Linton to San Blas : September 15, 2012

 

Although we thought our anchorage at Isla Linton would be quiet, it turned out to be a bit rocky with large swells coming in from the sea all night long. We rose early and made a stop on the island which is said to be uninhibited except for Howler monkeys who have taken over residence in the only house on the island. It seems to have been an old research center but by the looks of it it has been many years since there was any real work being done there. We explored the vicinity and Anna spotted a couple of sloths in the tree at the edge of the forest. No sign of the Howlers.

 

We set off planning to reach the Lemmon Cays in San Blas well before dark. It was a windless day, hot and humid. Which meant that as soon as we were anchored we jumped in to cool down and did a little snorkeling. And here we are, back in paradise!

 

Captain's log: left anchor at Isla Linton at 08:48 am and arrived to Lemmon Cays at 16:13. Motored for 8 hours as winds were at 0-5 knots. Total distance travelled: 47.4 nautical miles.

 

 

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The first sail of the season

September 13, 2012  Finally, yesterday SY Segwun left the shackles of the port and slipped off into the Caribbean Sea for her first sail of the season. What a great feeling. Everything went smoothly, the lines were taken from the dock without effort, the bow thruster helped turn us in the right direction, the engine roared to life on the first try. The crew brought in the fenders and tidied up the ropes. Every Captain's dream.

The only improvement could have been the sun. She was well hidden behind the clouds and it rained all morning. The rain and wind washed out what was the beginning of a bird nest buried in the end of the boom so every now and then we would get a sprinkling of twigs and debris into the cockpit together with the overflow rain from the Bimini.

We had planned to stop overnight in Portobello to visit the ruins of the old fort on our way to San Blas. We arrived just after lunch, the rain had subsided and the wind seemed to be from the right direction for an a overnight anchorage in the harbor. But as we got closer in to the bay, we could see several boats anchored and the swells were causing them to rock ... A lot. We would have had a very bouncy night. We've been there, done that! It makes for a very unpleasant stay as Eric And Liz can attest to after our night at Warderick Wells in Bahamas.

We continued to Isla Linton which is where Jens and I overnighted on our way to Colon in May and we will take Portobello on our return trip. We anchored safely and were getting ready to go to shore for a refreshing drink at the local watering hole. And then the problems began.

Jens started by taking the dinghy motor off it's mount on the rail ....hmmm. Well it seems the screws were seized or rusted or both and no amount of WD40 would loosen it. Out comes the saw and pliers and Jens freed the motor and mounted it on the dinghy. A few clever repairs and the dinghy mount is back in order. In the meantime, our hand pump toilet wouldn't flush. Jens knew what it was as we had this problem once before, but it meant taking the outtake valve off and I won't go into all the details, but it smells very bad. Trust me. Very bad. He flushed water down into the bilge along with a couple of packets of deodorizer and we were ready to go for our now well-deserved drink. But, the dinghy motor wouldn't start. Oy! What next. Again Captain Jens managed to get her going and we were off.

After a couple of nice cold Balboas (the local brew) we returned to the boat for some dinner. Well, our problems were not over yet. It seems the vapors from the deodorizer filled the cabin and it was burning our eyes and throat. We opened all the hatches and windows thankful that the rain had stopped and a breeze was blowing. But then Jens realized the bilge pump wasn't pumping the water out. So, here we go again. Tools out and Jens with his head down the bilge one more time. It was a small problem. The bilge pump filter was blocked so after clearing that out everything was back in good order and the cabin was clear.

Anna and Christian made a nice dinner starting with a freshly made guacamole dip with salsa and nachos and then some chili with rice for the main course. Oh yes, and Jens fried up the small Mackerel we caught on the way so Anna and Christian had a taste of some freshly caught fish.

That was our first day. Thank goodness Jens knows how to fix so many different things.

Captains's Log: We sailed 22.21 nautical miles today leaving at 09:15 and anchoring at 15:25. Winds were from the Southwest 8-10 knots speed, heavy rain when we left and clearing up by mid day. Sails up most of the way while at sea.

Posted with Blogsy

Lightning Capital of the World?

We are in the middle of the rainy season in Panama.  That means it rains EVERY day!  The rainy season is a long one - May to November and Panama gets about 1900 mm of rain per year.  This compares to 773 mm in Toronto.  

The humidity is quite high and the amount of lightning is spectacular.  I have never seen so much lightning in my life.  After being here a few weeks and seeing lightning storms once, sometimes two times per day, I was sure this was the lightning capital of the world.  A little google searching and I saw a lot of claims that Florida was the lightning capital of the world.  But digging a little deeper I came across a great site by NASA.  And although Florida has the most lightning strikes in the USA, it is actually a small town in the Congo that hold the number one spot.  Below picture is courtesy of NASA - the redder the zones, the more lightning per square kilometre per year.  The amount and type of data that NASA collects is quite interesting.  They have a great website, but it is not so user friendly and they use a lot of very technical terms.  Anyhow - this is a good picture and gives you an idea of where the lightning hot spots are.

Getting Closer to Getting Ready

The Bow Sprit - newly sanded on the left - with the first coat of lacquer on the right

It has been long, hard and very hot work for the crew of Segwun.  Sanding, sanding, sanding and then more sanding.  The bright work is now getting a few coats of lacquer and is starting to look so very good.  Anna and Christian are tireless workers - on the job at 7AM and finally hanging up the tools at 6PM with only a few short breaks for lunch and an afternoon ice-cream.

Jens has been getting the sails back up and all the rigging installed.  It was much faster work taking them all off and takes a bit more work figuring out where all those ropes have to go.  Just a couple of coats of lacquer more, a couple more sails to raise and we'll be ready to set off.

Oh and not to forget one more trip to the grocery store to stock up and fill our now fully functioning freezer!  Hurrah!   I also will buy more flour and continue on my ambition to start making our own bread.  We have a hard time finding good tasting bread in this part of the world and Pat gave me a recipe that is supposed to be fool proof.  Hummm...  I'm sorry to report the first attempt was a bit weak.  Second attempt coming up soon.  I've not given up yet.  

SY Segwun is back in the water!

SY Segwun went into the water yesterday after spending the last three months on the hard.  We were able to get a fresh coat of paint on the bottom, polish the hull and start on the lacquer work.  Jens fixed the bow thruster and had adjusted the propeller when she first came out of the water in May.  So, in she went and the engine started without any problems.  A great start!  We headed over to the slip as we still have some other repairs to do before we set off to the San Blas for a week or two of enjoying paradise!   This gave Jens enough time to see if the bow thruster was working again (2 thumbs up ... bow thruster is operational!) and to see if the propeller adjustment he made was correct (another 2 thumbs up).

Then came the nagging issues.  Those ones that have been on our snag list for a long time.  We secured spare parts over the summer to see if we can fix the thermostat for the freezer and get the generator to produce power.  Jens started with the repairs to the generator with some doubts in his mind as to whether or not the new voltage regulator we bought would solve the problem.   Well, it seemed not to work, so we parked the problem.

Then he and Christian installed the new thermostat and that too seemed to work, but not correctly.  In the meantime, it was pouring rain and there was little for Anna and I to do other than tidy up the cabin.  To make things even more difficult, the marina is without water since a couple of days now.  A water main broke and they are in the process of repairing it.  We were told it would be a couple of hours before we had water, but by the end of the day, it was still not running.

After a night of sleeping on the problems and an internet search by Christian, they returned to the boat with some ideas of how to fix the problems.  I am happy to report that the thermostat for the freezer is now working!  Hurray!   The generator is still causing Jens some grief, but Fredrik has given us the name of a local contact that should be able to help us out if we really get stuck.

We decided to move onto the boat instead of commuting back and forth to Panama now that the boat is in the water and the air conditioners are working!  It is hot like heck here - about 30C and 79% humidity (feels like 42C).  The only problem is, we still don't have water.  We thought we had been very clever in May when we decided to store the boat with a dry water tank rather than a full one.  Which means, we have no water on the boat and have to fill our water jugs up at the Marina Hotel. They had expected to have the water back running today, but it is now 4PM and no sign of it yet.  We now hear it could be another "day or two"!!!   Washing and polishing the deck will have to wait a little longer.

Here you can see the difference in the bottom once it has been painted

The paint crew :  Our Panama host Fredrik helped us out!

The final result - painted and polished!

And now the Bright Work begins (in normal language this means lacquering all the teak)

We got the first coat of lacquer on the "rub rail" before she went in the water.

Anna is busy painting the inside of the Dorado's with a fresh coat of red.

Christian is doing an impeccable job.  We're just happy we don't have to pay him by the hour!

And the Captain is busy with the mouse sander.  

A little manual labour ... for Jens, a labour of love!

So, we have spent the first couple of days in Panama City, hanging at Fredrik's condo in the sky.  Not so bad; in fact it has been downright comfy.  Anna and Christian were up before dawn two days in a row eager to see as many of the city's sites as possible - up to Ancon hill to catch the sunrise - off to the national park to see the wildlife.  Oh, the energy these young people have.  In the meantime, Jens and I were dashing around the city picking up lacquer for the trim and hunting down new filters for the watermaker.  We made a quick trip to Shelter Bay to have a glimpse of Segwun and to watch her being moved from the secure yard to an area where we could have access to start the work.

After two days of sightseeing, Anna and Christian were whisked away with us to the marina on Thursday morning where we started the job of sanding the bottom of the boat.  For the non boaters out there, our boat has a fiberglass hull and the portion of the boat that is below the level of the water is painted with an antifouling paint.  Actually, regardless of the material, all boats are painted with antifouling paint.  This is a paint designed to discourage barnacles, weeds and other marine animals and plants from clinging to the hull.  This is important as a non-smooth bottom would severely slow us down while at sail and if left too long would corrode the boat.  Before repainting Segwun's bottom, we had to sand it to rough it up a bit and take off any loose bits.  This turned out to be a very messy job as the picture below will prove.  But we were done by noon and had to shower before we could do anything else.  After a good shower, swim in the pool and a little lunch, we started polishing the sides above the water line.  Ah, but it was not to be.  It is still the rainy season here so we were quickly interrupted with a heavy rain which continued for the next hour or two.   We decided to call it a day and head back to Panama City and our home in the sky.

Anna, Christian and Jens in front of Segwun, covered in the paint dust from sanding.  

We came back across to Shelter Bay early this morning to continue the work of polishing even though it was raining pretty heavily when we left Panama City.  It rained most of the way there, but luckily cleared up just as we arrived and we managed to get the boat nicely polished before lunch.  She's starting to look really good.  Tomorrow morning we start painting and I'll take a picture of her once she's freshly painted so you can see the hard work we have been doing.

A quick geography lesson for you :  Panama is a country on a fairly narrow strip of land and it is about 80 kilometres from the Caribbean sea to the Pacific Ocean.  Segwun is at Shelter Bay Marina which is on the Caribbean side, near the city of Colon.  We are currently staying with Fredrik who has a lovely condo on the 26th floor with a fabulous view of the Pacific Ocean in Panama City.  It takes us about 1.15 hours to go from point to point, not accounting for the traffic, which in Panama City is like in any large city - pretty miserable during rush hour!!

Segwun is scheduled to go back into the water early Monday morning.  Fingers crossed!

Season Two is About to Begin

We left Segwun on the hard at Shelter Bay Marina and traveled from Panama City on the 30th of May heading first to Sweden and Denmark before stopping in Canada during our break.  My last post was just after our visit to Denmark in the middle of June.

Since then, we have been at our cottage in Canada for the past 71 days and have enjoyed a fantastic Muskoka summer.  We hosted more than 36 overnight guests which meant a lot of trips to the grocery store and the LCBO, a very busy kitchen and BBQ and our coffee maker working double overtime.  Not to mention the piles of laundry, bed making, vacuuming and so on.  But all of this is overshadowed with the fun and good times we had.  It was so wonderful to have the chance to share a few good dinners and sometimes a few too many drinks with family and friends.

It was a spectacular summer weather wise - hot and sunny with very little rain.  The only downfall of that was the fire ban that was imposed on us so we missed our usual late nights around the camp fire for a couple of weeks.  But we made up for it with music on the deck.  Thanks to Jaan we heard some brilliant jazz on the saxophone; Michael chipped in with one of my favourites on the bagpipes (Amazing Grace) and we ended our season with a little Hotel California on the guitar by Christian.

Anna and Christian (Jens' daughter and her boyfriend) have both just graduated and are taking a year's sabbatical.  After a visit to the US West Coast, they joined us in Canada at the end of July and have travelled with us to Panama.  They will come along sailing with us as we travel down to Ecuador and Galapagos.  So we now have two new crew members!

After a few tearful good-byes, a last dip in the lake and one last evening around the fire it was time to pack up the spare parts we purchased, a few books, a printer for the boat and our clothes and head to the airport for the flight back to Panama City.

We are now guests of Fredrik, a Tetra Pak colleague who is based in Panama City.  He has an apartment on the 26th floor with an awesome view of the city and offered us to stay with him for a few days.  Seeing a friendly face at the airport on arrival to Panama made the trip so much nicer.  Jens and I will spend the next few days getting things organized while Anna and Christian do a bit of sight seeing before we head to Shelter Bay and back to SY Segwun.  This time, Fredrik has promised to come along to see our boat and go for a sail.

So, the big question - what are our plans from here?  I hesitate to be too specific as we have really embraced the idea that we will go where we want when the winds are right and when we have spent enough time where we currently are.  No more pressure to sail against the wind and in bad weather.  The big picture plan is to visit San Blas, traverse through the canal to the Pacific, make our way down to Ecuador and Galapagos and then across the Pacific to French Polynesia.   Stay tuned - season two is about to begin!