Hurricane season in Panama

We haven't updated this blog since we visited the states in June and July. Since then, it's been a lot about TRABAJO. That's the Spanish word for work. Say it to yourself... tra-bah-ho... It sounds lots more work like than 'work' in English. Supersize it to Mucho Trabajo and you've got a heap of work.

But first, hurricane season! It's been a fairly active one. The picture shows Igor, Julia and Karl all hard at work to the north of our location. Hurricanes need to be north of N10 deg or south of S10 deg to form, and we're comfortably just a bit below N9 deg in the no-worries belt. Last year, there was a lot of lightning here in the summer, but this summer it's been very non-traumatic for life on a boat (so far). Nice change although when it's sunny and clear, it means sunny and HOT and we've had a bunch of that. OK, so now on to the trabajo, and hot sweaty trabajo at that.

Before we left for the states, we pulled our mighty 9.9hp Yamaha power plants to replace their water pumps. We do it every 2 years or so and I wanted to do it before we left so if I had any unexpected problems, we could pick up parts in the USA. Yamaha is a worldwide company, but the motors in our boat are a US model and local dealers rarely stock parts. When I pulled the lower ends off of the motors, the water tubes that carry cooling water from the pumps to the motor were in tatters, completely corroded through. I figured that it was time to repower since we like to cruise some off the path spots. If the water tubes had corroded through, there was probably a lot of other stuff that was going to corrode through. We had already had problems with carburetors and starter solenoids, so we ordered new motors. The new motors come with power tilt. We could have optioned out of the power tilt and pulled them up by hand as has been done for 20 years on this boat, but I decide to live royally and have power tilt. That meant:

new motors
new wiring harness
new controls (for the power tilt switches)
new ignition switches (because nothing ever stays the same)
nacelle extensions (the motors sit in nacelles, little drop down hangers under the boat to hold the outboards. The new motors hang down lower because of the power tilt)

We also needed a new windlass (to pull up the anchor)

And a new bimini ( the canvas covering of the boat which was becoming see-through)

A gas tank cover for the dinghy to keep the sun from rotting out our gas tank

A helm cover to cover the outside instruments and new Yamaha controls when it's raining.

And we needed to rebuild our stove because it was having a hard time getting to 300F and the broiler would only run for a few minutes.

Ah, life in the tropics!

Anyway, before we started taking pictures, I cut our old windlass apart with a hacksaw to get it's corroded corpse off the boat, installed an snappy new elevated fiberglass mounting pedestal and put the new windlass in.

Pami, never the slouch (that I aspire to be), took our old bimini down and made an new one that fits even better than the old one. While we had that project going in the cockpit, I did some un-wiring of the old outboards and a bit of preparation for installing our new ignition switches and controls (since none of the new parts were the same size as the old ones).

I had to cut out some holes bigger and fill in others. It seems easy to fill in a hole or a part of a cut out, but there's a lot of work to make sure that the new patch is flat and well bonded to the old structure. In short, MUCHO TRABAJO! (not that the bimimi wasn't mucho trabajo, but I whine more and Pami's sleeping right now anyway...). The vertical patches on the top of the holes for the ignition switches I did by placing a piece of an old cutting board behind the panel and screwing it to a stick that I placed across the front (not shown). That gave me a flat back surface. Then I wrapped small pieces of cardboard in plastic and poked them up under the stick to where they would just support the patch and keep it from sagging. Then I patched the holes with epoxy and silica and then placed pieces of packing tape over the completed patch to keep it from sagging during cure. Then sand, sand, sand...

The new ignition switches have beeper units on them so that that can squeal like mad if they run out of oil (I guess, I haven't got the motors yet). Anyway, as shipped, the squawkers would protrude in too far and run afoul of the motor controls, so I had to take them off and re-mount them at 90 deg to the original orientation.




The new motor controls were a bit longer in the axis of the boat than the old ones, so I molded a bit of epoxy and silica to provide a flat mounting surface for the new controls. I think it'll also make it less likely to leak water inside the control and instrument housing should the seals for the new controls ever age. More sanding, sanding, sanding...

The filled fiberglass spots meant re-doing the outer gel coat layer. Only a true artist with a lot of pigments can match the old gel coat. I'm no artist and I don't have any pigments (in fact, I never did any fiberglass work before the windlass pedestal), so I tried to choose old gel coat vs. new gel coat lines that wouldn't show the color difference too sharply. Put on 5 layers of gel coat and sand, sand, sand...
Re-apply gel coat in the spots where you rubbed through...
Sand, sand sand...

I never got it 100% right, but it looks pretty good and, in fact, better than the area surrounding the new work.

Meanwhile, Pami had contracted with some good friends of ours, Tom and Kathy on Jumbie, to do some canvas work in exchange for some sewing machine parts they muled back from the states for us. We put the new parts in the machine, a Sailrite LSZ1, and proceeded to have nothing but trouble with it. Pami was using Tenara which is a synthetic spend-a-lifetime-in-the-sun thread. It's no picnic to sew with, but the machine got worse and worse. There's an Argentinian sailmaker, Lobo, at the docks here and he helped me improve my sewing machine foo (the Central American non-violent version of Kung Foo). Between Lobo's tutelage and my own bloody stubbornness in not letting the machine get the better of me, we finally got it running again and actually working better than we have ever experienced. I had to lube a lot more spots on the walking foot assembly than I have ever done before. Pictured here is Pami in one of the more trouble free moments of sewing.

I need to mention our friend Aldolfo who does boat cleaning and various jobs here at the marina. He's a local Panamanian who has become a good friend of ours. He's very hard working and honest and has a great sense of humor. He came to us a few days ago after cleaning the bottom of a boat and asked if we had anything to clean out ears, since one of his was plugged with something. I told him he might have a little crab in there (which once happened to me). As it turned out, after pouring some rubbing alcohol into his ear, he shook out a teeny little crab about 1/2 inch across. Life in the tropics, it ain't for sissies!

Next up was nacelle extensions. A nacelle is a fancy word for something that hangs off of a craft to hold an engine. Cap'n Kirk's Enterprise had 'em and we've got 'em too. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacelle

OK, Kirk had Ion Drives and the like, and we've got Yamaha 9.9's but our nacelles aren't a bit less cool than Kirks. The new motors have a power tilt unit that hangs down lower than the clamp on the old motor and will, in fact, drag in the water. We could just bolt them up and let them hang down, but that would be a disgrace to the nacelle-builders art. And so we decided to make extensions that would make the water flow a bit smoother and help deflect any floating debris we might come across at night (or an un-watchful moment) away from the power tilt unit.

I decided (no culpability for Pami here...) to make up a mock up plug out of plywood, fiberglass and putty and then make a mold from that. Once I had the mold, I could easily lay up a couple of extensions and bolt them to the old nacelles. Such a wonderful concept and a beautiful dream.

I made up a mock up of the extension I wanted, providing protection for the motor clamp and the power tilt motor that hangs down on the Starboard side.

I then placed the mock up on one of the old nacelles that Pami and I removed from the boat and put a couple of tape patches along either side. I waxed the old nacelle and then hot melt glued little strips of plywood along either side. This made a crude mock up of the nacelle extension I wanted as well as a flange along either side that I could use to bolt the new extension onto the old nacelle. In this way, if I or someone down the line decide to go back to non-power tilt motors, the extensions could be removed.

I then resin coated the structure, cured it overnight, popped it off the old nacelle, puttied in some low spots, sanded it out smooth (but not smooth enough) and put it back on the nacelle in preparation for forming a mold over my wooden plug. Once I had the mold, I could easily make a couple of 'production' extensions, right?

But first, Pami got going on the stove. There isn't a lot of fine dining in Central America and particularly not in the remote areas we often frequent (when not busting our humps working on the boat). So cooking has become a passion. Our two burner stove with oven and broiler has worked wonderfully for us, but the oven max temp has been declining for some time and our broiler element has cracked and it'd only work for a few minutes before flaming out. Pami had ordered a new broiler, but it had been languishing in the to-be-done pile for some time. Seen here is Pami taking the stove out to work on it just after I said 'say hi to Mom!".

Once we got into the project, it became clear that the new broiler was a new, improved, and slightly bigger unit than the old one which took a lot of dremel work to fit into the old stove. I spared Pami any unflattering shots of her contorting herself into awkward spots to grind on the stove, but she got one of me lying on the floor, sweating profusely and elongating the mounting holes in the new broiler. I almost look like I'm in a mood...

We've got the broiler working again and the oven will almost hit 400F on just the oven burner, up from the 300F that it had fallen to. We're still not done, but momentarily have it all put back together.

Meanwhile, back at the fiberglass works, we coated our plug with about 4 layers of double thickness chopped mat, cured it overnight and then went to pop the mold off of the plug.

No pop.

Not even close.

We hadn't adequately sealed the bondo style putty and the wooden parts of the plug. We had to chisel the wooden plug out of the new mold. It was an all day project and a bit demoralizing. I couldn't resist the melodrama of getting a picture of me chipping away after I had scratched open my arm with the chisel. Oh well, every day has a quitting time.

The next morning, while I was researching fiberglass techniques on the internet, Pami cleaned up the insides of the mold and then we applied some resin to fill in some tight corners and numerous blemishes. After curing, we cleaned up the insides with the die grinder (every boat has a die grinder, right?) and then started sanding, sanding, sanding.

Stay tuned to see the end of our projects, the installation of our new motors, maybe a day at the beach, and off to San Blas again.

Cartagena to San Blas to Bocas

On our way out of Cartagena, we stopped at the Islas Rosarios for a few days to visit the little aquatic park there and celebrate our anniversary. The mini Sea World they have there was a lot of fun. Because it's small, you can get a lot closer to the fish and dolphins. You can see Pami on the far right. We continued down the Colombian coast, stopping at Punta Bernardo and briefly at Isla Fuerte before jumping off for Puerto Perme in San Blas. Pami caught a nice little shark on the way which is one of our favorites.







Perme is in the Eastern end of San Blas and sees much less traffic from cruising boats. As a result, it's much more traditional than the Western San Blas. There are no roads, electricity or cell phone towers and people live pretty much the way they have for hundreds of years. The Kuna women wear their traditional molas with gold nose rings and frequently a tattoo down the length of their nose.









A prized possession in this land without electricity is an old Singer treadle sewing machine. You see these all through the San Blas, still putting down the stitches and going strong.






While we were there, we took a hike through some Kuna farm land and up over a hill to the sea shore on the other side of the point. I got Pami to pose behind a spider web with a monster spider on it. I kept saying 'get closer, get closer' but this was as close as I could get her to it.

After Perme, we had a very leisurely trip up the coast, stopping at Puerto Ecoses, the site of a Scottish settlement in the 1800's and several other anchorages with traditional Kuna villages. It was a treat for me since I hadn't had the opportunity to explore this part of San Blas before. On our way to Cartagena last season, we had a once-in-a-season weather window and had to leave without seeing the Eastern part of the Kuna Nation.




We met Katie Wilson in Nargana for a short visit and had a fabulous time with her. We got in a lot of sailing, snorkeling and fishing during her visit. Seen here, Katie helps Pami fillet a Cero (a very tasty member of the mackerel family).



I hadn't spent much time with Katie since she was a kid and it was great to meet the new adult Katie. Still a kid at heart. Our only regret was that she had to leave too soon.








After Katie's visit, we joined some other gringos in helping a Kuna community haul an ulu out of the jungle and invited us to come along and watch and/or help.

An ulu is the Kuna word for a dugout canoe. They are carved from a single tree, as they have done for ages, and serve as the transportation infrastructure of the Kuna nation. Under paddle and sail, the Kuna travel great distance in fair weather and foul in their ulus. This particular ulu is about 30 feet in length and about 3 feet across. Since the Kuna have been crafting ulus in this manner for hundreds of years, there aren't a lot of 3 foot diameter trees near the water line anymore. The tree from which the ulu was made was between 2 and three miles inland, along a ridgeline path that had incredible grades.

Our trip began at 5 am while it was still quite dark. A group of cruiser dinghys was led up a local river by Bredio, one of the locals who does boat work. The river was alive with all sorts of jungle noises of critters we couldn't see in the dim morning light. We arrived at a spot on the river back where the trail started just as it was getting light enough to see. 2 other dinghys were already there. We headed up the trail with the other gringos following our Kuna guide, but were rapidly left behind by the more robust hikers.

The trail passed through many areas of cultivation. The Kuna do a great job of sustainable agriculture, clearing and cultivating small patches of the jungle while leaving the forest canopy largely intact (except for 3 foot diameter trees). We passed through areas planted in Plantains, Bananas, Avocados and Pineapple, all planted along the hillsides. One area that had recently been cleared for new crops made for great photos. Otherwise, it's hard to see the ulus for the trees :) We saw some awesome bugs too, some in the wild, some on us.

Just getting in to the carving site and out was almost as much as we could do, and in fact many gringos did just that. As we approached the carving site, we could hear a roaring sound in the distance. Some thought it was howler monkeys, but I've heard those and they are much deeper in pitch. This was more like the cheering at a local football game. As we started down the last grade, we were met by 70 Kuna, pulling the ulu up the hill with 2 long ropes, cheering and hollering the whole time. We estimated the canoe, carved from an awesomely dense hardwood and 3-4 inches thick, weighed about 4000 pounds, the weight of a good sized car, but no wheels. We joined in pulling and pushing whenever we could, though much of the time it was all we could do to hike along as fast as the Kuna were pulling the ulu. This trail is their daily commute to their farm plots and their level of fitness is absolutely amazing. They had left 2 quart and gallon jugs of water and what looked like kool aid along the path in a couple of spots. When they got to those places, they'd briefly pause, pour sacks of sugar into their water, and power it down. The easy-fix Kuna lunch. Up hill and down we went. On the steep uphill pitches, some of the gringos rigged pulleys and used one of Tisha Baby's old spinnaker halyards so that we could pull down the hill as well as up. The challenge was to set up the rigging before the Kuna got there. Only the steepest of grades would slow them down, particularly early in the day. One of our party, Kate, had her knees give out and the Kuna gave her a ride in the ulu. Quite a site, this petite little Scottish lady sitting in the ulu, snapping pictures with her camera as the Kuna hauled her through the jungle. In several places, the ulu would slide off the side of the path and down into the jungle bush, giving Kate quite a ride. With a bit of block and tackle and 70 Kuna power, the ulu would be brought back up onto the path. By the end of the trip, we were all absolutely beat. I put together a short movie from some of the other cruiser's videos...

The next evening, we were invited to the congreso, or the town hall, by the chief. They served us a traditional Kuna meal of rice with a few spaghetti noodles and a cup of kool aid. Afterwards, the chief addressed us and thanked us for our help, saying that they had estimated that it would take three days to get the ulu out of the hills, but with our help (mostly the block and tackle crew), they did it in less than a day. We gave him the names of our boats and he told us that we would always have the protection of the chief any time we returned. Pretty cool; I never shook hands with an Indian chief before.

A few weeks later, it was time to leave San Blas for Bocas del Toro where we're leaving the boat for a month to go back to the US for Aaron's wedding and a visit. This trip is usually accompanied by wind and current against you and good sized seas rolling in from behind, pretty unpleasant. We waited until the trade winds started to die soen due to disturbances north of our area and sailed as far as Linton with midld winds and big, rolly seas left over from the dying trades. In Linton, we picked up our friend Judy Rollinger who needed a ride to Bocas and headed around the corner to Portobello where we spent a few days enjoying the town and visiting with friends. Leaving the Portobello area, we managed to have good conditions for light air sailing the first few days as far as the Rio Chagres. The Chagres is the river that was dammed to create the lake that feeds the Panama Canal. It is maintained as a natural area which makes for great exploring in the dinghy. We waited in the Chagres for the winds to die out further and then had a delightful calm in which to motor the rest of the way in short hops. With the seas flat, we could anchor along the coast and explore the coast and travel up rivers where the surf is normally breaking. Our friend Judy Rollinger accompanied us and we spent over two weeks making a trip that is usually done is 36 hours. This coast was the last that Columbus explored on his fourth expedition and it was fun to retrace some of his footsteps (or oar strokes, or whatever he did). On our way past the bar at Belen, we caught a couple of Crevalle Jacks, one on each fishing line. Our fish book said that they were not the best to eat, so we threw them back. Shortly thereafter, Pami started having catch-and-release remorse. Some of the other fish in the book that are described as not too good are great (at least in these waters). In just a few minutes, we got another chance. We hooked another jack much bigger than the first two. We boated it and Pami cut out a sample and fried it up to taste. I didn't think it was very good tasting fish. In fact, after I thought about it a bit, it didn't taste like fish at all. It tasted like ground beef. Cows from the sea! We cut it up and made some great sausage from it. Here are a couple of recipes for the curious:

Italian Sausage ala Tisha Baby
2# ground pork or fish (Crevalle Jack)
1/2 cup shortening or oil (unless using fatty pork)
2 tsp Salt
1 tsp Pepper
1 tsp Fennel
4 cloves fresh crushed garlic
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 cup grated Romano or Parmesian cheese
1/2 cup red wine
mix well - ta da!

Jimmy Dean Style Sausage
2# ground pork or fish (Crevalle Jack)
1/2 cup shortening or oil (unless using fatty pork)
2 tsp Salt
3 tsp Sage
2 tsp Pepper
3 tsp Parsley
1 tsp Thyme
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp crushed red pepper
mix well

Farther down the coast, we got a view of several beautiful natural arches and what can only be called Monkey Rock (Har, thar be treasure in the mouth of that monkey!). We finished our trip with snorkeling and sightseeing at Escudo de Veraguas and then a brief stop in Tobobe Creek. Tobobe is remote and seldom visited enough that the locals come out to visit in their dugouts and just stare at Tisha Baby. Everyone was very friendly, offering us a bunch of sugar bananas, little 'lunch sized' banannas that are wonderfully sweet. Judy passed out about thirty tooth brushes that she gets from her dentist in Houston and everyone felt they had a great deal.

Now we're at Red Frog Marina near Bocas and will be heading back to Boise and Olympia soon.

Last Wallow in Cartagena

Since Pami's been back we've taken in a bit of City life in Cartagena. Normal things like going to a movie in an air conditioned mall, going out to dinner and checking out an evening jazz concert. There aren't too many cities on the Central American sailing circuit, and it's been nice to be here.

In addition to taking in the city, we took a road trip to Volcan de Tutomo, the mud volcano. We loaded up in a 11 passenger mini bus and headed out from Cartagena towards Baranquilla. The landscape is pretty flat in this area and now in the dry season, it looks a bit dry and uninviting. We turned off the highway and headed towards a large inland lagoon. From a rise, we could see the lagoon and the mud volcano. It's really more like a mud artesian spring that has naturally built this giant ant hill looking thing on the edge of the lagoon.
From the parking area, we climbed the stairway and one by one, climbed down a ladder into the mud. It's very silty and smooth and as any good mud volcano guide would tell you, excellent for the skin. While in the mud pit inside the ant hill, the mud pit dudes slide the tourists around in the mud into an orderly array and then give mud massages. It was a hoot and the massages were really good once we relaxed and got with the spirit. The mud is dense enough that you can only sink in part way. It's like the Great Salt Lake but much more buoyant and no Mormon Temple, just little bars selling beer and fried fish for lunch.

Now we've loaded up the boat with provisions and bid adios to the old Spanish fort guarding the entrance to Cartagena (fans of Romancing the Stone will think 'look at those snappers!').
Now we are beginning to work our way South down the coast towards San Blas again. When we came to Cartagena, we cut across from Snug Harbor to the Islas Bernardos. It's usually not an easy trip going East against the trade winds but we had a tropical storm north of us that made for pleasant conditions and we even got to sail about half of it. We did miss the Eastern San Blas, though, so now we are going to make up for it by taking our time sailing with the trade winds and island hopping South and then Northwest. The map (click it for a bigger version) shows our old track and some of the stops we hope to make on our way back.

For those wondering where Panama and Colombia are, the final map shows a much larger view.

Mas Brillante?

I've been thinking of trying to find a more glossy varnish than the Extra Matte I've been using. To the left is a piece just varnished and to the right is one that has dried. I like the shinier finish. I varnished a little spot on one board (that'll be under the step) with the exterior glossy varnish I've used on the cockpit table, but it comes out a bit too glossy. I think I'll float into town tomorrow and take a look at Home Center.

The sub floor in the galley is all done, painted and screwed down. I haven't screwed the top flooring down because I think I want to hit it with a coat of varnish (properly prepped) and I don't think I want the Extra Matte finish.

Galley Rot

After a second coat of varnish, the floors have yet to start looking really good, but the cockpit table top is cleaning up nicely. You can see the spot where acetone was spilled. I sanded that spot to bare wood, but didn't take the rest of the table down all the way. It's starting to delaminate in one spot, so there'll be a larger project in the future.

While procrastinating about getting to the galley floor, I put in a 12V outlet to power the laptop when it's in the saloon. There'll be no more laptop cable trap on movie nights.

Then I finally got to the galley floor. I cut some of the old plywood out with a jig saw wherever it would fit and then finished by blasting away with hammer and chisel. Here's a huge pile of rot....

Where the floor used to be. I never knew how the flooring was attached at the sides of the hull. I always thought it was tabbed into the fiberglass and that replacement would be a huge job. It's done much more simply. in between bulkheads, surprisingly wimpy little plywood stringers are hung in the air over the bilge. At least that's what's done in this section. The flooring rests on those stringers and the center rib which is tabbed in. I need to auger out a bigger hole for the hoses to go through the center stringer and engineer a better way for the water maker feed hose to get up under the counter and then I'll put a new piece of plywood over the top.