Stain and Varnish of Companionway

I wanted a color that tended more to the red than the yellow to go with the other floors and did I get red! The stain turned out a bit blotchy and muddy looking. There are areas where another coat would make it look more even, but I don't want to make it any darker. I think I'll let it dry an hour or so and then hit it with a coat of varnish. Maybe I should have used a sanding sealer. I wonder how you ask for that is Spanish?

Hmmm...

While the stain dries, check out my second attempt at cutting my own hair. Instead of just hitting the longest spots, I did the whole deal today. I had to hunch down a bit to get in the picture. There's not a lot of room left in the cockpit for a tripod with all the woodworking.

Wed. Dec 30

Today's progress

I got the mounting for the security system painted and mounted so that the alarm points out a hole in the helm that was previously used for an old style 12V outlet that we never used. The two holes to the right of the PCB are for switches. I had hoped to get it all wired today, but manana is another day...


Then I measured and cut the boards for the companionway floor. A few of the cuts are a little wavy. I was on the bow of the boat with it gusting into the low 20's and lots of Colombian holiday traffic. It's been a bit lumpy. I hope to trim them up when Robert's carpenter brings the table saw back.

The wood is not really a finish grade wood, the outer veneer is so thin you can see through it in places. With some stain and varnish and a rug over it, I think it'll look fine. It is the kind of wood that is perfect for a substrate if we want to have some pretty wood laminated over the top later.

The dude who paddles out on the old surf board selling vegetables is named Wilson. I ordered some tomatoes from him and he brought out a couple today. His prices are a bit high, but not when you figure he paddles out from Baru on his board every day. I plan to use them in a jambalaya, but maybe not tonight, I'm a bit pooped.

A new workbench

After working on this boat for four years, I finally made a workbench. Those with large garages and detached shops may scoff, but I can finally drill, saw and sand without totally trashing the boat. And my view is nicer.

I'll soon be working on some repairs to our flooring and will use a piece of leftover 7mm plywood to replace the somewhat cheesy 1/4 inch work surface seen here.

I've got another month in Colombia before Pam gets back. I couldn't stand my hair anymore, so I cut it myself. Not too bad in the front, but you can see where I couldn't (or didn't) reach in the back. This is probably the closest to a mullet you'll ever see on this boy.

Pami asked me for a layout drawing of our boat a month ago, so here it is. She's always trying to explain where things are on the boat. I'm sitting where it says NAV. The SALOON is completely covered in tools and parts. The new floors go in A) in the little walkway between SALOON and COCKPIT and in front of the stove in the GALLEY.


Ciao for now
Richard

Panama to Columbia

In this edition: Sloth, Lunch With the Queen(s), Rivers, Absoluet Absolution, Islands, lots of poo talk, an enormously large grouper, a burial at sea and life in the Big City. Read on... (You can click on any of the pictures to get bigger versions)

Our tail continues in Northwest Panama where our dog, Cloe, began having more and more accidents on the boat. In a lighthearted effort to find new solutions to old problems, Pami bought a few disposable diapers to try. With a simple modification to allow for the egress of a tail, we were in business. The dog was momentarily stunned and confused by her new rig and stood still long enough for a picture. Other than that, the experiment was a failure and we redoubled our efforts at getting the dog up and out more often.


We took a couple more river trips in this area, the first of which was in the Cauchero area in Laguna Chiriqui which became one of my favorite destinations. Pami likes it there too, if I can get enough other people along to make it a sociable outing. I agree that it's nicest that way. We had the good fortune of coming across two sloths as we came back down the river. These critters have an incredibly slow metabolism and will spend about a month non-stop in the tree tops foraging leaves and, well, just hanging around slothfully. We came across the first sloth apparently napping in a tree, he looked like someone had dropped him out of a plane, sprawled on his back in the crotch of a tree. At first, I thought he was dead, and I'm still not sure, but on further reflection and conversations with other sloth spotters, I think he was actually sleeping. I suppose I should have gotten out of the dinghy and poked him with a stick, but I went with the take only pictures, leave only footprints, don't poke the sloths approach.

After a full month snacking on tree leaves, it's time for a poo. The sloth's metabolism is that slow. One poo per month. No daily reading the paper for these fellows. Anyway, considering how hard it is to spot these slow moving animals, imagine our good fortune to spot one slowly (of course) climbing down a tree to do his business in the river (minimizes cleanup efforts, I suppose). After climbing down and hanging his keester in the river (for not too long a time considering that it's a once a month event) our buddy climbed back up into the trees to look for a late lunch.

Moral of story: look twice before relieving yourself in the woods. You never know when some pervert will be there with a camera.

Back in the Bocas del Toro area to load up on groceries, check mail, and socialize, Pami went to one of the weekly Ladies' Luncheons, organized by a different cruiser each week. This particular event was organized by the two cruisers who were running the marina restaurant, Darrien and Dillon. The theme for the event was Lunch with the Queen(s) and the ladies were encouraged to wear flamboyant hats. Pam's creation was a big straw hat covered in some leftover fabric from my spinnaker sock project that I worked on in Cauchero. A lovely time was had by all. We recently heard the Darrien and Dillon have given up their life as restaurateurs and left Bocas del Toro. We're glad to have made their acquaintance and been so greatly entertained by them (see fore show in previous blog).



In our last days in the Bocas area, we traveled once again to Laguna Chiriqui and ventured by dinghy up the Rio Cricamola. In contrast to the other sleepy little rivers we had gone up, this one is quite large. There are lots of Indian villages along the river which serves as the primary transportation for the area. Although there were a few larger boats with outboard motors, most of the local traffic consists of small dugouts paddled down river and poled upriver in the shallows. Hard work, poling upriver. As a result, a family going up river with a load of produce from the farms downriver would be poled by the Papa while Mom and kids walked along shore. We stopped and chatted with one gentleman, heavily loaded with bananas, who asked us to give his wife and son a ride to their village. We let the little boy, 6, drive the dink. He had a great time, being large and in charge. I'm sure his buddies are all sick of hearing the story by now. We were invited to leave the dink on shore and come with them them to their home to dine. It's something we really should have done. Pami wanted to, but I wasn't totally convinced that our outboard motor would be there when we got back. To any of the locals poling their dugouts up the river, a 15hp outboard is something they can only dream of and the temptation would be great. On the other hand, all the locals seemed to be very friendly and hardworking and anyone who would steal such a thing would be faced with severe treatment from his peers. In the end, I was a chicken.

In late September, we renewed our visas one more time and headed East. I wanted to be able to spend some time cruising San Blas, a great archipelago of islands in Northeast Panama and home to the Kuna Indians. From there we would make a passage to Cartagena, Columbia. That passage is directly against the trade winds and one needs to wait patiently for calm winds (to let the seas die down) followed by a hurricane to the north to pull the winds around to something sail able. Our path took us to the Rio Chagres, the river that was dammed to make Gatun Lake that powers the Panama Canal. The river is just off to the West of the canal area and one can anchor mid-river in the midst of incredible jungle scenery and howler monkeys. You'd never know the Panama Canal was just around the corner.

From the Chagres, we made a stop at a great little port named Buenaventura, stopped briefly in Portobello, then on to Linton. Linton is a popular cruisers destination with a lot of people who live there full time. This lovely craft caught my eye as something truly out of the ordinary. I later looked up www.floatingneutrinos.com and my goodness, what a treat. Go check out the doings of Papa Neutrino. What a hoot. They originally planned to take this boat through the canal into the South Pacific. When that didn't work, Papa decided to make it a floating Buddhist Ashram. Now it's just sitting until YOU hook up with the floating neutrinos and create a life for Absolute Absolution!

From Linton we motored to Porvenir, the western port of clearance into San Blas. The San Blas archipelago has hundreds of islands and even more barely submerged reefs. After narrowly missing a reef on the way into Porvenir, we were greeted by the sight of a recently wrecked ketch at the mouth of the Eastern, easier, entrance.

The Kuna culture is largely intact, even today. Each village or area is ruled by a Congresso made up of a chief and some assistants who regulate nearly aspect of Kuna life, who can travel where and do what for a business. Although some islands are private, most belong to the Kuna nation as a whole and the Kuna live there and harvest coconuts under supervision of the Congresso. In addition to coconuts, the other and probably much larger source of income is the Mola. Molas are detailed reverse-applique handcrafted panels of fabric which are traditionally incorporated into dresses. I think that more molas go to tourists than to local dresses and the Kuna are quick to spot new boats in the anchorage. Pami did quite a bit of shopping and we got to know several of the Kuna families. The Kuna's society is very Matriarchal and boys who don't take well to fishing and lobstering and finding a wife take the other road of crossdressing and making molas. The Kuna women are wonderful at making beautiful molas, but it's largely the gay dudes that are good at doing business with the cruisers. The interaction of the sailors and the Kuna is delightfully symbiotic. The Kuna have molas to sell (whether you want to buy anymore or not) as well as fish, lobster and crab. What they don't have is a place to charge their cell phones. Everyone's got to have a cell phone, right? Well everyone does, believe me, and they paddle out to a cruising yacht with their phones and chargers in plastic bags to bum a charge. We got pretty good at doing a charge for fish trade and would usually offer our new friends a cool drink (something else they don't have on the island) and a snack for the kids.

After doing a bit of shopping in the Mola rich islands near Porvenir, I was eager to take Pami to the Holandes Cays, some of the prettiest in San Blas. Our first anchorage we arrived at was a two boat anchorage that had two boats already in it. It was getting late in the day, making it hard to spot the reefs, so we didn't dare go on too far. I selected a spot from the guide books that looked like it would be a good anchorage. Well... another victim of global warming. Most of the islands in San Blas are very low islands which maintain a 'lens' of fresh water in the sand to allow the palm trees to flourish. When the sea levels rise, the lens becomes inundated with salt water and the trees perish. There are lots of islands here that have sunk beneath the sea and I'm sure that the next 20 years will be very hard on San Blas and the Kuna nation.

After that spot, we moved to another anchorage in the Holandes, called the Hot Tub by the gringos, where we did some great snorkeling trips and visited with friends in the adjacent anchorages. Then it was on to the Coco Banderas which are a truly idyllic group of islands (ack, wash my mouth out with soap for using a schmaltzy work like idyllic). We spent several days at the cocos and charged a few cell phones. It was at this point that Cloe, who had been pooping in the boat more frequently since NW Panama, now was having trouble pooping at all. After finally getting rid of the ticks Cloe picked up in Guatemala, we hadn't been taking her to shore much. Lots of places are hard for a blind, deaf dog to get around. But I figured that the best way to get a dog pooping is to go for a walk in a new neighborhood and so it was shore leave time for Cloe! These islands are perfect for a blind dog. Nowhere to get lost: water on one side, grass and trees on the other and sand in the middle. After the jungles of NW Panama, it was great to be on the beach again. We all had a great time.

Before leaving San Blas, we headed back to Porvenir to check out of Panama and then on to the East Lemon Cays where we dallied a bit before heading further East. During that time, we got a call on the radio from some friends who were buying a big fish from a local fisherman and wanted someone to go in on it with them. What a fish, indeed. Our half of the fish was good for better than a dozen meals. It took Pami several hours with her electric fillet knife to cut it up.

If you think this life is all beach parties and dirt cheap fish and lobster dinners, think again dear reader! At about this time, our SSB radio that lets us talk with other cruisers up to 1500 miles away and send email when we're not in an internet friendly port, started misbehaving. The antenna system is grounded by a network of copper foil strips throughout the boat, several of which had been doused in salt water and were corroded beyond repair. We experimented and found that if we could connect the traveler track, part of the mainsail rigging, into the system, we'd be able to transmit again. Unfortunately, there was no room for me to crawl in and attach the wires to the track, so it was Pami to the rescue (again). She managed to get the connection made and I helped her out of the hole when she was done.

We had been waiting for an opportunity to cross to Cartagena, about 150 nautical miles to the East, and one was provided by tropical storm Ida, later to become hurricane Ida. Ida formed just north of Panama and worked North through Honduras. While doing so, she pulled in air and moisture from all directions. In our case, we had a 12 knot South wind with largely clear skies which allowed us to sail about half way to Cartagena and motor sail much of the rest before finally packing it in and flat motoring into the Bay of Cholon, just West of Cartagena. The bay of Cholon is wonderfully protected and tranquil. I took the picture from the deck of Robert's house. Robert is a former LA motorcycle cop turned cruiser turned landowner. He's got a very nice house that he is working on. As he says, the only thing finished is the view. While we were in Cholon, poor Cloe's health continued to deteriorate and we were fortunate to meet a retired vet and his wife on their trimaran who was kind enough to put Cloe to sleep for us. We gave her a burial at sea on our way from Cholon to Cartagena. She was a great friend and a good boat dog.

I'm now in Cartagena with the boat and Pami is at home in Meridian, ID visiting her family for the holidays. Cartagena is a big city with some wonderful stuff for boaters. We're having a new fuel tank made and I'm installing a new, more powerful drive for the autopilot. As soon as I get done with this blog, I can get on to some wiring and figuring out what to do about the spongy floor in the galley. It's been a party here! Their independence day celebration is held in conjunction with local and country-wide beauty pageants. It's a big thing here, and if you saw some of the Colombian women, you'd know why. There's been days of parades during which the spectators spray squirt foam at each other and throw blue paint and old motor oil on each other. I guess every place has their crazy traditions. We light off fireworks on the hottest, driest day of the year, so go figure... The big finale of the parades is the water parade in which the winners are paraded around the harbor and where the Colombianos all cruise around in their boats, playing music and partying. It made for a very lumpy day at anchor.

From here we plan to cruise the San Blas again starting in February and then transit the Panama Canal and work our way slowly up to the Sea of Cortez.

Panama

We've continued our slow meander through Caribbean Central America from the Columbian Islands to Northwestern Panama. A look at the map shows the Columbian islands at the North end of the arrow and our current corner of Panama on the pointy end. In this edition of our blog, we have what you've been craving. Pirates! Crocodile attacks! Huge Spiders! read on...

I've gotten a little bit better at creating blogs. Clicking on any of the pictures should show a larger version, particularly useful with the maps.


We start our tale in the Albuquerque Cays just south of where we left off in the last installment. You'll see mainland Columbia well to the South, but Columbia was once much larger. When Central America got divided up, they retained these islands off the Nicaraguan coast. The Albuquerque Cays are populated only by a group of young Columbian Marines doing a tough duty playing soccer on the beach and fishermen based out of San Andres. And a few tourists in yachts. In our wanderings around the islands we came across several brightly colored lizards. The anchorage is only pleasant when the seas in the central Caribbean are mild, which is rare. We managed to time our trip to include several mild days and one when the ocean was perfectly flat. We did a lot of exploring in the dinghy and snorkeled around many underwater caves. We stayed until the waves started picking up and then headed South to Panama.

Our passage took just under two days. We had quite a light show the first night with several lightning producing storm cells directly in our path. We detoured well out to the East to avoid having the unpleasant experience of being struck by lightning and made it to Panama intact.

After spending a few days checking into the country, exploring the little town of Bocas del Toro and getting Pami a ticket back to Idaho, we went exploring a few of the many bays in this area with companion boats Pelican's Flight and Tempest. In the first bay, Dolphin Bay, we were set upon by pirates. Some approaching us while still underway and some waiting until we were defenseless at anchor, they came in their pirate vessels seeking booty from the gringo yachtistas. The demands made by these fierce Caribbean scoundrels were for cookies, pencils, notebooks, magazines (to cut out pictures), spare clothes and to perhaps engage in trade. A few coins in exchange for local bananas or avocados, both so green and hard as to be entirely useless as food. We gave up some suckers and magazines and risked photographing the rogues as they stood off in their vessel to peruse their haul.


The second bay, just around the corner featured beautiful scenery and a tiny restaurant run by an Austrian couple, The Rana Azul or the blue frog. They are open on Friday night and Sunday noon. They rest of the time, the owners work on their little estate and do a bit of canvas work for additional income. The Rana Azul is a gathering spot for the various expatriates who have built homes in this area. All traffic is by boat since there are no roads. It's quite the eclectic international group.

Pami then started her trip to the states, first by water taxi to Almirante, just to the West of the wrecks shown on the map and directly under the word SWAMP. Not as bad a place as it sounds from the map description, but no garden spot either. From Almirante, she took a taxi to Changuinola (now people can't tell you you don't know chit from Changuinola) and then got a 8 hour bus ride to San Jose Costa Rica to catch a plane to Boise. Meanwhile, I spent my first bachelor week sanding and varnishing some of the boat interior that's difficult to work on when both of us are in the boat. It was hard enough to keep myself and the dog out of the varnish for a week. It's hard to explain to a blind dog that the saloon floor she used to jump up on is now outside being varnished and there's nothing there but a hole with a bunch of wires and hoses. Cloe and I managed pretty well considering the circumstances.

During the second week of Pami's trip, I was joined by Chris Wilson who came down to check out the pirate life and work on his Colorado tan. We went from Bocas to the Rana Azul for a pizza and introduction to the young pirates who heavily taxed Chris' high school espanol. From there we headed to the Islas Zapatillas, the slipper islands. We wondered about the strange name until we saw them on the horizon. Low and long, they look just like a pair of bedroom slippers, minus the bunny ears. We were joined by a monohull and a trimaran and enjoyed socializing with them as well as exploring the islands and doing some snorkeling.

From the Zapatillas, we headed to Ensenada Popa, renamed Toucan Bay by the resident gringo Dave, formerly from the Spokane, WA area, who gave us a tour of his place and has become a good friend. He has the dock, a caretaker's residence and his interim house done and is working on his main house on top of the hill. The holes for his footings can be seen in the photo.

Chris holds the title of most-favored-boat guest. To unseat him, you'll have to do the dishes nightly, swab the decks, be ever congenial, flexible and adventuresome and then something more. We had a great time together.

When Chris left, I had a week of exploration by myself mixed with a few boat projects before Pami returned from the states. I met her in Changuinola and we took a bus/water taxi ride home together. After unpacking and becoming reacquainted with friends and the humidity, we headed out to explore the Loma Partida or Split Hill area. It's a small island in the middle of a narrow pass between the mainland and Isla Popa. There are quite a few homes there, both Indian and Gringo as well as a small Tienda or store with an attached Gasolinera.

The gasolinera is a hoot, a gas station without a pump. It's a small wooden building built on pilings near and partially over the water. Inside are a dozen or more plastic 55 gallon drums filled with gasoline. In the middle of the room is a cradle on which a gas drum sits on it's side. The plug has been removed and the drum rotated so that the hole is up. When a customer comes in, they put a big funnel in his jug and then rotate the drum so that the gas sloshes out into the funnel. Most of the gas goes in the funnel anyway. The rest soaks into the wood floor of the wooden building. Not a no-smoking sign in sight in any language. If a boat with built in tanks comes to the dock, they fill 5 gallon buckets, carry them to the boat and siphon them in. We've braved the gasolinera twice without being blown to bits.

From Loma Partida, we were joined by South African friends Roger and Frankie aboard their boat Infinity and by their friend Brad in his dinghy who led us through the shoals to a bay named Cauchero. It's a beautiful anchorage in the not too often visited Bahia Chiriqui Bard and his wife Karen are cruising sailors who have bought land and are settling in Panama.




They were kind enough to introduce us to many of the area's attractions and took us on a dinghy trip up one of the nearby creeks where we saw an incredible variety of tropical plants that we usually think of as growing in pots and only with lots of TLC.

At a couple of places up the creek, local Indians were working on dugour canoes, made from a single tree. The trees are cut high in the mountains and schlepped downriver without the aid of any mechanical contrivances.











The trees farther up the creek had the most amazing buttress root systems which often formed the banks of the creek.











After awhile, the creek became too log-choked for us to run our motor and we had to paddle the dinghy through the jungle.
















Brad and Karen helped us transplant an orchid from a rotting log to a coconut husk we found floating in the creek. We've had one bloom so far, but orchids are temperamental, even in their native climate.









Unfortunately, poor Cloe fell in and was attacked by a crocodile before we could get her out. She lost both her hind legs but is recovering. Since she sleeps most of the time, the lack of mobility hasn't cramped her style much.

(Just kidding - she has started sleeping with her front legs out and her back legs curled up.) Strange looking dog...





Back in Bocas, we recently took a trip back to Changuinola to renew our visas and do some grocery shopping since the mainland stores are much cheaper than in touristy little Bocas. We stocked up on durable and freezable items including 10 pounds of ground pork to make sausage (the Central American versions of sausage are nothing to get excited about). Pami made about 5 pounds of breakfast sausage and 5 of Italian sausage which should keep us in spaghetti through the coming months. I helped by grinding black pepper but found the little hand crank pepper mill far too slow for the 8 tablespoons of pepper required. One of the advantages of having the tool room right next to the galley is the ready availability of power tools in the kitchen.










We went out to dinner in Bocas for my birthday at a great little restaurant run by a German lawyer and a Spanish engineer who have decided to cook instead.
Now that we are stocked with groceries, we're ready to head off exploring the local area some more. We'll probably head towards the San Blas islands next month and then on to Cartagena, Columbia for Christmas.



Richard, Pam and Cloe

Belize, Honduras, Columbian Islands

It's been nearly a half year since I've updated out blog. We've been cruising in the

islands of Belize, Honduras and Columbia and are just about ready to head to Panama for

hurricane season.

In December, we were in Belize where we enjoyed a visit from Frank Walker and Annie

Cosho. We brought them from Belize City down through the outer Cays to Placencia. From

Placencia they took off inland and toured ruins before returning to Boise.

From Belize, we made an easy overnight passage to the Honduran island of Roatan where we

anchored in French Harbor to check into the country. There are a couple of dive resorts

in French Harbor as well as a teeny seaplane doing scenic tours. French Harbor is one of

the more popular anchorages on Roatan due to it's close access to shopping and good

protection from winds and seas.

Pami started hosting the Northwest Caribbean Cruising Net one day a week. Every morning,

many cruising boats from all over the 413000 square mile area from S Florida to Honduras

tune their SSB radios to a particular frequency for the net. Someone gives the area's

weather report and boats underway and anchored can check in and stay in touch with other

and ask important questions like 'where can I get parts for a 30 year old Perkins

diesel' or 'how much does it cost to check into Belize on a Sunday'. Since only one

person can talk at a time on the radio, there needs to be a net controller who

coordinates all the radio traffic. Now everyone in the entire area knows Pam on Tisha

Baby as the friendly voice on the morning radio net.

While in the French Harbor area we attended several fun social events including a dinghy

raft-up where cruisers get together in their dinghys for appetizers and drinks. My

brother David came to visit and we spent much of his visit holed up in French Harbor

waiting for the rain to stop and the seas to go down outside before we could finally

sail to the West End. Better luck next time, David. John and Marion Fordemwalt had

better luck with the weather when they came a few weeks later.

Back on our own after the Fordemwalt's visit, we explored the Cayos Cochinos, the pig

islands which are part of a marine reserve fairly close into the mainland. We were

greeted by three little 14 year old boys who sailed out in their dugout canoe with black

plastic sails. They were looking for candy or whatever they could bum from the visiting

gringos. Pam told them in Spanish that if they brought her a coconut the next day, she

would make them cookies. The next morning while Pam was on the net, they boys showed up

with coconuts and I fed them a big plate of cookies. While chowing down, they commented

several times on what a big motor we had for our dinghy so that I was sure to know they

wanted a ride. Since Pami was still doing the net and could use some quiet, I took them

all out in the dink and one by one let the drive. There is no speed at which the ride in

a 9 foot boat gets too bumpy for a 14 year old. Whichever one had hold of the throttle

held it wide open while we bounced over the tops of the waves and the other two hooted

and hollered at the top of their lungs. It was wonderful to remember how fun it is to be

14. After a bone jarring ride and a quick tour of the island that they lived on, we

returned to the boat to get Pami so that we could introduce her to the boy's island and

all their families. It was a delightful day and we were relaxed, happy and totally

unprepared for the disaster that was about to strike. (I should write a melodramatic

novel some day). That evening I broke the pull cord on our Honda generator. We usually

rely on our solar panels for our power source, but when it's overcast, we get a boost

from the little Honda 2000i. It's compact, reliable, easy on the gas and quiet, but what

a bunch of stuff to take apart to get to the pull cord. We were up until after dark

getting it all back together.

While in Honduras, we decided not to return to Guatemala for the summer, but to work our

way down to Panama where it's close enough to the equator that hurricanes can't form. To

get there, one has to travel Eastward around Cape Gracias a Dios on the Honduras-

Nicaragua's border. Columbus named it Gracias a Dios : 'thanks to God' after spending

months trying to get around it. The Caribbean trade winds blow pretty consistently from

the East and one has to be patient to wait for a Northern winter storm that has enough

strength to change the wind direction to something northerly. We waited and started

motorsailing ENE in light winds as such a weather pattern was approaching.

Unfortunately, it was stronger than we had anticipated and by the time we understood how

strong it would be, it was too late to go back. We finished the trip in 30 knot winds

with 10 foot seas. Quite a bit bigger stuff than either of us had been in before. It was

pretty nerve wracking. After 30 some hours, we arrived in the Cayos Cajones well off the

coast where we spent nearly two weeks snorkeling, fishing, socializing with friends in

the anchorage and waiting for good conditions to continue our trip South. The Cajones

are mostly reef, with only a few tiny islands. Pami was ready for land by the time we

left.

Our next stop was Providence, a Columbian island nearly 400 miles from Columbia. It's

much closer to Nicaragua and Panama and is populated mostly with people of English

heritage, descendants of Henry Morgan and his crew. It is an island that has resisted

tourist growth for the most part and is a unique place to visit. There are no large

resorts or extravagant, rarely-occupied vacation homes. Just a lot of locals who have a

simple existence doing a little fishing, a little farming and a lot of partying on

weekends. We took a land based tour of the island one Sunday, ending up at a beach where

the locals have a weekly horse race on the beach. Two horses is enough for a race and

many more wouldn't fit on the strip f beach. We later gathered a bunch of our cruising

friends for a day trip around around the island on Tisha Baby. Our big deck space makes

it a good tour boat. We filled out our visit with lots of get-togethers, good meals -

mostly cooked on the boat, and a hike to the top of a hill with a large cleft known

locally as 'Morgan's Arse'.

From Providence, we've moved South to Isla San Andres which is more like Columbia's Hawaii. We've had a week of ding out, shopping, getting ice cream and even going to movies. Real civilization. From here we'll head out to two more isolated, unpopulated reef systems and spend a few weeks there before entering Panama.

Bye for now... Richard and Pam