Welcome (back) to the Pacific

We “hurry up and wait” on Saturday.  I phone the canal authority in the morning to confirm our one o’clock rendezvous with our pilot.  I’m told it will now be a three o’clock start.  I pay the marina bill, we take our last languorous showers ashore, wrap up loose ends, gather the hose and shore cord back aboard, stow the kayak below…and wait.  I don’t want to be late, so we depart early. 

We arrive at the rendezvous fifteen minutes early and slowly motor around the anchorage.  There are two steel fishing boats rafted at anchor, and a few small “tramp” freighters.  The only other yacht is a 38’ catamaran.  I radio the Cristobal signal to say we await our pilot.  They tell me our rendezvous will be 3:30.  At 3:45 our pilot, Larry, comes aboard.  I recognize him as the pilot i had in 2010 on the way out these same locks, and he vaguely remembers Akimbo.  Pilots also board the catamaran and one of the fishing boats (red).  We three follow a big ship into the locks.  This ship’s cargo appears to be big wind generator blades. 

The fishing boat ties up ahead of us to the starboard lock wall.  We raft up tightly to the catamaran and motor abreast into the locks.  The catamaran ties to the port wall and we tie to the starboard.  The two of us are suspended together in the middle of the locks.  The gates close.  Turbulence surfaces on the water as we go up. 

Tizz and Don are handling our bow line.  Polly holds our big fender ball at the ready if we get too close to the concrete wall.  Rima handles our stern line at the starboard primary winch.  I’ve run the lines thru snatch blocks on the toe rail, to keep them captured and led fair.  My crew is handling their lines better and more easily than the catamaran’s crew, which includes a male and two female bimbos.  Which isn’t fair of me to say.  There are other ways to contribute to the safe passage of a boat than by handling lines.  After we clear the last locks, we untie from the catamaran, glad to not have our fate so tied to theirs. 

By the time we lock thru and then motor a mile to nearby mooring buoys, it is dark.  Our pilot departs, telling us our next pilot will arrive near six in the morning.  We settle in for the night.  Tizz and Rima sleep in the cockpit until a storm approaches.  After closing the hatches i go on deck to size this storm up.  As the lightning gets closer a very strange sound comes full-throated from the jungle:  howler monkeys living up to their naming.  They apparently don’t like lightning.  Maybe they are howling to warn the next tribe of the approaching storm.  I am rooted where i stand even as the rain starts, listening to a sound i doubt i’ll ever witness in person again.  Grateful for the witnessing. 

I’m up early in the morning.  No need for crew to awake unless they want to.  We’ll simply be motoring for the next five or so hours.  I swim a lap around Akimbo.  The fresh water feels good.  Eat a little breakfast.  Our pilot arrives.  Rima takes a quick dip.  We untie from the mooring and are off.  Thru the day, several big ships go by northbound while we go south.  Lake Gatun is beautiful.  It would be fun if we could cruise a week and explore the lake, but that is not allowed.  There aren’t many ways to tour the lake.  There is a company with boats that drives tourists from a hotel in Gamboa (a small town on the lake).  Rather i would suggest contacting the Smithsonian Institute to see if you could reserve a stay at their island on the lake.  THAT might be worth pursuing. 

We slow down.  The big ship that will join us in these locks will be behind us rather than in front of us and is running late, it seems.  While we wait, Rima serves up a fabulous lunch.  Eventually we raft up with our catamaran friends and motor into the locks and tie up to wait.  The crew on the catamaran hails from many countries but they live in Costa Rica and are bound there.  The ship arrives and we are lowered to the level of small Miraflores lake.  There is a tourist center at the Miraflores lock, its top floor crowded with people.   My crew waves wildly from the foredeck, trying to solicit the same from the tourists.  The catamaran crew joins in and we are rewarded when much of the crowd waves back. 

So, we leave the Caribbean and arrive in the Pacific.  

The pilot boat comes up and retrieves our advisor, Oswaldo.  We pick up a mooring at the Balboa Yacht Club.  We are invited aboard a neighboring boat for drinks, but first Don and Polly want to check in to the nearby hotel.  One of the BYC launches takes them ashore.  We will say our goodbyes at dinner tonight.  Rima and i swim over to our neighbor and get acquainted, while Tizz appreciates some time alone and does a great job cleaning and straightening Akimbo’s interior. 

Thank you Don and Polly, for your help.  I hope you are pleased with your Panama Canal experience.  And thank you Rima and Tizz for not only your crewing but for your embrace of Don and Polly.  Next up…in sequence…Rima and Tizz will inventory our food supply, Greg will arrive in the evening, they’ll all re-provision the next day while i buy paper charts for Hawaii and take care of any departure bureaucracy and last minute work on Akimbo.  Hopefully we will push off the next day after a good night’s sleep.

Hawaii bound, via Cocos Island.  The thing is…there’s a tropical storm (or it might be a hurricane by now) arriving in Hawaii as i write this entry.  Usually storms veer north before they get to Hawaii.  Let’s hope this weather pattern is getting this over with before we get there.  Our planned route will take us south of the storm tracks until we are beyond most of them and can safely head northwest to the islands.  So, look for my next entry here in about a month.  Good luck to us all.  

Panama Canal next

Shelter Bay Marina is quite nice.  We appreciate plugging in to shorepower, not having to use our watermaker for potable water and unlimited hot showers ashore – “if i had to give up civilization one piece at a time, the last piece i’d let go of would be a hot shower” – altho at 9 degrees north in July, cold showers are almost as good as hot.  They have a pool here, a mini-mart, a small chandlery, a gym, a restaurant, and a free van service into and out of Colon…

So we get busy catching up with business, e-mail and chores.  I call the Canal Authority and fax to them the info they want, requesting a transit asap.  We get on the fuel barge’s schedule.  Start cleaning the boat thoroughly.  Rima does a ton of laundry.  She sprays waterproofing on the dodger.  Tizz rebeds any leaks that have shown up.  I patch the dinghy floor one more time before we pack it away.  I re-leather the bobstay.  Drop off one propane tank to be re-filled.  We begin provisioning for our crossing to Hawaii…  Each of us needs time to catch up with e-mail and arrange banking and details for when we are at sea.  I skype call Tyler… after his tri-athalon.  You get the idea. 

Don and Polly arrive, hugs all around.  The admeasurer approves Akimbo for transit if we stow the solar panels, buy an air horn and buy bottled water for our Canal pilot .  All of which we will do.  Whereupon we amass all of our cash to make Akimbo’s deposit with the Canal, which then allows me to call and request a transit date…which it sounds like we will get.  I need to keep calling and confirming until we are underway. 

The cab ride into Colon and the bank where i make our deposit is illuminating.  After getting into town, Benjamin, our driver, asks for half the round trip fair so he can buy a 50 pound bag of corn.  He lives 15 minutes out of town and this will save him having to come back in.  “Hand to mouth” living, i think to myself.  Enroute to his purchase, he takes us thru the slums of Colon and explains it was once very beautiful.  Now it looks bombed and burned.  “Muy triste” (very sad), i say.  How is it that Panama can be so short sighted and greedy to not invest in this port?  So much money passing thru here and none of it shared with the locals.  “Trickle down… doesn’t work.”  When he parks the car by the curb to go in and buy his corn, he goes to the nearest policeman and points out that he has tourists in his cab, telling the man to keep trouble away from us.  I don’t dare get out of the car.  I would “stick out like a sore thumb.”  Did i already admonish?..”when traveling in foreign lands…make friends…or in other words, make no enemies.”  Here i have to add…”don’t be stupid.” 

In between all this, we meet other yachties and locals.  It’s the eye contact that counts.  Benjamin the cabbie, Indira the waitress, Joachim the engineer, the crew on a big boat nearby,…

The marina is adjacent to National Park lands.  Hopefully we’ll do a little hiking and have some fun between whatever it takes to move Akimbo forward.   

By the way, it looks like our transit date will be Saturday and Sunday, July 27 and 28.  Probably from about noon to noon.  And if you want to watch us go thru...you can?  Yes.  The Canal has cameras at the locks which you can tune into at www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html.  We’ll wave once in a while, just in case you’re watching.  

"THIS does not suck."

The drifter carries us on light winds from the Hollandes Cays to Corazon de Jesus, where Teri and Charlee will catch the next morning’s flight to Panama City.  It’s the only flight daily.  (Arriving, we smile and wave to see our Danish friends aboard Vela anchored here.)  We “dress rehearse,” hoisting the outboard onto Sea Cow and motoring over to the island where the airstrip is.  Airport security looks like it won’t be much trouble. 

We are near the Rio Diablo and after Rima cools off with a few quick swims, a neighbor dinghies over from a French boat to tell us there are crocodiles in the water here.  We watch carefully if we get in the water at all. 

Charlee, Teri and i dinghy over to the airstrip at 6am.  Nobody is there.  Their flight is due at 6:30.  We hope their tickets are good, and then a few locals boat over too.  They weigh the baggage and ask the passengers’ weights…  The plane arrives. 

Several people disembark.  This seems like it must be the biggest event in the village’s daily life.  Soon i wave goodbye as the plane takes off.  Thank you T&C for making the effort to share some of this journey with me.  I appreciate having history with dear friends and adding to it.  Back aboard Akimbo, we are three. 

Rio Diablo has a steady traffic of dugouts at its mouth but appears quite shallow and is muddy.  We read in a guidebook that a trip up nearby Rio Azucar is worth doing.  As we depart Corazon we see Vela doing the same and we invite them explore Azucar with us.  They accept.  We take them in tow on the way upstream until the outboard touches bottom.  We then paddle until we find grassy bank…which turns out to be where a trail starts.  Following it, we soon come to another faster and shallower stream.  The fresh water feels good.  Across the stream there is a sign nailed to a tree that says something about a project.  Rima crosses and disappears into the jungle, Tizz finds another path further along the bank where the Danes and i stand.  When they both get back, Rima says the trail is lovely, under beautiful jungle canopy, and leads to a sustainable agriculture sight.  But the Danes are ready to turn around and we join them.  They tow us back out – it’s nice to bird watch more than navigate. 

They depart for Green Island, while we decide the anchorage is good enuf for a night.  In the afternoon, we witness the locals boating back and forth from their island to a cemetery for a funeral.  From what we can see, it appears the village is burying a cherished citizen.  Remember Serapio?  He took our shopping list and a half deposit back in the Coco Banderos… he left his phone number, and (thanks to Tizz’s phone) we called him when he was late, he said he wasn’t ready yet but would bring our stuff in the morning, instead he brought our deposit back to us.   Well, he goes by at Rio Azucar and stops to say hi.  We ask after the deceased.  He replies it was a man, not old but young, 55, same as Serapio. 

Everywhere we anchor, dugouts come along side to sell us something.  Molas...lobster....

Next day we have wind again.  Yahoo!  We sail 16nm to the Lemon Cays, arriving in time for lunch and snorkeling.  There are tents on one island, a dock and huts on another with the sound of a generator and music…  It’s July 14, Bastille Day, Tizz reminds us.  So we hoist a French flag on the backstay halyard.  We’ve waved to every boat that passes, many French ones among them, now we greet them with “Viva la France!”  In return, a few French crew dinghy over and thank us.     

Another day’s sail takes us to lunch at Dog Island where we enjoy the clearest waters in the San Blas yet while we dive on a wreck in shallow water. 

There are wrecks all over the place to humble skippers and remind us to NOT sail at night here.  From here we sail to Porvenir for our obligatory formalities.  Here it is a pleasure to recognize Pen Kalley.  Sophie and Bernard were our neighbors in Curacao.  We meet again at the Immigration office…where we are all surprised at how expensive formalities have become.  They are short of cash.  We loan what they need and later visit them aboard their boat for cocktails and appetizers – smoked salmon and ice is our contribution.  He is an engineer on sabbatical, and she a doctor, in their mid-thirties.  Bravo!  Their boat is a 40’ race boat.  Spartan compared to Akimbo, but very efficient and fast.  They enjoyed a day of 202nm from Cartagena to here. 

Senor Flores, the Panamanian immigration agent, fits perfectly the generalization i’ve made about his ilk…even if he is NOT wearing a uniform.  He is a bureaucrat, is not a happy man, and does his best to spread his unhappiness to the rest of us...while demanding $200, no less.    Whereas the Kuna man representing the Maritime Authority, even if he DOES fleece us of $210 more, is pleasant about it.  Then there is the Kuna man taking $30 for the Kuna people.  So… Panama is a close second to Belize for the worst formalities to get thru, and is certainly THE most expensive country for the process.  I won’t be back.  I’d rather round the Horn.  Obviously Panama doesn’t really want me to come back.  Yachties are not all that profitable for the countries they visit…when compared to the money the cruise ships bring in (and you might remember my reasons for boycotting that industry).  Like too many things, it’s the lost potential for good that saddens me – which isn’t to say there aren’t some good parts of those things, it’s to say that they could be so much better.  Enuf.  Soon this trip will have no more “formalities.” 

Finished with customs and immigration after two and a half hours, after visiting and snacking a little more with Sophie and Bernard, early afternoon we sail to Chichime.  I find it pretty much as i left it three years ago.  Except that there are more yachts visiting.  At dusk someone dinghies by warning of another storm coming, probably to arrive before dawn, and he suggests we don’t have enuf room to swing at anchor for it.  We move and discuss how we could have better met the last big squall.  Sure enuf, around 3:30am i watch a lot of lightning go by west of us.  “Wow,” i think to myself.  “His info source is really good.”  But it’s almost 9:00am that what he was talking about arrives.  Rima looks up from swimming…gasps and sprints to get to the boat only moments before it hits.  I start the engine and free the wheel and standby.  A gust into the low 40s pushes us almost onto the nearest island.  Akimbo stirs up a little sand as i gun the engine and get the wind blowing on her other bow…so her swing at anchor is away from the island.  For the next half hour or so i get better at idling in gear until the bow aims into the wind and then gunning the engine enuf to swing away again.  It’s all soon over.  I take it as our time to say goodbye to the islands.  We weigh anchor, hoist the drifter, and start west.  Thank you San Blas!  I am grateful to have experienced your beauty and challenge again.

The wind soon dies.  We motor for over six hours.  The current turns against us and we give up Isla Grande for nearby Playa Damas and only 35 miles for the day.  They guidebook describes PD as a rolly anchorage not recommended for overnight.  We find it adequate and enjoy having it to ourselves.  Even better, it’s not too buggy.  Tizz reads that Puerto Lindo, just past Isla Grande, might be a nice sleepy little stop.  Sounds good.  Half way thru the day, the wind comes up and we enjoy sailing under full main and genoa.  We round Isla Litton to count 51 yachts at anchor but plenty of room for more.  Okay, so it’s been discovered.  On the way in we pass a fish farm and we see a mast from the spreaders up sticking above the water, complete with roller furled genoa, green uv covered leach.  Rima and Tizz row Sea Cow around to explore.  I hang out on board. 

With only ten miles to go to Puertobello, before weighing anchor, i take the next morning to fashion a new canvas bag for the BBQ.  We start out motoring but again soon enjoy sailing upwind.  Puertobello is bracketed by an old Spanish fort on either shore.  This is where they staged their fleets for sailing the Central American riches back to Spain.  We explore the fort near town.  There is a fancy resort on the opposite shore of the bay.,,but nothing over one story tall.  It feels good to hike around a bit.  Picturesque and historic, but the guidebook describes PB as dilapidated.  We concur.  

The church brags of its black Christ (a perfectly rendered, life size sculpture of a black Christ, looking up with supplicating eyes from the burden of dragging his cross – adorned with a bejeweled purple robe), encased behind glass.  In general, a disappointing place until one stumbles across a very nice art gallery and a busy music school.  A soccer game on a small, cement edged field near the town square, with teams waiting to play the next game.  These things speak of some vitality.  But otherwise, the town feels hopeless to me.  Maybe my feeling is exacerbated by one of the waiting soccer players.  I raise my camera to take a picture of their game and he stops me, demanding $2.  “Oh bah!” i reply.  Much as i might understand it, i have grown over-weary of it. 

We enjoy popcorn and movie night tonight.  We stay another day to explore further and return to the gallery, buy some groceries and take a short hike in the jungle, which appears healthy.  Impenetrable.  How could the conquistadors have hoped for anything more than a toe-hold here? 

July 21.  We start mid-morning for Shelter Bay Marina and Colon, at the Caribbean end of the Panama Canal.  No wind, we motor a few hours until i tire of the engine’s noise and rally to attempt sailing.  The swell rolling by threatens to shake the light breeze out of the sails, but we manage around three knots of boat speed.  East of us dark clouds cover the horizon in general.  There’s no sound of thunder from them and they seem to gather wind.  We spend the last few hours beating against plenty of wind.  We tack between several ships at anchor outside the harbor.  There must be forty or so of them and some tacks are timed to stay out of the way of the ships on the move.  The rain arrives.  We heave to to wait for a container ship coming out the entrance/exit thru the breakwater, and then spin round to sail into the harbor.  Out of the swell, we drop sail and motor in to the marina, home for what may be the next week while i navigate the Canal's bureaucracy.  Shall see.  

Cartagena to San Blas

Eeking speed from a dying wind before starting the engine, an overnight passage turns into two nights after having to heave to off the last Colombian bay available to us.  Tired, we anchor in Sapzurro.  The Colombian Coast Guard boards and tours thru Akimbo to see if we seem legit.  They leave apparently satisfied.  We see some hikers go by and notice a sign with the image of a waterfall.  “Cascada” it says.  We put on mask, snorkel and fins and swim in.  We hike a jungle trail and stand beneath the falls.  Ah. 

Hike back.  Take naps.  And motor out, around the point to Panama.  At Obaldia…the Panamanian Coasties board us too.  It’s always some trouble to find Customs and Immigration.  Tho Rima and i succeed in doing so, they say (most bureaucratically) that they can’t check us in.  They direct us to Porvenir or Shelter Bay, many miles north, but assure us we are allowed to enjoy the San Blas on the way. We depart. 

During the overnight, the autopilot stops working and we finish by steering manually.  I sailmail Tyler for a part.  But turning power completely off seems to let auto reboot and return to service.  Still i want the part. 

The magic of the Kuna Yala and San Blas has begun.  We motored to beat the dark into a bay.  Behind us the blue of the sky and the blue of the water erase the horizon.  We cannot tell if the silhouettes of Kuna fishermen in their canoes float on the water or in the sky.  A trawler appears to be anchored permanently in the bay.  Several men aboard.  Maybe it's a home to some of the bachelors in the community?  They shout as we slowly turn to port, waving us to starboard.  We don't understand their words, but understand their tone.  One gets in his canoe to lead us to the deeper part of the bay.  Thank you.  Puerto Perme is a very well protected bay.  Starry sky, tho screens are needed for the bugs. 

The sky attacked the earth this night.  We heard a hiss followed immediately by a flash and crash.  Only distant rumbles remained.  I went on deck to witness far off battles.  This morning i awake to find the earth survived, tho the sky hasn't entirely relented.  The engine battery monitor isn't working now - hopefully i'll find a fuse for it but at least it's not the monitor i need.

The morning light reveals a large village not far away and a smaller one near.  And fishermen in the bay, with diaphanous nets, busy, catching fish, hushed, excited.  

Fumbling with my Spanish to ask if we could visit the villages, i instead invite a fisherman and his son to visit Akimbo.  Andres and Eber (7 years old) come aboard and share coconuts with us, we share granola bars with them.  Andres assures us we could visit the villages, 500 people in the large one and 40 in the near.  He shows us Eber's school marks and asks if i could make copies for him, which i do. 

So we paddle Sea Cow in.  Over shallows and coral.  Again i whisper thanks for our neighbor’s help last night.  Ashore, the footpath leads us around a lumpy soccer field.  From there we hike toward the larger village.  One hut we pass has many animal skulls draped on a string, with a big feather attached to each.  A shaman’s hut?  Locked.  A hundred yards later the path splits left to the village, right to the “laundromat” (a half of an old canoe hull raised onto table legs where a woman stands rubbing clothes with a bar of soap and scooping water from the creek with a small bucket – i motion to ask if i may take a photo and she shakes her head).  On our return trip, a passing Kuna couple motion that i am welcome to bathe upstream.  So this is where the public bath is too. 

Anachucuna is a very traditional village.  The Kuna are tiny people, well proportioned and direct with their smiling eyes.  The women cover their calves with bead work leggings, they wear molas and red and yellow head scareves.  The men are unadorned.  The village is thatch huts, packed dirt floors.  There is NO garbage evident.  Rima and i are a curiosity to the residents.  Young boys dash by us just out of reach, and then again back the way they came, laughing.  We greet everyone with a happy “hola!”  “Buenos dias.”  I feel i am less suspect because there is a woman with me.  This feels like a very intact aboriginal culture. 

Back aboard Akimbo, we make our way north.  Mualtupu is the second largest Kuna village on this coast and less traditional.  We anchor and at sunset see the silhouette of boys running back and forth on a field – soccer, we’re able to surmise.  Next morning it turns out we are there for their anniversary celebration of their school.  Smaller villages have primary education…send there kids here for secondary. 

We meet Simon Herrera, their English teacher…who also writes about the Kuna history and culture.  Rima buys a few molas from Simon’s mother.  It’s noon by the time we push off, not in time to make it to Achutupu.  We thread thru channels and shallows tho and anchor at Usdup, another larger village, (where we see the trawler from Puerto Perme tied up?).  We leave early to make it to Playon Chico for our next rendezvous.  There we find the first sailing yacht we’ve seen in the San Blas.  They wave to us and mention that there is internet access here?  Tizz waving from the dock, Rima swims in to welcome him.  I take time buttoning up Akimbo to give them time alone before i paddle Sea Cow in to ferry him and his luggage back aboard.  Charlee and Teri to arrive the next morning. 

Their Twin Otter airplane’s approach and descent is an aggressive but graceful arc.  The end of the runway is right at the dock nearest to where we are anchored.  I row in, pick them up, and once back aboard enjoy big hugs all around.  Who’d a thunk we would ever get together in such a place as this?  They bring with them all the spare parts i’ve requested, and food and my new Keens, oh boy!  And so i have lots of work to put the parts to use. 

Rima’s curiosity about the Kuna people is great.  Arkin, with two little daughters sitting in the bottom of his canoe, trades Kuna words to her for English ones.  Spanish is their middle ground to answer their confusions.  And they trade lots and lots of smiles.  He invites us to walk with he and his family when they go to visit their ancestors at the cemetery.  Rima swims over to the Danish boat to invite them to join.  My crew goes while Tizz and i continue to tackle chores on board – another casualty of the lightning strike is that the solar panels aren’t charging.  Turns out Tizz used to install solar systems (sounds rather god-like, doesn’t it?). 

While they are gone i buy lobsters from a Kuna canoe-man (say it ten times fast).  He shows me how to separate their tails from their heads.  Later i buy a big crab from another.  This one has a young oarsman with him who grunts to break it’s legs off the body.  Lobster tomorrow then, crab tonight.  But first i’ve invited our neighboring Danes to join us for wine, cheese and crackers.  Yorkim, Christine and young daughters Natasha and Isabelle are dear to meet.  We hear about and admire their travels.  Natasha and Isabelle seem a bit bored with the adult talk.  I pull the Balinese thunder toy from its locker, along with a thumb piano.  Next comes the guitar, upon which the older daughter, Isabelle, plays an iconic base line and we all sing along.  Not to be outdone, Natasha gets her sister to teach it to her. 

The next day nearby thunderstorms delay our departure, but i want to get out to the islands and away from the villages.  Yorkim mentioned the same navigational challenges i’ve been dealing with.  He generously offers us a computer copy of the Panama guide book i’ve been using.  Charlee swims over and back with a thumb drive for it.  We finally weigh anchor and thread our way back the way we came thru the reefs but feel one gentle bump on the way.  Some of the crew soon feels motion sick.  I take that as our cue to anchor behind Airdup island for lunch, but with our late start it turns out to be for the night. 

We leave not late the next morning to enjoy our first decent wind and sailing in the San Blas.  I navigate carefully all day to bring us 17nm to the Coco Bandero islands.  Another sailboat is where i had hoped to anchor.  We don’t want to crowd them, so we anchor in fairly close quarters between two islands.  Serapio arrives in his canoe with outboard motor.  He offers to shop for us ashore and we soon give him a big order for produce and beer…and a deposit for half of it…and an Akimbo shirt when he tells of losing his own. 

After snorkeling and before dinner, we move to anchor in a place with more room to swing at anchor.  This move turns out to be the right move.  At 4am a violent squall wakes us.  I hear the clutch on the anchor windlass slipping, letting more chain out.  What happened to our anchor snubber?  I don foul weather gear and a head lamp and go forward on deck to see that the rubber shock absorber and hook are gone, that the snubber chafed thru at the bow roller.  We are out to the bitter end of our rode.  I thank the knot in the end of it that so far is doing its job and not letting it go.  Akimbo is heeling wildly as she “sails” back and forth at anchor.  I see the wind meter top 50 knots and go to zero.  Perhaps the anemometer has blown away.  Waves have built and are rolling thru.  I start the engine to motor in place and hopefully help the anchor hold.  I ask Tizz to track our position, which i had marked, on the computer.  He does so and soon tells me i’m helping the anchor hold too much.  I’m heading for the island!  So i idle back.  But he was using the less accurate charts on my computer.  When he checks the charts Yorkim gave us…we are in a good spot.  Soon the squall has moved on and we all thank our lucky stars and go back to bed.  I fall asleep sure that if we had not re-anchored, we would be aground and in distress now. 

The San Blas have proven more challenging than i remember, and more challenging than the rest of this trip so far.  First, without wind, we burned up so much fuel in the first week…that i realize i should have bought fuel in Cartagena.  It took two months to burn 60 gallons when we were sailing in the trade winds…it took one week to burn 40 when it is windless.  This could have had a very bad domino effect, but now we read that a nearby village usually has fuel to sell.  Plus, with closer supervision, our consumption is dropping.  Then we almost ran over a canoe and fishermen when i went below to check the chart during a long day of motoring.  And the navigation has been “threading a needle” at times.  Then this squall came.  I have had to “up my game.”  I am on guard, if not spooked.  Thru all this, my crew hasn’t jumped ship.  I guess they still believe in me and Akimbo.  I’m doin’ my best to make their faith well founded.