The (mis)adventures of two dreamers that do
I expect that the majority of visitors to this blog come looking for a glimpse into a dream – a dream that two intrepid souls are living out daily on a sailboat as they cruise between Portland and Panama. Because these two souls belong to two of my dearest friends in the world (and because they are fantastically generous people) I had the opportunity to get an even closer look at their dream during a glorious two week stay aboard the Serenity.
From the point we reached Panama City, the long season begun in October of last year had caught up with us. Every frozen bolt, frayed line, and failed outboard start caused an eruption of, “Get me off this boat!” Wind and waves that before had been merely inconvenient were now an active waste of our lives. During that long, horrible, uphill last leg from the Perlas to the city, Tack tucked himself so deeply and miserably into my lap [he is not a lap cat] that I could not stand to move a muscle and take away his last sanctuary. Our canary in the coal mine had croaked.
Living in a small space necessitates strategic optimization of every available horizontal and vertical surface. On a boat you must also take into account that your home moves and anything not properly secured will become animated. What was a great idea at anchor may prove to be a disastrous idea at sea. Even if your boat is blessed with ample storage, there is always a need for creative solutions to maintain comfort and livability. Since sailboats aren’t square, you must literally think outside the box and design systems that fit the (more likely than not) awkwardly shaped spaces. Every time we visit other boats we catalogue ideas that we can export and adapt to our boat.
The arrival of rainy season is accompanied by the proliferation of bugs…especially the biting variety. We’re up the Rio San Pedro right now, enjoying the calm outside of Puerto Mutis, awaiting the arrival of our friend Michael. I could stay here a lot longer if it wasn’t for the bugs.
My alarm clock this morning was dozens of pin prick bites on any area of my bare body that did not happen to be covered by the sheets. Jejenes, no-see-ums or biting midges, as we know them in the US, are flocking to the boat from the nearby mangroves. Nearly invisible clouds of invaders ready to devour us. And devour is not an understatement. We are on the menu this morning and we are apparently very delicious.
May was all about getting back into a groove. The Gulf of Panama had definitely thrown us off of our game, but we were determined to get back to Western Panama, to the waters we know we love. Things started looking up pretty much as soon as we exited the Gulf. Was this all in our heads? Maybe. Either way, we were eager to make our way back to what has become our home away from home – Boca Chica and the Gulf of Chiriqui.
Now that’s more like it. The Gulf of Panama was reluctant to swallow us a month ago, but she disgorged us with hectic glee on this passage. We were worried that the N winds had sputtered to a halt and had been permanently replaced by light and variable winds. You can imagine our delight when we woke up to 10-15 knots of wind from the NE. With wind and current at our back, we flew past Isla Pedro Gonzalez, our speed cresting our max hull speed on several occasions. The wind was lively until the early afternoon when the tide switched. The wind mellowed to around 5 knots and we managed to barely move forward (1-2 knots) with the spinnaker.
“Give me enough PVC, hose clamps and bolts and I can fix anything.”
– Jeff Burright, in the Pacific Ocean off of the coast of Mexico, circa 2013
These are the words that will grace Jeff’s epitaph. Though he may likely choose to include a couple other raw materials like fiberglass, epoxy and 5200. I laughed when he first made this statement, but in the time that has passed since its utterance I’ve come to regard it as truth.
Our cruising budget for May 2014. Not too shabby! Just a few annotations.
I happened upon the aisle of magical elixirs at the grocery store. I’m fairly certain I’ve walked past them before, seen the neon colors from the corner of my eye, but I’m usually a woman on a mission at the grocery store and my mission usually does not include the discreet acquisition of magical elixirs.
Well, we didn’t crack the code of the Perlas Islands…and I don’t think we’ll be sticking around long enough to really figure this place out. Between the Humboldt current that whooshes around in the Gulf of Panama, the (up to) 17 foot tidal shifts, the strong tidal currents (sometimes exceeding 2.5 knots), the narrow passages and countless submerged (and poorly charted) rocks and reefs, this is a challenging place to cruise. You have to live and die by the tides and currents out here and if the current is nudging you in the opposite direction of your intended destination…it’s better to just kick back and let the current and wind dictate where you wind up.