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December,
1991
One
of my favorite cartoon characters
is the Roadrunner, and
1991 has made us
think that we’re sort of like him. We spin
our
wheels real fast while staying in one place, and then off like a shot. Almost
five months was spent trying
to put our mast back together after cutting 7 feet off it while in
Venezuela. Although a
frustrating proposition, we are glad we did it – Yacht ‘Melon
is quite a bit easier for us to handle now.
Sailing
from Venezuela in early April, we
bombed along
trying to make up lost
time.
We stopped in Curaçao to get
the yacht hauled and the bottom painted at Curaçao
Drydock, the largest private drydock in the Western hemisphere. It
was
quite impressive to see our little boat  lifted
into the air by a 60 ton crane that’s about 10 stories tall.
The operation is so very professional, quite a difference
from the third-world atmosphere in much of Central and South
America. We were able
to have our autopilot fixed, our broken whisker pole rebuilt
(better than it was before), and other minor but irritating
problems fixed. And all
this, plus a whole new bottom job, completed in just 7 days.
The Dutch really know how to run an operation.
Curaçao
was
a pleasant place for us to
stop for a few weeks. Some of
the nicest people we’ve met in the Caribbean, and
Willemstad is an extremely pretty city.
If the buildings weren’t painted pink, yellow, and pastel
blue we would have thought we were in Amsterdam, Holland.
Our next stop was Aruba,
which turned out to be a
more interesting place than
we expected, and we wound up staying for
a week rather than the day or two we had originally planned.
Having been told it was just one big oil refinery, we were
quite surprised to take a motobide tour of the island and find
that it’s really quite attractive, with caves to explore and
some truly lovely hotels on beautiful beaches.
The main town, Oranjestad, is a bit too quaint, but very
nice, and again the people, including the officials, were all
quite nice.
Then a five
day hop to the San Blas Islands
off
the north
coast of Panama.
The Kuna Indians who inhabit those
islands have pretty much held on to their own culture. The Indians are very small - we
looked like giants next to them - and
in general very physically attractive.
All  the women in this matriarchal society sew “molas”, which are brightly colored
(oh, do these people like bright colors -
no insipid
pastels for them)
reverse-applique panels that they wear as
blouse panels, but which we North Americans buy by the
dozen for pillows, wall hangings, etc. The young girls start learning
this work early. We
saw six- and eight-year-olds working diligently on their masks and
little round circles that the North Americans
can use as coasters (oh,
the tourist influence on these Indigenous cultures!). We
only spent a week in the San Bias, although we wished that we could have
spent a month
or more.
We went through the Panama
Canal the end of June. I
had been, as usual, convinced that disaster was going to descend
upon us as we made our passage; and, as usual, I was wrong. The
transit through was
quite uneventful and professionally handled. What surprised us was how pretty a place the Canal
is (ignoring the cities on
both ends).
The Canal was opened
for ship traffic in 1914, and through excellent maintenance by the
United States the original gates are still
in operation (good thing,
too, since they
tell us there are
no others like them in the
world). They appear enormous to
us in our small boat, although some of the giant supertankers now built won’t fit the locks. After a little sightseeing on the Balboa/Panama City
side of the Canal, and some reprovisioning (U.S.
products such as peanut butter, M&Ms, Almond Joys!) we
started our exploration of
the Pacific side of the Central American peninsula.
Some more photos of Panama, our transit of the canal, and
more on the San Blas Islands
http://www.fototime.com/inv/06CE4C90EB5A68D
We
had to sharpen
skills we’ve not had
to call upon
these last five years in
the Caribbean. The tides in the Panama basin are 14
feet, so we could no longer go into an anchorage, find 10 or
12 feet of water, and drop our anchor. At least not if
we wanted to still
be afloat at low
tide.
Suddenly the times of high and low tide were important,
as were the locations of inshore reefs and rocks,
sort of New England sailing without the cold weather. We spent some
time in Las Perlas islands, just 30 miles from the Canal. Interestingly, there are three fairly large islands in this group, and yet just one small village and very few boats. Not like New England,
where Block Island or Cuttyhunk would be just jammed
with boats on a summer
weekend.
Here we might
see one other boat, and then
only if we wanted to
be sociable.
After
leaving Las Perlas we cruised up the coast of
Costa Rica, heading for Flamingo where Peter’s parents own a piece of land
that they have not visited in more than 10 years, experiencing a total eclipse of the sun while we were
in transit.
I
have read of the eerie happenings on land during a total solar
eclipse; for example, all the  birds
quiet down and go to sleep. But
I wasn’t expecting a similar situation on the sea.
The water had been very calm as we were motoring towards
Flamingo, and as the moon moved in front of the sun the air became
chill and seemed to just freeze still.
We on our little boat felt as if we were the only people in
the world, the center of a sleeping universe.
And then the moon continued its transit across the sky and
the world returned to normal.
Flamingo
is a great place if you want a lovely hotel
or are really into sportfishing. They have  a large sportfishing fleet,
bringing in Marlin,
Sailfish, and other large fighting fish. They
have an enormous amount of enthusiasm, and while we were there two
of the more famous
sport
fishing operations were there - Team Hooker, with
their two 32—foot Bertrams and its own mother
ship (called “The Madam”) is
probably the best known. Can you imagine two 32-foot sportfishing
boats being loaded onto a larger ship
for long passages, and just for sport? Quite an impressive operation for us to see.
Peter went up to the States for 7 weeks when his father
passed away, leaving me alone on the boat .
We
were very lucky to find the Jungle Club in Golfito to settle into while Peter was up north. The
Jungle Club is run by Barbara and Whitey, two American former cruisers,
offering services (and a
lot of moral support)
to cruisers passing by.
We spent seven weeks in Cocos Island, owned by Costa Rica
and about 500 miles off their coast in the Pacific. (www.cruiser.co.za/hostmelon25.asp)
While we were there the Costa Rican government instituted
charges for visiting yachts to pay.
We, however, were fortunate to be one of the last two boats
to be able to stay without paying. We understand that it would be prohibitively expensive for a
private yacht to stay as long as we stayed under the new
regulations.
From
Cocos we had a 5 day sail across the equator
to Salinas, Ecuador where we
hope to celebrate Christmas with the one or two other
foreign yachts here. We’ve been warned not to visit Peru in our boat under any
circumstances – indeed, we’ve been warned to avoid the
country like a plague, so
we aren’t quite sure where we will go after touring the
mainland here. It
seems that no matter where we plan to go we
will have at least a two week passage.
We only hope we will not have another long passage to
weather to contend with.
We wish
you all a happy holiday season and extend our best
wishes for the coming year.
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