tikiroa

So, the trip is farther than we thought. Not such a concern but I´ve got this crazy bump on my head that the doctor said is caused by the sun, but he said not to worry. Hard not to worry, but I´m trying, and it´s making the trip seem a bit longer. I had dreams of taking time to surf along the way and check out Nicaragua and El Salvador, which we have, a little, but for the most part we`ve just been sailing straight. We left San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, five days ago now and haven´t been off the boat. We´re trying to get to southern Mexico before we have to go ashore for water or food. We figure it´ll take us another four to six days to get there–that´s with one surf along the way.

When the wind was down this morning, Adam jumped in and scrubbed the barnacles off the bottom. We had also been towing the dinghy out the back and we moved it up on deck. Feels like we´re moving a bit faster since then actually. It will be exciting to see how ARIN sails when all our live-aboard gear is of fof her.

We´ve been sailing for three and a half weeks now and I´d say we´re not quite half way there. (To San Carlos, Mexico, in the Sea of Cortez). We sort of took our time through Costa Rica (til I got this ´horn´on my head) but now we´re sailing pretty much 24-7. We anchored last night just to get more than three hours (three hours is the length of our night watches when we sail at night) of sleep. Loved it!

It´s cool we can travel from Panama to Mexico for virtually no money. Just hopefully the wind at your back, or your side (anywhere but your nose, really).

Craving to move my legs. Since March 12th–when we left Panama–the only walking I´ve done is to the Port Captain´s office, and the store anywhere we stop. That´s a small exaggeration, but not much. This´ll be our longest stint on the boat yet. When we first got the boat, three days was our limit, until we “needed” land stuff–a cold drink, fresh food, conversation with somebody other than each other and maybe a long shower. Now we´re able to do it much easier, however, our food situation is dwindling. For fresh stuff we´re down to two tomatoes, four potatoes, one apple, one pear, five onions and garlic. We´ve got alot of dried beans and grain, flours and cans of stuff, but it just isn´t the same. Our first stop in Mexico will feel really good.

It´s a bummer we don´t have the time and money to stop and tour Nicaragua and El Salvador. When you´re on a boat, sailing past countries you get a great idea of the landscape from the profile of the volcanoes, mountains, valleys, and the night lights, and it perks your curiousity about what it´s like to be on land. We can smell if there is a fresh water lake, or flowers are blooming, trees are being sapped, wood is being burned or the toxic-like smells of a major city, when the wind blows off shore. Gives you an intimate relationship with a place without even having to set foot there. Fishermen waving and coming by to check us out or toss us a mahi mahi, also gives you an idea of the countrymen.

So even though we have moments where we feel restless, cramped in the legs and a wee bit thirsty, we still appreciate the beauty of life on a small boat….GET me outta here!!!!

ciao, j and a  (it took us five more days, and our first meal in mexico was truly amazing!!!)

“Anywhere north of Key West is not good…”, or something like that, is what our friends on the catamaran ´South of Reality´told us last time we went home to work. Snow, traffic, air-conditioning, extreme marketing, suits and ties, and over-consumption…you got it. Best to stay near the equator and the ocean where the living is slow and warm. Well, we survived our last trip north and it´s time to do it again. We´re excited for a reprieve from boat life, since we feel like we´ve gotten a good dose of everything this time. We´re a little saltier but the learning curve wasn´t as steep as when we first acquired ARIN. We started out the year with alot of work, but have been sailing and living a cruisers life most of the time.

We´re now at ten degrees North, which means that we´ve got about ten more to go North and who knows how many West (our goal being to get to Northern Sea of Cortez, Mainland Mexico). We are slowly acclimatizing ourselves to be back at the forty-ninth parallel. Ha!!! Already at night, cool air cascades down the mountains of Costa Rica causing me to double up on sheets when I sleep. Guess we´ve got a ways to go to acclimatize.

Apparently this is the perfect time of year to sail the Pacific coast of Central America. There is no storm activity brewing nearby and the prevailing winds are from the North, which is the perfect direction for us to fly along the coast. We´ve been doing alot of drifting though, with sails flapping and a few days of zigzagging into the wind, basically just maintaining our position. These days are pretty frustrating for us, and I think these days are the ones that strengthen the bond with other sailors. It takes a certain type of person to be able to drift–and we´re only part of that person I think. On the other hand, we´ve had days where we surfed in the early morning, sailed for the late morning and afternoon and then surfed somewhere else that night. That´s a “productive” day and those days keep us motivated. We all know that felling of success in something just one time can keep you coming back for more–”good” or “bad”.

The sea life keeps us stoked as well. After one particualarly annoying experience wher we´d just made it across the Golfo de Nicoya before the sun went down and dropped our anchor in a spot that wasn´t ideal, but we figured would give us a night of sleep, we ate some dinner and just as we put our heads down…”WHAM” followed by a “CRASH” in the galley–we were hit side on by some swell and things had gone flying. The wind had picked up and was howling across the bay and at the same time causing some good size chop in the water. We tried to ignore it and put our exhausted heads back on our pillows, but after a few more “BANGS” followed by clatter we got up moaning and groaning and pulled up the anchor. We tried to set off for somewhere in the dark of the night.  We had trouble setting off, however, as the halyards ( the ropes used to pull up the main) twisted up when we raised the sail, and it took three grumbled attempts at raising, lowering and untangling, until everything was smooth. Now we just had to make sure we were on a course away from the rocks that sat off of the headland. After about ten minutes of sailing we could see the phosphoresence (which is energy absorbed by tiny sea creatures that release it in the form of light) lighting up in streaks and realized a pod of dolphins was zooming around us on the moonless night. Streaks of glitter torpedoing around us are what we needed to make up for our lack of a good anchorage and struggle with the main sail. Now we can understand how sailors have reported seeing mermaids. The phosphoresence plays tricks with the connection between your eyes and your mind. Since that night (and before) we´ve seen quite a few unknown shapes drift under ARIN at night, lit up like a Christmas tree all in white, shimmery light.

The night of the “malo” (bad) anchorage was also the first night we tried anchoring at sea, or “hoving to”. I woke up to the sound of the sail filling with wind, and then sort of flapping for a few minutes and then filling up again, and repeating this in a way that I knew we weren´t going anywhere. I thought Adam had fallen asleep on his watch and even though it was too early for mine to start ( I think I had twenty more minutes I was allowed to “sleep”–and I try to use every second of it) I stuck my head up on deck to see what was going on. As I did, I realized that Adam had tried to hove-to so that we could stay in that position and not sail past Santa Teresa, which was where we wanted to surf the next few days. Adam was stoked that this method was working as well as it was, and it was. We hardly moved at all despite the wind filling and deflating the sails.  I wasn´t so stoked, however, because we still had to do a night watch even though we weren´t  moving, just to keep an eye on other boats and to monitor any drift that might be happening.

The night flew by, actually, especially since where we are right now, the sun comes up at 5:00 AM, and we were anchored at Santa Terese by 6:30. I spent the day working my legs for a change (I miss walking!!!) and waiting for the swell to arrive the next day.

Yada, yada, yada…we surfed nice waves with the crowds the next morning and then lifted anchor again to try to use the wind that was blowing in our favour. We´ve been stopping and starting as the weather and our spirits dictate, since then, and have checked out of Costa Rica today, in Playa Cocos. We are going to spend a few days at Roca Bruja (Witches Rock), surfing we hope, and then head for Nicaragua. That´ll be two charts down and four to go!!! What i mean is the charts that we have, which were so graciously lent to us to copy from “Batwing”, for navigation from Panama to Mexico–we have six of them and it feels good, (however, at the same time pretty sad that we have to rush through these countries), to knock two of them off. Gotta start sewing up a Nicaraguan courtesy flag!

Apparently crocodiles stalk. That´s what our friend from Spain told us who ran a business trading reptiles and other unsavoury (for most, anyways) animals. He´s a big dude who likes to hold scaly creatures and goes out overnighting in the jungle with just what he´s wearing. Nor many people are into hanging out with animals that can sting, bite or squeeze you to death but Oliver is. His “fearlessness” was born with his passion and curiousity and matured with years of study and hanging out with animals. It was his job. His fearlessness extends into the ocean too, and he doesn´t mind towing a bunch of bloody fish behind him that he´s just speared…the perfect lure for a `tiburon`(shark). Many cultures also do these kinds of activities as a livlihood. Living and feeding off animals, and insects of the jungle and of course spear-hunting for fish. I´ll never forget seeing all the dim lights in the water just in from of our `fale`(hut or palapa in spanish) in Samoa on several nights. The men of the village were out in the dark forming circles around the fish, trying to trap them, spear them and bring them back to the village to share with the community the next day. I thought it was pretty wild fishing in the dark. However, now I know that the light in the night attracts fish. I love seeing the fishermen out at night when we´re sailing.

Anyways, our friend Oliver, I thought, seemed to know alot about animals, especially reptiles. He told us once that the only thing he was afraid of was the crocodile because they stalked you. They don´t act impulsively. They lie waiting and watching, imitating a log, and they get to know the habits and patterns of things around them. This way they are conserving energy, waiting for that perfect moment when their prey feel comfortable in their surroundings, unconsciously lulled into assuming that they are in a danger-free zone. Wrong. That´s just when the crocodile makes their move, and when they do they bring you down hard. They will hold you down and drown you, stick you under a log, wait until you rot a bit and your meat just falls off the bone. (not sure about that actually, but maybe?=) They will rip off one or two or three…of your limbs before you have the chance to say “Oliver”.  This is why, when i do the laundry in a river around here I stealthily take my buckets of water from different spots of the river everytime. I vary up my movements so that any calculating reptiles lurking under the silty mossy waters don´t recognize any sort of a pattern. Brilliant, I thought.

Today (mid-March), we were surfing Olli´s Point, which used to be called something else, but was renamed after Oliver North in the 1990´s This bay is about fifteen miles from the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border where he traded weapons for cocaine with some rebel fighter Nicaraguans. It´s beautiful and is part of Santa Rosa National Park, the largest in Costa Rica, so there is nothing for 10-15 nautical miles on either side. It´s really dry right now and the landscape makes me feel as if I´m surfing in Lake Okanagan–the hills are brown with mustard yellow grasses, sparse little dusty green bushes and rocks crumbling down into the ocean. You would never know there was this perfect little right-hand wave in the northern corner of it, right at a rivermought. A river where crocodiles hang out. Our guidebood says if you anchor in this secluded bay and go for a swim, stay close to your boat because caimans have been spotted here.

This morning there were between seven and ten people in the water, trading waves. One boatload was from California and was heading back up that way and another boat brought a bunch of locals for a day at the beach. It was pretty ideal as there were enough waves for everyone, and it was easy to surf. I´d seen a big fish -like tail swim away from me on my paddle out, but my surfer´s brain shut that out, and i just held on to my bladder til I was in shallower water with lots of wave action to wash it away. (That´s how I “outwit” the sharks, so they can´t smell me–don´t know it that´s true or not, so I also do my best to not look like a turtle from below–apparently one of their typical “comidas” =meals). Adam got out and was taking pictures from the beach and I stayed in  to catch a few more. After one of my waves that I milked to the very end, I could hear yelling from the beach–the locals were yelling something I couldn´t quite make out, but Adam´s arms were making a giant, snout-like chomping movement and were easily understood. He was intermittingly pointing to paddle away from the river and the beach, but i really didn´t need to be told twice. When I got out and went over to the little group on the beach I could see the caiman lolling about in the surf. Right at the end of the wave–Adam said he thought  I was going to land on it when i finished my ride. If i had landed on it, it would make this story pretty interesting, but I´m glad i didn´t.

Exciting for me to see my first crocodile in the wild. We didn´t go back out to surf.

“In Greenland distances are measured in ´sinik´, in ´sleeps´, the number of overnights that a journey requires. It´s not a fixed distance, because the number of ´sinik´can vary depending on the weather and the time of year. Under the threat of a storm, I´ve traveled with my mother non-stop from Force Bay to Iita, a distance that should have taken two overnights.

´Sinik´is not a distance, not a number of days or hours. It is both a spatial and a temporal phenomenon, a concept of space-time that describes the union of space, motion and time that is taken for granted by the Inuits but that cannot be captured by ordinary speech in any European language. ” –Smilla´s Sense of Snow, P. Hoeg

I like this passage because it describes exactly how we feel about traveling with ARIN. Our motor isn´t big enough nor do we carry enough gas, nor do we want to, be able to predict exactly how long it will take us to get somewhere. In fact, I´ve heard a few people say that a ´true´sailor decides where he´s going depending on the wind–which is probably another entirely different Greenlandic word, if one even exists to describe that. We aren´t that carefree in our planning (because we have that surf addiction thing), however, I remember feeling that carefree on first trip abroad, to Europe. Not worrying about where the train I was on was going because I´d never been there anyways, it was all new and exciting. Travelling with reckless abando, I guess. With sailing it seems quite a bit more romantic, letting nature decide your course. I guess it´s the perfect fit for living the journey and not the destination.

Anyways, after surfing til our arms and legs laughed at us and we were completely fried by the sun (never thought i´d ever say i´ve had too much sun, but i am), we left Pavones sufficiently suffunctified. We were inspired by the sixty plus contigent in the water who stroked past us effortlessly, to the point, looking in much better shape than us. I even got a wink by one woman who looked to be in her sixties as she paddled past me back up to catch another forty second overhead wave. inspired. Now we are in Quepos refueling with water, food and doing laundry. At the laundrymat. First time our clothes have been washed in fresh water in a washing machine since early November, so, yeah, it´s a little bit of luxury. We sailed past the remote, empty coast of the Osa Peninsula, only seeing five people on the beach in two days. We heard that the National Park on that coast has totally regulated the area and it costs a small fortune to hike or camp in there. I guess it´s one way to keep the park intact.

Just outside of Quepos, we were boarded by the Coast Gaurd here. The first time that´s ever happened to us. They checked our papers and it was discovered that we didn´t have a ´zarpe´, which is permission to travel from port to port. All countries have them and you need one to travel with your boat. The port captain where we checked in never gave us one, and I think we were just so exhausted and confused after running between customs, immigration, quarentine and the port captain´s office, that we assumed everybody gave us all the right paperwork. Anyways, we had to go into Quepos and see the port captain there, explain as best we could about why we didn´t have a ´zarpe´, listen to him check our story on the phone with the office in Golfito and then graciously type up a zarpe for us from Quepos to Cocos (which is the town where we will check out of Costa Rica). He was a very patient, understanding señor, but had to give us a bit of a wrist slapping, and also told us we had to leave here by noon today, and go straight to Cocos. Government officials don´t understand ´sinik´.

Ciao mis amigos, and gracias for all the birthday wishes! i had a great day, even visiting the Capitan de Puerto!

We´re leaving Panama…one minute we were setting up shop in Santa Catalina and the next we´re sailing to Mexico. So things could change, but we have made a move by checking out of Panama.

What´s happened:

In our state of timelessness we missed New Year´s eve. After a short “argument” with our friend Mike who kayaked by asking us if we were coming in to the party on the beach, we succumbed to the fact that we´d been living a day behind most people. I´m sure there were others who were unaware of the date too…Our early evening got us an empty New Year´s day lineup at the surf in the a.m….small but all ours.

Sailing up into the protected islands and waterways of Bahia ????? (near Santa Catalina). Waking up at night in such a calm place with a new moon that i couldn´t see or hear where the sky and water met. Waking up from the deepest sleep to a cacaphony of birds and monkeys. It was a new experience for us, as we´re usually anchored near surf in an exposed beach that gets wind and swell that constantly tickle (or rock) your senses.

Our trip to renew our visitor´s permit…This time we kept our senses about us and instead of going to the city for three days to watch people consume stuff, we bounced (on the bus) over the highlands of Panama, past the cool, wet mountain towns, back to the Caribbean, our old stomping grounds. We drove past miles and miles and miles and miles of coastal banana plantations (even though it´s virtually impossible to find bananas on the Pacific side–and if you do find them they´re already plucked from the bunch and just about ready for pancakes or bread). Loving the juicier vibe of the Caribbean. It had only been one month of dry season on the Pacific, but already the land was looking parched, so it was nice to see lush jungle with vines and all sorts of palms (the sexiest plant around) and breathe the thick, slow air. The air that makes you understand the phrase “let´s do it MANAÑA”. The border crossing was a trip where we were all lined up waiting to talk to and wondering what this officer was gonna come up with to make us spend more money on some sort of “paperwork”. When a truck or car drove past, after surviving the bridge that connected Panama to Costa Rica, we´d all get moistened with what I though was a mist of water coming off of it. Turns out it wasn´t water, but a heavy duty insecticidal sprtay of some sort that came of of this little garage that cars drove through. Brutal. Well, maybe it cleaned any bugs we had too? We both still haven´t grown an extra head or limb. After making it over the bridge, which would “not have met the safety standards of a bridge back home” (one quote that i hear from travellers which makes me wonder why they left home.) we were rewarded with milky, turquoise waves breaking on a white sand beach. Lots of them. We found a beautiful place to stay about a fifteen minute walk from the surf and surfed, ate, surfed and slept form the next three days. We met a fantastic couple from Finland (who came to visit us in Santa Catalina after, and were our first overnight guests on ARIN!) and of course, people we´d met in Santa Catalina just happened to be staying there too, so we felt at home pretty quickly. (It doesn´t take much) We didn´t want to leave, but after our three days outside of the country we went back to Santa Catalina hoping ARIN hadn´t been blown away. January and February are the two windiest months in that area of the Pacific and even anchored about one kilometre from shore we were subjected to winds so strongh that they kicked up a swell going out from the shore. We made it back in a day and a half and we were happy to see ARIN.

Falling in love with Santa Catalina. It´s a tourist town with a famous wave, sport fishing and a launch pad to a famous dive spot on Coiba island, about one hour by motorboat. In Santa Catalina, however, the amenities of your typical tourist town aren´´t there. The people that live there love living there which makes for a good community. We made some great friends there with locals, gringo implants, and people just passing through. We were lured by everyone´s friendliness, tranquillo-ness and Santa Catalina´s rugged beauty. We´ll miss Bruce and Patti, co-cruisers who are moving there, who we with bonded with over their similar homemade catamaran and surfing priority. We crossed paths with them a few times, as we first met them in Bocas del Toro. Jose´, a stand up teenager who gave us impromptu Spanish lessons and shredded at Playa Estero. Xavier who looks you in the eye when he speaks and is just one true dude; Mike and Heather, our Toronto connection who are making it work in Santa Catalina and have the biggest hearts of anyone we know; Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, owned the only other boat in the bay and a guy permanently stoked. We´ll all that and more, but we know we can go back and we´re off for more adventure.

Visits from Adam´s parents and our friends Chris and Cathy were a much loved taste of Canada. Everyone flowed into the Panamanian lifestyle pretty seamlessly, and we spent days lolling about the cabin and beach, and when it wasn´t too windy–out on the boat. ARIN performed, no one got seasick, fishing rods were spinning and the sun, the moon and stars succeeded in astounding all with their entries and exits. By night we were entertained with music anhd dancing and we even all partook in a dance circle on night where everyone had a go at showing their moves in the middle. Jamie and Shiela were the winners, of course, with years of “jitterbugging” under their belts. Think of your two favourite characters in Grease. ??? The week flew by too quickly, but it was enough time for everyone to catch and take home a bit of Panamanian heat. Our cabin was perfect, perched up on the cliff overlooking the beach. Joventino, our host, and his family, cat and dog, were super gracious, and topped everything off.

I had my first bat in my hair experience sleeping in the cabin. We kept all the doors open to get that ocean breeze, and i woke up one night to something in my hair. When I moved it flew out the door screeching–as if it was afraid of me! Slept under a mosquito net after that.

After the family left and Cathy returned to Tofino, we took Chris for a little tast of life on the boat. We spent four or five days at Isla Cebaco, anchored near a left that we surfed whenever nature co-operated. The island is probably about ten miles long and all of the communities live on the North shore, so Chris got a bit of a taste of remoteness. When our water ran out, we returned to Santa Catalina to restock, say goodbye and plot our next course to Isla Silva, a small island famous for it´s wave called P-land. We took two days to sail there, past the volcanoes of Panama, and anchored at the only corner of the island that didn´t seem to get surf. P-land performed for the first two days–a bit too well for me. Not so confident to takeoff on overhead waves into a field of rocks of various depths, and some of a negative depth. Adam and Chris charged and I got enough to keep me happy. We had a good time circumnavigating the island with funky rocks, sheer faces and emerald water. It took maybe fifteen minutes in the dingy and we surfed three different spots on it. 

When resources got low, and it seemed like the surf had gone, we blasted over to Boca Chica. About a quarter of the way there, the familiar Northeast wind kicked in and we tried not to get blown out to sea. Chris and I tried to keep everything from blowing away and Adam manned the helm. Our bumpiest, wettest ride yet, with the Southwest ground swell colliding with the Northeast wind chop. Nothing broke though which is one of our main goals. We´ve since learned that these winds really kick in  in Southern Mexico, the Tuhantapec area, and we have been told to sail with “one foot on the shore”–pretty literally as well. The farther off land you get, the more room the wind has to strengthen and also kick up some swell. We´re actually kindof looking forward to it becasue ARIN can sail really close to shore with only two feet of draught, and she loves to go fast.

Boca Chica is a cool area with lots of islands, mangroves and waterways for hiding out from the wind. We spent a few days there waiting for surf, but when it seemed like the wind was never going to stop knocking it back down we went ”skurfing” with Cedar–an entertaining transplant from Florida with tons of energy, and a nice motorboat. We used Adam´s board and all got good rides behind the boat and our pleasure overrode the fact that we were causing alot of waves in a ”no-wake” zone. We even drove through the anchorage which seemed pretty hysterical at the time, but the next day we copped a bit of a blast from some fellow cruisers. Just a few minutes of shame for a couple of hours of entertainment was well worth it.

We spent our time there sponging up advice from other cruisers on the sail to Mexico; copying charts; hanging out with Cedar; our new friends on Batwing (Coloradan mountain people turned sailors); and , Ethan–part of “the Roe Family band” (plug, plug), a bluegrass band who spend half the year performing at venues across the states, living in their airstream and the other half on their boat in Boca Chica. Never got to hear them play, but was cool to hear Ethan´s teenage stories.

We said goodbye to Chris in David, knowing he got a pretty good sampling of boatlife–stoked we got to share it with a friend and also stoked for our next adventure…

Sailing at night–It´s hard to do it justice, but when all the elements have come together it´s a magical experience. We left Boca Chica around 13:00 on March 11th, and planned on anchoring at one of the islands further out and heading for Costa Rica the next morning. The wind was easy from the southwest, however, and we knew it was a full moon, so we decided to sail all night. It was the first time that we actually stuck to our planned watches of three hour intervals. Usually Adam has trouble sleeping at night on the boat, but with a steady breeze, a full moon and the lights of Panama in sight, it was a comfortable night. My favourite is being up just before sunrise when all the contours of land become clearer and greener and you´re able to put a shape to the lights that have been moving around with you all night. Fishermen heading back home or other cruisers you´ll never meet but you feel a reassurance just knowing they´re both there. The black swell that lumbered underneath you all night now turn shades of blue, green and deep violet. Their origin and destination are distant questions in my mind. The sky and air have a milky look–but that could also be my groggy head. Pinks and purples haze together and I wonder if I see any red. (”red sky in the morning, sailors take warning”)

We sailed along the coast stopping once to surf something all to ourselves, but the current made it too hard to hold our position. The water colour here is wild–super aquamarine but kind of silty and it´s HOT! We kept sailing to Pavones–the second longest left-hand wave in the world ???? Anchored off the end of it and watched people take wave after wave after wave after wave–seriously, and ride it till their legs gave out. The sun was setting and we were too tired from our night sail, so waited til dawn for our rewards.

We´re now back at Pavones after a quick trip to check in with immigration and we´re getting in shape riding this wave. My arms and legs are beat but extremely happy. We pinch ourselves a couple times a day to make sure we´re here–although, who cares, as long as this existence lasts! We´re gonna stay til the swell disappears and then go look for more up the coast of Costa Rica.

ciao, going surfing, so i´m not editing, hope it´s passable….who cares…

It´s been awhile since i last wrote, and I´m going to blame it on a few things…a lack of internet or rentable computers in Santa Catalina; (the town shares two payphones for all their calls…NO CELL PHONE RECETPTION…and people hang their laundry out to dry instead of using a dryer, “just like my grandma used to do” is what a fellow cruiser said to me, and this cruiser was probably in her fifties! What!!! I can´t think of anything better than crawling into bed with sheets that have blown out in the sun and fresh air all day, or pulling a fresh t-shirt over your head with that outdoorsy smell already sewn into it. But, thats just me, and i wont go on about it); our  computer hasn´t worked since november; and, once i get a little behind i find it hard to know where to start…But I´ll try, a little…Fell in love with Santa Catalina. A coastal town at the end of the road, and a jump off spot to a myriad of white sand islands. World class diving, fishing and surf (of course we were there in the off season for surf, but we managed to get some waves, cause when they did come, we were ready for them) We anchored across from town at Santa Catalina island, got lost in time, totally settling in to a “cruising” type lifestyle. Swimming , surfing, reading, and hanging out with friends in town. We´d seem to meet new people every week  and were able to take them out sailing and show them the harder to get to surf spots.

to be continued,,,

Adam found the quote in the title in something he´s reading… i´ll find out who said it next time.

Merry belated christmas!

The last two or three weeks have been a bluuurrr. Arriving in Santa Catalina not knowing what day of the week it was, was a good way to start.

We´ve had visitors. Finally had some neighbours–amazing ones at that, too. First, Hans and his girlfriend showed up on their seventy foot polynesioan cat built out of two trees in South Africa. It´s gorgeous and a true replica of an ancient polynesian boat that was used for discovering new lands and emigrating. They´re sailing it to Tahiti or New Zealand, to maybe sell it. It´s a serious gem, built with the same integrity as were boats in the past. To quote Adam: “It´s one of the coolest things happening on planet earth right now.” The cooler thing is that Adam met Hans before in Fiji when we did our crossing on the fifty-two foot Wharram from New Zealand. Hans also had a Wharram there and had been selling items off the boat and replacing them with local traditional sailing gear. He´s a real treasure hunter who comes from a family of legit treasure hunters. We ate dinner on their boat which was cooked in the fire pit on deck and if it had been two days later we could have had fresh chicken for Christmas as they´ve got a little chicken coop on the back of their starboard hull! We also could´ve invited half the town of Santa Catalina with two d.j.´s and turntables, the deck is so big. So cool. Those two really boosted our spirits with lots of great stories, ideas and encouragement.

Our second neighbours were none other than Chris and Anita, our friends from Bocas del Toro, and their boat Padma. (the link to their blog is under “links”) Kind of weird that out of the four boats that have anchored next to us in the last three months, we´ve had previous connections with three of them. “do do do do, do do do do ” (Sung to the twilight zone theme song)…They were here over Christmas which was also Chris´birthday so we had good times catching up over dinners on the beach and “on the town”. Cheers to easy friendships.

The town–we love it. Laid back, friendly, peaceful and beautiful. I love how when Adam and I venture in after a day in the sun working on the the boat or sampling the surf, we can sit on the bench outside of the store gulping cold replenishments and talk with whoever else happens to be sitting on the bench. I love even more that there are two payphones outside the store and the one on the left rings regularly. Whichever local is walking by picks it up and thus begins the hunt for who its for. The hunt usually just involves some hollars up or down the street. It´s hasn´t been for me yet.

From what we can see there are five restaurants in town, but figuring out their hours and days open is a bit of an effort, so we´ve eaten at the restaurant that´s attached to the store every time. Except for Christmas dinner when we stuffed ourselves with turkey, ham, mashed potates, stuffing, salads, champagne, and chocolate cake…One of the accommodation/restaurants put on a terrific orphans-style dinner. We met some ex-pat locals and some travellers and filled our plates to an embarrassing level…wish we had more nights like that!

So, after three months of R&D for the perfect spot to land on the beach and do a bit of work, we found it. Right across from Santa Catalina, on Isla Santa Catalina, amongst the ten or so islands you can see from the beach. It´s got a white sand beach and an empty white house in the middle of the beach. It´s protected from the surf as we beached it on the north side of the island, but we imagine in a bigger swell the waves that were peeling along the rocks at the east end, travel right up to the beach. We beached ourselved there for two weeks and went at ARIN pretty hard. We jacked the boat up, cleaned the bottom, jacked the boat down, did repairs, jacked the boat up, sanded lots of stuff, (when asked “What´s the most important thing you´ve learned during your year and a half of sailing?”, My obvious reply is “How to sand something to the texture of a baby´s bum”), jacked the boat down, painted, jacked the boat up, got rid of stuff (my favorite!) We´ve been lugging gear, tools and paint around since September first so it´s been nice to actually use them for their intents and purposes now. Did I mention that we jacked the boat up and down. Man…we´ve perfected it.

Everyday we marvelled over how perfect our spot was too…swimming every hour to rinse off our labours. When we´d trip into town we´d undoubtedly get asked by a local if we needed help getting off the beach or if we know when the next high tide was that would release us from the sand. We´d gone up the beach on one of the highest tides of the month and as the tide receded it left us high and dry. Everyday the tides got a bit lower–still splashing ARIN at high tide but never enough to float her right off. We´d used three anchors anyways to really secure her location. The next similar tide to the one that we´d gone up the beach on isn´t til january 13th, which gave us almost a month on the beach. This is what the locals were alluding to. They wanted to make sure that we knew that it could be a long wait. Anyways, after a couple of nights when the tide was bumped up a bit higher before it dropped back down again, and the swell was up, we had some sleepless hours in the night when the shorebreak peeled across ARIN. It sounded like we were stuck on a reef with a breaking wave. We jumped out with our boards ready to do some moonlight surfing off our own boat, but no. In actuality it was just a small ankle crusher, but everything sounds louder in the hull in the dark.

One of those nights we could feel our stern floating, and since we´d finished most of the work, we were up pushing and pulling at ARIN and floating in no time. Released from the grasp of the hermit crabs, and other sand dwellers. We are now floating again and will just beach the boat for the day to finish our work. Being beached made life alot easier for work but the novelty of living on a downward slope in the sand wears off quick.

Isla Santa Catalina is a popular day trip for snorkellers, and beachcombers, so we´d get some visitors wander over in awe that we actually live on our boat. “You don´t stay in a hotel?” was and is actually a pretty common question we get asked. On one of those days we saw a group of about five kayakers paddling across towards us. We tidied up our area–we kind of looked like we owned the beach at times–and I went for a swim. When i got out, Adam was receiving a hug from the kayak guide. O.k., Adam was a kayak guide in Tofino once, so I thought maybe that´s what fellow kayak guides do. Nah…of course, it was Mike, from the Beaches, in Toronto, who grew up surfing Lake Ontario with Adam. It was his first day of business down here that he´s running with his girlfriend. The alignment of the stars has been ideal for us for this part of the trip! Except….that Adam has cranked his leg on the side of the boat. Which is why I´m here writing–we´re in the town of Sona and Adam´s at the hospital getting x-rays. He can walk on it fine, but the swelling and tingling isn´t really disappearing. Hopefully it gets better soon cause it sucks to be the one watching your loved one (that´d be me) surf. Kind of like when he was a lifegaurd in New Zealand and the waves were perfect ( I never surfed so much as there!) Ok, don´t want to push my luck.

We still have lots of exploring of the area to do as there are apparently empty surf breaks everywhere around here. It´s the “off-season” for surf which means it averages 3-4 feet, but that´s cool with me. That can translate to overhead on some of these reef breaks. The dry season has really started settling in. Leaves are starting to fall and creeks are getting slimmer. The warm dry days followed by starry nights and the constant offshore wind is a welcome change from sporadic rains and variable breezes. So being the “off season” has it´s perks. We´re in our element and have slipped noisily into boat life grooves.

So after our first perfect day at Cebaco, we took ARIN over to the surf beach we´d found and anchored behind the wave. Talk about lazy!!! Stoked. We spent a few days living the life that everyone seems to thinks we live all the time…sleeping, surfing, reading, eating, strolling white sand beaches…no drinking icy-cold-blended-rum-based-cocktails though. We “prefer” to stick to our hot rainwater…NOT! but we´ve got great imaginations sometimes. Ok, I promised Adam no more misery. After a few more “textbook” sailing life days we started our sail back to the mainland. We still haven´t anchored with any other sailboats on the pacific side.  There was a boat that sailed into Venao when we were there but they turned and left without putting down their anchor–either it was too risky a spot for them or they didn´t want to anchor beside us. ARIN was looking good that day with laundry hanging all over trying to dry and a few “sea-dreads” hanging off her bottom. That´s the closest we´ve come. So after two weeks of not talking to anyone but each other (and the birds and the gecko, oh, yeah and some random fishermen that we take on head to head in a battle of motor against sail), we´re usually keen for some sort of broken spanish conversations and yeah, a cold drink. We sailed around Cebaco and spent another night in an idyllic anchorage. This area really is beautiful–lush, dotted with islands, rockwalls, waterfalls, low mountains, white sand beaches with clusters of swaying palms and black, rocky shores that turn the water turquoise when it breaks over top. Other times the water is emerald green, completely reflecting the foliage above. The dolphins, fish, birds, turtles, manta rays and sea snakes treat ARIN as one of their own. I´ve never had such an experience where animals are so willing to hang out.

O.k…we sailed around Cebaco in our misty, dream trance and landed in Hicaco, on the mainland. We are beginning to chose destinations based on the wind direction, which is how we ended up in this fishing town at the end of the road. As soon as we started paddling in to the beach, Carlos cruised by in his panga (fishing boat), picked up the paynter on our dinghy and towed us into shore. that´s how we like it! From there, Juan took us around town to get food, drinks, gas, fresh produce, propane and use the phone. He also said he´d meet us the next morning at nine, for any unfinished business, plus he wanted to contribute plantains and papaya from his property, to our collection of stuff.

Hicaco is true, beautiful and raw. A town with a fleet of about fifty fishing boats and a mix of latin carribbean flavours and colours. We were “sold” cilantro from one man´s garden, limes from another man´s, and of course juan´s mountain of plantains that will keep us in patacones for a month! Patacones are plantains that have been fried then flattened then fried again and tossed with salt and served with hot sauce–one of my favorite things! They´re kindof one step up from homemade fries. I haven´t perfected the patacone yet, but now is my chance. I know it´s a combination of the ripeness of the plantain, the amount of “palm” in the oil, and the heat. Adam and I should get fat while I practise. My mouth is watering now!

We left Hicaco under motor, this time ignoring the wind, as we were set on making Santa Catalina by dusk. Santa Catalina is pretty famous in the surfing world as it´s home to a right hand wave (i´m sure Adam will go left though) that breaks like a machine over those big black rocks i mentioned earlier. It´s only surfable on the higher tide but it´s perfection up to twenty feet has lured some people to set up a life there for good and others for short periods of time on the quest for a fulfilled vacation. We anchored there at high tide stoked on our timing and how magical (read as : “surf infested”) the place was. As the tide went out, however, a few small waves started breaking around us. We´d somehow come in missing the mounds of rock lurking a few inches under the surface. We shifted our position carefully and slept beneath a star-infested, full moon sky with off-shore breezes, dreaming of waves.

Blissful days at Isla Cebaco. The most entertaining bay we´ve stayed in so far with what seems like thousands of dolphins chasing the flying fish every night who are also trying to dodge the frigate birds from above. We´ve seen some pretty terrific high speed getaways and acrobatics on everyone´s part. Never knew a flying fish could stay airborne so long…Adam even caught a fish he was happy with and it was divine. Perfect size for two people. Adam´s been catching lots of fish. He caught a big mahi mahi and another big yellow-spotted fish…both gorgeous…he let them both go. His ability to kill is pretty weak which is good, and if the fish is too big for us to eat he can´t justify it´s death. Oh yeah, but then he feels bad when he lets it go cause it´s injured. He is now tying his own streamers to attract smaller fish. He uses anything he can that´s shiny or sparkly and has come up with some pretty wacky looking “fish”. I´ve also had to hide all my diamonds and jewels????

The fish was a great ending to a perfect day where we´d searched out surf in our dinghy and found it. Clean waves, white sand-bottom, beach all to ourselves. The abundance of sealife was inspiring….At one point I had a school of about fifteen huge black and yellow striped fish circling me (sometimes brown river water is better for ignorance). My reasoning was that either A: they thought I was a whale and were hiding out under me for protection, or B: there was a shark around and they thought if they came over by me that the shark would choose the bigger, meatier, slower prize–that being me–than settle on a chase for one of them. I know it´s dramatic, and nothing happened, but, well, you´re mind starts to wonder….

We both caught our fair share of waves, revelled in our luck, and putted back to ARIN, high on nature.

Nature high-lights:

Never get tired of the acrobatic dolphins. When they visit, which is often, it´s always like the first time. (Awwww…)

Birds on deck…Adam and I spent some of our night debating over what the little bird was saying to the big bird as they both seemed to sway along to our music completely oblivious to the fact that we were even there. The big bird didn´t even move when I threw my yoga mat down next to him , or her.

Saw my first howler monkey. I hear them everywhere we anchor it seems, but I finally got to watch one bounce up and down on a branch for awhile…a browny-orange bluuur.

Gecko-man…(we have a mom and baby living on our boat) now makes pretty regular appearances at breakfast–he or she is a total sucker for honey and coffee!

waterfalls abound. we are suckers for any fresh water we can get, plus they´re buuutiful….

The rainy season in Panama is from May to December. However, I think this year Mother Nature decided to squeeze the bulk of it into ten days. Were not dissing the rain, it was unseasonably dry here, however boat life just isn´t the same when your dry living space becomes half the size of an already small space. I use the word “dry” in that sentence tentatively too cause nothing stays dry when it rains that hard and that long. We had a mountain of wet stuff piled up on our deck but that was cool cause we also had a dinghy full of water for a makeshift washing machine. We also got to fill up our solar shower for the first time–we quickly ran out of things to collect water with and didn´t have to worry about consumption for once–but the “solar” part didn´t work on it. (It works now though! sunny days are here!) Anyways, we were living the high-life for awhile anchored at Playa Venao, where we could paddle into the surf, surf our brains out, and then watch the destruction on the beach (they´re building stuff there) while we ate breakfast or lunch at the cantina.

One night when we were heading back to ARIN, one of the local surfers defined our lifestyle as “Survivor Venao”. It had been rainy and windy all week and we were setting out on one the worst nights. We both kind of wanted “voted off”…The next day was no better and knowing the forecast was for stronger wind we decided to head for the most protected anchorage on the Azzuero–Bucaro. We crept out of our anchorage against wind and rain but made it to Bucaro gratefully. We snuck in as close to the rock wall as possible to get out of the wind. This allowed us to put our big tarp up which turned out to be amazing! It covers a good third of the boat, and although by the second day of downpour it was dripping through in spots it kept us waaaay dryer than if we didn´t have it. We spent three recuperative days there waiting out the rain, getting hydrated and sleeping well in such a calm beautiful bay.

One afternoon there I climbed to the top of one of the steep hills that makes the bay so enticing as an anchorage. The view was amazing–mountains blending into ocean, shades of greens and blues, my two favorite colours. I could see tons of water on the land not going anywhere either though. In the next few days we heard how much rain damage there actually was. The Bocas del Toro province was completely isloated from the rest of Panama by landslides shutting off the roads, powere and ruining the water supply. A Canadian we met (we seem to meet alot) who´d been in Bocas at the time said that they had to abandon their car and spent the night sleeping over a chicken coop of a nearby farmers who´d offered them shelter. They even had to flee his place at one point because the landslides were so close. They were literally trapped on the mountain, eventualy making it down by foot with what they could carry on their backs. Our “mucho lluevia” (much rain) experience was not quite so dramatic…trying to get to town to buy groceries and the river had washed the road out. Cool thing was that we were in a truck full of locals who were along to give a push to the get the driver to the other side. Coming back was a bit of a mission, since we weren´t in that truck anymore, but of course we only had to walk about an hour before another local with a truck picked us up.

Our next stop was Guanico to get another surf in before we headed west. Playa Guanico was where we´d been caught by swell before and had “dented” the front beam and flipped the motor in the water…however, we pulled in nice and tight and got great surf for two days. The river with the crocodile in it was three times as wide from the rain which sucked for getting across it, but we´re both still alive.

We set sail from Guanico heading for Isla Cebaco….