to board the empty once-yellow former school bus. Ryan and I took seats across the aisle from each other and settled in for the short ten-mile ride to town. Off the bus rumbled over the wet, muddy streets through the towns near the marina.<br />It didn’t take long to realize that Marina Puesta del Sol is an oasis in what is one of the poorest regions of Central America I’ve seen. The homes lining the road were simple plywood structures with thatched roofs. The lucky few had some sort of plastic or iron roof, but all used the earth as their floor. There was no electricity to be found, no plumb-ing, and most of the inhabitants obtained their water by hand-cranking a bucket up from a local well. After a night of much rain all was muddy and wet and I found myself feeling sorry for the inhabitants. My heart ached and I wished there was some way, any way really, that I could make their lives easier and better.<br />Then an amazing thing happened. As I sat in my window seat on the bus I watched the people pour out of their homes to board the bus. Not a one had a frown on his face; not a one had a look of worry in his eyes. Everybody I came across had a beaming smile and a bounce in their step rarely seen among modern Americans. It was when I saw the little girl that I knew I could learn something from these people.<br />She flagged the bus down from the side of the road. Standing in her pink floral print dress, a ribbon pulling her long black hair back into a ponytail, she turned and waved good-bye to her mother and father who watched from the doorway of their palapa shanty. She then skipped across the street in front of the bus, and bounded up the stairs. She said something to the bus driver as she handed him her fare but the cacophony of chatter drowned her words. As she walked down the aisle she surveyed the scene. She said hello to a few people she knew, both young and old, and found another little girl seated across the bus two rows in front of me, apparently her friend. Her friend waved her over, but before she turned to sit down her eyes spied the gringo. Once she sat down the whisper-ing began between girlfriends, and before long they were both looking my way. I waved, and the girls quickly looked away, huddled together, and giggled. A moment later they mustered the courage and looked up again. I waved once more, and this time the gesture was returned with another bout of giggling. The look of fascination in their eyes betrayed how few white people visit this region of Nicaragua, and throughout the bus ride the girls continued glancing my way periodically.<br />Before long the bus was overflowing with people of all ages. Young girls were headed for town to visit grandparents, farmers were heading in to purchase supplies, farmer’s wives were bound to sell their goods (strapped to the roof where a pair of locals rode and held on for dear life) at the local market, and mothers with child were heading in to do some grocery shopping.<br />Still the image of the girl in the pink dress dominated my thoughts. Here she was living in what could only be described to Americans as poverty-ridden squalor, living in a house with dirt floors never having known running water or electricity. Despite all this she boarded the bus beaming an infectious smile. Her hair perfectly brushed and pulled back in a pretty ponytail; her dress clean and wrinkle-free; her skin glowing with health and her eyes filled with a purity and innocence that is lacking from any kid in an American schoolyard. Where I come from she would be the poorest little girl around, but she knew nothing of wealth and money, greed and power. She was free like the birds and, in that moment, appeared to me the happiest girl in the world. Voltaire’s story of “The Good Brahmin” came to mind and I said to myself: “I envy her happiness, but would not wish to trade places with her.”<br />As the bus rumbled along the dirt road turned to asphalt and the ride became even more uncomfortable. Potholes dotted the road like land mines and the bus driver crawled along at the pace with which you approach a speed bump. Even so the bigger potholes launched me clear out of my seat. The bus’ suspension had long since become worn and useless, and every bump was felt by everyone in the bus. The Nicaraguans carried on their con-versations oblivious to the torture Ryan and I were enduring; after all, this was just a rou-tine trip to town for them. For me the sweltering heat of the coming day and the hordes of people looming in the aisle above me added to the roller coaster ride and made for a mis-erable ninety minutes.<br />To distract myself I gazed out the window at the countryside flowing past. Cattle grazed in open fields, but all looked emaciated and meatless. At one point we passed a baseball diamond—the first since leaving home—and kids were already on the field play-ing among themselves. From time to time we passed an ox-cart pulling her riders and their goods on down the road. Everywhere you looked people flowed past on their bicy-cles, and it was a rare sight to see a bike with just one person. Dr. Seuss came to mind as I watched one man on one bike, then two men on one bike, the a man and a woman. Three on one bike caused me to chuckle, but the family of four I saw ride past was a humbling sight. The father pedaled while his son stood behind him and his wife sat atop the handlebars, cradling her baby in her arms. It was clear that this region of Nicaragua was a resourceful blend of the old with what new technology could be afforded.<br /><br />Ninety minutes after leaving the marina I didn’t think I could stand the motion and heat anymore when the houses along the road finally grew thick once more. We had left the countryside and were entering the town of El Viejo. The bus wound through the crowded streets of town and I was struck at the massive amounts of litter all about. Water and juice is sold in small plastic bags and it is customary to simply throw these out the window of the bus when you are finished with them. This creates no regard for keeping the town clean and as a result all sorts of garbage finds its way to the curbs. The rows of houses and shops looked old and decayed. Chunks of concrete were missing from their facades and paint, where it was applied, was peeling off.<br />Some of the passengers disembarked in El Viejo, but as we continued onward somehow more people filed in for the short ride on to Chinandega. When the bus finally pulled up at its final stop I was thrilled to disembark and stretch my legs once more. Chinandega’s streets showed more of the same decay. Litter was everywhere and I had a hard time rec-onciling the Nicaraguans lack of pride in their cities with the great deal of pride they showed in the presentation and look of themselves. The men all wore pants and a button-down shirt, and the women wore dresses or other nice outfits. How could they let their cities decay so obviously?<br />Walking south through town, the row of shops came to an abrupt halt and a beautiful church stood in their stead. The façade of the church was pristine, the paint job looked recent, and yet a placard beside the entrance proclaimed the church to date to the 1800s. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see the religious fervor of the Nicaraguan people. Soon after the church there came a gap in the buildings filled by a rarely-used, uneven basket-ball court. Off in the distance, rising above the city dwellings rose the form of two volca-noes big and ominous; an ever-present reminder to all inhabitants of nature’s fury and their own mortality.<br />A couple blocks past the basketball court the streets grew thick with people. I stepped inside a bank to convert dollars to cordobas, but when I saw how long the line was I de-cided to try and use my dollars instead. Stepping outside, a man pulled a shady-looking roll of bills from his pocket, began thumbing through them, and asked me how much I needed to exchange. I handed him a pair of twenties and he returned 650 cordobas to me. I had been warned against dealing with these characters, but if the banks were so crowded how could I resist? He had given me more than the 15 to 1 minimum exchange I had been warned about, so who was I to complain? It was time to buy a few provisions.<br />Passing by a big supermarket, I noted its location but carried on, with Ryan nipping at my heels, for the farmer’s market. Lining two streets in the center of town, the farmer’s market is quite a sight to behold. The local farmers and various other merchants set up stands beneath umbrellas and tarps of various shapes, sizes and colors, and display their goods. One street is lined with fresh produce while the other contains stands of cell phone accessories and other trinkets that seemed quite out of place. The streets were loud and chaotic. Shoppers bargained with the women tending the stands. And in the middle of the streets themselves bicycle taxis pedaled by ringing bells, sharing the road with both ox-carts, horse-drawn carts, and a modern cars. It was a bizarre blend of the new and old that clearly displayed the vast range in the standard of living of the locals.<br />The produce stands boasted some of the biggest fruits and vegetables I’ve ever seen and sold them at what were to me bargain prices. I bought four of the biggest mangoes I’ve ever seen and a pair of pineapples for the equivalent of two dollars. I also picked up a few needed vegetables and made a stop at the modern supermarket for other supplies before I had knocked everything off my provisioning list. Fleeing the commotion of the market, we bypassed the park at the center of town and its long line of food stands and boarded a bus for the short ride back to El Viejo.<br />Upon arrival in El Viejo I asked where and when the next bus to the marina would be leaving from, and was told we had a few hours. The next bus would be leaving from be-side the park at four o’clock—some three hours away. Learning this, Ryan and I set off for the park, again in the center of town, and sat down at a food stand in its midst. For a dollar you can get just about whatever it is you desire. I ordered a fish plate, and while waiting for it to arrive wandered across to street to get a picture of what I was told was “the holiest church in Nicaragua,” Basílica Immaculada Concepción de María (Basilica of the Immaculate Conception of Mary) . I was again struck by the beauty and careful upkeep of the church compared with its drab surroundings, but found it a pleasant back-drop to the town’s park.<br />While eating lunch at a small plastic table in the park my eyes scanned the scene. Eld-erly gentlemen dozed off on park benches in the shade of trees, women went about their daily shopping in the distance, and kids ran amuck in the park playing wildly. Two young boys huddled together in the dirt playing a game of marbles, beaming with delight. Life was simple, and happiness in abundance.<br />After lunch I penned an entry in my journal before finding an empty bench in the shade and reading the afternoon away. The dreaded bus ride back started on time, and was just as crowded as the one into town. Another ninety minutes of hell elapsed before Ryan and I disembarked, hot, tired and sweaty, and to purge myself of a day of filth and grime I leaped into the marina’s pool for a relaxing swim before returning to Aventura for the night.<br /><br />While checking into Nicaragua I let the Customs officials know I wanted to leave on Sunday. To my great surprise the official replied that he and his partner would be at the marina Sunday morning between nine and ten o’clock to check us out. Ten o’clock came and went—no Customs. Ditto 11, 12 and 1 o’clock. A man in the marina office called Customs and told me they were already on their way. Two o’clock—no customs. I walked back into the office and this time the dockmaster called. Customs was still on their way. Just wait and see. At 2:15 P.M. an eighty-foot sailboat, Lenore, arrived right on schedule and lo-and-behold Customs showed up. They walked right past me and boarded the new vessel. She was clearly a higher priority than a couple young kids. While the sailboat was being checked in the three Americans from the medical clinic arrived, so Ryan and I had a drink with them in the marina’s restaurant, chatting and waiting. Before long the skies opened up and it started to rain with a fury. Lightning flashed and the medical students fled for the shelter of their clinic. Customs was ready for us now. It was 3:15 P.M.—far too late to leave.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-17934107883751172802009-06-01T23:14:00.000-07:002009-06-01T23:16:01.979-07:00Chapter 3: El SalvadorThree days of mostly motoring took us from the Gulf of Tehuantepec to Bahia Jiquilisco, El Salvador. There a panga of the Barillas Marina Club met us outside the entrance and its driver, Luis, guided us over the bar and into the mangrove-lined bay. The bay looked far more like a river than a bay as we wound some ten miles up to where the string of mooring balls sat. A dozen boats were already here, and we picked up Mooring #20 at the end of the line of boats and shut down the motor in the peace and quiet solitude of Bahia Jiquilisco.<br />Heriberto Pineda, the head honcho at the Barillas Marina Club, was soon out to greet us, and made sure that our stay was as pleasant and carefree as it could possibly be. The immigration and customs officials had an office on site and the check-in process was as smooth as it gets, with Heriberto guiding us through every step. Once we were cleared into the country Heriberto told us about the facilities and left us at the bar where he gave us a round of drinks on the house. My beer went down smooth and helped wash away the stress of six days at sea and my first couple squalls complete with lightning storms. It was good to be on firm ground again, and the marina club was in a gorgeous, isolated location.<br />Fort three days Ryan and I enjoyed the amenities of the club, explored the mangrove-lined bay and its many winding channels by dinghy, took our first forays into towing behind the dinghy on surfboards, and relaxed the days away. One afternoon at the tables of the club we met Cameron and Jenny, a pair of cruisers in their late-twenties heading towards Panama like ourselves. We shared tales of our trips down to El Salvador and by the end of our stay had decided to head for our next stop, Punta Ampala, together.<br />The morning of Tuesday, May 16, brought clear skies over El Salvador and I was up shortly after five to prepare for our departure. The sun rose bright orange and beautiful beside one of the country’s numerous volcanoes. There was not a trace of wind in the bay. All was quiet. When the clock struck six Luis showed up in his panga to guide us down the bay, and by eight we were back in the open ocean and heading south once more.<br />As the morning wore on the tropic sun began to beat down and a cumulonimbus cloud formed inland. As we motored on I watched as the cloud morphed into different shapes and admired the beauty of the rugged, uninhabited coastline. By the early afternoon we were giving the sandspit off Punta Ampala a wide berth before entering the shallow, open bay. Here we dropped anchor behind Cameron and Jenny on Velella in fourteen feet of water and were quick to launch our dinghy.<br />The talk at Barillas was that Punta Ampala was home to a good righthand pointbreak and that there were never any other surfers around. Thus Ryan and I loaded into our dinghy, picked up Cameron and Jenny, and zipped off to the east side of Punta Ampala to search for waves. The point held a series of rights that broke in different stages, but the ones further out had some windchop on them from the day’s seabreeze. Thus we opted for the one furthest in, a well-formed wave breaking off a small rock outcropping in front of a beautiful home. The wave reminded me of a miniature Malibu, and within an hour Cameron, Ryan and I were back with our boards and paddling out for the first time in El Salvador.<br />If you’ve ever seen the movie The Endless Summer then you can imagine what my first surf session in El Salvador was like. The sun dipped in the blue sky. An offshore wind caressed the waves and swept out beautiful rooster tails from their tops. The sets poured through, marching down the point in a perfect procession. And a small group of friends traded off waves, gliding over their faces and racing down the line. Though it was small to be sure, it was fun as surfing always is, and the setting was unbeatable. Our boats sat at anchor a quarter mile away and we were nearly encircled by land, yet the remnants of a swell managed to creep up this point and break purely for our enjoyment. Only the setting of the sun could bring our joyous session to an end and chased us back to our respective boats.<br />One major drawback of the anchorage at Punta Ampala is that it is completely exposed to the south and has little immediate protection to the east. Thus when the landbreeze began to blow in the early morning hours the anchorage became an uncomfortable lee shore. Our first night there the motion woke me at 0400 and I was kept awake when a passing cloud unleashed her fury on us thirty minutes later. Abandoning the idea of sleep, I sat beneath the spray dodger in the cockpit and read, enjoying the solitude and tranquility of the early morning. At 0600 I was ready to start my day, so I zipped off to check the surf. When I saw it had dropped I rode a few waves in the dinghy, and returned to the boats. I stopped by Velella and gave Cameron the surf report and we decided to take the bus up the coast in search of waves.<br />After shuttling our things ashore, locking the dinghy to the boat, and paddling back ashore, the four gringos waited for the bus to pass by. In the meantime a handful of locals, all of whom worked seasonally on the shrimp boats, gathered around us looking to earn some money. After trying to talk them away we ended up having them give us a tutorial on the art of opening coconuts, and passed fifteen minutes guzzling coconut milk before the bus to La Union arrived. The bus driver looked incredulously as the four gringos loaded onto his bus with their surfboards. Lucky for us there weren’t many people on board so we scurried to the back of the bus and took up the last few rows.<br />Twenty minutes bouncing along rugged roads and through tiny towns brought us to the coastal city of Las Tunas. Here we disembarked and headed for the beach. Rundown shacks lined the roads and street vendors sold their delicious pupusas four for a dollar. The beach was lined with palapa-covered restaurants filled with empty tables set up on decks above the brown sand. A wide swath of sand led down to the waters edge and spread a few hundred yards in both directions. There wasn’t another soul in sight and it felt like the seaside version of a ghost town. Las Tunas must be a popular weekend and summer spot for many Salvadorans from inland cities, but on this weekday during early winter the beach was reserved for us gringos.<br />We set our things down on a rocky outcropping and watched the six foot sets pound ashore for a few minutes, surveying the scene. After a while the sun was too hot to sit around in any longer, so I grabbed my board and dashed for the water. I leapt over the first wave of whitewater, landed on my stomach on my board, and began stroking for the outside. As with most beachbreaks there weren’t any channels to paddle out in and a couple waves broke right on my head before I emerged outside the break and sat up on my board. Immediately I was struck by how warm the water was. My body had grown accustomed to the 85˚ water of Mexico, but this was even warmer—this was closer to ninety! It remains the only time I have been surfing that I was probably also sweating, though being in water obviously masks that well.<br />Cameron soon joined me outside while Ryan and Jenny stayed in riding the whitewater. Before long the sets started rolling through and I traded off waves with Cameron. Many closed out quickly and provided but short rides, but there were a few that held up longer producing two memorable rides for me—one backside tube and one big flyaway that launched me up off the back of the wave. After two hours of surfing I was even hotter than when I had paddled out, and with everybody else already in on the beach I decided to catch a wave in. We sat on the rocky outcropping letting the sun scorch us dry, took a short walk down the beach, and returned through the town to the main street where, four pupusas later, a bus arrived and whisked us back to Punta Ampala where we arrived shortly after noon.<br />Ryan and I spent the afternoon wandering around the desolate town built on the point. Beautiful homes lined the point (occupied throughout the summer by Salvadorans from the capital and a couple Americans I was told), but inland was dirt poor. The town was filled with shrimp fishermen of meager means who loved the sea and refused to stray far from it. The town had a wild west feel to it, and just a hundred yards from the ocean you felt as if you were in the midst of a vast desert. Rocky roads strewn with litter; small stone homes separated by barbed wire fences; animals of all sorts, all malnourished, wandering the streets at will. It was a sad sight.<br />But there, in the midst of this squalor, the towns occupants were strewn about: an old couple seated in chairs outside their homes smiling and waving as I walked past; young kids laughing and waving as a soccer game momentarily paused for the gringos; a group of fishermen repairing tears in their nets in preparation for the upcoming season, beers close by and laughter filling the air. These people were not poor. They were happier by far than most wealthy Americans. Yet again I was struck by how little it can take to make a person happy.<br />When I felt I had a good feeling for the town I slipped between two coastal homes, sat on a seawall overlooking the pointbreak, and wrote up the day’s events in my journal. When Ryan was ready to go we returned to Avventura. Back aboard, I read for a bit, took a short nap, and by 4:30 was ready to get in the water again. Ryan said he was too tired so I loaded my board in the dinghy and zipped over to the inside pointbreak where Cameron was already out. We caught a few fun chest high waves before being lured out the point to a bigger spot. A log paddle brought us into head high peaks, but despite being bigger they broke in deep water and fizzled out soon after takeoff. Unimpressed, we returned to our mini-Malibu, traded off waves till sunset, and had a blast. Life was good.<br />Sunset, the Scrooge, chased us back to our respective boats. I prepared a taco dinner for myself and Ryan, washed the dishes, shot off an e-mail home, and slipped into bed as a light rain began to fall and the first bolts of lightning appeared in the east. The lightning marched steadily closer as I drifted in and out of sleep, but in the end never struck too close for comfort. A steady rain persisted through the night, and I fell asleep despite the racket it made on deck.<br />12:30 A.M. Jolted awake by a heightened motion of the boat. I sit in bed for a moment, listening and thinking. The anchor chain! Its snubber has come off. I leap out of bed, stripping off clothes as I rush through the cabin. By the time I reach the cockpit I’m in my underwear as I emerge into the vicious downpour. Into the blackness, I scurry forward, pull the anchor snubber on deck, and find a spare piece of rope. I tie the rope onto the anchor chain, let out a few feet, and the line takes up the strain of the anchor. All is well once more. We’ll be safe till daylight. Then, on the horizon in the east, a big bolt of lightning followed five seconds later by a burst of thunder. Damn! We’re not in the clear quite yet. <br />Ryan is in the cockpit, standing under the spray dodger, staring aimlessly forward. “I got it; you can go back to sleep,” I say, returning aft. My body shakes uncontrollably from the cold rain. I towel off and take a seat at the nav station. Sleep is impossible with lightning so close. The land breeze has struck again and the anchorage has become a rolly mess of a lee shore. Bolts of lightning continue to flash through the portholes as I send an e-mail home. The rumble of thunder continues while I read at the nav station. I stare into the darkness at the continuing rain. It’s time to flee this bloody anchorage!<br />I managed a couple hours of sleep once the lightning receded (around 0300), but awoke at 0530 ready to move on. Immediately I started the engine, woke Ryan, and we began picking up the anchor in a continuing drizzle. The sky was a thick, ugly gray and the beach ashore was drenched a dull brown. All looked dreary and bleak. Nicaragua was calling.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-22458401886028295072009-05-31T22:26:00.001-07:002009-05-31T22:26:50.541-07:00Chapter 2:The Many Faces of TehuantepecThe Gulf of Tehuantepec. Her name alone conjures up images of high winds and heavy seas to sailors familiar with Central America. She has kept many a timid soul confined to cruising Mexico alone, for fear of what she might bring. Yet, if approached with caution and timed right, the beast can be tamed with little effort. Such at least, has been my ex-perience.<br />I’ve crossed the Gulf of Tehuantepec four times, traveled in both directions, and ex-perienced much of what she can throw at you. What’s more, each crossing has gotten successively easier as it as been approached with more and more caution. Now on to the crossings.<br />Round One—December, 2002. I was serving as deckhand aboard the 68-foot brigantine Atair en route from San Diego to Germany via the Panama Canal. The captain was a seasoned sailor with over a hundred thousand miles and a Cape Horn passage under his belt, and after weeks of windless motoring off the Mexican mainland he was anxious to find some wind. Forecasts for Tehuantepec called for near gale conditions, but as we mo-tored past Huatulco we had no wind despite the large swells pouring out of the Gulf. Cap-tain Klaus Kurz decided the hell with the popular route of staying close to shore, we’ll cut across the bloody Gulf. Within hours the wind arrived with a fury, sails were set, and in minutes we were scurrying along in excess of six knots. By midnight the wind was gale force and six to eight foot swells were crashing into the cockpit where I had a death-grip on the wheel. I was drenched to the core, shivering with cold, and cursing my cap-tain to no end. Thankfully daybreak saw the gale ease, and after one miserable night we sailed across Tehuantepec in one piece, though worse for the wear.<br />Round Two—February, 2004. I was serving as delivery skipper John Rains’s deckhand as we took a Nordhavn 57, the Knotty Dog, from San Diego to Costa Rica with her own-ers on board. We stopped in the port of Huatulco to await favorable conditions in the Gulf, and when they arrived shoved off, staying within a couple miles of the shoreline. The wind began to fill in before long, and by the time we passed abeam of the commer-cial port of Salina Cruz it was blowing in excess of twenty-five knots on the nose. Still, because we were so close to shore there were no swells to speak of and it was like motor-ing on a windy day in a small lake. Crossing the base of the Gulf, we saw wind nearing gale force, but there were no swells to speak of, and by the time we began exiting Te-huantepec the downwind, downswell run was exhilarating and very safe. The conditions in the Gulf were likely identical to those at the time I had crossed aboard the Atair, but we had passed through hardly noticing them. Such is the benefit derived from hugging the coast.<br />Round Three—April, 2004. A second trip with Captain John Rains; this aboard a 148-foot three-story party boat, the M/V Majestic. The boat was designed to host dinner par-ties and cruise around in a bay in California, but was built up the Mississippi River. Thus Captain Rains was hired to deliver her from Florida to California via the Panama Canal, and I was one of his deckhands. As we approached the Gulf from the south we pulled into Puerto Madero to wait for a favorable weather window. The unstable boat would need a quiet two-day weather window to even attempt the vicious Gulf; so we held out in Puerto Madero for four days until conditions began to abate. As we approached the base of the Gulf the wind started to fill in as lava flowed down the side of a volcano ashore. We stayed close to shore across the base of Tehuantepec where the winds reached gale force, but with no swells to speak of the party boat heeled over to port and carried on none-the-worse. After passing Salina Cruz we began to leave the Gulf and the conditions abated. Once again we had seen as much wind as I had aboard the Atair, but the passage had been comfortable and uneventful thanks to our hugging the coast.<br />And finally, Round Four—May, 2006. My first trip through Tehuantepec as captain of my own boat was as good as it gets. During my two-day stay in Huatulco I met another sailboat heading south, and on May 8 we decided to brave the Gulf together. For the past two weeks the weather forecasts had deemed Tehuantepec to be light and variable, but my past experience led me to be skeptical. Thus, despite leaving with a 12-knot southwest wind, we still hugged the coastline as we entered the Gulf. After just 90 minutes my cousin and I reeled in a dorado and a Jack trevally and the trip was off to a great start.<br />As darkness descended upon the Gulf the wind remained from the southwest. By 2200 I was sure there was no heavy winds in the midst of the Gulf, and realized that if I hugged the shore the entire way I’d likely be fighting a headwind the entire way out the other side. Thus we altered our course and began cutting directly across Tehuantepec. The winds began to lighten as we sailed further offshore, so we began sailing a course that was south of east, heading for the Gulf’s exit. A little after 8 A.M. the wind disappeared altogether and the drone of the engine began. We spent the day catching and releasing fish (we did keep another dorado for dinner) and chatting with our “buddy-boat” Slip Away periodically. A few hours of sailing broke up the monotony of motoring, but for the most part we fled Tehuantepec over calm, windless seas. The crossing was as benign as they can get, and I was glad to have that hurdle behind me. Onwards to El Salvador!<br /><br />Postscript: Captain John Rains has long said that the best months for passing through the Gulf of Tehuantepec are those that border the hurricane seasons. The problem, of course, is most people don’t want to be anywhere near the area that close to hurricane season, and for good reason. Very few people head for Central America that late in the year because it is the region’s rainy season, which means lightning is a common phe-nomenon. The worst months tend to be the winter months when many people are making their transits (like my first three transits). The best advice I can give is to pay close atten-tion to the weather forecasts. Calm conditions near Huatulco or Puerto Madero don’t mean calm weather in the Gulf. When in doubt stay close to shore. The worst it can do is extend your transit an extra day.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-53307887580582155752009-05-31T22:14:00.000-07:002009-05-31T22:15:20.426-07:00Chapter 1: Sail to CaboFor a sailor with some 15,000 sea miles under his belt I was among the least prepared cruisers of all time. Twenty years old, and with a boat I had owned just four months and sailed a dozen times, I declared myself ready to set off on my dream voyage. My apprenticeship had been served under two highly accomplished captains who couldn’t have been more different. The first, Captain Klaus Peter Kurz, captained his own vessel, a gorgeous 68 foot brigantine he designed and had custom-built named Atair. I sailed some 10,000 miles with Klaus from California through the Panama Canal, and thence through the Caribbean, across the Atlantic and up to Germany. Along the way I learned a great deal about sailing and considered myself proficient in navigation and most aspects of seamanship. I could proficiently sail on a beam reach and beat into the wind with most cruisers, but the only downwind sailing we did was with square sails set, an advantage few cruisers (and certainly not myself) would ever have. My second mentor, Captain John Rains, was a highly-respected delivery skipper at the tail end of an illustrious career. Under Captain Rains I delivered five boats various distances along the route from California to Florida via the Panama Canal. My seamanship skills were increased and I learned a great deal about working with modern electronics to aid in navigation, but we only delivered power boats and thus my sailing skills stagnated. Nonetheless, after a year sailing as often as I could aboard my little Catalina 27 I felt I had gained sufficient knowledge and experience to set out on my dream voyage.<br />Thus it was that on April 6, 2006 my father, cousin Ryan, and I said good-bye to our families and motored out of Mission Bay, southward bound. A late winter storm had just passed by and left in its wake sloppy seas and unusual calm winds. As Avventura cleared the South Mission Bay jetty she began rolling awkwardly in the large short-period swells. The wind was forecast to fill in as the day wore on, and as the clock struck noon we set the main, pulled out the jib, and shut down the engine. The sail to Cabo had truly begun. Mission Bay was 15 miles astern and we were scooting along before a seven knot west wind.<br />By nightfall the wind had increased to twenty knots and shifted to the WNW. A small south swell began to mingle with the big west making for a sloppy, wild motion. Avventura rocked wildly, and I was soon deep in the throes of seasickness. Through the night we steered as far downwind as we could to keep the sails full and made good speed riding down the swells. The winds roared in over the starboard quarter and the jolting ride on the swells was like a rodeo cowboy atop a wild bull. The stern kicked this way and that, but through the night the bow plunged southward ticking off the miles. We steered by hand most of the night making sure to acquaint ourselves with steering in case disaster struck, and the sloppy seas made holding a steady course impossible. You could see the fear writ in my crewmates eyes as the wrangled the wheel and we rushed down the heaving swells. As with most sails south to Cabo we had leapt right into the fire and were receiving our first big trial.<br />By midnight the seas began to subside, but for me it was too late. Seasickness had started and the next three days, I knew, would be sheer torture. The winds persisted making for a wild ride until the sun broke from the sea and a new day began. It was as if the sun and moon were opposing forces, when one was out in full force the other ran away and hid. For the next four days the cycle would repeat. As night fell the wind would pick up into the twenty knot range, and by midnight the full fury of the wind would hit, often exceeding thirty knots. The helmsman would fight to keep Avventura headed downwind, and the sloppy seas continued to assault us from all directions. Sleep was hard to come by, and all rejoiced at the sight of the coming dawn. By the time the sun had asserted herself in the east the wind had run away to hide, often dipping under ten knots and providing a good chance to run the motor and recharge our batteries. Once the wind grew used to the sun, however, it would begin to pour in again, and come nightfall the process repeated.<br />Day and night the wind poured in from the same northwesterly direction, and we plunged on with the mainsail and jib each on the same side. If we steered too far downwind the main would block the flow of air to the jib, and with each swell the jib would spill its wind and refill with a loud slap. Thus our track southward began to resemble a beat to windward as we jibed through the wind, zig-zagging our way down the line. It was a rookie mistake not to pole the jib out to windward; but I was fearful of trying to learn a new sail arrangement with so much wind filling in each night.<br />The wind cycle was taxing on all of us, and as the morning of our sixth day at sea dawned I mentioned the possibility of making a brief stop at Bahia Santa Maria to rest. My crewmates jumped at the idea and before long it felt like there’d be a mutiny if we didn’t stop. We were still close to sixty miles from the anchorage, and when the wind dipped under ten knots I started the motor and we began motorsailing towards our promised rest stop. I knew the chances of making landfall in daylight were slim, but having anchored in the bay before I knew I could find my way in using the GPS waypoint I had recorded during my previous visit and with the radar scanning the coastline.<br />In the early afternoon a boat was spotted to starboard, but it was clear we’d pass safely, so I gave it little thought. Then, just as the ship passed abeam a couple miles away, the sound of an engine approaching was heard and we spotted two heads leaping from the sea, then disappearing behind the next swell. A couple minutes later two Mexican men in a zodiac donning wetsuits pulled alongside. Unsure of what to make of them, and knowing we were far from any land-based help, we were leery and I refused to slow down. I explained to them that I spoke little Spanish, and tried to see what they wanted, but the only word I could understand was libro (book). I found it strange that they should risk their lives to speed across two miles of ocean in an open boat just to ask for a book, but since I had a couple I could spare I went below, retrieved one, and offered it to them. They took the book for a moment, looked at me incredulously, and handed it back to me, then turned and disappeared over the waves once more. To this day I don’t know what the men wanted, but anytime a boat approaches you when you’re over twenty miles offshore it is an uncomfortable situation and I was happy they had decided to leave.<br />As the sun dipped into the sea land was sighted ahead in the form of Cabo San Lazaro. In most instances I am vehemently opposed to entering a foreign port after nightfall. The risks tend to outweigh the rewards. Navigation lights may not be working or may have changed positions or characteristics, the charts may b inaccurate, there may be unlit vessels or buoys, etc. But in the case of Bahia Santa Maria I decided to make an exception. Ryan had yet to get over his seasickness, my father had yet to get a decent night’s rest, and we were all tired and weary after battling the rough conditions for days on end. My decision was made easier by the fact that I had anchored in the bay before while working as a deckhand for John Rains aboard the M/V Knotty Dog, and I had recorded in my log for that trip the exact GPS waypoint of where we had anchored along with the depth at that very spot. I remembered the approach as being straightforward and could still picture it in my kind, so as night settled in I was prepared to enter the lee of the land.<br />When the sun disappeared the wind followed suit, and by 2000 we were under power of the engine alone, and the hours seemed to crawl past. Three hours later Avventura nudged into the lee of the land, and with the radar scanning the black horizon and my crew on the bow keeping a close lookout we crept inside the bay. As we neared my GPS waypoint the dark form of another vessel came into view, so I circled around it, inched a bit closer to shore, and told my father to drop the anchor. In just under thirty feet of water, Avventura swung to her anchor and bit the hook with 150 feet of chain out. Within minutes I shut the engine off and relished the utter silence.<br />Stars filled the sky from horizon to horizon, interrupted only by the dark hulk of Cabo San Lazaro and the lowlands of Baja California to the east. The air was still and tinged with an unmistakable chill. Ryan entered the cabin, laid down in his berth, and was asleep in a matter of minutes. My father and I sat on the cabin top, breathing in the night air and relishing the lack of motion. Silence reigned, and we were both loathe to break it. Though physically exhausted, my mind raced and my heart continued to pound. The thrill of anchoring my own boat in a foreign port for the first time etched a smile on my face, and I couldn’t wait for dawn to reveal the desolate beauty of the bay. A long hug and a simple “goodnight,” was all we exchanged before turning in for some much needed sleep.<br />The absence of motion induced a deep sleep lasting till well after sunrise on April 12. By the time I awoke my father was settled in the cockpit reading. Ryan was still snoozing. I emerged into the bright sunshine and stretched in the cockpit. The dramatic point of Bahia Santa Maria rose high above me stretching out towards the open ocean. Ashore, a desolate desert stretched gave way imperceptibly to a long beach before terminating abruptly into the deep blue of the bay. Bahia Santa Maria is exactly as you’d picture Baja California—rugged and desolate, with tan desert sand and barren hills flowing into deep blue water. A small camp and a few shacks stood ashore in the northwest corner of the bay, and rumor has it a nice righthander reels down the point with a good south swell; but in late winter there was no sign of surf. The still night gave way to a breezy morning, and before noon a fifteen knot wind was sweeping off the land and ripping through Avventura’s rigging.<br />Taking advantage of a flat cooking surface, my father whipped up some eggs and potatoes for breakfast, a welcome change for my weak body. Days of seasickness had taken their toll, but a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast helped me regain some energy and spring to life once more. I spent the morning determining the route we’d travel south to Cabo, and by calculating out the distance and an average speed of five knots, I realized we needed to be back underway before nightfall to ensure a morning landfall in the bustling port.<br />By midmorning I was eager to remove the layer of grime from my body, but my heart sank when I saw the water temperature measured just 58˚. Here we were just 175 miles from the well-known tropical escape of Cabo San Lucas and the water was colder than it had been in San Diego when we left! Cursing the California current, I decided cleanliness was worth a little pain. Besides the sapphire waters were so alluring I couldn’t resist. I donned a swimsuit, grabbed a bottle of saltwater soap, and stood on deck. The dry chill of the wind made me think twice, so before I could back out of my grand plan I stood on the cabin top and dove over the side. Immediately the cold bit at my bones and my extremities tensed up. I stood on Avventura’s swim ladder, soaped up, and dove in once more. With my body clean, I made a quick circle of Avventura, climbed up and down her anchor chain for fun, checked her prop and rudder, and climbed the swim ladder, my body covered in goosebumbs and shaking uncontrollably.<br />I toweled off and let the dry desert wind and midday sun bring some warmth back to my body. Once the feeling returned to my fingers and toes I retrieved a book, sat in the cockpit, and passed a pleasant afternoon. After blowing a steady fifteen knots from the NW all day, the wind died suddenly at 1600 just as we were preparing to depart. My hopes of leaving the anchorage under full sail were dashed, and at 1630 I fired up the engine and Ryan started the windlass, clicking in the links of chain. As we powered out of the anchorage a slight westerly breeze filled in and we set sail. Unfortunately the anchorage acts as a funnel for the wind, and the further we sailed the lighter the breeze became. Within thirty minutes the breeze blew itself out and we were back to motoring once more.<br />The sun sank low in the western sky and the surface of the sea turned red in places from clumps of tiny tuna crabs. How amazing, I thought, that these little critters make it as far north as San Diego during an El Niño season. With the sun touching the surface of the sea the moon peeked out from behind a mountain inland, and while one heavenly body left us the other took hold of the sky, orange and full, big and bold against the light blue backdrop.<br />Darkness settled over the scene and I sat in the cockpit by myself, scratching off a journal entry while enjoying an easy night watch. A shrimp boat leaving Magdalena Bay provided the only other light visible, and I relished the ease and comfort of motoring over calm seas for a change. Before long all was dark above, and a few bold stars made their presence known despite the big bully of a moon. The moon cast a streak of light upon the glassy sea and displayed the dark silhouette of the coastal mountains close to port. As the clock struck eleven my father emerged to relieve me, I made a quick log entry, and fell into bed. Images of the rock formations of Cabo San Lucas filled my head, and I thrilled to know they were just a day and a half away. After a while my eyes closed on a nice day of cruising.<br />Beep beep; beep beep; beep beep!<br />My alarm jars me awake. Fifteen minutes to four; time to get ready for my watch. A splash of water on my face, retrieval of a jacket and I’m in the cockpit. “All right Ryan, I’ve got it.” Nary a word as he stumbles down into the cabin and completes his paltry log entry. I scan the horizon. No lights in sight; the dark hulk of the Baja peninsula still rises to port; the moon has begun her rapid descent towards the sea. All is quiet, but the steady onward surging of Avventura’s bow through the silky sea. Ryan settles into his berth and I pick up the logbook to read what I missed while I slept. The first entries are my father’s:<br />“2300: No sails up—No wind—Desolate but beautiful coastline to port.”<br />“0000: Tosco Point lighthouse just ahead. Rocking along under a nearly full moon.”<br />“0100: Flat calm.”<br />Then comes Ryan’s trio of originality:<br />“0200: Calm seas—no wind.”<br />“0300: Calm glassy seas—occasional 1–3 foot swell west.”<br />“0400: Calm seas—no wind.”<br />Ah. Now I know what I missed over the last three hours! I note our progress on the computer navigation program—we are still right on course. The GPS shows us trekking along at a steady five knots. I rise from the nav station and return to the cockpit. A glance at the engine instruments shows they haven’t budged since I last saw them: 1500 rpms, 175˚ water teperature, 40 p.s.i. oil pressure. All is well on this sleeping ship.<br />In the cockpit the air is tinged with a damp coolness. Where is the heat of the tropics? Surely Cabo San Lucas isn’t this cold. I open the latest John Grisham novel and the pages begin to turn themselves in a steady progression. The text flows past effortlessly, and I hope to one day write so smooth. Every few pages I gaze up from the book and pass my eyes along the horizon. A yacht passes to starboard, northward bound. All else is black and nothingness. No other boats will be seen this night. Back to reading. Then, out of the silence of the sea comes a “poof!” The sound is similar to that of the exhalation of a person who has been trying to hold his breath as long as he can. A minute passes, then, “Poof…poof.” Dolphins!<br />Rising from the cockpit, I walk towards the bow, conscious of my every careful step. How can I resist playing with my friends? I grab hold of the forestay and follows the brilliant green tracks of the dolphins piercing and exciting the phosphorescent sea. A pair of the loveable creatures gather beneath the bow and cross paths, dancing with each other as they ride my bow wave. Squeals of delight escape from below and they pierce the surface for a quick breath. After five minutes of bodysurfing and dancing my friends depart as quickly as they appeared, and with that all is quiet once more. I take a seat on the cabin top and peruse the heavens. The swooping tail of Scorpio hovers above a few cirrus clouds; the moon dips low in the west; signs of dawn spread in the east.<br />Back in the cockpit, I continue reading as the sky regains her color. Puffs of high clouds form even lines and ruffle the sky. As the sun creeps towards the eastern horizon they become inflamed with a pinkish color which intensifies till the sun peaks out from behind Baja. Then begins the sun’s ascent, and with it the clouds turn to from pink to orange to yellow, till eventually the color fades to white. A gorgeous tropical day has begun.<br />The day passes in a sea of routine. Watches are kept; log entries made; pages read; food prepared and eaten; journal entries written; and miles slip astern almost unnoticed. Signs of the tropics begin to trickle in: the water temperature begins to creep up, the sky is a dark blue and the air is hot. Midday comes and goes and the engine drones on.<br />My patience is wearing thin. The engine has been droning for over twenty hours and I’ve had enough. A puff of wind caresses the back of my neck and the flags beneath the spreaders begin to flutter. Enough is enough—it’s time to set sail. With the wind trickling in from astern the time has come to see what the spinnaker can do. Setting the big sail is a three-man ordeal, and since I’ve only flown it once before there are some kinks that work themselves out in the process. But after a handful of minutes I pull up the protective sleeve, a gust fills the sail and its big belly explodes into shape and urges us onwards. I rush to the cockpit, reign in the jibsheet, shut down the engine, and take the helm. Peace at last! <br />Silence reigns supreme. Calm seas are pierced by Avventura’s black bow, and the bow wave is the only sound to be heard. The blue skies above are devoid of any clouds, so I fear the wind will be short-lived. But in the moment the motion is wonderful, the big red and blue sail is doing all the work, and the miles are still drifting astern. Cabo is under 100 miles away.<br />Just as I’m starting to get the hang of sailing with the spinnaker everything changes. The wind shifts a bit forward, then quits altogether. The spinnaker spills her wind and hangs down limp. Avventura glides to a virtual stop. A puff of wind from the wrong direction backwinds the spinnaker. The sail needs to come down, and now! My father takes the helm as I rush up on deck. I fumble with lines for a moment, unsure in the commotion of what exactly I have to do. But before long I find the dousing line, pull the protective sleeve back down, and all is quiet once more.<br />“Shise!” I scream, remembering a former captain of mine’s famous curse, “Damned refried Mexican wind!” The release calms my temper and I start the engine. Avventura rumbles onward and the routine traverse resumes.<br /><br />Another gorgeous sunset, followed quickly by a brilliant moonrise, orange and full, presaged one last calm night at sea. Dolphins frolicked in our bow, phosphorescence ignited our wake, and the air was palpably warmer than previous nights. With each passing mile my excitement grew. We’d be in Cabo in time for a late breakfast.<br />The wind never attempted to return, and the night passed slowly by just as many a night would pass along the Mexican coast. Daylight brought Cabo Falso into sight and my heart leapt. By six o’clock the famous rock formations of Cabo san Lucas were in sight and an hour later I manned the helm as we slipped past the arch and entered the inner harbor. By 0700 we pulled alongside the fuel dock, loaded in a few gallons of diesel (???see fuel log for exact???), and were assigned to slip C-23. Thirty minutes later Avventura was tucked in her slip, the motor was shut down, and we had arrived. The first leg of my voyage was complete. My days as a cruiser would begin with a short stay in the tourist trap town of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-28696285326244747602009-05-31T21:46:00.000-07:002009-05-31T22:14:11.738-07:00The Writing ProcessAs many of my friends and family know I’ve started the process of writing my second book—this one covering my travels aboard Avventura in the Pacific. For me the writing process has always been a long one. Unlike my dashed off blog updates (which I wrote in white heat and post them often before spellchecking them and certainly before reading them through) I’ve long viewed writing a book (or trying anyhow) to be a far more sacred craft that takes much more time and effort. My mentor, Bill Martin, has time and again preached the value of the “Rule of Seven,” and I’ve become a firm believer in its validity. The rule is simply this: before any piece of writing can be considered truly complete it must be rewritten a minimum of seven times. Gogol put it another way when he described how he would write something out eight times before it was finished (the first writing and seven subsequent re-writings). While the initial writing can glow in places and every now and again you can hit on a well-turned phrase or a few flowing paragraphs, the true art of writing comes from the re-writes where the language is fine-tuned. In my case this is ever-more the case as I still have little idea what direction I want the book to go in or how I will piece it together.<br />I made my first attempts at starting this book while anchored off the island of Huahine. I was surfing on an overcast August day (8/18/07) when an idea came to me of telling my tales through the lips of a narrator and thus weaving a separate story along with mine. The initial idea was to have a fictional old-timer, a ragged beachcomber tell the story through a series of encounters with strangers as he looked back on brighter days. I wrote out a few chapters in my remaining days in the Society Islands, but as I sailed away bound for points north I couldn’t summon the energy to keep working at a project I was quickly losing faith in. The stories felt insignificant, the old-timer a forced character without any soul, and the writing was bland. But here I am nearly two years later and I still haven’t hit upon a genius idea for how to string things together. I’d like to avoid churning out another straight-forward travelogue like Voyage of the Atair; but at the same time I knew I wanted to write up the stories, so at the moment I have my dreaded travelogue in progress. My plan is to hack out the first draft, writing up everything that was anything on the trip. This will at least give my family and myself a cohesive, exhaustive account of my two-plus years of travel, and will serve as my rough sketch that will be hacked away at and sculpted into a finished product. There’s still months of work ahead, and my writing pace has slackened despicably of late, but I’m determined to re-dedicate myself to the effort, and resuming this blog should help me keep my hand to the plow.<br />As of now I’ve written up the stretch from my San Diego departure to my arrival in the Marquesas, and my stay on Fatu Hiva. This leaves about a third of my travels, and perhaps as much as half the writing left ahead of me. What I plan to do is start posting my very, very, very rough drafts periodically till I’m caught up to where my writing is; and from there I’ll just keep right on going till the entire first draft is posted. I do so knowing there may only be a handful of people who ever read them, but I know my Aunt Momo will be one of them, and I hope you enjoy them while realizing they aren’t intended as anything but rough sketches at best.<br />I had one time hoped to have the entire book done by my birthday in July. Ha! Not going to happen. Now I’m going to aim at having the rough draft finished this summer, and a finished product for Christmas.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-16084518486688201022007-06-13T15:40:00.000-07:002008-12-10T14:12:08.712-08:00Faaite Pics<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJkBt2ii_UmhNJhzO1o2dlCve9bof1dxDzSz9RmdDIrtiTzXhQRORT00eJr5Tvx07zU2Zn_pJg-qeGErkEAqRq_-kAGQZDfkeyYKnEifgP35WUh9qYEaSDgllZRrJSSkZLBMfaT1uoSOw/s1600-h/92-Taking+off+at+Faaite+with+Avventura.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJkBt2ii_UmhNJhzO1o2dlCve9bof1dxDzSz9RmdDIrtiTzXhQRORT00eJr5Tvx07zU2Zn_pJg-qeGErkEAqRq_-kAGQZDfkeyYKnEifgP35WUh9qYEaSDgllZRrJSSkZLBMfaT1uoSOw/s320/92-Taking+off+at+Faaite+with+Avventura.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5075682849466337922" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdrfE9zT2COOkaQwXVbqF_Sz-Q2vnRgpUK2h4Co4w9eLATx-f8kP1hMNGaOAz1S7pvYj4B_0Om8_n-Gtw32vxxPL-LkW8DNEo6bV4BqPDDvk0v-blWSQUa-Zx5Hk0Pp63h8zNWWAtw_wU/s1600-h/Faaite+2.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdrfE9zT2COOkaQwXVbqF_Sz-Q2vnRgpUK2h4Co4w9eLATx-f8kP1hMNGaOAz1S7pvYj4B_0Om8_n-Gtw32vxxPL-LkW8DNEo6bV4BqPDDvk0v-blWSQUa-Zx5Hk0Pp63h8zNWWAtw_wU/s320/Faaite+2.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5075682849466337938" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPc4ITiFpf0_g-q403RVeov9yybq-h2UlhuoYFBJ7OM9Qp9lN9ANzQ5o1Bcpy0qV3DaWZKhHV25AOnxX5y1mOvJUmvbNEilRzQIG8xA7hJG-OqypL44ca-oEbw8HZn7IjCcuAOdsINamo/s1600-h/Faaite+3.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPc4ITiFpf0_g-q403RVeov9yybq-h2UlhuoYFBJ7OM9Qp9lN9ANzQ5o1Bcpy0qV3DaWZKhHV25AOnxX5y1mOvJUmvbNEilRzQIG8xA7hJG-OqypL44ca-oEbw8HZn7IjCcuAOdsINamo/s320/Faaite+3.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5075682853761305250" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-16593787891534992942008-07-11T11:56:00.001-07:002008-07-11T11:56:29.429-07:00Home is the Sailor, Home from the SeaIt's a warm, humid Azure Vista morning as I sit at my desk overlooking the Pacific. And thus the transition is made back to the life of a landlubber, looking out upon an ocean I've called my home the past two and a half years. After 26 days at sea "Avventura" sits securely in a slip in San Diego Bay, motionless and making a transition of her own to the life of a daysailer. Last night was the first night I've spent away from her in over six months, and my first six hours of uninterrupted sleep in 26 days. Now let me go back some 48 hours to where I left off.<br>July 9 provided perhaps the most enjoyable day of sailing of the entire trip. With a WNW wind varying from 8 to 15 knots we sailed towards home wing-on-wing, surging down the faces of the six foot swells. I spent hours sitting at the end of the bowsprit peering into the thick overcast, trying to raise the form of land while knowing it was still too far away, the surges from each passing swell lifting me high in the air before shoving me down towards the green-gray surface of the sea. In the early afternoon we were greeted by two massive blue whales not a hundred yards off our port side. The behemoths blew a few times, slowly slithered aft looking like the Lochness Monster sliding across the surface of the sea, before disappearing astern of us. My father was left peering in our wake, certain the graceful creatures were hell-bent on ramming "Avventura." Soon after the whales disappeared sea lions began popping up here and there to take a look at the unnatural intruder. They'd look at us, give a little bark of disgust, and return to their realm (or was it a bark of "welcome home"--I've lost my ability to understand the dogs of the sea). Just before sunset a single whale spouted just once in the distance as if warning me things wouldn't stay this perfect much longer, and sure enough by sundown (not that the sun ever showed her face in the overcast fit for the Pacific Northwest) the wind had disappeared and it was time for the return of Mr. Drone the diesel burner.<br>As my final night at sea wore on the seas began to smooth out, and by the time I emerged from below to take over on my night watch I rose to find the lights of San Clemente Island off the port bow, seven miles away across a silky smooth sea. I passed much of my watch belowdecks, enthralled by the sounds of once-familiar radio stations, and emerged for one of my regular scans of the horizon to find a small fishing boat two miles away and coming right for us. I followed his course on radar and by sight and new we were heading for a collision. Looking at his lights I knew it was my right-of-way; but if cruising teaches you anything it is that the only "rule of the road" is might, combined with speed, makes right. Sure enough the guy never altered speed or course and I was forced to turn behind him, passing a few hundred yards astern. When I was relieved of my watch I gave thanks that my final close encounter had been dealt with without incident, and slipped into the deepest sleep of the voyage. Soon my mind began to wander and I found myself immersed in a nightmare unlike any I'd had in years. I was running somewhere on the outskirts of Los Angeles, listening to my Ipod and minding my own business when a silver truck pulled up beside me, passenger's window rolled down. The passenger pulled a gun and aimed it directly at me. Before he could say anything I had turned in my tracks and begun to run away, and in seconds I was being shot at. That was when my father woke me up: a hint of wind had arrived; should we set sail? So what's my take on the dream? My subconscious mind was perhaps warning me that despite all the places I've been I'm returning to what can be the most dangerous area of all--Southern California. (For a little back story to aid in the dream, the silver truck I saw I had encountered before back in 1999. I was skateboarding along the street I live in a half mile from my home, heading to check one of my favorite surf spots when this silver truck slowly pulled up from behind. I was with a group of friends, but as usual was bringing up the rear. The passenger window of the truck rolled down halfway and a big Mexican guy looked right at me, rested the barrel of a silver handgun on the edge of the window, and said in a low tone: "You better run motherf..." I'd never come across the man before; just some punk gangster out to scare a 15 year old kid.) Not the kind of welcome home dream I was hoping for!<br>When I emerged from my dream I found that a southerly wind had indeed started to show and before long we were motorsailing along at six knots. This breeze proved to be persistent, though light (7 knots), and in the end we were able to motorsail with it all the way into San Diego Bay. July 10 dawned brighter than the previous handful of days, and there was immediate hope that we might actually see the sun. In spite of clearing skies the horizon remained hazy, and it took until we were 16 miles away, just after 1100 California Time, for me to give the shout: "Land Ho!" The next few hours were almost torturously long. The bittersweet landfall I had anticipated turned out to be far more sweet than bitter, and I found myself unable to sit still, leaping around the boat in excitement, a smile beaming across my face and my eyes permanently fixed on the growing familiar form of Point Loma. Kevin said I was like a "little puppy," and I felt like I was floating on the surface of the sea--riding a high aided by prolonged sleep deprivation and 18 months of travel away from home.<br>By the early afternoon the sun was out in full force and I could feel my nose beginning to burn. To hell with the sunscreen, that meant spending time below, one last burn won't hurt me. We neared the point and a submarine came up from astern, passing far to starboard and guiding us into the familiar channel to San Diego Bay. By 1600 the point sat abeam of us, we were inshore of the kelp beds, and my cellphone was back in use. Moments later we slipped past the Point Loma Lighthouse, with Ballast Point falling by the wayside soon after. Once past the bait barge we turned up into the wind and took down the sails one last time. Then, at 1630, I nudged "Avventura" alongside the Harbor Police dock, shut down the motor, and the voyage was complete. 16000 miles and I was home again! All I could think of was the Robert Louis Stevenson quote:<p>Home is the sailor, home from the sea!<p>--July 11, 2008. Noon. In my room overlooking Garbage; Azure Vista, San Diego, California.<p>----------<br>radio email processed by SailMail<br>for information see:<p><a href="http://www.sailmail.com">http://www.sailmail.com</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-38065640842747627962008-07-09T09:46:00.000-07:002008-07-09T09:50:02.414-07:00Land Near; Not Quite HereDawn continues to reveal plenty of signs of land, though home is still over a day away. Clumps of kelp have been drifting by for the second straight day and this morning sea gulls have been flying awkwardly by, a poor imitation of the graceful sea birds we've seen the past weeks. One thing hasn't changed: it's freezing! If this is a San Diego summer I want out. Skies have been a San Francisco thick overcast for four straight days, and the temperatures are reminiscent of Seattle. And the water? A toasty 59! And to think, not a month ago I was surfing a fun south swell at Ala Moana Bowls in 78 degree water with sunny skies and gentle trades. I only hope things warm up as we close with the coast, and we find our way into the inshore eddy where the water temperature heats up.<br>The good news is we've had wind off-and-on for the past day. We're sailing now, and have been since 2300 last night, with a light WNW breeze. Jib is poled out to port and we're making a slow 4 knots, but just a couple hours ago we were cruising along at close to 7. Fickle conditions. Before this batch of wind we had been motoring for six hours, but before that there was another five hour stretch of sailing. After this bout I'm much more confident that we have the fuel to make it home; and it looks like we should be arriving sometime in the early afternoon tomorrow. 150 miles to go.<p>July 9-0640<br>33.01N by 120.06W<p>----------<br>radio email processed by SailMail<br>for information see:<p><a href="http://www.sailmail.com">http://www.sailmail.com</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-52103300753925828962008-07-08T14:49:00.001-07:002008-07-08T14:54:59.340-07:00"Dove," "Avventura," and the Path Less TraveledWith my voyage drawing to a gradual close it seemed only natural that I flip through the pages of "Dove" one more time. The book had changed the course of my life since the day I first picked it up and fanned the flames of my sailing dreams. I had already read it three times (more than any other book), so I figured I'd just flip through it and revisit my favorite passages already underlined in blue ink. I started with the first few pages, and in minutes I was hooked once more. In a matter of days I had read it cover to cover once more.<p>"Sailing already meant much more to me than 'mucking about in boats,' as the neighbors used to call it. It was the chance to escape from blackboards and the smell of disinfectant in the school toilet, from addition and subtraction sums that were never the same as the teacher's answers, from spelling words like 'seize' and 'fulfill' and from little league baseball. It was the chance to be alone and to be as free for a while as the sea gulls that swung around Morro Rock."<p>While my true introduction to sailing had come much later in life, I was quick to find this same quality in sailing and the sea. It provided the chance to get away from the rat race of modern society, to escape the conveyor belt that guides the masses through 17 years and more of schooling and on to comfortable 9-to-5 jobs that their piece of paper helped them get. But best of all sailing provided a window to the world--a means by which I could see faraway lands and gain a true and simple education at hands of life herself. While I've never been able to provide a clear and concise answer to the modern age's favorite question ("What are you going to do to make a living?"), I've long known I wouldn't fit the standard mold and would fall off the conveyor belt long before reaching the promised land. With that in mind I decided to jump off early and see what direction fate would pull me. Never once have I regretted my decision, and while some may say I've fallen behind my peers by not pursuing an "education" I say I've received a better education than any college could hope to impart. I've visited distant lands and befriended people from a number of distinct cultures. I've learned more about meteorology, geography and oceanography than most students forget they knew. I've multiplied my experiences a hundred-fold through ravenous reading and voracious living. And I've come to know myself; what I'm capable of mentally and physically, and how I can persevere through tough situations. No, I wouldn't trade places with the average college graduate even if I knew it would lead me to a life of leisure swimming in worldly riches. I'll take a wealth of memories, a bundle of friendships, and a close affinity with Mother Nature that will last a lifetime.<p>"At eight o'clock...'Dove' nosed into a berth at the Long Beach Marina. I threw a line. 'Dove' was tied up. I'd circled the world....<br>"'What made you do it?'<br>"There were many reasons. I didn't like school--but that's not unique. I wanted to look at the world, at people and places, without being a tourist. I wanted personal freedom. I wanted to know if I could do something alone--something really difficult. But somewhere deep in my mind I felt there was another reason and that it had something to do with fate and destiny. How could I phrase that? How could I tell these newsmen that I had sailed across the world because I had to do so--because that was what I was meant to do?"--Robin Lee Graham, "Dove"<p>"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than those you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the tradewinds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."--Mark Twain<p>"To the hunted, not to the hunter;<br>To the passage, not to the path."<br>--Sterling Hayden, "Voyage"<p>----------<br>radio email processed by SailMail<br>for information see:<p><a href="http://www.sailmail.com">http://www.sailmail.com</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-44845413434039205332008-07-08T14:49:00.000-07:002008-07-08T14:52:27.430-07:00Will the Diesel Last?Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to be returning home on fumes, but that prospect is looking more and more likely now. The source of our woes dates back to the seventh day of the trip when the trades failed us a couple degrees south of where I anticipated they would. Then the Pacific High decided to form around us, forcing us to burn diesel and head for its northern edge. After five days of motoring (three more than I had anticipated) we picked up the first traces of a southerly breeze and continued to ride it northeast, skirting the edge of the high. When a low pressure system began to churn west of us it became clear the high would break down and we could begin sailing a direct course for San Diego. Before long the low brought us gale conditions and unfortunately we weren't able to make as much easting as I had hoped. Thus when the low moved on to the east the Pacific High started to rebuild around us. This necessitated another two days of motoring before we reached the east edge of the high where we were assaulted with near gale conditions. Again we weren't able to make as much easting as I hoped during the heavy blow, leaving us with 275 miles to San Diego when the wind failed us this morning and I was forced to fire up the diesel burner. After checking to see how much diesel was left in the tank, and dumping in the 20 gallons we had left on deck, we now have approximately 40 gallons of fuel to cover the final 275 miles, which would leave us with nothing more than fumes (at best) on arrival. Thus we continue to pray for winds while at the same time enjoying the ease and comfort of smooth seas after a rough couple days and trying and clean up/dry out the disaster that has become our home. We haven't seen the sun for days, and the overcast is so thick I can't imagine it breaking up before we reach the coast. As always this has put a damper on my mood. Perhaps more than most people my emotions and moods are tied to the weather, and prolonged periods of gloom lead to unproductive, lazy days for me.<p>Last night brought about perhaps the longest night watch of my life. As soon as darkness descended on the scene our dying breeze began shifting westward, making it all the more difficult to keep the sails full. Kevin was struggling a bit and largely to make up for my missing the first 90 minutes of my morning watch, I took over the helm more than an hour before my watch was set to begin. All was well for the first couple hours as I alternated between hand-steering in lulls and using the autopilot during the light puffs of wind; but after my first two hours the autopilot lost power and refused to turn back on (only after my watch did I realize I had run the batteries to such a low voltage the autopilot couldn't function). This left me with two hours of hand-steering on a slow broad reach with an obnoxious cross-swell leftover from our last bout of wind. During the first half hour I was able to stay awake by finishing up my fourth read through of Robin Lee Graham's "Dove" (a book that was in part responsible for this voyage); but once that was done the wind decided to fail me further and I battled through a long, bitter cold night. As my father climbed up the companionway to relieve me at 0200 the first signs of a grey dawn were creeping into the eastern sky (we remain on Hawaii time for now), and in large-part to save him the misery I had just suffered through I started the engine, magically bringing the autopilot back to life. A few hours of tormented rest followed, and by the time dawn arrived I had yet to get any proper sleep. But alas, signs are everywhere that land is close by, and that thought alone will allow me to suffer through a couple sleepless nights, my sights firmly set on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (in this case a motionless bed and a full night's stress-free sleep). The VHF has sparked to life with a constant barrage of chatter from various coast guard stations along the coast, in addition to that of a few naval vessels carrying out live munitions practice today. Last night I listened as the Coast Guard tried to help a boat that had somehow run into the jetty up at Morro Bay and tried to conceive of how such a mishap might happen in this electronic age. (Not the brightest captain, or mechanical failure I suppose.) Daylight has brought my first glimpses of kelp in years, and with it I know my childhood playground is close at hand...so long as the fuel holds.<p>-July 8--1045<br>33.34N by 121.53W<p>----------<br>radio email processed by SailMail<br>for information see:<p><a href="http://www.sailmail.com">http://www.sailmail.com</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-82620867180914785012008-07-07T14:53:00.000-07:002008-07-07T14:56:15.617-07:00You Know You've Been at Sea Too Long When...You wake up from a miserable couple hours of sleep (countless angry swells had kept you from a deep sleep, including one mother that decided to unleash her fury over the entire boat and deposit a gallon in your lap thanks to a bloody skylight that won't seal), make for the head and go about your usual morning routine, and end by sitting before the computer to start the day with a position report, and perhaps an e-mail and a blog. You spend an hour typing away, followed by thirty minutes figuring out why the e-mail modem won't work and fixing the problem. And then you father looks at you and asks, "Do you want me to go relieve Kevin?"<br>"Why? He seems to be doing okay."<br>"Isn't it your watch?"<br>A quick glance at the time. 0930. Is it my watch? You'd figure after 22 days this would be well-engrained in my thick skull; but sure enough I've been dilly-dallying around for the first 90 minutes of my watch and happy-go-lucky Kevin has been enjoying his battle with the swells too much to let me know. Such are the strange occurrences that let you know you've been at sea too long. Time falls away and you become so tired that even after waking your mind can't process time and turn the day into a reality just yet.<br>Off watch now and we're moving along at a good clip again, thanks to a full jib and double-reefed main. Wind is easing, but swells persist. Forecast looks bleak with but little wind called for, and my thoughts are already back on our dire fuel situation. Surely we won't be forced to drift offshore after some 25 days at sea.<p>July 7-1125<br>33.45N by 123.58W<p>----------<br>radio email processed by SailMail<br>for information see:<p><a href="http://www.sailmail.com">http://www.sailmail.com</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-5595551945800791502008-07-07T12:21:00.000-07:002008-07-07T12:24:19.344-07:00Two for One SpecialWell it looks like gale warnings come cheap these days: 2 for 1 this week. We are now emerging from the second one after 24 hours of hellacious conditions. The remnant swells remain over 12 feet and the wind continues near 20 knots and it feels like a ladies breeze compared to late yesterday. Coast Guard forecasts were calling for 20-30 knots and we had exactly that. What was worse, I had stopped listening to the CG voice forecasts since my GRIB files showed noting over 20 knots and there weren't any lows near us, so this one snuck up on me. Only while in the thick of it did I learn there was a gale warning for our are and it would persist for 24 hours. But we've survived the worst of it once again, and today are entering into the lee of the California coast where conditions should continue to improve and not come back up this much again. Soon I fear we'll be trying to coax all we can out of every puff of wind; but for now we are cruising along.<br>Conditions began coming up on Kevin's 2000-2300 watch Saturday night when I put a third reef in the mainsail, and they continued picking up for the next twenty hours, peaking at the start of my evening watch last night. In the worst of it we've switched to hand-steering, finding that easier than helping the damned autopilot, which just can't handle these massive swells. And, of course, hand-steering with no stars to guide your way makes for a long night. Every now and then the swells would combine just right to lurch up over the windward side and dump their contents across the length of the boat, rewarding the helmsman with a shower of freezing California Current saltwater. In the night we sailed with less jib than I normally would to keep things more manageable, and as a result we made just 103 NM yesterday. With the coming of dawn I've furled some more sail out and we're moving along again with 360 miles left. Skies remain a thick, ugly overcast, and the water remains its ugly shade of dull blue/grey (which must be caused by a plethora of nutrients because the phosphorescence coming off our bow wave and churning in our wake has been splendid the past 2 nights). We have begun picking up the Coast Guard on the VHF, so land must be getting near. Anticipation is building.<p>July 7-0850<br>33.46N by 124.14W<p>----------<br>radio email processed by SailMail<br>for information see:<p><a href="http://www.sailmail.com">http://www.sailmail.com</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1324279792714260962.post-17324257267624787322008-07-06T14:24:00.000-07:002008-07-06T14:32:42.953-07:00Plenty Wind, Sloppy SwellsThis isn't exactly what I was expecting to have today weather-wise, and I must say it's quite unpleasant. Forecast called for 18 knots and we've got closer to 28. Blowing straight down out of the north, and since the wind came up quickly the swells have come up into short, choppy little devils whose goal is to knock us as far of course as possible and see how far underwater they can bury our lee rail. If you want to look on the sunny side of things we've averaged over five knots the past 30 hours, and our speed remains over five so the miles are ticking away at a reasonable rate. But these sloppy seas have me feeling traces of seasickness once more, have made sleep nearly impossible, and make watchkeeping much more intense with the need to constantly monitor the autopilot, and often help it steer. It has been 24 hours of adjustments--adjusting to our new-found wind, adjusting to the fact that for the first time this trip (and in quite some time for me) we're heeling to starboard on the port tack, and now adjust to more sloppy seas. And in the midst of it all the water temperature has plummeted since daybreak, falling from 67 to 61. What is it in San Diego, 51? Wind is forecast to keep up as is for twenty-four hours, then slowly subside and shift northwest before dying out altogether. What we need is to make enough mileage before it dies that we can motor the rest of the way home if need be. For now it feels like victory at sea, and I can only hope the weather forecasts are prolonging the agony more than will actually be the case.<br>Fishing report: Threw back an albacore last night since nobody was willing to fillet yet another. Now have no line out since we wouldn't be able to pull in a fish in these conditions, and no fish left on board for the first time in a while. And yet I'm not the least bit saddened by that.<p>July 6-1120<br>33.50N by 126.01W<p>----------<br>radio email processed by SailMail<br>for information see:<p><a href="http://www.sailmail.com">http://www.sailmail.com</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0