AngelHeart Is For Sale!

Paul and I find ourselves nine years into our ten year plan of living and traveling on AngelHeart. Not knowing the time line for selling a boat, we have decided to offer AngelHeart for sale now to new loving owners. http://www.performancecruising.com/Used-Gemini-Catamarans.html

It's impossible not to think back to when we first placed our order for our Gemini from Performance Cruising in Annapolis, MD. We already knew we would name her AngelHeart. (Paul calls me his angel and I call him my heart.) We enjoyed Deltaville, VA while we equipped AngelHeart at Norview Marina. The creature comforts we added along with the electronics and safety equipment quickly got us thinking of her as our floating cruising apartment. We had everything we needed to cruise in comfort - always ready to travel. And, she has been that for us and more.

Listing AngelHeart for sale also caused me to review our blogs to date. It's obvious that I am not much of a blogger! I have relied more on photos to tell the story of our travels. So, I plan to at least bring our albums up to date to chronicle our time on AngelHeart. Panama locations that deserve albums are Panama City, Bocas del Toro, the Rio Chagres, the San Blas Islands, Boquete and El Valle.

Initially we spent most of each year on board. However, as time passed and our number of grandchildren grew to three, we began to work toward more of a balance between the USofA and AngelHeart. It seems that six months traveling in Panama and six months in the US will work for us.

Our current plans, which are etched in Jell-O, is to return to Bocas del Toro in AngelHeart. It has been two years since we arrived there and checked into Panama for the first time. I imagine much has changed! We are looking forward to connecting with old friends and experiencing new adventures both inland and sailing.

Admiral Mary Margaret

AngelHeart is in Panama! Okay. That is a very simplified version of our trip from the Rio Dulce, Guatemala to Bocas del Toro, Isla Colon, Panama. I will fill in the gaps.

We left Catamarans Island Resort Marina on the Rio (N15� 39� W88� 59�) on January 30, 2007 with our friends Sandy and Cheri on Namaste, saying goodbye to some really great friends that we now miss greatly. We made a short trip to Texan Bay - still on the Rio. Our friends, Mike and Sherrie on Gitane are building a marina there. While there, Paul dinghied to Livingston at the mouth of the Rio Dulce to check out of Guatemala. Raul, our agent and friend, made this very simple, as always, and got us on our way with little delay. The next morning, AngelHeart traveled past Livingston, out into Bahia Amatique and headed for Cabo Tres Puntas (N15� 54� W88� 34�), Guatemala for an overnight anchorage. Next morning, we were out into the Caribbean Sea heading to Belize for our second visit to the beautiful cays and atolls. We checked in on February 1, 2007 at Big Creek near Placencia. We love Belize and Placencia (N16� 31� W88� 23�) is one of our favorite stops. The annual June Lobsterfest is a really fun time. For the next month, we revisited Colson Cays, Water Cay, St. George's Cay and Caye Caulker with new stops at Rendezvous Cay and Lagoon Cay.

I flew back to the States for a visit and Paul, along with our good friend Kent Vesper of Orange Beach, AL sailed AngelHeart from Caye Caulker (N17� 44� W88� 02�) to Turneffe Atoll (N17� 10� W87� 53�) on March 11, 2007. Here they staged for the sail to the Bay Islands of Honduras on the 12th. Strong unpredicted winds producing rough seas accompanied them to Honduras but AngelHeart performed well. Arriving on the 13th of March, AngelHeart was at anchor in French Cay Harbor, Roatan, (N16� 21� W86� 26�) while Paul and Kent traveled by taxi to Coxen Hole to take care of the checking-in duties.

With Kent back in AL and me back on board AngelHeart, Paul and I revisited a few of our favorite Roatan spots from our previous trip. We anchored in Jonesville Bight to say hello to Bob, Harry, Larry and Dwayne at Hole-in-the-Wall. The restaurant there does a fabulous seafood buffet on Sunday afternoons which attracts locals and tourists alike.

From Jonesville, we revisited Isla Barbareta on our way to Guanaja for staging our upcoming passages. We arrived in Guanaja at the El Bight anchorage (N16� 27� W85� 52�) on May 1, 2007. It was our first trip to Guanaja, the eastern most island of the three large Bay Islands. (We visited Utila, the western most large island in February of 2006 and spent almost a month there.) The Bay Islands offer much of the same great snorkeling we saw in Belize. You just can't believe how clear ocean water can be until you've experience it! Our only other stop in Guanaja was to take a mooring ball at Josh's Cay (N16� 27� W85� 49�), another place not to be missed! Graham's Place Resort on this tiny cay offers great food in the restaurant and an extremely helpful staff.

The prevailing easterlies gave us two choices for our first passage east. One was to wait until the wind was from another direction. This happens rarely and doesn't last very long. The other option was to wait for several days of very calm winds and motor. We chose the second as we were pushing to get further south out of the hurricane box. AngelHeart and Namaste left Guanaja May 8th through the reef at Half Moon Cut. We arrived in the Hobbies (N16� 01� W83� 06�) - out islands of Honduras - on May 9, 2007. We only spent four days in the Hobbies - a beautiful area surrounded by spectacular reefs. Some friends of ours spent six weeks here snorkeling and fishing. But, as I said, we were pushing onward. AngelHeart and Namaste left the Hobbies on the 12th and arrived in the bay surrounded by Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands (N13� 20� W81� 25�) on May 14, 2007. Although off the coast of Nicaragua, these islands belong to Colombia. Go figure! We were told on one occasion that it has to do with trading land for fishing rights. Another account was that these islands are Colombian as a result of war. I'm afraid I don't know the real story. One radio call to Mr. Bush and all our check-in procedures were taken care of. It was here that we caught up with friends Brenda and Gene on Queen Mary and Kay and Sonny on Valentina and were able to exchange stories of our adventures since leaving the Rio.

Although reluctant to leave this quiet paradise, we left Providencia with Namaste, Queen Mary and Valentina on May 18th for the much busier island of San Andres (N12� 34� W81� 41�), also owned by Colombia. We met with our agent who took care of all the check-in procedures. Happily, we soon met Cecilia at Tanino's Marina, who is known for being so very helpful to cruisers arriving on the island. San Andres is like Miami compared to the sleepy islands we had been visiting. The numerous amenities here include an airport, from which we flew to Panama City for a short trip to the States.

Having returned from our stateside trip, AngelHeart joined Namaste and Island Lady - with Margie and Bob and their daughter Alexis onboard - and departed San Andres on June 2nd. We arrived in Bocas del Toro, Panama, (N09� 20� W82� 14�) on June 4, 2007. On this passage, as well as our other passages to date, AngelHeart performed well and increased our appreciation of her - our floating apartment which takes us to far off places!

That brings us up to date, somewhat. We love Panama and Bocas del Toro. However, I will share that information in our next blog.

Hooray!! AngelHeart is back in the water. After 10 very busy days getting her bottom painted, lubricating everything in sight, adding electrical outlet in saloon and cockpit, putting in a "dock water" system, changing the raw water pump, and numerous other small, but significant tasks, we got her launched yesterday afternoon. We rented a cabin at Catamaran Island Hotel (our marina) and worked on the boat every day (except Thanksgiving and the following Friday). She looks bad, dry dock filth (dust, sanding residue from other boats, etc.) and the inside's a mess from moving everything to get to anything, but she's coming back together nicely.

We bought Island 44 paint from Wayward Wind as they had used it on their previous bottom job and it had lasted 5 years. We hope to have the same luck. Our boat's not as fast, so hopefully the ablative nature of the paint will last longer! ;o)

Today we're washing clothes (with the Admiral's new washing machine), connecting the ground plate to the SSB and putting all the stuff back where we got it.

It'll be a few days before we're shipshape again.

Back to work.