June 4, 2007
We left Bocas del Toro, Panama around 2:30 PM on June 2nd.. It was a beautiful day, no high seas and no wind, but that meant we had to motor sail the entire way. It was a 38 hour trip and we arrived in San Andres, Colombia at sunrise.
On the way, we had two beautiful sunsets. Night one.
Night two.
And some neat clouds.
After staring at the seas for a day and a half, Lisa got bored and we played a rousing game of "I spy with my little eye". It lasted one round. Lisa's hint was "w". After guessing "water", Bret's hint was "b". After guessing "boat" the game was over because there were only two things out there...water and our boat. We stared at the seas some more and then Lisa got bored AND antsy and started asking Bret non-stop stupid questions:
Why do fans always go clockwise? Do they go counter clockwise below the equator? If they are counter clockwise below the equator, can you use the same fan as above the equator and just turn it around? Why are "fans" called "fans"? Is it because they are just a modern version of the ladies' handheld fans or is it because so many people are fans of fans? Why do we need fans - if our body temperature is 98.6 degrees, why isn't an air temperature of 98.6 degrees absolutely perfect? We shouldn't even feel hot at 98.6. If most people feel hot when it is over 80 degrees, and I (Lisa) feel hot when it is over 60 degrees, why isn't my body temperature 78.6 degrees?
Why are "coozies" called "coozies"? Is it because drinks sit in them and are cozy? How do they print color pictures on neoprene coozies? Do they actually make neoprene in different colors and meld it all together on the surface of the coozie? Or is the colorful print on another type of material and then melded to the coozie? How do coozies know whether to keep something hot or keep something cold? Who invented the coozie and did they patent it in time to make a fortune? What type of machinery do you need to make a coozie, or are they made by South American children in slave labor? If so, how do we go about forming a group to support the poor South American Coozie-Making Children and would we call it SSACMC? And if we did manage to free the SSACMC, would there be enough schools for them to go to? Do we need special missionaries to convert the SSACMC now that they will have time to go to church.
After Bret relegated Lisa to the dinghy, things were a lot more quiet.
It was very hot inside the boat so we set up a hammock on-deck for sleeping...here is Bret happily getting some peace and quiet while Lisa is handling the helm.
And here's Lisa . She didn't last long in the hammock because there was no one to talk to.
June 6, 2007
We arrived in San Andres at sun-up on Monday. It is a pretty island with a lot of resorts; sort of like Miami without the high-rises. It has a very nice, very modern town with lots of restaurants and shopping. Although Bocas del Toro, Panama and San Andres, Colombia are both beach resorts, they couldn't be more different. Where Bocas is small, funky and filled with kids in their twenties, San Andres is large and directed at first-class tourists and their families.
By Colombian law, we had to check in with an agent who represents the Port Captain, Customs and Immigration. We contacted him over the VHF and he told us to meet him at the dock at 9:00 AM and he would take care of all our paperwork. He showed up at 9:15 (not bad at all for the Caribbean), took our paperwork and told us to wait for him. He came back at 10:30 and said he could not find any of the officials he needed and asked us to come back at 3:00. Meanwhile, we could not leave the boat. We finally got our passports back the next morning.
We also needed to do laundry, so Bret hauled out the little washer that we bought in Panama. The machine has two tubs. One for washing and rinsing and one for spinning. First you put the laundry in the first tub, use buckets to fill it with water and turn it on. Then you drain the tub, fill it with water again and rinse. Then you move the clothes to the spinner. Then you hang them on the line to dry. It's a pain, but much better than doing it by hand.
June 8, 2007
The town here is nice, but definitely a tourist resort for rich Colombians. Restaurants are expensive, but diesel fuel is cheap. We are anchored right off the town and contend with lots of water taxis, large day-trip boats, jet skis, wind surfers, etc...
We did witness a local speed boat hit a sailor's dinghy. The speed boat seriously damaged the dinghy, but luckily the sailor was thrown free of the crash.
Bret spent an afternoon filling up jerry jugs with diesel and getting them back to the boat by dinghy. We need to ensure that we have enough fuel to reach Honduras because there will be no chance to fill up until then. Hopefully, we'll get some decent wind and low seas so we can save on fuel.
We are having some really strange weather...there is a large tropical wave with massive rain moving through the western Caribbean and we have 30 knot winds and two foot waves (with white caps) in the anchorage. We were looking to leave here on Friday, but they are predicting 10 foot seas and high winds out in the open ocean. We have decided to wait until Monday when the weather is more favorable. One good thing about the rain is that we are filling our water tanks with rainwater and not having to use the water maker which requires running the generator which is noisy and uses diesel fuel.
Bret is a hero! He witnessed two Colombian tourists get tossed off their wave runner. The wind is so strong that it pushed the wave runner faster than the two tourists could keep up with. Bret jumped in our dinghy and went to where the swimmers were. The woman was panicking and thrashing in the water so Bret pulled her out and into the dinghy. He then got the guy aboard and they went after the wave runner. The tourists spoke no English, but the woman kept saying over and over "Tio Milos, and grasias, mucho grasias......". "My God, thank you very much!" If we can leave some Colombians with a good impression of Americans, all the better.
We rented a golf cart (our choices were scooter or golf cart) and drove around the island. San Andres is surrounded by incredibly blue waters, white sandy beaches, and coral reefs.
We ate at a nice restaurant over looking the ocean. The specialty was lobster, but not for us at $80.00 American. The same lobster served here for $80.00 was sold to us in the San Blas for $15.00!
June 10, 2007
We are leaving today for a two-night (54 hour) sail to Cayo Vivorillo. Night sailing requires some very advanced technology...a miner's headlight and wind-resistant glasses. Here is Lisa modeling them for you.
June 12, 2007
One more beautiful sunrise...
We arrived at Cayo Vivorillo, a tiny uninhabited island 30 miles off the Honduras coast, at 7:00 AM this morning.
We expected to be sailing for 54 hours, but had such good wind and sea conditions that we arrived near the island at 2:00 AM, only 46 hours! We had to backtrack back and forth for five hours in order to wait for dawn so we could see our way through the shallow reefs. There is only one other boats here and it feels weird being so far from land and so alone...
The two-day, two-night sail went very well, but we were both exhausted, not having slept much. This highlight of the trip was spying a pod of pilot whales. They disappeared before Bret could grab a camera. We did have some squalls though.
And Lisa wrote another ode.
ODE TO PASSAGE MAKING
To get one one place to another,
We have to sail with lots of bother.
There's always rain and lots of waves,
And, damn-it, Lisa won't behave.
We go all day, we go all night,
We cannot eat more than a bite.
The boat sways here, the boat leans there,
And shit is flying everywhere.
Most nights Lisa feeds the fishes
When she should be doing dishes.
To pass the time we play some games,
We look for boats and aero planes.
We stare ahead with great precision
To make sure we don't have collisions.
The nights are long, the days are bleak,
We must keep busy so we don't freak.
It is not as bad a we may say
'Cause we see dolphins while at play.
June 16, 2007
We left Cayo Vivorillo on the 14th at 8:30 AM to go to our next stop; Guanaja, Honduras. This was only a one over night sail with another beautiful sunset.
The anchorage off of Guanaja is very pretty with some nice homes and a huge shrimping industry.
This was sitting in the middle of the harbor and we have no idea what it is. We couldn't get close to look because of the reefs surrounding it. Lisa thinks it is a lair for one of the James Bond villains.
We walked around the tiny town, had lunch at a pretty good hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant and went to bed early.
We left early on the 16th to go to Roatan. On the way, Bret caught dinner...a 25 pound Wahoo with some really viscous teeth! Guess what we are having for dinner! And breakfast. And lunch...
The largest of these teeth was 3/4 inch long!
Roatan was by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which devastated all the Bay Islands of Honduras. This is all that is left of Roatan!
JUST KIDDING! That is just a small reef in the harbor.
June 23, 2007
We stopped in Cayo Cochino, a small beautiful island and part of Bay Islands of Honduras. We met a really nice American couple that live in a big house overlooking the bay.
Here is our boat and the bay taken from their front porch at sunset.
Here is the Honduran coastline as we near Guatemala.
And a pod of 20 to 25 dolphins that played around our boat for about a half hour.
This is a picture of a mother (top dolphin) and a really young baby (half out of the water).
We island hopped our way to the mouth of the Rio Dulce, our first landing in Guatemala and arrived at 7:30 AM after a nasty night of high waves, changeable winds and lots of rain. It was extremely dark....here is the view off the port side of the boat.
Off the starboard.
Off the bow.
Off the stern.
The only good thing about it being this dark is that you can see other boats' lights from far away. Tomorrow we will arrive in Guatemala. Yea!