Cartegena in the rear view mirror .. Aurbua Ho! 20 to 24 Sept 2014

After the final seth dinner we decided to do a final movie night in the cockpit while we sipped some of seth's new rum.  The rum was quite good, and it took all our self control to make sure we left some for the final phase of his trip.  We decided on office space to avoid any conflict on optimal level of movie violence.  In the end we stayed up quite late solving worlds problems so it was 9am before we where up.



I had a few things do finish up on the white board such as securing all the jerry jugs checking oil etc before getting under way so while I did that seth made us a final bfast.  Did i mention we now had 200 gal of fuel!  After I dropped seth off at the dingy dock it was back to palapa and single handing.  Of course it was quite windy by now so getting the anchor up was non trivial but I managed and got everything set up and headed out of the harbor.  it is great having the new windless!



It was a bit sad looking at Cartagena in the rear view mirror but I can only spend so much time in port before feeling the urge to head off!  i always get this feeling of freedom when heading out to see as well.



The good news was the wind was out of the west so I was able to sail as soon as i cleared the harbor entrance.  As I sailed past the beach seth and i had parked at i remenised about the fun week and wondered what was to be next..



I was able to sail all day and into the night.  Fortunately i had stocked up on leftovers so I was able to have a chip appetizer followed by carne asada on rice for dinner.  Alas seth and I had finished up the pizza durring the last movie night so no pizza leftovers.  I did my 20 minute nap program waking up to look at the AIS and radar with my iphone alarm.



The next day I picked up a finch hitchhiker.  He was clearly out of range from land and flew around the cockpit.  he seemed hungry so i offered him some water and raman noodles.  he rejected both but proceeded to hop around the cockpit eating first the dead months i had killed the night before and then the live ones.  in doing so he managed to poop all over everything.  it is amazing how much poop a tiny bird can have, made me glad to not have a pet.  in his pursuit of moths he managed to land on my head twice.  i did not want to kill the poor guy but the second time i gave him a stern lecture and he banished himself to the dingy (where he continued to poop).



around sunset we got another visitor this time a tiered looking hawk.  this guys was clearly out of his element as well and kept making low passes at the cockpit.  when ever he would do this the finch would fly off and around and then eventually come back.  finally i decided to abandon the cockpit to the birds and closed the hatch and retreated down below.



we had a biq squall that night so i elected to hunker down and do a movie night.  fortunately i still had leftover carne asada so another easy meal.  i thought the finch was long gone or had been eaten by the hawk but around 2am when i went up to check he was sitting on one of the pillows looking tiered and of course pooping on the cushion.  i left him alone figuring he was on his last legs.



the next morning i got up and cleared the flying fish off the deck and looked for a dead finch.  i never found him so i presume he must have recovered enough to make it to shore once we where closer.



the winds where to light to sail so i spent most of the day motoring along at 5 to 6 kts reading and relaxing.  by afternoon we had some wind out of the north so i was again able to sail.  this lasted through happy hour and dinner before i again had to start the engine.



i did another movie night as my book selection was down to the rock bottom.  the next day my good weather karma finally caught up with me.  as i rounded the eastern most point of columbia the winds really picked up and i got white caps for the first time.  i was expecting this spot to be crappy, it kind of reminded me of point conception.   of course as i added power i noticed the engine was topping out at 2400 rpm.  great i thought, fortunately i had not yet rounded the point and there was an uncharted bay about an hour out.  this was especially concerning as i was coming up on Venezuela and the last thing i wanted to do was have engine problems and end up stopping there for repairs.



i headed to the bay at max power doing 4.5 kts.  i was too chicken to go very far into the bay as it was not clear how deep it was so i ended up anchoring in a pretty rolly spot.  on the motor over i had determined there was a lot of crap in the bottom of my racor bowl (i had swapped the filter out the week before).  i also decided i would change the secondary fuel filter on the engine.  i started with the gunk in the bottom of the filter.  i dont think this had ever been cleaned out so it was a bit of a messy job.  after this i swapped out the engine mounted filter.  this was also a pain due to the rolling and location.  i filled the new filter with fresh fuel and put everything back together.

i was quite happy when the engine fired up and went up to 3000 rpm easily in  neutral.  by the time i got the anchor up and got under way we had 20 kts of wind on the nose and building seas.  not the end of the world i had plenty of fuel and was about to make 5 kts at 2600rm.



this continued all night and in to the morning when i finally sighted aruba at dawn.  fortunately i had found an abc cruising guide that heartsong had given me so i knew the clearance procedure.  when i had left cartagena 3 days ago i had talked to allie one of david and thryns friends from st john about coming down.  she was interested in potentially doing more charter work and also wanted some offshore sailing experience.  when i last spoke to her there where issues with her job and time away from her bf so it was not clear if she was coming or not and if she was not i was just going to press on.

fortunately i got the bgan working and found an email confirming her arrival the next day.  i called the port captain and was vectored into the cruise ship terminal to clear customs.  not very painful, free and about half an hour but by then i was pinned to the dock by rising wind.   to make matters worse it was a cruise ship dock with old tires for fenders marking up the side of palapa.  finally with the help of some dock guys i was able to get off the dock without causing any damage.



i headed around the corner to renaissance marina and was given a berth right next to the fuel dock for only 44 per day.  the marina was connected to a resort and a casino complex with shuttle boat to a private island.  the area around the marina reminded my of the us in not a good way.  i finally picked a restaurant and got a decent fish wrap to go with my 6$ beers.  the waiter told me they had gone out of the way to develop aruba so tourists felt "at home".  it was a bit scary for me and after one more attempt at a more local bar with $5 beers i decided i would not be going out.

i spent the day getting laundry done, getting new strobes at the marine store and a little provisioning at a Chinese grocery store.  they had all kinds of cool stuff but no sesame oil.  the women at the checkout told me that i was the first person to ask for it that it was used mostly in china.

my new crew was scheduled to arrive at 8pm so at 730 i headed to the airport to pick them up with a beer and subway (yes they had subway in aruba).  i was quite shocked to discover the flight was showing arrived and the time was showing 840.  after bit of staring i finally realized i had been screwed by "palapa time" once again.  as i thought back i had never verified what time zone we where in and just kept the time set so sunrise and sunset where around 6am and 6pm

fortunately while i was dwelling on this allie came up and said "roger"?  "fortunately" she had gotten hung up in customs and just gotten out.  she was concerned i had given up on her and left.  we had a laugh and got a cab back to palapa.  back on palapa we had a celebratory drink or two and planned a post bfast departure for bonair.

Seth and Rogers Cartagania Tour! - 11 to 19 Sept 2014

So the week in cartagena was a bit of a blurr what can i say.  at the start of the trip we where getting up at dawn and struggling to stay out until the place got hopping by the end we where fully aclimated out well past midnight and able to sleep until 11am!  the ari-con with shore power definitely helped with the sleeping.  



its hard to know where to beging to describe the event.  of course the first night we headed out to kirks favorite bar in the old city.  this was a cool salsa bar with an out door seating area.  throughout the night different groups of entertainers would ome along and dance or whatever and then pass the hat.  when you got tiered of that you could bob into the salsa bar and find someone to salsa with.  i gave it a shot a few times and managed to not totally emberass my self!  the other great thing about columbia and this bar is they do not server rum and cokes by the glass.  you order the botte and a mixer and they bring you this and a bucket of ice.  muy economical and you never get a bad drink.  we even got them to being us glass glasses.  cant remember the esponol for that!



we also did the night walk aournd the city.  you can walk around the walled city on the top of the wall and every so often there is a dude selling cold beers for 3 pesos each ($1.50).  we did this a coulle of times and in the process kept discovering cool squares with entertainers and awsome street food.  there was so much good stuff for sail we had to try to not anything so we would be hungery enough! and yes you can fall off the wall and kill your self.  there are no yellow lines or railings and surprisingly enough no columbians falling off suing someone for their stupidity.



needless to say we did not get a lot of boat projects done.  we did put a new one way valve in the head pressure line, actually found one at the local shop.  also, following kirks detailed description we navigated thorough this massive out door "market" selling everything from washing machines to fried chick to fins extra fuel containers for the passage.  we settled on 3 16 gal containers that fit perfectly in the cockpit bringing the total fuel capacity up to 200 gal.  the jugs cost 50 $ and fuel is a $ cheeper here than the bvi so basically the tanks as free.



we did two beach days complete with the palapa cooler and gold beer and rum and diet coke.  the first day we where acosted by the masage girls where quite entertaining.  the wold litterly not take no for an answer and just sarted rubbing you down.  i finally reletned to one of the hotter funnyer ones as she kept saing promotiano or whateve the spains woord for "promotianal" is.  the second trip we even managed to bring the ble speeker so we could continue to listen to the same palapa play lists again and again!



some where along the way we both got hair cuts, seth from the old school barber and me from some big black chick in a message/beauty parlor.  i remembered to take a picture of my self with short hair along to bridge the laguage gap.  i think i am going to stick with this 6 month between haircut program going back and forth between short and long!



we also ventered into the backbacker land one night and had the best fried chicken ever at this little bar.  the litterly just have this vat of boiling oil behind the bar they throw chicken into.  it is delicous and super moist and takes an amazingly long time to cook.  the whole system looked like a massive deth trap with exposed wires and hot oil.  we where pretty sure the was not workers comp if you screwed up and put your hand int the vat.  the second time we went we even got them to make us fries, a special order item that seth had too seet talk them into.  the best part was they gave you plastic gloves to eat your chicken with, i am amazed no one else has come up with this!



we even did the "gay day bus tour".  we almost did not get to squeeze this event in as we where getting so good at sleeping in towards the end of the trip but we got organized after our 11am wake up and where on the bus at 1pm.  it was quite fun we got the front top seats had our little 6 pack cooler with beer.  we where all set up and then the "flight attendant" came up.  we thought she was going to complain about the beer but she just took our voucher gave us tickets and our "complementary" headsets for the tour (in 6 different languages).  



it was quite a fun event we got to see the whole city most of which we had seen in bits and pieces before.  we went down the "peninsula" which apapernetly used to be an island and is now covered with hi rises really reminds me of garden grove in miami.



we finished up the gay day charter event with a stop at mc-ds for fries for the bus ride home and then a final pass at the awesome fried chicken place!  we really are going to miss this place.



we got off the dock and fueled up the day before seths departure, super nice fuel dock 4.25 per gal fuel.  stayed open well after closing to fill up all the boats waiting in line to top up before the weekend.  after this palapa was pretty much ready to go anywhere.  we headed back on dropped anchor and after a r&c
headed in to clear out.



the check and out  here is a breeze, the dock guy new "gordo" dave and the day after we arrived he came by and picked up our papers.  a few days later he came back with a customs girl who looked at the boat from the dock and gave us our clearance in.  the night before i  left dave met us at the marina parking lot and geve us all the docs and charges us 400 pesos's 200$. no waiting wandering or anything



after the "check out"  i took seth out for pizza and then we buzzed over to the minimart to get money from the atm for seths follow on trip.  of course there was this hot chick in the mini mart giving out free samples of rum.  she seemed to like us and kept poring us rum.  seth got a bottle and got a free sausage/lime combo with it!  they offered him a free jacket as well but it was a bit small and its a bit hot here!  not sure where that marketing program came from!  the chick wanted pictures with her and seth and we ended up pretty much shutting down the line while the posed for the photo opp.

Sail to the big city Cartagena - 8 to 10 Sept

so rather then being awakened by the alarm at 4am we where awakened by a major lightning storm at 3am.  by the time seth and i where on deck and had the engine running it was blowing 25 to 30 kts with gusts up to 35 and rain blowing sidewise.  we where in between 3 reefs so we where not super happy.  seth got the job to let more scope out he came back to ask me i was not following his directions to motor into the wind.  i laughed i told him i could not even see him and to just drop it under tension.  we ended up with 50 meters out in about 30 feet of water so we knew we where not going anywhere but still stayed up just incase until just before dawn.



after a brief nap we got under way around 9 pr so.  as it turned out we had an amazing overnight sail over to columbia.  we ended with light winds on the beam but where able to make 5+ kts on a beautiful reach.  to top it off we had a full moon so the night was amazing.  i did not even want to get off my night watch!  we had dolphins during the day and took turns cooking such delicacies and spam fried rice and fried cabbage fritata (with bacon of course)



we stopped just before cartagena in this beautiful little lagoon.  the lagoon has a narrow entrance and you pass within feet of this in water palapa huts .upon arrival we where immediately swarmed by beach boys trying to sell us everything from beer to lobster to fruit to things we could not translate.  we even had two chicks paddle out in a kayak offering to give us massages complete with there massage kits.  we got to practice our espaniol with terms like no mas, mas tardes, manana etc.  after a few beers we went to explore the area.  after much difficulty we found a little "sorts bar resort" that was open and spent way to much on beers.  seth managed to change a few dollars for pesos and we headed over to the palapa bar.  kirk had gone on about this place so we where eager to check it out.  in the end it was a bit of a disappointment.  cool set up but catering to day trippers coming over from cartagena and separating them from their money.  we ordered two beers and 15 minutes later when we where done and went to pay the price had doubled.  we laughed, told them we knew they where ripping us off and left never to return at least not without our own cooler full of beer!



back on palapa we had another delicious bbq chicken diner (thanks to kirks chicken).  we enjoyed the ice cold Panamanian 1$ beers rather than the lukewarm beach beers.  we even finally cleaned the bbq so no more fires for a bit.  after dinner we relaxed with some r&c's with the columbian 11$ rum.  so far the bvi can not be beet for rum prices except for the bushy's rum form antigua sold by the gallon (b-y-o-jerry jug).



the next day we sailed the 15nm to cartagena.  amazingly it was down wind all the way.  i have really been luck with the winds over the last few months.  cant remember a day i did not get to sail a bit or god forbid had to motor into the wend.  this will not last forever i am sure payback will come my day eventually.  we actually sailed right into the harbor between two forts guarding the entrance and then past a giant statue of the virgin marry kind of like the statue of liberty but not quite as big!  the city is very much like old san juan.  seth pointed out that cartagena was never taken by invaders after the spainiards built the forts there.



as it turns out Cartagena is a real full on city but in a good way.  we decided to go into a marina here given it is only $30 us per night vs the 130$ i was paying in garden grove.  the mooring was a bit interesting it is med mooring and as i looked at the berth we where to go into i could see no sand lines or mooring bouy.  no problem the dock dude said he would jump in the water swim down and tie our dock lines to a block below and that is just what he did.

this ended out working out quite well, other than it being a very tight getting into the slip.  once docked i noticed we had 6 inches under the keel!  as it would turn out the next morning at the lowest low tide we would bump the bottom but seth and i awoke to this (did i mention it was full moon).  after a look around i realized we where not crashing into the dock but only the bottom and went back to sleep!

cheers
roger

Seth Kirk and Roger Reunion - 1 to 7 Sept

so the day before the seth arrival i actually did laundry, not only did i do laundry but i had to wash seths sheet by hand, what service!  i managed to get it and everything else dry in time to take the boat back to isla povinir.

i figured i should go in and check with the airline desk and confirm a flight the next day.  after i walked across the runway, yes there is a crosswalk across the runway and a get at each side to discourage random animals from hanging out on the runway i found a backpacker/beach bungalo hotel/bar and the owner speaking only espanol.  with a little back and forth i got yes there was a flight due in at 630 am manana.

i headed back to palapa to get things organized for seth's arrival.  i figured i would head to shore for dinner "out" at this large palapa bar by the runway.  of course by the time i got in had a beer i discovered it was closed.  back to palapa for yet another raman dinner!



i finally did get a text from seth and after recharging was able to send a text back confirming the meeting location.  i was still very skeptical of any aircraft arriving litterly at dawn so i did not bother setting an alarm.  fortuantly i was acnhored right next to the aproach and amazingly was awoken at 630 by a landing airplane (a very small airplane)

as i headed in to the shore i noticed a text from seth "holy s--- odds of surviving this flight 50/50" followed by "live or die live or die"…. "live"

aparently they had moved seth around in the plane 3 times trying to get a configuration they where ok with and just barly got off the ground.  after that the landing was a piece of "cake".  its a good thing i did not send seth any parts to bring.



after a dingy over to the local tienda on another little isand we got under way.  the tienda was a bit diapointing, one can of corn beef hash, no cigarets, no eggs no produce, but we where able to get sim cards and refil cards.  it took about 3 hours to get back to the kirk anchorage so we where ready for another celebatory round of beers when kirk came by (again with pockets full of warm replacemt beer).  



we where told we had missed the big smoke off the previous night where the actually managed to get a decent number of fish.  fortunately as we where all enjoying beers in the cockpit a kuna canno pulled up looking to sell us fish.  they had 5 small tuna and kirk snapped them up for sushi.  everyone dispersed briefly to get all the sushi equipment and ingredients from various boats and then kirk headed downstairs to do his thing.  we had amazing spicy tuna rolls complete with kirks gormet soy sause and wasabi.  this turned into another all night party on palapa with everyone eventually making it home.

we where pretty wiped out the next day just seth went down for a nap another kuna came by this time with a boat load of decent size lobsters.  i got for for 20$ prob over paid but it was my first negotiation.   while seth napped i cleaned them boiled them and then put them away in the refer for later.

around happy hour i announced the lobster api surprise to seth who was quite happy and put out a call on the radio for happy hour.  i was very happy to hear no response!!  i broiled the lobster in bite size bits in bacon fat in the toaster over.  gave it great flavor and combined with a stick of melted butter was to die for!!  we where so glad we did not end up having to share with anyone.  kirk did some by briefly latter on but we called it an early night with kirk and seth planning a fishing competition in the am.

the next morning kirk beat seth out to the reef but came back only with a 6 inch snapper.  seth headed out for hours with both the new Hawaiian sling and kircks spear gun.  after hours seth returned with something that looked edible and reported the fish where faster than the sling and it was only suitable for lobster (which he had seen none of).  we discovered later that this guy was not edible either so we attempted to chum the reef with it looking for bigger fish, alas this was a bust as well.  it was looking very bleak for dinner that night but fortunately while kirck and the girls where making a final trolling attempt kirks kuna dude arrived with his beer and coke order.  he also had a bag of 15 chicken legs which kirk got for 15$ and dropped off on palapa for bbq.  

i still had teriaki marinade left over so we marinated the chicken with this then added a bbg sauce with serachi latter in the mean.  as usual the sauce was so good people where having extr rice just to get more sauce.  was another great palapa meal!

the girls invited us over for brunch the next day for fritatas and bloody marry's.  we where out of clamato and bloody mary mix but they where able to improvise with tomao paste (good trick).  there boat was an amazing 70 feet steal ketch from the 70s.  they had done extensive rework of it, several years in the yard in fl and they where getting ready to haul again in panama.  the boat was amazing but to seth and i it seemed an overwhelming amount of maintenance requirement.  every little spot where we saw rust they where going to have to grind down primer and paint over.  not to mention maintaining the hydraulic steering and windless systems.  in any case was a very cool boat to be on with a raised poop deck with a great view.

we followed this up with a full day of proper beach bochi, we almost made it around the island but aborted rather than risk injury and run out of beer!  we finished the evening off on palapa planning to leave the next day.  we both had to check out in porvinar prior to going to colon and columbia repectively.



we did both managed to get underway the next day.  we had to clear out as well for our impending trip to columbia.  this was painless and we had a great sail back to salsa.  we tried to talk kirk into pressing on to the fried chicken island but he convinced us to stop for the night.  we still had lots of chicken so kirk suggested a chicken pressure cooker stew.  he brought is pressure cooker and gear over to palapa as i can not seem to find the one don donated.  the stew was great along with more rice.  kirck actually makes it with salt water and the flavor is perfect!

the next morning seth and i got an early start for the 6nm sail over to an island closer to the mainland to get fuel and also fired chicken that he had been raving about.    we got 50 gal of ful for 5.25 delivered to palapa in jerry cans.  we also got another case of rum (11$ per bottle) and more corn beef and more raman and rice.



kirk was correct about the quality of the chicken and the price and temperature of the beers (1$ per and palapa cold).  we made the mistake of getting an extra fried chicken dinner and gorging ourselves on fried chicken and home made french fries (even better than in and out).  we tried to go out but the one "bar" was out of rum so we decided to head back.  kirk was so stuffed he could not even hang with us for a drink.  it turned out this evening the kuna's where having some sort of massive island wide dance party on the dock off our stern.  we where happy to enjoy the music form the boat which went on until 3 or 4 am when a huge squall blew threw.



the next morning seth treated kirk and i to his famous fried rice and spam.  we had already had the fried rice with hash which was delicious.  seth's trick to the spam is to really dice it up and fry the crap out of it to make it have more texture.  very good.  kirk tried to talk us into staying another day but we where getting antsy to move on to more civilization so we got under way to another little island for our jump off to columbia.



we had a nice motor down to this island and anchored in between the island and two reefs in 45 feet of water again.  seth did some final lobster diving but returned empty handed.  we had another raman dinner and then went to bed early planning to get under way at 3am.  Alas this was not to be..

Donathon finally san blas - 25 to 31 Aug

so it was quite exciting coming around the island and seeing salsa again looking bright red with clearly a new paint job.  we anchored of kirks stern in 45 feet of water.  it is amazing how deep it is here just 50 meters or so from the shore.  nothing like the bahamas.  kirk dingied over with his pockets full of warm "replacement beers"  he is in energy conservation mode due to lack of sun and a leaking oil pan so not running his refrigeration.



we enjoyed a few beers and eventually kirks girlfriend and her friend/mate came over from Joanna to join us.  kirk and a few other boats had been planning a bbq on the beach in honor of our arrival (actually we just happened to pick the right day).  we headed in everyone got a driftwood fire going and we cooked potatoes and onions and freshly speared fish directly on the fire.  we augmented the bbq with a pot of mac and cheese con bacon (el tocino) which was a big hit as there is apparently no way to get bacon in the san blas.  i stayed out a few hours past don to the bitter end and managed to grab some leftover fish for fish cakes.

the next morning we got up bright and early to work on the generator.  it had been overheating and shutting down intermittently ever since we had the problem with the sea strainer.  we went ahead and changes the raw water pump which had a small water leak on the shat seal even though the impeller was still good.  after this fix and an oil change we where still getting an over heat after 5 minutes or so.  on closer inspection we noted the coolant was low.  we added coolant but noted there was a complex procedure to bleed the system.  we completed this with still no joy.  we continued debugging checking the thermostat and the fresh water pump, both ok.  


by this point we where not happy we broke for a beer/lunch.  as i thought about things over lunch i decided the genset really did not seem that hot, it was hot but not as hot as i remembered it when working on it after running a long time.  i went back and found a thermocouple that came with my volt meter and started measuring temperatures.  we got 50 deg C on the head temp sensor and the exhaust manifold coolant reservoir (i also discovered loose bolts on this responsible for the fresh water leak.  after testing all the temps and finding everything ok i began testing sensors.  there where 4 sensors in series that could trip the "hot" light and shut the engine down.  i bypassed them all with a clip lead on by one and surprise surprise we continued to get the overheat situation.  this basically pointed to a wiring harness loose connection somewhere.  

it is impossible to follow the wiring on the thing so my next task was to figure out how to bypass the sensor network.  fortunately the genset already has a push button that keeps the engine running in an over temp situation so it was as simple as replacing the switch with a rocker one i had in my spares.

we fired it up and after a few minutes the light came on but now the genset kept running.  as we got the batteries charging to we could continue to increase our ice reserve we noticed that about 15 min in the light went out and stayed out.  we will see how things go but for now we where able to declare victory and get everything back together for happy hour.  it was a pretty mellow happy hour due to the party yesterday but kirk made an appearance.  i must say it was great having both don and kirk helping on the debug, it was a full time job just to try to interpret the german translated english!

i had invited everyone over for fish cakes and poached eggs in the morning so don and i got off to an early start as i had never don either.  the fish cakes came out great just a bit of egg bread crumbs and seasoning and of course the fish.  i let them cool for an hour in the freezer to firm up and then just gave them a minute or so on each side in hot oil before baking.  

the poached eggs where also a bit of a challenge but don got on the internet for some tips.  i knew i needed to add vinegar and swirl but he discovered you can also par poach the eggs on at a time and them put them all in together for the final few minutes.  this turned out to be key as the girls where not exactly punctual.  i also had bacon and fried potatoes and onions along with hollandaise sauce.  oh yes and champagne with fresh orange juice from our last oranges very decedent!  alas i forgot to take pics :(

after the bfast we adjourned to the beach for some bochi.  we went with "local" rules to start with which involved 2 balls and a specific course and some other weird rules.  tomorrow we will teach them the palapa rules roving game concept!



so the activity for the next day was smoked fish for dinner.  kirk and i worked on the teepy, basically palm fronds tied up with twine.  we both sacrificed a sheet to cover the teepe and we where read to go get fish.  i volunteered to guard the camp and the beer while everyone got their spears and headed off to catch dinner.  as it turned out there is a down side to foraging for food.  at sunset all we had where two medium fish and two very small lobsters.  we smoked the lobster tails and the fish whole and both where great but with 5 of us we would have starved if not for the calories in the beer!



we did have a great sunset as well and a few more drinks back on palapa before heading in.

by this point we where running out of time before dons Spanish classes where slated to begin so we said good by to everyone and headed the 15nm over to povinira to check in.  the checkin was painless but expensive 200$ per the boat and $100 per person but they do give you a year visa.  after check in we worked our way over to elefante where don wanted to check out the "bar".  



as you can see the bar is not much.  smaller than palapa and on a narrow spit of sand.  the beer was cold and cheep but we where too lat to put our dinner order in for today so we had another don raman tie peanut sauce dinner.



the next day we got up early and got back into project mode.  we added diagonal supports to the bimini to keep it and the dingy from moving back and forth.  there was no wind and we had to aport the whole project as we where bing anialated by no-see-ums.  we actually moved the boat to another less protected anchorage with more wind.  of course the navionics charts here dont work and larry still has my americas chart chip so the only thing on the nav pod is dottle lat long lines.

we got moved into a new little area in between several reefs again in 50 ft of water and got back to work.  we got the project completed with only a minor hiccups nothing fell overboard always good when in 50 ft.  as we finished up we where joined the our little anchorage by this massive sail/motor/ferry looking thing.  it was full of 20 or so backpackers coming over from cartagena columbia.  fortunately we got our food order in early and the bar was much more lively.  they each paid like $500 for the 3 or 4 day trip over.

kirk had organized a ride over from elefante to the mainland for don so the next morning at 8am we went over to put him on his "ferry"  it was just him on this ponga with a couple of 100 hp engines on it.  he reported he made it and got a cab into panama city w/o trouble.  i have one day off and then pick seth up first thing in the morning at porvinir airport.



Cheers
Roger

donathon take 2 miami to san blas panama - 15 to 25 aug 2014

backing up a bit before don and i could start our next adventure the anchor windless had to be fixed.  fortunately it started acting up only a few days before arriving in miami.  once safly on the dock in dinner key marina i began the process.  pretty quickly it became obvious the gear box was shot.  when i got into the anchor locker i could feel oil leaking out of the lowee seal, not a good sign.  i also looked in the manual and it recommended having the gear box serviced every 3 years by an authorized dealer.  mine was 8 years old and i dont think i have been anywhere near an authorized dealer.

i managed to get the gear box out of the boat with out major difficulty but then the problems started.  i was able to get 3 of the 4 allen bolts holding the gear box together out but the 4th even with multiple allen sockets etc refused.  eventually with my dads help we ended up drilling out the stainless bolt.  the upside of this was my dad insisted on bying me a new set of titanium drills (thanks dad).  after this was complete we where left with a gear on the shaft and a clearly blown worm gear.  i remember back in the med with roge' and daniel on chocobo having the same problem.  

after much banging and pulling we finally had to take the gear to a machine shop to get a pushed out with a hydraulic press.  this was quite the ordeal as there are no machine shops in coconut grove.  this requiered a hair raising drive into miami with my parent driving and navigating.  the event reaffirmed my decision to never drive again!  

so with all this done i attempted to order a replacement worm gear.  i called the factory and was told hey no longer sold gears and i would have to buy a whole new gearbox.  $900 later a new one showed up at the marina office the next day.  my dad was leaving but frank arrived to take his place on the rebuild.  of course we had to install and remove the shaft twice which resulted in much hammering and cursing.


eventually we got the parts back in and everything together and surprise surprise it worked.  we used the requierment to test the anchor as an opportunity to do a test sail so we set out for a relaxing motor and sail down the keys.  the day was quite fun but went a bit sideways in the end as we stayed out too long and took the wrong channel back into the marina (twice).    this was made more exciting as frank had a 630 am flight out the next day, hopefully eventually frank will talk to me again.

so fast forward to the donathon event.  i had palapa pretty much ready to go and was finishing up some last minute errends when don finally arrived  at 5pm.  we made a quick trip to west marine for some bimini parts and then found a pigly wiggly for provisioning.  we should have taken a photo of the two carts piled high but in 30 minutes we managed to spend 400 dollars on beer, raman, mac and cheese eggs, totrillas, cheese and a few condiments and of course limes and cabage and bacon.

we got back to palapa and loaded up and by 730 we had dropped the car off and where at our favorite bar having crab cake burger and beer.  the next morning i got us up at dawn filled the tanks sent final email and checked us out.  we had managed to spend 15 days on the dock to the tune of 130$ per day, yikes! and this was the cheep marina.

we had just enough water to motor over to the fuel dock where we fuled up and began our trip down to key west.  it was a pretty boring 125 nm motor down the coast, inside the outer reef but outside the keys.  of course there where crab pots all over the chanel so the night part was fun.



we stopped in key west to check it out fix the sail and top of on fuel. it took me 2 hours in the hot sun to stitch the leach line of the jib but once down i was much happier and we headed to shore to checkout the town.  it was a bit touristy but after a bit of work don and i found a cool local bar with live music and 2 for 1 r&c's how can you go wrong.  we bought a hawain sling so seth would be able to get us lobster.  don bought us a final tie dinner and we where back to palapa before sunset.



we had another early start and again refuled not sure how much motoring we would have to do.  it was great to get off shore and our first step was to cross the gulf stream.  this was again pretty painless without to much adverse current.  fortunatly we had downloaded a current gulf stream forcast so we where able to cross and get into the eddies north of cuba.

once across the stream we where able to get the sails up in a beutiful wing on wing configuration and with a knot or two from the gulf stream eddies we where blasting along.



the next day morngin we rounded the west end of cuba close hauled.  originally i was going to stay off cuba 10 nm or so but in the end we got as close as we could to get better protection from the waves and headwinds.

we had a day of motoring into the wind huging the south coast of cuba and then where able to do a beutiful reach down to the cayman islands.  it was interesting that we saw no lights on the part of cuba we where on and no crab pots or fishing boats or anything.  i guess all the fishermen would leave.



our meals where pretty basic as we used the new hot pot don got for everything from hard boiled eggs to ramen.  i also had some left over sausages that i turned into sausage gyros with the sausage sliced and heated in the toaster oven.  after a few days we also got into our happy hour routine as well just with the opposite proportions of r&c.



in any case it was an amazing sail i have not had such nice sialing to wind since i used to go to catalna everyweekend.  we where going so fast we got into grand cayman at 4am.  i found a spot on the chart labled anchorage and after navigating around a few other boats with the moon to guide us we dropped the hook and went to bed.

it would turn out we would  managed to violate pretty much every rule the caymans had.  it started in the mornign just after i finished hosing down the boat the customs guys came by.  the frowned and asked if i had called in to "port control" when i came in.  no i replied.  you always have to do that in every country he replied. ok my bad i said.  his next coment was do you know you are anchored on coral in a national park.  no, my bad again i said (aparently the whole port is a national park who would have guesed.  i offered to move to a mooring as we could now see some.  no he said, wait right here this is a very serious offence and we need to go get someone.

great i thought, an hour later he came back with dude with a snorkal who began taking picktures of our coral desicration.  he eventually aprochaed the boat he again admonished me for anchring in the first place  nd reported that amazingly our chain was wraped among many coral heads but as of yet we had not done any serious damage.   so for the next 20 minutes he swam in front of the boat with his mask directing us where to drive while don pulled up the anchor.

we followed the customs boat into the dock and after getting tied up the customs dude aproached and said "where is your  q flag".  sorry my bad i said again was going to put that up when the coral dude showed up.  that is a serous office with a steep fine he replied but i will just give you a verbal warning.  great i thought.

next he asked if we had any weaopons on board, i had written no on the sheet, he pressed not even any spear guns or anything.  i said we have a brand new hawain sling.  thats a weapon he said we will have to hold that for you.  great i produced the sling and headed to the office.

finally we where done and he said go ahead and raise your courtosy flag now, you do have one, of course no was the answer to he pointed me at the musium shop across the road and after a bit of jaywalking and 30$ i was back on palapa.  don reported he had inpeacted the vessel and asked about what we had to fix.  don pointed him at the white board and that was enough.

of course by now i had an email from kirk recomending coming south asap to take advantge of favorable winds.  i confirmed with the grib i had downlaoded and we proceeded to move over and take on 70 gallongs of duty free fuel (after i repeated the process and cheked out.

we had time for a quick viist to the jimmy buffet margarity ville filled with cruise ship tourists and then we headed back to customs to retrieve our hawain sling and then where escourted to the dingy by the customs dude to make sure we did not run off somewhere and wreck mayhem or havoc with our new toy.

by the time we where back on palapa and got the dingy on board and under way it was 4pm.  we had been there for exactly 12 hours and where exahausted.  



the good news was we continued to have great weather sailing between close hauled and beam reach until the wind finally dropped off and we had to fire up the motor.

the motoring gave us some time to work on projects.  i fixed the fwd cabin shade (again).  with dons help i we finally found the forward hatch leak.  it turned out to be a rivit holding the hinge to the frame.  aparently these are some sort of water proof rivits complete with o rings but one of the 6 had failed after 7 years and water would pour in when ever we got heavy rain or a wave.  we filled it with silicone and are looking fwd to the next rain.

we even had time to wash the boat again and do some stainless.  don still gets a bit stir crazy talking about wanting to get to shore and go to a bar.  i keep pointing out weather we are under way or on anchor we would do the same thing.  relax work on projects, eat have happy hour and do it all again.  i am only getting 4 hours of sleep each night from midnight to 4 am so other than that don can sleep.  and yes we are on roger/palapa time when the sun is over head at noon and it rises at 615 and sets at 7pm.

the last two (now 3) days we have also had dolphins on the bow, a lot, i got some great video the second day after i figure out how to work the new iphone interface!  this really has been one of the best sails ever with no miserable days and lots of different sail configurations makes me really appreciate the sailing part of cruising!

i spoke to kirk the other day on the ssb when we where 350nm out so that seems to work.  we still have a long list of fix its when we arrive including bleeding the hydraulic autopilot, going up the mast to replace the windex and fix the camara.  not to mention the bimini reinforcement project, installing a y valve for the aft head, rewiring the gnd on the bat desluinator, replacing the genset water pump seal…  should keep us busy!

i also discovered we dont have ramarine charts for panama (have them on mac) so will need to get my chart chip back from larry.  



tomorrow we should arrive around noon, so we are making ice and stocking the fridge with beer in anticipation of a palapa salsa reunion party, even did laundry!  i have not seen kirk since thailand prob 4 years ago.  will be fun to catch up and then we do it all again when seth fly's in next week.

cheers
roger