Use your sunscreen

For the last month I've been treating my face, neck, chest and arms with Fluorouracil (aka Efudex or 5FU). This is what I looked like yesterday, a week after I quit applying the treatment and definitely past the peak of the reaction and inflammation. It not only doesn't look pretty, it feels miserable. Most of the last two weeks my skin has been on fire, alternating with an intense "pins and needles" sensation that makes me want to rip off my skin. Application of a topical steroid and liberal applications of Aquaphor create a mess, but ease the discomfort.

I tell this tale so that you will be encouraged to use sunscreen every day. Sun damage is accumulated from sun exposure over your entire life. Ten minutes six times a week is the same as one hour on one day.

No mold

Good news from Panama. We asked some cruising friends to check in on New Morning and we got back the report that she is looking good with no mold on the interior. Also no leaks so she is sitting pretty, just waiting for us to return.

The coldest winter I ever knew...

Mark Twain said it first, but it was confirmed by NASA:

"The invisible summer, seamless from spring to fall," said Bill Patzert, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who studies the role of oceans in the global climate. "The ocean never warmed," Patzert said. The cause was a stalled jet stream pattern in the Northern Hemisphere that created a semi-permanent trough of low pressure from Alaska to southern Baja California, Mexico, and kept the entire west coast of North America cool, Patzert said.

In Sausalito we've had the furnace on almost every day since we got home last May, though now that summer has officially ended, it has actually warmed up! We did escape the cold a few times, including some great time at Lake Tahoe which included this hike to the top of Ellis Peak at 8,700'.

But now our attention turns to New Morning as we have roughly two months to prepare everything we need for a year of cruising. We plan to return to Panama in early December and repair the autopilot, install the new solar panels and fix a few other problems that were identified back in April. These include an incorrectly plumbed shaft seal vent, broken raw water pump, and a few problems we created ourselves while decommissioning in April. We have plenty to keep us busy, probably right up until Christmas. Then we plan to return to the San Blas Islands for a few months before transiting the canal in late March.

Sunware update

As I mentioned in the past, we've had de-lamination problems with our Sunware solar panels. Nothing that had actually stopped them from working as far as we can tell, but probably would have eventually.

I'm pleased to report that Sunware stood behind their product and shipped us 6 new panels, via air freight, to replace the failing panels. While installing the replacements is still another project, we're very pleased that the company backed their warranty and sent the replacements.

San Blas and Panama

The last of the pictures for now, San Blas and Panama.

Passage to San Blas

The pictures are now uploaded to the Passage to San Blas page.

Los Roques and Bonaire

I finally got to posting some pictures from Los Roques (and nearby Aves Barlovento) and Bonaire. Enjoy!

Pt. Reyes Cleanup

Toto, we're not in the tropics anymore!

Last week we got an email alerting us to a beach clean up at Pt. Reyes. Like most windward shores, the north side of Pt. Reyes collects a lot of debris. Unfortunately I got the schedule wrong by one day and when we showed up at 9:30am the parking lot was as empty as the wind swept beach. Fay and I looked at each other and decided we didn't need instruction on how to pickup plastic. The 53F wind was was blowing a steady 15-25 knots (35 when we later visited the lighthouse) so we bundled up, grabbed two shopping bags and started walking the beach. The beach was actually surprisingly clean compared to many windward shores we saw in the Caribbean. None the less we were able to fill two shopping bags with bits of plastic, and a few bottles, in about an hour. The largest piece was a Japanese fishing float, the smallest was a toy figure. In between were lots of pieces of shattered plastic, tooth brushes and bottle caps.

By coincidence, Manuel Maqueda of the Plastic Pollution Coalition spoke today at the St. Francis Yacht Club. There is excellent information on their web site, particularly regarding the myth of plastic "recycling" and why once created, plastic is forever.

Pictures of Los Roques

I posted a few pictures from Los Roques. Pictures from Aves, Bonaire and San Blas coming soon. The pictures can be found under Where we've been.

Kindness of Strangers

One of the most rewarding things about cruising is the people we meet. Or in this case, haven't yet met.

After we packed up New Morning for summer storage we had 4 large duffle bags of "stuff" that we were bringing home, plus our personal backpacks for laptops and miscellaneous, and a camera backpack with our good SLR and lenses. We checked the four duffle bags as luggage, but needed to carry the backpacks. Being slightly disoriented in the big city (Panama City) and making the transition to land, we let down our guard, relaxed at the Admiral's Club, got on the plane and had a quick mimosa. Arriving in Miami we looked around and realized, no camera bag!

The Admiral's Club in Miami called the club in Panama and sure enough we had left our bag in the club. So we thought easy, just send it on home to us with the next AA flight. Not so fast. To make a long story endless, the Admiral's Club will not package anything for shipment, and FedEx will not pick up a shipment unless it's packaged. Catch 22. Enter the cruising network.

Fay contacted Brad and Gloria of Kindred Spirit who put our dilemma on the San Blas cruiser's net the next morning. Rob of Akka responded. Rob picked up our camera bag in Panama City, cleared it through customs in Miami, hauled it to New York, placed it in a box and shipped it off via FedEx. We received it in Sausalito the next day. We spoke briefly on the phone, but have never met (though we hope to this fall). This is the kindness of strangers that is so rewarding, and so common, in the cruising community.

Thank you.

How can the Pacific be in the East?

After a week of very hot and sweaty work, New Morning is on the hard at Shelter Bay, just a couple of miles from the canal. The transition from New Morning to Sausalito is always a little sad, but we leave one home for another, and enjoy them both.

We've found that we need transition time between New Morning and California. Time to make a gradual adjustment from life on the water to life in California. From Shelter Bay we took a taxi to Panama City and on the way we stopped for a tour of the Gatun Locks at the Atlantic side of the canal.

It was really amazing to see the huge ships we're always dodging at sea up very close as they go through the locks. The ships are just barely surrounded by water, just enough to float them. It's like an adult sitting in an inflatable wading pool made for children. The largest ships that the canal can accommodate (aka Panamax) leave about 18" between the ship and the side of the lock, and no more than 2m below them (maximum draft is 12m or about 39'). Some ships have to unload ballast water, or even offload containers, to fit through the canal.

After touring the canal, we drove on to Panama City which is the largest city we've seen for awhile. It's big and busy with shopping, cars, traffic (lots of horns) and people wear more than shorts and a t-shirt! And the internet connection was fast and reliable.

We spent a good part of Friday checking out grocery stores and shops for provisioning when we return in the fall. We will provision in Panama City for a few months in the San Blas islands, then again for the Pacific crossing and six months in the Pacific. We found stores where we could buy everything we could want. Unlike last season we won't be packing up boxes of food to bring to New Morning.

Back at the hotel we got very disoriented as we watched the sun set to our left, but the Pacific ocean was visible to our right, to the east. Huh? We had to take a look at Google Earth to appreciate that contrary to our preconception, Panama lies essentially west to east and the canal runs north/south. And if you're not confused yet, Panama City is actually just a little bit east of Miami.

So we're on our way home and New Morning will rest in the rain for six months. We'll update the pictures for our 2009-2010 travels within a couple of weeks. And our new schedule will be on the web site shortly under "What's Next".

Reset

Over the last few days we've considered our situation. Unfortunately, though progress has been made, none of the three major problems we thought we had addressed last summer have been resolved. Our new autopilot steers really well, but the port cylinder ripped apart the mounting bracket. Both brackets need to be re-engineered, fabricated and installed. Our refrigeration boxes still have some major flaws and we still have a leak at our D1 starboard chain plate. It's also become clear that these problems will not be resolved quickly.

And in the course of trying to change the impeller on our engine I managed to snap off one of the screws on the wear plate for the water pump. This in turn revealed a problem with the plumbing of the shaft seal vent line which results in siphoning sea water into the engine raw water plumbing and creates a continual flow of water through the now poorly sealed impeller wear plate. Net, net, even with the main seacock to the engine closed, we have a significant leak in the boat. We need to install a valve in the shaft seal vent line and replace the water pump.

On the plus side, we would like to spend a lot more time in the San Blas Islands.

Mixing all this together and stirring in the seasonal weather considerations, we've decided to haul out New Morning on Wednesday and store her on the hard at Shelter Bay for the summer while we address the major maintenance issues.

Unfortunately there are very few services available here so Fay and I are doing all the work to prepare New Morning for storage. It's also incredibly hot. At sunrise the temperature is about 83F, and then during the day it rises to about 93F while the humidity swings between 70-75%. We work from 7am - 5pm, consuming at least a gallon of water throughout the day in an attempt to rehydrate ourselves. The bugs from the adjacent jungle keep us inside the boat during the evening when it's cooler outside the boat, so we retreat to the forward cabin which has air conditioning. We're looking forward to finishing the preparations, getting New Morning moved onto the hard and heading home.

Our plan is to return in late November when the rainy season in Panama has ended and cruise San Blas for three months. This will set us up for a more typical seasonal schedule for transiting the canal, cruising the Galapagos and then on to French Polynesia in the spring of 2011.

Shelter Bay

We took two days to sail from San Blas to the Shelter Bay Marina on the Caribbean side of the canal, with a stop at Isla Linton. It's hot here, in the low 90's every day. Some unusual weather systems have turned the wind around with light winds out of the west and south rather than the trades out of the NE for the last week so the trade winds are not helping cool the marina. We had 15-25kts from the south and spent the last two hours of the trip yesterday beating into the wind - very unusual. Lots and lots of ships here, anchored inside and outside the breakwater. We were constantly dodging anchored ships as wells as ships going to/from the canal. It reminded us of sailing in the bay on a busy day.

We're now looking into how to get our autopilot and refrigeration problems solved before we head to the South Pacific. More details soon!

87 + 78 + 86 = Really hot!

This morning the air temperature is 87F, the humidity is 78%, the water temperature is 86F and there is essentially no wind. That adds up to really hot and humid. We swim most afternoons but the water has huge temperature differences in just a few yards. In some places it's almost too hot to swim, like a very warm bath, and then a couple of yards away it actually feels cold, which means it might be 80F. But an hour or two of snorkeling does cool us off for awhile. Yesterday Fay got a nice shot of this guy looking up from his hiding spot inside some coral.

Looking out the back door

After checking into the San Blas region (aka Kuna Yala) of Panama, we moved to an anchorage at Chichime. We spent two days there catching up on some immediate repairs, swimming and unwinding from our passage from Bonaire. This was the view out the companionway and through the cockpit for two days. These islands were typical of the others we've seen in San Blas. White sand beaches rising 4-5 feet above sea level, covered with coconut palms and populated by a few Kuna families in huts built of palm fronds. This region is pretty much right out of the travel brochures!

Two pair of Paines

Pair-of-PainesIf we were playing yacht designer poker it would be a reasonable hand. Two nights before we departed Bonaire, another Chuck Paine design, Home Free, was on the mooring next to us. I first met Home Free, a Morris 51, in 2005 at the Morris yard where she was undergoing repairs. Her owner, Bob Trenary, and I traded email for several years before we finally met at the Newport Shipyard in 2008 while both waiting to depart for the Caribbean. We later shared an anchorage in the BVIs in 2009 and our delayed departure from Bonaire brought us together again in 2010.
Then, two nights ago we came on deck to swim across the anchorage and thought the boat that had just anchored next to us looked very familiar. We looked closer and she was another Chuck Paine design, a Kanter 62. Now owned by a New Zealand couple, they had purchased Sequel II in Florida and were on their way back to New Zealand.
So our passage from Bonaire to San Blas was bookended by two other Chuck Paine designs!

San Blas

We're in the San Blas islands which are the territory of the Kuna indians. Cruisers discovered the idyllic islands (more pics later) which are a few feet of white sand above the water, covered with palm trees, out of the hurricane zone and populated by these gentle people. The Kuna's in turn discovered the cruisers and have built a good business selling them mola's, brightly colored embroidery, as well as bracelets and a few other items. As soon as a new boat is anchored, one or two Kuna dugout canoes (ulu's) are on either side of the boat offering their goods. The Kuna are patient and tenacious sellers.

Fay bought several mola's from this woman this morning. This picture has not been "dialed up" in PhotoShop, these are the real colors - BRIGHT!

San Blas

We arrived in San Blas this afternoon, motoring the last 10 hrs as there was very little wind, then even less. We're currently anchored right off the airport on Isla Porvenir. The airport is a very narrow and short strip of bad asphalt slightly shorter than the entire island.

Tomorrow we'll clear in, then move to another anchorage. But tonight, it's a couple of beers, some pinot noir, a nice lasagne, and a lot of sleep!

24 hours

A cruising day can be very rich and full with beauty, drama, tragedy and a full range of human emotions.

Tuesday through Thursday was light air with 10-14kts of breeze, occasionally dropping to 6-8 which forced us to motor for a few hours. We got pretty complacent with the light breezes, excited when it would surge to 16kts and we would have a little more speed.

Our 24 hrs begins on Thursday afternoon when we decided to take advantage of the benign conditions and try our spinnaker furler system. Some suggestions had been made in Antigua after our testing there and we wanted to try them out. It was our first "solo", just Fay and I raising the big sail. We made the changes we discussed earlier and soon had it flying. We immediately picked up 1.5-2kts of speed and the boat felt much more stable. But after about 20minutes we noticed a problem with the furler which we thought was from our inexperience. We furled the sail (the problems with spinnakers are usually getting them down), but noticed another problem. We sorted those out, unfurled again about half way and then realized that the changes we had agreed to in Antigua (adding a snap shackle to the tack of the furler) were the cause of our new problems. So we furled it back up, sorted it out, and put it away for another day.

We had a load of wash going so Fay pinned the laundry up on the lifelines and we coasted along with our 12-14kt breeze.

Late that afternoon the forecast was for the breeze to freshen to 16-20kts in the evening and through the next morning so we looked forward to a little more speed. Just before Fay went off watch at 7pm we reefed the main just to keep things nice and mellow. It stayed light and in my 8pm log entry I wrote that we were "underpowered". But the breeze built as expected and we were soon moving right along. Then the seas built rapidly and we were very uncomfortable with a big cross swell that rolled us pretty wildly every 5 minutes or so.

I was awakened at 1:30am during Fay's watch when it was really rocking. We had 25-28kts, big seas rolling us like crazy, a lightning storm overtaking us from windward, and a ship which would not respond to our radio calls, had the dimmest lights I'd ever seen on a big ship, and was calculated to cross us with just 500yds to spare, way too close. The direction and force of the wind was sort of locking us into a "close call" course so we rolled up the jib and double reefed the main, allowing us to alter course enough to clear the ship by 2 miles.

But the big seas continued to roll us wildly and we sailed for some time with the double reef and a little bit of jib to balance the boat. Fay got some sleep and I was on watch until she came back at 6am.

I slept about an hour, then was awakened about 7:30am when New Morning took a hard turn and luffed up into the wind. I stuck my head up in the companionway and Fay told me the autopilot had quit working! Deja vu, this is what happened during our passage from Bermuda to the BVI's in 2008! I was barely awake but put on my PFD/harness and tether and confirmed she was correct, no autopilot. Plus some strange clunking noises, but the steering seemed ok.

Unlike our Bermuda/BVI passage, the seas were too rough to do anything immediately. Even though we were both exhausted, the only real choice was to hand steer until things calmed down. I did a quick weather check and concluded that the breeze should lighten up by early afternoon, and would be even lighter if we turned towards the Columbian coast. Columbia was not our destination so we split the difference and headed towards the coast, but not quite directly. Over the next four hours we took turns steering for 30 minutes at a time. In the 30 minutes when we weren't steering, we took turns hauling things out of the aft cockpit locker, cleaning off the hydraulic fluid that was all over everything (one indication that something was very wrong), placing the stuff in plastic bags and stowing it in the forward cabin. Finally I was able to remove the panel in front of the steering.

I expected to see something bad, but I was really surprised to see a hydraulic ram, still attached to the quadrant, still mounted to a huge aluminum base, and dragging hydraulic hoses, swinging back and forth every time we turned the wheel. We don't know exactly what failed, but it looks like the port cylinder mount pulled out of the boat which is very strange. In due time I was able to remove the ram from the quadrant, and attach the spare ram which is mounted on the starboard side. All of this while we still had pretty good sized seas and 20-23kts of wind. This is kind of like bolting something to the steering wheel while you're friend is driving down a twisty mountain road with no brakes. My fingers were holding onto the cylinder fitting and trying to slide it onto the peg on the quadrant, while Fay was trying to coordinate her turns with me, but not lose control of the boat. Then once the fitting was on the peg, I had to slide on a large washer and a retaining clip. All of this at arms length, under the quadrant and in constant motion threatening to claim one of my fingers. But we got it done.

Then it took another hour to juggle the wiring to the autopilot (the switch installed earlier was not wired correctly), and then convince the autopilot to use the new ram without going through all of it's setup procedures. We skipped the "learning" procedure and went straight to "on the job training". By 1:30pm the autopilot was again steering and we were exhausted.

I made a couple of phone calls and sent some emails, then Fay let me go to sleep. When I woke up at 4:30, things were as mellow as could be. New Morning was cranking out 8-9kts in 18-20kts of breeze, sliding down much more friendly waves. The sky was blue and clear and the wind had shifted to allow us to steer directly for San Blas. And after all the light wind and too much wind and autopilot problems and course changes for ships, our ETA was Saturday morning, four days for 700 miles, a very reasonable 175m/day.

And we've received a response from the people who installed the autopilot and are working to coordinate logistics for the repair in Panama.

24 hours...

Light and steady

We departed Bonaire yesterday in light air and had to motor on and off forthe first five hours. Once we were totally clear of Bonaire we got a light but steady breeze and we've been sailing ever since. The wind is steady at 12-16kts, but it's from directly behind us. To make the ride a little more comfortable we're sailing on a broad reach and then gybing every few hours, essentially zig zagging down the course. The seas are generally small, but it woldn't be the Caribbean if there wasn't a cross swell to slap us around periodically.

Yesterday we saw some frenzied fish and bird activity with the water churning and birds circling, but we were never able to determine exactly what was going on. We saw a few large fish (three feet plus) jump and they might have been tuna. We're not sure if they were the predator or the prey.

Last night was very peaceful. It cools off when the sun goes down which is very welcome. The breeze was steady and the water reasonably calm. There was no moon and a slight haze dimmed the stars so there wasn't much to see. It was difficult to make out the horizon when we would scan it with the binoculars looking for fishing boats and other traffic that might not show up on the radar or AIS.

Sailiing at night is kind of like driving down a straight freeway at night with the headlights off, or in thick fog when you're 99.9% sure that you're the only car on the road. As long as you hold the wheel straight, everything is fine, you're just rushing through the darkness with a slight sense of foreboding. Behind us there was a sparkling trail of phosphorescence as the keel and rudder excited the plankton. There were bright distinct pieces of plankton, some trapped on the swim platform, and then a dull glow deeper in the water trailing behind the boat.

Without much to look at, we both listened to NPR on our iPod shuffles. It's a little incongruous listening to the News Hour or Fresh Air, but it helps pass the time on the night watch.

The forecast if for continued light air for the next couple of days, mixed with some rain and possibly a good strong breeze for12hrs or so. Then the final day into San Blas is looking pretty light and we may have to motor. It's not yet clear if we'll make it in on Saturday afternoon, or have to wait offshore and make landfall on Sunday morning.