Living The Dream

We finally dropped the anchor just before sunset at Isla Otoque. It's a little island that's about 22 miles from Panama City. In the center of its crescent shape is a calm anchorage, with tall hills that block the nasty "Northers". It has a few more islands and rocks that create a fairly protect "cove". We were all pretty beat up after such a grueling sail so it was nice to have a good dinner and go to bed early knowing we were safely at anchor.

Just after dinner we saw a light from a sailboat approaching the anchorage. With a new moon, howling winds and rough seas, we knew it couldn't be fun trying to get into the anchorage. We saw they had a flood light trying to scope it out. Tom jumped on the VHF at tried to hail them to give them a hand getting in, but there was no response. We flipped on both our front and rear spreader lights to make it easier to see us, and hopefully define the anchorage area.

As they came closer, we saw it was a catamaran and thought they might give us a shout. They didn't, just dropped - a little too close to us, and went to bed. We thought they were probably exhausted like us and maybe we'd chat with them the next day.

The wind howled from the north all night, this time I slept well knowing we were safe. I was awake at first light and went up to watch the sunrise - with Chico of course. It was a beautiful morning and I was in the mood for coffee, which we hadn't had since getting sick.

I pulled out one of the three bags of coffee we bought in El Salvador and asked Tom if he cared to join me -it was divine. I made pancakes for breakfast and banana bread from bananas Canaan brought with him. We'd hung them in a hammock from above the mirror in the saloon. They'd banged around spattering the mirror in the rough seas. All they were good for was bread.

After breakfast, about 8 am I noticed the catamaran leaving. We had decided to stay and extra night, hope the wind would quit and we'd have a nice run on Saturday. We watched the Cat try to go around the west side of the island - getting pounded by the waves, barely making progress. No "thank you". No greeting of "good morning". Puzzling.

We all swam ashore to the beach we'd anchored off of. Pelicans were everywhere, diving for fish and coming up with full mouths. Sadly, the beach was littered with lots of garbage - mostly plastic. It's sad that most third world countries care so little about their garbage. A beach cleanup day is sorely needed here.

Although provisions are running a bit low, we grilled the last three turkey burgers for lunch. I made marinara sauce from scratch to go with the last of the chicken breasts and a brick of mozzarella cheese for Tom's favorite dish: Chicken Parmesana. We will continue north tomorrow morning after low tide has passed, hoping with Norther has blown itself out by then.