Robbed...

I need to be careful about how I write this, as I'm currently in a country where its not wise to upset officials.   But I just need to say something.  It's an unfortunate fact in life that one has to learn through mistakes, and I made a big (expensive) mistake yesterday by trusting, or rather taking for granted that I could trust someone just because they were in a uniform, in a position of power, dealing with official business.

Perhaps its naive of me, but I have always trusted people like Police, and others in positions of power who demand your respect because of the very position they hold in society, a position that assures you they can be trusted, they have been awarded that power because they have earned it.

It's a sad state of affairs when that person abuses their power, to steal from the very people they should be protecting.  And I will not easily trust or respect people in future just because their uniform tells me I should, or because they hold some particular position of power.  I hate that this makes me so cynical and suspicious, and also, in all honesty, a bit of an idiot.

I wish I could go into more details of what happened to me, because it really was my own stupid fault for taking someones honesty for granted, being so trusting, and not being more guarded and careful,  but I believe that while I am where I am right now,  it would be very unwise of me to go into actual details.

I don't feel unsafe here in the marina, far from it, I'm surrounded by so many wonderful people, the marina is full of us crazy yachties/boat bums,  and the security is really very good here, we even have armed guards on the gate.  I genuinely like many of the people who work here, and my neighbors are within shouting distance, I'm probably a lot safer here than I would be in a city.

I need to learn to simply be more suspicious, and guarded in future, and remember that position and power does not go hand in hand with intelligence and integrity.

I just have to put this experience down to another lesson learned!

Happiness :o)

Most beautiful day so far, blue sky and sunshine and 88 degrees.  Not a rain drop in sight,  so instead of laying around and enjoying the weather, I smothered myself with sun tan lotion and set to work on the toe rail, I am, remember "the varnishing queen of the Caribbean".  I'm so happy that I finished the sanding, washed the boat, and then managed to put a full coat of varnish on, and it still hasn't rained.

This afternoon I have the joyful job of cleaning out the bilge!  So with that in mind I'm at the restaurant for lunch, and I'm having fish & chips, I think I deserve it after all the hard work and sweat this morning.  My back is still sore, and I'm getting occasional twinges of pain, but not enough to stop me working,  I'm pretty sure now that I didn't slip a disc, because I'm able to do so much already.

Bob is on his way back to the States for 10 days of work, and I have a long list of 'to do' jobs to complete before his return, but I've made a great start this morning, I just hope the weather stays like it's been today.

I love this marina so many people around, and all so friendly, good restaurant, and nice swimming pool.
Happy again
:o)

Crippled in Colon!

Saturday December 3rd
Shelter bay Marina. Colon.

We had finally arrived in Colon, after a miserable week of weather and boat problems.  It had taken us just 12 hours to do the 103 mile leg from the island of "Escudo de Veraguas" (which would normally be record time) sadly though, it had not been a pleasant sail, even though we were with the wind the whole way, and managed to average over 8 knots for the entire leg.

We made the leg from Laguna de Bluefield, to Escudo de Veraguas, on Thursday afternoon, just stopping at the very rolly island anchorage overnight, before continuing on at dawn the next day to Colon.  Our overnight stop was not the best, with strong winds, and choppy seas making it a really rolly, and uncomfortable overnight anchorage...

We hadn't been able to wait any longer in Bluefield lagoon, time had been running out and we needed to get underway and get to Colon, no matter the weather.  We had only planned on stopping overnight in Bluefield, but it had been 3 days, and we were way behind our planned schedule. So we made the 4 hour next leg to Escudo de Veraguas before carrying on to Colon.

When we left at dawn on Friday morning, we had high hopes for better weather, but no such luck. Predictably the weather did it's best to make the trip thoroughly miserable for us,  huge sea's, drenching rain, and high winds (lovely!) I was sick, as I predicted, 6 times, all over the deck, fortunately (I suppose, depending upon how you look at it) we were sailing through storms, so the "stuff of my sickness" was quickly washed away leaving the decks clean.

We just went from one storm to the next, for the entire leg, we couldn't avoid them, some of the squalls were quite bad, with wind gusting at times to over 40 knots, and Daisy rocking violently from side to side, doing her "broken wheel on the big dipper at the fairground" imitation.

I was laying horizontal (as usual) in the cockpit, and Bob was at the helm, although thankfully due to all his efforts, the auto-pilot was now (finally) co-operating.
The sails were going up and down like yo-yo's, as we tried to sail rather than motor, (the sails would have stopped most of the rocking) but then suddenly the wind dropped from over 30 knots to 3 knots, and we found ourselves bobbing around like a cork,  in sunshine (no less) for about 10 minutes!

The engine went on, the sails came down, the sails went up, and the engine switched off, and so on, and so on, and so on for 12 (long) hours...
Eventually we pulled exhausted into the bay at the entrance to the Panama canal, and motored to the anchorage, as it was now too late to get into the marina, and it was already starting to get dark.

I dropped anchor (again without incident, I'm obviously improving) and then went back to the cockpit to grab the stuff from the fridge to get dinner, we were both starving having had only chips and nuts since 5:30am that morning. Being a totally useless sailor, I just don't function in the galley while underway, so we all tend to just go hungry until we're able to drop anchor somewhere, and I can function normally again.

Bending over the fridge to gather my ingredients I was suddenly gripped by a sharp stabbing pain in my back.  I whimpered like a kitten as Bob helped me below where I lay on the floor praying I hadn't popped a disc out of place, the pain was quite bad, and the slightest movement caused me to shout out.

Just when I thought I could celebrate our eventual (and miraculously safe)  arrival at Colon, I was now immobilized like a cripple, stretched out on the floor, unable to move, once again leaving everything to Bob...

Again the joys of boat life abound!

Freeing The baby lobster, and other madness !

Laguna De Bluefield

Our first day in the bay.  Bluefield was only meant to be an overnight stop! But things needed testing before we could depart. I was still in shock from nearly loosing our anchor last night.  Bob had spent the night making adjustments (that’s about as technical as I get) and we were ready to do a sea trial, and set sail for Colon.   I brought the anchor up (without incident) and we motored around the bay testing the autopilot.  Sadly, there was still a problem, so we motored back to drop anchor again.  Having secured the snubber, I noticed the water around Daisy looked very shallow, Bob had said we were in 20 feet of water, when we dropped anchor, but it looked a lot less than that to me now.  He had already gone below to start work on the autopilot again.  So I checked the instruments and saw that our depth meter read “0.00”.  I called to Bob “is our depth meter working?”  “Yes, why?” he replied.  “Because if it is, we’re aground” I told him.  I won’t go into the detail’s regarding in the panic that followed that statement, but lets just say that we moved the boat speedily to another location.

Two little local children, on their way to school
in their dug out canoe

Boatloads of Indian children visited all day, and I provided them each with paper and pens.  A man came buy selling a freshly caught lobster, it was such a perfect, young, magnificent, little creature, I had no intention of killing it, but I didn’t want anyone else to either, so I paid him (more than he expected) and as soon as he was out of sight I returned the lobster to his rightful home, the ocean.  Yes I realize this makes me a hypocrite, because I have eaten lobster in the past, and probably will again in the future, but this little guy was so perfect and obviously a young one, I had no other choice.  At least I know Danni would approve of my actions.

The afternoon was spent tearing the boat apart, floorboards up, cupboards emptied, wires re routed, mess and stress everywhere.  I constantly caught Bob scratching his head and frowning at the manuals… It had been a long, long day, and unknown to us was about to get longer…

After another failed sea trial at 5pm, (having waited out the storm,) Bob said he had no option other than to get everything out of the lazarette and get the floor up to get to the driver (or something).  It was already starting to get dark and looked as though another storm was on the way.  Together we moved all the contents of the lazarette into the cockpit, then Bob with trusty tool bag in hand, set about working in the cramped, confined space that is our lazarette.

Naturally it started to rain, so he was now in the dark, cramped, sweltering, soaked hole in the floor, doing contortions to reach and repair said stuff!

Many hours later, parts removed, re-wired and re-modeled, a very tired, wet, slightly stressed, but confident Bob, emerged from the hole looking like Lurch from the Adams family basement. 

It’s now 4:30am, the storm is still blowing, and its continuous pouring rain, I’ve never known so much rain, and I lived in Wales for 7 year’s! I’m wondering whether we’ll ever get to Shelter Bay.  If you’re reading this, then “yeah we made it” and if not, it may be at the bottom of the bay at Bluefield, and no one will ever know.

OH how I love Boat Life!

More Daisy Disasters!

Bye, Bye Bocas

Wednesday 30^th November 2011

It’s 2:30am, and I can’t sleep because the rain is lashing the side of the boat, the wind is blowing about 30 35 knots, and Daisy is swinging and pulling on her anchor like an unruly dog on a leash.  My vivid imagination has kicked in and I’m just waiting for us to blow up onto the shore and be smashed to pieces, so I’m sitting here in bed writing because that’s what I do when I can’t sleep, and I’m so scared and sleepless right now. I can’t see a thing through my bedroom window, its so black here, there is no light, and I mean NO light, nothing from the land, the local indians don’t have electricity, and because of the storm there are no stars or moon, there’s nothing but dark, dark, blackness…

Bob is asleep in the master cabin, I slept in one of the front rooms tonight because I hurt my neck yesterday (another story) and was thrashing about unable to get comfortable, I didn’t want to disturb Bob’s sleep so I crept up here for the night.

We’re still in Bluefield lagoon, there’s not much here, just a couple of little Indian villages scattered around the edge of the lagoon.  It would be quite picturesque if the place wasn’t currently under siege from Mother Nature.

I keep wishing we hadn’t left the safety of Bocas marina.  But we have to get to Colon, because Bob fly’s out of Panama on Sunday, to work for a couple of weeks, then he fly’s back in to Panama with the family for Christmas, so Daisy has to be there.

This horrendous weather looks like it will be with us till the end of the week “OH joy”!  We’re only 4 hours from Bocus, so I suppose we could go back, although Bob doesn’t usually do things like that, he’s Hell bent on getting to Colon, and that’s a good 20 hours sail away.  As everyone knows I hate sailing, I don’t enjoy it much when the weather is lovely, but when it’s like this I find myself once again questioning my sanity in allowing myself to undertake another journey on Daisy, I really wasn’t cut out for this adventurous life, I’m so much more productive in a kitchen than I am on a boat.

Our trip didn’t start out too well; we left the marina after lunch on Monday, under a cerulean blue sky and bright sunshine, with 15 – 20 knots of wind, but only an hour into the leg Bob noticed our autopilot wasn’t working.  Each time he put it on Daisy would swing wildly in a circle like a drunk.  So I took the helm while Bob went below to look at the instruments, and see if he could discover the source of the problem.  I noticed the icon on the chart plotter doing strange things too, it was showing that we were turning 360 degrees.  Now everyone knows I’m a useless sailor, but even I know how to steer in a straight line. I manned the helm while Bob worked trying to sort the problem, when we approached the entrance of Bluefield Bob took over, to bring us in for the night. 

Then we had another catastrophe to add to my collection of “Fabulously Frightening, First Mate blunders”; when I dropped the anchor I had forgotten to check that the windless was tightened, (despite being reminded by Bob earlier).  I put down 150 feet of chain and as I turned to ask Bob if that was enough, the rest of the chain suddenly started flying out, I was helpless to stop it, and just had to stand and watch as all 300 feet of chain went hurtling out past my feet over the bow into the water. 

Thankfully, Bob had tied the end of the chain into the anchor locker when he fitted the new chain last month.  So, as the last of the chain left the locker, the piece of line holding it brought it to a sudden, jarring holt. I’m hugely embarrassed here to admit that this is not the first time I’ve done this, one really has to question Bob’s intelligence in wanting me on board.  

The next panic was that the line would break under the pressure, so we grabbed the snubber, and the two of us struggled leaning over the bow of the boat to attach it, we had to try and pull up enough chain so that we could get it back around the windless and tighten it up, obviously we couldn’t pull it up without moving the boat forward, Daisy was pulling hard on the anchor, it was only a matter of time before the line would break. Bob motored forward slowly while I attempted to pull up the anchor (that’s how I injured my neck) I imagine the anchor chain weighs about 1000 pounds, but in 30 feet of water I was probably trying to pull up 200 pounds in weight, by the way, math’s was my worst subject in school, so don’t judge my mathematical calculation here, just know it was bloody heavy!

Obviously I couldn’t pull it up by myself, so having moved Daisy forward enough to take the pressure off the chain Bob rushed back up to help me, (he has 3 displaced disc’s in his back, so pulling a heavy chain, not the best idea,) but there was no way I could do it alone, we struggled again to pull the damn thing up, but bit by bit, holding the line around the windless to secure it and moving the snubber forward a few inches at a time, we eventually managed to secure it, and I was able to then bring in 150 feet of chain.  I was in such a sweaty, panicky mess by this time, and not in the best of moods, but already the local Indians had started to arrive in their dug out canoe’s and were hanging onto the side of Daisy watching our struggles with obvious curiosity, we must have provided quite the entertainment.

I gave fishing line, hooks, pens and pencils.  Having stayed in this bay before I knew what the locals needed, and had brought supplies with me.

By this time it was almost dark, so I made dinner and then relaxed with a large glass of wine, while Bob poured through the manuals looking for a solution to the autopilot problem.

Setting Sail Again...

So tomorrow we head out of the marina here in Bocas and make our way back to Colon.  I'm not sure which route Bob's planning to take, we've had advice from several people, some who are also leaving tomorrow.  Nothing they told me sounds good, it sounds like it's going to be a rough trip whichever way we go.  I have to question what will serve me better, the vodka or the dramamine, both make me sleepy, but the vodka makes me happy, and I don't care so much, but then it also makes me pretty useless as a first mate, so I may just have to go with the dramamine. I know for a fact that I'll be sick on this trip, attempting a rough crossing having not sailed in 6 months,  guaranteed disaster...
So, I'm praying the weather will be kind to me, and that we will find a quiet, calm anchorage for the night tomorrow, and not have to sail all night; and pigs may fly!
Probably won't have another Internet signal until we reach Colon, so this is it for now folks, wish us luck, and if you don't hear anything by Thursday please send out the Coast Guard.
:o)

Funny Boat people

""There's nowt so strange as folk" my granny constantly used to tell me.  As a child I really didn't know what she meant.  But I have to say that recently I often wonder whether I have become one of those people that she would have included in her "strange folk" category.

      Take for example a simple shopping expedition; I gather my towel to wipe the sea spray off me, my collection of assorted shopping bags, suntan lotion, anti-mosquito spray, purse and sunglasses, and wait patiently on the dock while Bob unchains "Woops-a-Daisy" (our dinghy) and starts her engine.  I untie the painter jump in, and we head off across the bay towards the pretty shantytown of Bocas-Del-Toro.  A town that, like so many other's in the Caribbean spill's out over and into the water.  Brightly painted hotels, houses, shops and restaurants perched precariously on stilts protruding out from the blue water, surround the island in a disorganized, ramshackle fashion.  It's all very untidy looking, but colorful and quaint at the same time.

      Parking "Woops-a-Daisy" involves maneuvering around, between and under a row of metal poles and ropes fencing off the "dinghy parking lot", we struggle to do this in the bouncing water, without hitting the dock or the other dinghy's tied up alongside, and gradually squeeze ourselves into a space. This takes us a while, and then having jumped out onto the floating dock, I hold the painter and fend off the other tied up boats bouncing around while Bob leans over the side and reaches underneath the dinghy to attach our chain lock.  Some taxi boats speed past while we are doing this, and the ensuing wakes cause all the dinghies and the dock to bounce violently up and down almost tipping me into the drink.  Eventually we're tied off, and Woops-a-Daisy is chained safely to the dock.

       Leaving the floating dock involves a walk along a wobbly gangplank on wheels, (I really should have been born in a circus to cope with this life!).  By now I'm a big sweaty mess, but thankfully the walk to the stores is a relatively short one.

"Where's the shopping cart?" Bob ask's me.  Let me just explain here, we have a small collapsible shopping cart with wheel's, that makes carrying heavy things so much easier.  "I didn't bring it" I said,  "I only need a couple of things".  Bob gives me his "you're an idiot look" and say's "I have to buy 2 gallons of oil, and 6 gallons of water, you're going to carry that in your little bag, all the way through town?"  My reply...  a red sweaty faced "OH"!

       So we make our way back along the gangplank to the floating dock, unchain Woops-a-Daisy, and head back across the bay to get the shopping cart, while my thoughts return to my dear Granny, who I'm sure is watching me from above and wondering what on earth I'm doing.