06/10/2008, Empire, MI
Being back in the great Northern Michigan. Wow! Some things you just don't forget, some things take a bit getting re-used to. We arrived in Detroit at 8:30 p.m. the night of our flights. It is a good thing it was after 10 by the time we got into the drivers seat of the rental mini van. Could you imagine driving for the first time in over 6 months, and doing it in Detroit during the day! It was bad enough so late at night! Don't get me wrong, Jim didn't obviously forget how to drive, but here we are, a rental, trying to find the locations of the wiper controls ( it was raining there too), HEAT controls, music, lights, etc..., and in Detroit! Let's just say, we missed a couple turns right off the beginning! But we picked up on it right away and didn't get too far off the preferred track- but boy, where's the GPS when you need it?!
We met my good friend Amy at a Meijer near Livonia to say hi and to get Jim some jeans. We borrowed a scale at the Panama City anchorage from our good friends on Dreamweaver to weigh our luggage as best we could to try not to be overweight. We of course, HAD to weigh ourselves as well. Jim lost nearly 25 pounds! We left the jeans he wore down in Nov. on the boat, there was no reason to bring them home, but he had nothing warm to wear in this colder Michigan weather. Meijer was about all that was open and an easy stop! He could have bought some Tommy Hillfiger jeans in the Panama airport for something like $100- no thanks!
Anyway, back on the road, I took over the driving somewhere just a bit S. of Clare, and from that point on over the next hour & ½ or so, saw 12 dear- and that was just the live ones, plus wondered how many I didn't see. We arrived to my mom's & dad's near Empire just before 4 a.m. Got the kids tucked in and took a brief tour of their beautiful new home and then crashed.
Our renters really like the house and are seriously considering buying it. Which is great!, Except then of course, since Sunshine- our home, is not here, we have no Northern home. We really don't want to return to the house, that's why we had it for sale last summer anyway. So providing that they can get pre-qualified and are able to buy it, then we'll be looking and already have a bit, for another home to buy. So we'll be staying with my folks for the time being. Those of you that want to get in touch with us- our cell phones do not work out here in lil' ole' Empire, so if you want to call us, email me and I'll give you their land line #.
We talked to Chuy Sunday night and Sunshine is doing fine. Didn't expect her to dissapear or something, but it's nice getting that affirmation that all is well.
The weather has been okay here, it's good it hasn't been any cooler. Although today, it's a bit of a struggle keeping warm. It's hard getting used to running water again, we had foot pumps on the boat, and not having to concern ourselves with conserving every possible drop! The kids enjoy the freedom of being able to "run around", unfortunately their forgetting you can't do that IN the house! We're still going to do some school, got a little behind from time to time. But whenever we're here in the morning we'll be having school time still. Also looking in to where Bridget will go next year, Micah will go back to the TCAPS Montessori. Bridget, I am still looking into possibilities for her. I will home school Jen- she will still be a pre-schooler, and this way I can give her more time than I was able to on the boat.
So that's our first week back- in a nutshell. We'll keep you posted on the house situation and how that ends up.
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06/03/2008, Gulf of Mexico Somewhere-Above
There is a saying among cruisers that plans are set in jell-o. We read about it, heard about, during the months and beyond before leaving for our trip. Well, we definitely experienced this theory, hypothesis, quote, whatever you want to call it. My previous post on this blog was about getting ready for the canal transit, and we did that. We were admeasured, got the boat cleaned up and picked up, the larger, shiny cleats put on, plus refinished the exposed deck areas that needed new wood, fiberglass and epoxy. We still had one ingredient to the mix missing, crew to help deliver Sunshine home. We received a call from our friends in Bahia del Sol, they would still like to help us, but need to haul their boat out and take care of some major repairs on it first, which could take about a month or more before they would be done with that. That would put us even more into the hurricane season and we don't want to do that. We also had someone else tell us they could help deliver Sunshine home, but not 'til September. We also found out from some other cruisers here in the anchorage of a cruising couple who have some moorings on Taboga Island, just a few miles from Panama City. They, having only a few moorings, plus being cruisers themselves, would give a more personal touch to watching over Sunshine and came highly recommended by other cruisers. Plus there mooring fee couldn't be beat! The only glitch in this was that they are gone right now on a boat delivery! It was a bit unsettling trying to get questions answered, when would they be back? Is someone watching over their boat and others on their moorings while they are away, those who knew them were sure they would have someone watching things, but noone knew who! Our friends who recommended them tried to help us get in touch with them by phone, email, and single side band. We were able to find out they would be back in about 2 weeks. Great! But that's after our flight out of Panama which had already been booked! What do we do? Finally on Saturday, the 30th, we were told by one of the other cruisers helping us get in touch with them, that they got an email back that they received our email that we were interested in one of their moorings and that they were returning from the boat delivery to Mexico this coming Thursday. Our flights out of Panama City are Tuesday, we would need to take Sunshine over to Isla Taboga Sunday, then catch the ferry from there back to the mainland Monday afternoon. Hopefully between that time we would find the person watching over the boats, and make arrangements for someone to pick us and all our luggage up in their launcha (another Spanish word for small boat), and take us to the ferry dock. We were still a bit unsettled, but we really had no choice at this point and were hedging our bets that this would all work out. Usually for us, we seem to cut everything about as close as possible, nerves unsettled all along the way, and then suddenly everything falls into place. How often could our, what seems like bad luck turned to good luck and apparent divine intervention keep happening?
Sunday came along, which by the way, was Micah's 7th Birthday, we went to shore just over to the causeway and went to the Smithsonian Research Station and spent a little time as a family walking the trails and going into the observation museum. We saw a sloth, learned about the different types of sand and what makes the black, white, pink sand in the different locations of Panama. We got to touch a starfish, sea cucumber, sea urchin. Observe some hawkbill turtles and other marine fish including an angel shark up close in a glassed walled aquarium. In two other aquariums side by side, we observed fish and sea life such as coral from both the Pacific and Carribean waters. There was a kid friendly museum that had puzzles, computer games, microscope to view shells, coral and other sea life in magnified view. Among other things the kids enjoyed. This sounds like a lot, but it really only took less than 2 hours. We wanted to be up and moving around 2. We left there at 1, Jim Micah and Jen headed back to the dinghy dock and the boat, while Bridget and I headed to the artisans market to pick up a couple more souveniers we decided to get, plus we needed to stop at a tienda to get something for dinner. Bridget and I got back right around 2, we got back to the boat and preceded to fix and eat lunch and get ready to haul up the anchor one last time for the next 6 months or so. It's about 2 hours to get over to Taboga and as long as we got there before dark., which with it being quite overcast would be around 6:30, we're good. Here we go, cutting it close again! We were under way at 4 on the dot! Two hours would be 6:00. We also needed to cross the shipping channel again, just as we did upon entering the anchorage 3 weeks earlier. When any vessel needs to cross or enter the channel, you have to radio Marina control for clearance. Well guess what? As luck would have it, we had to wait for 2 ships leaving the canal. That took another 20 minutes or so. But again, someone was looking out for us, shortly after we crossed the channel, our cell phone rang, it was Chuy, the owner of the moorings we were heading to! We got our questioned answered and were much relieved to talk to him and get some things figured out. We arrived at the mooring at 6:15, ate dinner and got ready to "put Sunshine to bed" the next day.
Monday, I'll spare you the details on all that it takes to get a Sailboat ready for a "long Summer's nap" in a tropical rainy season, but let's just say it's a lot of work. If we didn't get it done by 4 to catch the ferry at 4:30, basically we're screwed. We kept counting the hours all day, are we gonna make it, can we do it? It brought back memories of getting ready to come down to El Salvador to start this journey, the hurried rushed long hours, little sleep. Only this time, it was all us, Jim and I and the kids. No outside help packing, cleaning. The only help we got and we are very greatful for, was from Jim's brother and sister-in-law, helping with researching and booking our tickets in the days before and checking on some questions we had regarding the flight and the van rental from Detroit to home. And for as much time as Dawn ended up spending on that due to glitches with the airlines websites we couldn't have gotten all the work done we needed to without her, mostly since we would have to go to shore to use the internet which would have meant more time away from the boat. We are looking forward to thanking her and Larry in person.
So where are we now and what are our plans? Some have also asked why we are stopping now. I am sitting on the plane from Panama City to Houston. Why are we heading back now? We only planned on being away this first part of the trip for 6 months, and there are other places like Ecuador that doesn't get rain now, but it was the original plan to come back for the summer anyway. We also didn't want to do the long journey ourselves to the Florida Keys without one other crew to help out. Many cruising couples do it alone, but not with young children, or at least, we weren't comfortable doing that. Doing only 3-4 hour watches/ sleeps and trying to take care of the younger children didn't sound like "paradise" to me. It's 3 days nonstop to Isla Providencia, another 3 to Viverrello Cayas, and 3 again to Isla Muerjaras on the tip of the Yucatan. Then again 3 more to the Keys. That's along ways to do all that with the kids too. Not to mention the approaching hurricane season, although early on in the season, it can be a great time as long as you watch the weather in the Atlantic very closely. Our plans? Remember the jell-o, k? This is what we're thinking. While we're home this summer and fall, we'll get a definite crew available that can begin delivering Sunshine home no later than the beginning of March, earlier if they want to take it a bit slower. The Erie canal doesn't open until May 1st, so taking 2 months from Colon, Panama to New York would be doable if cruising straight through only stopping for provisioning, fuel, etc. Sunshine will get home by beginning of June and we're pretty sure we already have a location to keep her in dry storage to do some much needed bottom work and sanding and repainting the inside. She is sound, but has never been hauled out for bottom cleaning, repairs, etc. Only been beached for this, which can be a fine, although minimal job. It will be a lot of work, but this way, something we can take our time doing, and not living on it at the same time. Jim and I have discussed ALL options, and to us, we really want to keep her and take care of her. We've already put so much effort into some of those repairs, we want to finish and see the end result of our work, and be able to then enjoy Sunshine and all the plans we have for her. Will this be the way it plays out? Nobody can know for sure, life takes some amazing turns along the way, doesn't it. And really, anybodies life pretty much is planned in jello, some just more than others. And being out there, dependent on other countries procedures, life styles, the weather, unplanned repairs, planned repairs that take longer than planned, all these things are not any more prevalent then when you're cruising and living on a boat. Many cruisers have told us, simply maintaining a boat while living on it is a lot of work. Trying to refinish a boat while living on it is even more difficult. But we needed to get the process started, there were some repairs that couldn't wait. We knew that coming in to it. I asked Jim a few weeks ago, "if you knew coming in to it, it would turn out this way, would you still have decided for us to do this?" He said yes. With all the great people we've met, places we did get to visit, plus I added staying away from one of the coldest winters Michigan has had in quite awhile! We both agreed, this was not to be missed. And we're not done. Sitting on that ferry yesterday afternoon, going past Sunshine all closed up and lonely was real hard for Jim & I, I couldn't hold back the tears, and even now typing this, my eyes are getting wet. Even Bridget, who is the most excited for us to be returning home, had a hard time watching as we went passed.
There's more to the story... what's the scoop with our house/renters... where are we staying.... So stay tuned, I still plan to update on occasion, but this is already a really long blog and so I'll wait to add other details at another time...stay tuned! We also have a pretty neat photo to post of Jim and I sitting on the back of Sunshine with Panama City skyline in the background, but I am at the library right now without my camera... so you'll have to wait on that!
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05/23/2008, Panama City
We have the admeasurer coming this morning to measure Sunshine. Pete, our canal agent, said after that it should be only 2-4 days until we transit through. Jim has been busy doing last minute improvements on the boat. We need to have certain size cleats for the lines for going through the canal, and he got started changing them, but on a 35 year old wooden boat, that includes replacing some of the wood on the deck where the cleats need to go. He finished installing them this a.m. A week ago he assisted another boat through the canal as a line handler to get the experience of going through before we make our own transit. He came back feeling more confident and of course with a better understanding of how it all will go.
The kids and I are keeping busy doing school in the mornings and getting the boat picked up in the afternoons and ready to have 5 extra people on it during the day of transit- 4 line handlers plus the canal advisor, who is different than our agent. Pete sets things up and takes care of all paperwork, the advisor is a Panama Canal Authority that gives the Captain, Jim, instructions on what to do. Of course when it's an all day affair, that also includes feeding them and "fluffing the advisors pillow" if you will. So I have plans for all 3 meals, plus snacks, drinks, etc. Plus a couple extra meals for the next day in case we need to do it over 2 days instead of one. Bridget is already prepared that her and I will be the "hostesses with the mostesses" that day! Micah is the most excited of all us to go through the canal- Jim and I just want to get it over with!
The kids are doing great with school, Bridget seems to really enjoy learning, we brought some special history books specifically on Central America and Christopher Columbus and others who had an impact on this area and she seems to really get into reading those. Her struggle is math, she lags behind and then has to get caught up, which she realizes isn't any better than keeping up with it to begin with. Micah has advanced to 2nd grade English books, and has been doing 2nd grade math all year. And Jenaya being not quite 4 ½ gets school fit in whenever Bridget or I have some time to guide her. But I think she'll be fine- when my Dad left to go back to Michigan, the kids all drew "Oma" pictures for Opa to take back to her. And Jenaya wrote, "I (heart) Oma", all by herself, with no help. The first things she wrote without help!
Oh, also, Micah has lost his first tooth! This happened way back in Gulf of Fonseca, and his second tooth is really loose.
So all in all, things are progressing, we are all getting a bit anxious to get back home to see everyone. The kids and I will be flying home shortly after the canal, Jim is really hoping to find 2 crew to help him get Sunshine home still, right after the canal and hi tailing it North to Isla Providencia, around the N. of Cuba and to the FL.Keys., weather permitting. If not, we'll store it at a marina on the other side of the canal and all fly home together. So stay tuned, but we all will be back around the beginning of June.
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05/13/2008, Playita Anchorage, Panama 8d. 54.345 N./ 79d. 31.523 W.
Yep, just as I thought, 5:40 this a.m. I hear Micah and Bridget both get up. The fishermen are right outside their bunk window retrieving their net which had drifted over near our boat. I got up around 6:30, Jim around 7. After breakfast Jim worked on and got our horn connected. We picked up the boat a bit, did some laundry, programmed the course on the computer to the sea bouy, to cross the shipping channel and get to the anchorage area just outside the canal channel.
We were under way shortly after 12:30. We got around Islas Bona and Otoque and could see about 3-4 ships about 10 miles in the distance off of Isla Tabougilla, plus about 2 or 3 making their approach towards the canal. As we neared the ship anchorage, I counted 11, then awhile later, 23, then 38... Eventually as we got right in the center of it all I counted 60 ships all anchored waiting for the go ahead to make their approach to the canal. It was a bit unnerving, but actually there was only the 1 ship behind us that was moving at the time of our entrance and it was really quite a breeze. We got to the anchorage and dropped the hook at 6:30, and was very happy to see our friends Dreamweaver here to great us!
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05/12/2008, Isla Bona, Panama 8d. 33.498 N./ 79d. 35.945 W.
Poor Guy! Had to get up at 1:30 a.m. on his Birthday! We had anchor up at 2:15, and skies were clear above us, we could see a patch of stars, but it was cloudy all around otherwise. I went back to bed at 3 and woke at 5. We were just starting to round Punta Mala, and from what we've read, it can be a nasty trip- either sheets of rain, nasty Northerly winds, lots of other fishing boats or cruisers going in either direction, plus the previously mentioned current along with the shipping lanes far off to the East. We got around the point and all we had to contend with was the current, and wondering if the blanket of clouds we saw up ahead were going to dump on us. But we must of had someone smiling down on us once again, 'cuz as the sun rose, the clouds broke apart and we had nothing but a beautiful day for Jim's birthday. We saw the occasional cargo ship or other ship in the shipping channel, a couple fishing panga's and their nets to dodge along with some logs, but nothing else alarming. The wind was of course, on the nose, but not howling at us, and eventually came off to the East so we could do a beam reach for quite awhile. Before the wind shifted we were only crawling along at 4-41/2 knots, looking at not getting in until, 8,9,10 or later, the current was pretty strong and that was getting depressing. But once the wind changed, Jim trimmed the sails to a perfection, with our main up and our #2 Genoa, we do not have jib sail, which would be preferred in all these on the nose winds, and we were able to move up to 6 knots, sometimes a bit faster and made up some time. It gets dark around 7:30, and it was looking for a while we just might squeak in by dark. We passed a garden of jelly fish that went on for about 10 minutes. It looked like confetti sprinkled just under the surface of the turquoise green water, all only about as long as my finger. We also had another dolphin visit, and it was calm enough again for everyone to get up on deck with harnesses/ life vests to watch the bow chasers.
This was also the first time along our entire journey where we could not see land for quite some time! Pretty amazing! And Isla Bona is so small, and there was a hazy cloudiness up ahead, we couldn't even see it until about 2 ½ hours away. The haze and clouds were getting thicker to the North and West of us, and we got to Isla Bona with the ½ moon still shining above us creating just enough light to see the rocky walls of the island, plus we could just barely make out the fishing net and markers along the East side of the anchorage. This is a small cove and we cautiously crabbed along picking the location for the anchor so as to miss the net and the rocky wall. I had a hunch we were going to be visited early in the morning by the fishermen coming to retrieve their netfull of fish.
We dropped the hook around 8:15, ate dinner and all was in bed around 9. Tomorrow we'll get up leisurely, make some approach plans and check on all that needs to be done once we arrive, leaving here around late morning, getting into Balboa in the afternoon-it's only about 4 hours away. Panama Canal just around the next bend! Oh My!
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05/11/2008, Benao Cove/ Panama 7d. 25.431N./ 80d. 11.803 W.
Up and motoring at 6 a.m. Skies were clearing and looked promising for a beautiful day. As soon as we rounded Punta Naranjo we saw about 6-7 ships farther out to sea. We passed our Southern most location East of Punta Mariato at 7d. 10.123 N./ 80d. 47.944 W.
Bridget made bread yesterday so we could have french toast for breakfast today. It was a pretty calm day and we arrived to our chosen anchorage around 2:30, but didn't like the looks of it. The swells happen to actually wrap around towards it and so we decided to go the 10 more miles farther N. to Benao Cove, which from reading the cruising guides didn't sound too promising either, and if we didn't like it there, there was no other option, except to keep moving on. We arrived at Benao around 4:30 and once we got in around the detached rock island for protection, the swell wasn't too bad. After we got settled in Jim installed our steaming light- it's a light on our mast that we have to have on (according to US Coast Guard regulations) when we are motoring, and also installed our front running lights on our bow railing. The running lights on Sunshine were way back on the side of the wheelhouse and the green one on the starboard side really bothers our vision at night. Also while here we took another look at how long we still have to get Sunshine to Rio Dulce Guatamala to either store her there on a mooring or have someone deliver her home the rest of the way, hopefully starting right away in early June, and get her home by mid-August. We're also considering leaving her in Bocas del Torro, Panama on the other side of the canal, 150 miles West. But there's some other things we have to look into for that, the permits for cruisers recently changed and we don't know if that also affects boats in storage.
So we decided that going to the Perles Islands was pretty much not in our best interest. We really need to just move along to the canal and keep going. Somehow, someday, we'll make it to the Perles, but not now. Dissapointed? Yes. Upset? No.- just bummed. There is so much to see her in the Pacific Panama, we didn't even scratch the scratch. We'd pass Islands and see what the charts don't show and wonder, hmmm, it'd be nice to go explore over there. And so maybe someday we'll come back across and go through these Islands more thoroughly. But also, there are so many other places, who knows what we'll do. So we replanned our course for Isla Bona, which was still 86 miles, heading around Punta Mala (bad point), and fighting a Southbound current along the way. We decided to pull up anchor at 2 a.m.- to get to Punta Mala right at the beginning of dawn, and hopefully make it to Bona before dark.
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