Storm at Sea

Palm Beach, FL - Elizabeth had never been aboard a sailboat before and our first day out of Key West was
spent motoring into 2-3 foot shallow seas. Not the best way to start, but we made it to Boot Key and had a good
anchorage next to the seven mile bridge. The next day called for too much wind from the wrong direction, so we stayed put and watched fishing
boats come and go, jet skis, played Scrabble, etc.


The next day we put up the mainsail and headed for Key Largo. The wind had shifted to the south and we had a
brisk sail that eventually died out and we motored into Rock Harbor at Rodriguez Island which the chart showed to
be about 10 feet deep. However, our depth guage read 4.7 when we dropped the hook. There was another, larger
sailboat anchored nearby and others headed in so we felt like they must know something. Anyway, it turned out we were at low tide and I dove down to see two feet of water under the boat and a soft, silty bottom. We were OK. By sunset, eight other cruising boats had anchored.

The next day called for a cold front to pass through and the sky was hazy. We headed out for Miami, ate lunch, it
started sprinking. In the distance we saw thunder and lightning, The Coast Guard issued a warning for severe
weather in the Dry Tortugas area, far away from us. The rain got harder. The water turned to blue from green. We pulled in the headsail. The wind increased and with it the waves. I got out the life jackets and stayed below to stay out of the rain. By this time, we were in a storm and being tossed about. Elizabeth was in the cockpit with Steve who was at the top of his game handling the rough seas and checking the radar for ships and the chartplotter for course and wind gage for direction. Elizabeth signaled that she was OK and I was strangely calm below deck. I didn't want to know the wind speed or see approaching waves. In the face of terror, you handle the matter at hand. The squall stayed with us, seeming to follow us, for an hour or more. This was no fun. The song in my head switched from "Cocomo" to the theme from "Gilligan's Island."

I later learned that the wind speed hit and surpassed 50k and the boat speed hit 9and 10k. The sky lightened, the rain stopped, and the sea calmed. Elizabeth is quite a trooper. Litha had no problem.

We were way off course and so it took several hours to reach Miami. We entered the main ship channel and anchored between Fisher Island and Virginia Key (after getting stuck in the mud), all alone, in between million dollar condos and a park with the Miami city backdrop behind us. Here's to safe harbors.

Hello and Goodbye

Key West, FL, USA - Gary and Clive had recently learned that British citizens have to have a visa to enter to the US on a private boat and getting one takes at least two weeks. Hmmmmm. Complications. So, all three blue-eyed sailors bid adieu to Litha in Cancun and Chris joined Steve for the journey to Key West.

They left April 19 and thankfully the trip was uneventful. No wind, so pretty boring, but the Florida Strait can be a disaster area, so no complaints either. Meanwhile, I had driven from Colorado to Atlanta, then to Orlando, FL to my friend Elizabeth's house. We drove to Key West and met Steve and Chris on April 21 when they checked in to U.S. customs and immigration in Key West.


We had lunch at Sloppy Joe's (farewell to $1 beers) and shared stories about our trips. Two days later, Chris left and Elizabeth and I boarded Litha to head for Miami.

Steve says the air is much dryer and cooler here in Florida than in the tropics where he's been the last 3 months. But Key West was a zoo of tourists and airplanes, cars, bikes, mopeds, noise. And very expensive. Welcome back to the U.S.A.

Very Hairy

Belize - (as Steve reported via Sailmail)
They checked in to Belize in Big Creek after Easter, then left Wednesday and went “through the reef.”

The next email said:

We had to go through the reef in a very narrow channel with another little reef just inside the cut. There were big swells pushing us in. The boat tried to surf. Very hairy!! A dive boat was guiding us in. At the bottoms of the swells the depth gage read just less than 2 meters. How was your day?




We are at the port of San Pedro which is on Ambergris. Is. From here we will go (plan to go) nonstop to Is. Mujeres.

It seems that many of the tiny cays are private. They often have houses that are two feet above water and not on pilings. Hurricanes?

Aduana
Checking in to customs and immigration in Central America is a pain. It has cost from around $400 to $12 per country, seemingly at the whim of the person in the office at the time. And to do it right, which not everyone does, you are supposed to check in with every country you enter. Then you need to obtain a zarpe that tells the day you are leaving and the next country you are going to. That's OK if you are flying, but not if you are on a little boat in the ocean at the mercy of the weather.

Escapades of the Blue-Eyed Sailors

Steve and crew sailed from the San Blas Islands to Isla Providencia, a tiny island owned by Columbia in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. They spent a week there among 16 other cruisers and snorkled, went diving, etc. I don't know; I wasn't there. It's all hearsay. Something about riding a scooter around the island, a beach party, and dancing with children. Steve did say that he saw the best coral reefs ever.




On March 23, they sailed for Roatan, Honduras, planning to stop at some tiny cays on the way for more diving, lobsters, etc.

From Roatan, they plan to sail to the Cancun, Mexico area. Then, on to Key West, Florida, and the American way of life.

The map's in your soul and the road's in your mind. (Dan Fogelberg)

San Blas Islands

March 14 - The San Blas Islands are a little known, independent territory along Panama´s north coast. At least I hadn't heard of them until a year ago. They are owned and populated by the Kuna indians where the men fish and the women sew and that´s the way they like it. Kuna Indian life - congresogeneralkuna.org



Tropical Thoughts
Overheated. Jump in.
4 words: ginger ale and rum.
Cruising - (v.) driving around looking for fun.
No-see-ums. Cutter. Deet. Off. Hydrocortisone cream. Gold Bond lotion. Balboa beer.
All a bar requires is one person with money and another person with beer (or rum).
Lobster season ended March 1.
Doing dishes in paradise.
Does anything ever dry?
Sweat. Hazy.



Was I really the only non-native on a little island with 2 Kuna indian women, a little boy, and a man asleep in a hammock Friday? (And their dog, Pula -- a sandy terrier).

Quiet roar of the sea. Rhythym of small waves rolling to shore.



Panama City
I've left the blue-eyed sailors and am flying home. They are heading north toward Belize (via San Adres and Providencia).

Panama City has a large international population and is a shopping destination for all of South America. In the mall while ago, I felt like the only American, and that was good for the perspective it gave me. In Spanish speaking coutries, "buenas" is the accepted greeting, at least in the morning, for "hello," "good morning," "good day." There's something good about saying "good" many times a day.

from The Moon and Sixpence:
...but the sea is so calm, so silent, so indifferent, that you are troubled suddenly by a vague uneasiness. Perhaps it is only by a kink in my nature, strong in me even in those days, that I felt in such an existence, the share of the great majority, something amiss. I recognised its social values, I saw its ordered happiness, but a fever in my blood asked for a wilder course. There seemed to me something alarming in such easy delights. In my heart was a desire to live more dangerously. I was not unprepared for jagged rocks and treacherous shoals if I could just have change -- change and the excitement of the unforeseen.
-- W. Somerset Maugham

Hello Caribe!

COLON, PANAMA 3/9/10 - We were ready for our canal pilot Monday at 10:00 and he showed up about noon. Victor guided us over to the Gatun Locks where we milled around for an hour waiting for a big container ship to make its journey through.



We entered with the red tour boat that we'd moored next to overnight. We were attached "mid-channel" this time, not rafted next to another boat. So each crew member had a line at a corner, captain was steering, and Victor was supervising and telling us when to take up or slack our lines. Canal workers alongside threw each line handler a "monkey fist" to tie to our bow lines and then haul our lines to the canal sides. They walked us through each of the three locks at Gatun. Check out the big ship behind us.


Shelter Bay Marina
After the last lock, we motored into the wind and waves. Yes, it was very windy again and the waves were crashing over the sea wall at the entrance to the canal "waiting room." We had lunch and Victor's ride came and took him away and we headed for Shelter Bay Marina, a slip, and some R&R. We're in the Caribbean Sea now. Wow! What a journey.

Canal Web Cams:
http://www.pancanal.com/eng/multimedia/index.html

Canal Transit

Panama - The Panama Canal Authority pilot, Armado, was dropped off on Litha Sunday, March 7, at 8:45 a.m. We were glad to leave the busy, rocking, and rolling anchorage.



We motored to the Miraflores lock about 7 miles away and rafted next to a triple decker tour boat full of Americans, some from Florida. Litha was outfitted with tires in black garbage bags serving as fenders, and even though Steve was concerned with having enough room for the spreaders in the 15-25k wind, we did just fine. It was so nice for me to have Dan, Gary, and Clive aboard to handle the lines and, following Armado's instructions, Steve did a great job motoring alongside the tour boat with all the turbulence from its prop and the wind.


We snapped lots of photos and listened to the tour boat's loudspeaker giving details of the lock, canal, etc. as the lock was flooded. There are two locks at Miraflores and once we were through them, we motored up Miraflores Lake and waited (in the windy, wavy conditions) to go through the Pedro Miguel locks.

Pedro Miguel Locks
As we were coming alongside the same tour boat, this time on our starboard side, one of our tires caught on the tour boat and pulled until it bent the stanchion it was tied around and its line snapped, releasing the tire. Well, the boat was OK and we have a replacement stanchion.


After the Pedro Miguel locks, we had a long day of motoring through the Gaillard Cut and across Gatun Lake. Armado left us about 5:00 and we were moored next to a big, fancy tour boat just outside the Gatun locks. It was a peaceful area and the wind had either died or we were sheltered from it. Realizing we were in fresh water for a change, we all took a dip and bathed. The water temperature was perfect and felt so soft. We grilled steaks and were about to eat in the cockpit when it began to rain. So we ate inside.






Chocolate Cake?
After the dishes, we were listening to the howler monkeys and watching the tour boat next door when Dan noticed one of their dinghies was drifing away. Gary whistled over to alert them, they retrieved it, and Clive asked if they had any postries to share (for our reward). They brought some sodas. We were hoping for chocolate cake. Oh well.



Midnight Rendezvous
Gary and Clive are excellent Scrabble players and we played until about 10 p.m. At midnight, we were awakened by a lot of yelling outside and got up to see two other sailboats -- one small boat mooring on the same buoy as us, another big boat wanting to raft to us. The pilot on the big one was very vociferous, especially for a sleepy bunch of sailors.

Anyway, they all left at 6 a.m. and we got up to undo the lines when we heard the engine from a tug outside (that was bringing a pilot for each boat). Another boat had also joined overnight. These were all canal transitters heading for the Pacific. But we won't see that ocean for a while.

Take this trip yourself... Litha is now (2017) for sale in the Chesapeake. We'll be glad to share what we learned.