A New Year's Resolultion
A new year brings Resolutions, and one of ours is We Shall Blog Again! We will spare you our plans to exercise more, eat more vegetables and . . . well, you know.But how to start blogging after such a long break?
We’ve decided the only way to move forward is to lay out 2018 in short form and move on to 2019. An added benefit for those who read our 2018 year-end e-mail -- you can skip directly to the pictures without loosing much at all!
Life Aboard, January 1 - June 15, 2018
. . . was spent in Caribbean Panamá, our boating locale since April 2017.Too Long At Shelter Bay Marina
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| View From Our "Porch" At Shelter Bay |
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| Abracadabra in Tropo Shade Mode |
We flew back to Panama City then by taxi on to Shelter Bay Marina (within former U.S. Army Fort Sherman, near Colón, at the northern end of the Panama Canal) in January, but our departure from the dock was delayed until April due to a cascading series of events:
(a) the usual initial boat maintenance;
(b) some unexpected repairs (Tip: replace the rudder post packing more than once every 30 years, or expect some significant corrosion of the steering quadrant);
(c) truly terrible weather in February (not interested in braving 18 foot seas, thank you very much!); and
(d) several weeks in March Molly spent taking muscle relaxers to deal with a wrenched back (she had been so proud of taking her first trip up the mast!).
Between checking weather forecasts and taking muscle relaxers we managed to fit in some fun, inclulding drop-in live music events on Saturday nights (our contribution: humming off tune and clapping off beat):
We volunteered as line handlers for a Caribbean-Pacific canal transit aboard Tummler:
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| The Professional Line-Handler Team (Every Transit Requires Four Line-Handlers - We Were The "B" Team) |
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| A Carib-Pacific Transit Often Means A Night Moored On Lake Gatun The Pros Tied Us To A Transit Buoy For The Night |
We saw others head through the canal to the Pacific:
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| Good-bye to Neighbor Little Wing (We Were Very Sad To See Them Go!) |
We walked through the grounds of former Fort Sherman, looking at birds, monkeys and the jungle busily re-claiming Army Surplus gun batteries. A comforting thought -- the planet can sometimes right the wrongs humans inflict...
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| Inside A Fort Sherman Gun Battery (Model 6'1"/6'2") |
We kept a wary eye on the neighborhood crocodile.
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| We Think 8 Feet Snout-To-Tail Is An Accurate Estimate |
And, during our 1.5 hour bus and ferry ride to the nearest grocery store, we watched the progress of the bridge being built over the Caribbean end of the Canal. Our fellow grocery store passengers often commented on the slow pace of construction. Those of us who watched the replacement of one half of the Oakland Bay Bridge didn't think this one was proceeding all that slowly.
Finally In The Guna Yala Comarca
Able to depart, we spent April and May traveling to and from the east end of Caribbean Panamá (toward the Colombian border). We anchored out most of that time in the Guna Yala Comarca (a.k.a. the San Blas Islands), a semi-autonomous area of Panamá controlled by the Guna Yala indigenous group (sometimes identified by their Spanish name - Kuna).
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| Molas Are The Fabric Art Of The Guna Yala People. Venancio - A Famous Practitioner Of The Art - Signed One Of His Molas For Us |
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| The Mola Master Venancio And His Driver |
Those who have sailed more of the world than we say if one can’t sail in the South Pacific, visit the San Blas. And the islands are spectacular – with anchorages descriptively named “The Swimming Pool” and “Snug Harbor”.
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| The "Swimming Pool" - A Beautiful Anchorage With A Current That Isn't Included In How To Anchor 101 (All Four Of These Boats Are At Anchor!) |
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| The Star Fish Living Under Abracadabra In The Swimming Pool |
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| Bryce Filleting Our Big Dinner Fish To The Delight Of The Neighborhood Little Fish |
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| A Traditional Cayuca |
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| A Colombian Trader Coconuts and Used Clothing |
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| Really - It Looks Like This |
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| Our Man In Snug Harbor Purveyor of Bananas and Veggies |
Special thanks to all the new friends we made over those weeks for sharing their hospitality, local knowledge and snorkeling expertise: Muchísima Gracias to the crews of Stella Maris, Runner and Respite!
To Land For The Really Rainy Season
We sailed bak to Shelter Bay Marina to tuck Abracadabra in for the rainy season and returned to Panama City via the famous Panama Railway. Once the highest price stock on the NYSE. Not so busy these days - but a fascinating ride through the jungle and along the canal.
Returning To Boat Life: Early November - December 31, 2018
First, A Stop In Panama City
Following our off-boat season (our next post - resolved!) we returned to Panamá in November, the month when Panamá celebrates both it's independence from Spain in 1821 and it's separation from Colombia in 1903. We went to one of the many big parades in Panama City. Tamer than a Mexican parade - but fun nontheless. |
| There Were Gigantic Marching Bands (Membership Apparently Limited To 250 People) |
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| A Chance For An Enterprising Businessman |
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| Note The Marching "Golden Owls" (Los Buhos De Oro) In Black And Gold -- There Must Have Been More Than 250 Of Them! |
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| Some Of The Groups Were More - Uh - Militaristic Than Others |
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| And Molly's Personal Fascination -- Latinas Who Can March For Miles In High Heels. R.E.S.P.E.C.T! |
Then on to Shelter Bay
. . . where we engaged in the usual time of cleaning/repairing/ maintaining aging Abracadabra. This season - a new fuel tank and main sail.
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| Federico (Apprentice) And Bill (Owner - In The Background) of The Sail Loft At Shelter Bay |
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| Our New Main Sail Being Carefully Folded (We Would Show The Fuel Tank But It Wasn't So Much Fun . . . ) |
And then there was American Thanksgiving which everyone (Brits, Aussies, Germans - you name it) enjoyed.
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| At The Big Feed |
Sailing Again
And then, mid-December, we made the 150 mile trip (100 +/- under sail – lucky us!) along the Moskito Coast (aka Costa Abajo) to the Bocas Del Toro archipelago, near the Costa Rican border. [Clarification: We are still on the Caribbean side of the Isthmus.]
A Mounain Interlude
Our friend Jean Ross joined us in Bocas Town for Christmas Week, so we took a quick trip to Boquete, a tourist town in the mountains. Jean wasn't quite clear on why being in the mountains was so exciting for us. Hard to explain how wonderful it is to sleep under a blanket to someone visiting from Brooklyn. But she really enjoyed the bird watching and hiking.
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| We Had A Lovely Little Casita in the Hills |
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| We Made Orange Juice And Then Fed The Local Birds From The Downed Oranges In "Our" Yard |
More Bocas To Come
Because we have Resolved to Blog, we won't say much here about Bocas Town, the nearby anchoring opportunities or the local marinas. Our first impressions are that the Bocas experience will offer more goods and services than we found in the San Blas which will keep us adequately provisioned (great local falafel, okay Italian wine - you know, the essentials) so we can explore the dozens of beautiful anchorages we have read about. We are excited to be in the area and will let you know how our experiences unfold.
