Goodbye Hanalei Moon

Thursday we bid good bye to Patty and Steve on Hanalei Moon. Patty's trip home started with a 7am flight from Porvenir to Panama city on Friday, then to Houston and San Francisco, a pretty long day! To be in position for the 7am flight, she and Steve departed the "Hot Tub" (nickname for the anchorage we shared in the East Hollandes) on Thursday afternoon. Steve will proceed on to Portobello or Boca del Torres to try and get the port engine repaired.

Yesterday we moved New Morning to Salardup (see Where's New Morning). Before we could even put up the bimini we were greeted by Ralph from Five Islands who invited us to a beach party that evening. I went ashore with a couple other guys and gathered wood in the afternoon, stirring up lots of no-no's and then incurring lots of bites in the process.

The party itself was very well attended as another 6-7 boats came in after us and most of the 14 boats here joined the party. There was a pot luck dinner, bonfire, music and group singing - shades of summer camp! Then someone realized their dinghy had floated away so we scrambled to help find it. Fortunately it didn't drift too far, but at that point we were in our dinghy so we headed home. I nice evening spent chatting and singing with a great group of people.

Fay's Fish of the Day

Bread Bonanza

We must be getting settled in because there is bread popping out everywhere! Two days ago I made a couple of loaves of rustic white bread which Fay complemented with a fabulous spaghetti and meatball dinner. Of course the sauce and meatballs were all fresh made that morning. With some good olive oil and balsamic vinegar it was a great dinner.

Last night we shared the bread with Patty and Steve which inspired Steve to make bread today. As Patty said "Steve gave me a piece of fresh bread with butter at noon and I was in heaven!".

And since we were running low on english muffins for breakfast, and they aren't that great anyway, today I made a loaf of cinnamon raisin oatmeal whole wheat bread. Maybe a couple more rustic loaves on Thursday and we'll be set for a week or two.

Sun!

This week the weather really improved with the rain going away and the sun coming out! We've been able to have the forward hatch open at night with a cool breeze blowing through the cabin. In fact it got so cool that Fay wrapped up in a blanket and eventually closed the hatch last night. Amazing how 75F can seem too cool!

We've made progress on boat chores; though we're in no danger of exhausting the list. Our charging is still limping along until we get a new regulator but the sun is out so the solar is now making a nice contribution to our batteries.

We spent a few days in the West Hollandes, with Steve and Patty on Hanelei Moon, one of Fay's favorite anchorages. The first day or so was a bit rolly and we had to deploy our flopper stopper to smooth things out. The water was also a little churned up so the visibility was not quite as good as last year. But Fay got out the new Canon G12 into its underwater case and captured a picture of a Yellow Tail Damsel fish that we had not previously seen. She also spotted a nurse shark, lots of parrot fish, a turtle and she swears she saw the same colorful worm that she photographed last year!

Patty and Steve didn't like the roll at the West Hollandes so they moved to the East Hollendes and we followed the next day. We have a large reef behind us to the south and two islands with a large barrier reef behind them to the north. This is a really delightful anchorage (check the Where's New Morning page) with a nice steady breeze to keep us cool and absolutey no swell or roll, just a light wind ruffle on the water. Yesterday we explored the east end of the reef behind us. I saw a 2' sting ray launch at least 2-3' out of the water, and an assortment of reef fish. Fay saw an Indigo Hamlet which was also the first time we had seen that fish.

Two nights ago was blue cheese burgers and a nice California Merlot. Last night was fish tacos with the last of a mahi-mahi that Steve caught on his passage from Jamaica to Panama. Tonights dinner may come from a passing Kuna or the freezer, but I'm sure it will be tasty.

The Kindle has been bringing us the New York Times each day and The Economist each week so we read enough news to stay current. It's Sunday morning so Fay is going to enjoy the Sunday New York Times in the cockpit, where it's a little warmer than in New York City! Hope you have a wonderful day wherever you are.

Crab, lobster, molas and friends

We've been in San Blas now for about a week. Our check in last Sunday was delayed (Immigration man MIA) so we needed to spend a night in Porvenir. That turned out to be a good stop as shortly after we got the bad news on the check in we learned that our friends Christian and Josiane on Astérie would be arriving the next morning to check out. And then Fay bought a massive crab from a passing Kuna and we had a great dinner of fresh crab.

Monday morning we went ashore early and checked in. There had recently been two large drug busts ($40M of cocaine) in the general area, intercepting boats from Columbia so Porvenir was full of Policia decked out in fatigues and carrying all manner of automatic weapons; but happily kicking around a soccer ball and enjoying themselves!

Later in the morning Christian and Josiane arrived and we had a great lunch with the mandatory wine in the French tradition. We had hoped to buddy boat with them to French Polynesia but learned their plans had changed and they now intend to be in Bali by September; 11,000 nautical miles in eight months! Too fast for us.

Our friends Steve, Oliver and Gary had sailed down from Florida, almost non-stop, and Patty and Marla had flown in on Friday night. So we departed Porvenir for Cambombia to meet up with them amidst thick gray clouds and growing seas. By the time we reached the Canal Mayflower the swells were quite large, very much like Pacific swells, long and tall, unlike any we have seen in the Caribbean. The light was too flat to try cutting through the outter reef so we went around to Canal Mangles which took even longer and by the time we reached Cambombia is was 5pm. With the thick clouds it was impossible to see through the water to read the depth. Steve came out in his dinghy and with Oliver throwing a "lead line" they found a spot for us to enter the anchorage. We cleared the reef with just 1.7' under our keel! We quickly anchored in 60' and joined everyone on Hanalei Moon for cocktails!

We've spent our fair share of time on boat chores and Fay has New Morning looking very nice. After two days in Cambombia we moved to Green Island. Fay did some snorkeling with Steve, Patty, Oliver and Marla, but a crocodile sighting dampened everyone's enthusiasm. Yesterday Hanalei Moon departed for the Hollandes to break up the return to Porvenir where they will drop off Oliver, Marla and Gary for a 7am flight on Sunday.

Shortly after they departed we were visited by Venacio, a highly regarded mola maker. While I tinkered with the engine wiring Fay spent an hour going through every mola and then laboring over the decision of which ones to purchase. While trying to make up her mind she was visited by a Kuna fisherman selling some "tulup" or lobsters! She used Venacio to help her negotiate with the fisherman and secured two medium sized lobsters for $20. Fay eventually settled on four molas and completed her business with Venacio.

Fay cooked up the lobsters in the afternoon, combined them with a papaya and avocado she had purchased in the morning and served up a beautiful lobster salad for dinner; complemented by the last glass of wine left from Christian's visit. After a very intense six weeks of boat chores I think we're starting to get back into our cruising rhythm.

We escaped!

Check out our new position in Linton! After almost five weeks we finally got off the dock. Time to see Steve, Patty, Oliver and Marla on Hanelei Moon, and maybe Christian and Josiane too!

The rain let up a little earlier in the week but yesterday was rainy again and this morning was a flat gray raining sky. It broke for about two hours when we departed (and then spent an hour calibrating our autopilot), but started up again and rained for most of the trip to Linton. It got quite intense close to Linton but we could see it lightening up so we slowed down, headed a little further offshore and let the worst of it pass.

Fay was still getting her sea legs, and the anchorage is now a bit rolly. We still have a bunch of stuff to fix, but it's so nice to be off the dock!

Solar makes three

With lots of help from Ramone on Monday I was able to remove and remount the four defective solar panels on the starboard side. The replacements were not exactly the same. First, the cells themselves are clearly different, the new cells looking black where the original panels were more of a navy blue as you can see in the picture. Then they are laminated more completely than the previous panels which made them a little bit larger so we ended up with a small overlap between two of the panels on top of the dodger, but they seem very secure. And the connection boxes on the panels are placed a little differently so the white boxes we had to protect the wires from wayward toes don't quite fit. One of them we managed to make work, but Ramone is trying to fabricate three others. And then finally the replacement panels also have a different cell protector so the wiring was more time consuming and I didn't complete that until yesterday. Hopefully Ramone will have the finished boxes today and we can call the job complete, having replaced three of the four panels on the starboard side. It started raining about an hour after we finished on Monday, there were a few squalls on Tuesday and a pretty good rain last night. There is no evidence of any water coming below so it looks like the wiring is well sealed.

We'll wait until we return to Shelter Bay next month to swap out the port side. Now, on to our more mundane commissioning tasks so that we hope we can actually depart for San Blas by Saturday.

Two down, one to go

We had three big problems to solve when we got here and we've now addressed two of them. Yesterday and today were mostly sunny, in fact yesterday we put up the bimini, the first time we've really needed it since we arrived in Panama. The sun dried things out a bit and that gave us the opportunity to begin the on deck jobs.

Today we solved one of our compounded "self inflicted wounds". When we were de-commissioning New Morning I was removing the reef lines to stow them out of the sun. Nice idea, but I botched the execution and pulled one of the lines all the way through the trough without a messenger! Then we compounded the problem when Fay decided she would fish it through with some wire we have onboard, then managed to jam the wire in the trough! So today we opened up the trough (and Fay found a second opening in the starboard deck locker), cleared the jammed wire, pulled the reef line through and closed it all up.

The last problem is replacing the solar panels. Let's hope for a few more sunny days! We'd really like to get out of the marina and back to San Blas!