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We were beating into this gale for three days. At times the winds reached 40-45 knots with very rough seas. We had a bad accident with Jonathan 24 hours before reaching Salinas Bay. We had an accidental jibe while he was adjusting the traveler, and he got thrown across the deck and cut his leg badly on something. It was blowing a full gale, and Anne had to bandage his cut and stop the bleeding. That afternoon and the next morning we got regular assistance from doctors over the ham radio on how to clean the wound and what medication to give Jonathan. We sailed hard that night and arrived in Salinas Bay at 6 o'clock the next morning, 20 hours after the accident happened. It was blowing so hard in the harbour that we couldn't get the dinghy off the deck and into the water, but were lucky to hail a fisherman in his panga. He took us to the beach immediately, then to a doctor in a little town 6 km. away, in a truck. He stayed with us all day while Jonathan got stitched up, and took us back to the boat in the afternoon. A great person - too bad we couldn't converse properly with him to show our gratitude. However, we gave him some presents, a bit of money, and will send him some pictures of the rescue operation. For curiosity's sake, his address is: Casa Gerardo, 200 Meters Norte de Salon Diamante, Puerto Soley, etc... Jonathan, in addition to the cut, was black and blue for a few weeks, but is OK now. The only damage to the boat was a torn mainsail at the very top. We had a triple reef in the main and just a little bit of the genoa unfurled. It doesn't work to just motor against such wing and waves - not progress. You must sail and/or motor sail in an angle to the wind and sea, even if you have to cover twice the distance that way. One other large English boat was blown off the coast in the same gale - abt. 150 miles out, and covered 1,000 miles rather than our 550 miles, and it took them ten days from Puerto Madero to our six days. The gale kept blowing for two more days while at anchor - incredible noise and hard on the nerves. Thank God we have the big Fisherman 50 lb. Anchor and 200 feet of chain! The next major stop was Playa del Coco in Costa Rica. This is a nice place, but again it was a bit too windy to row ashore in the dinghy. We took Jonathan to the hospital here to get the stitches out. On February 28, we moved about 20 miles to Marin Flamingo, the only marina in Costa Rica that has docks to tie up to. We were stuck here until March 4 because of gale force winds. One night, the float two other boats, and we were tied up to, broke in the middle. It would have drifted - with us- ashore, if one of the other boats had not quickly got several lines ashore to the breakwater upwind from us. This was all happening while we were happily unaware, having dinner in a small palapa restaurant shore....
From Marina Flamingo, we went to Puntarenas, where we met up with Shayne Dunlop and his girlfriend, Caroline, on March 5. It was like Christmas when they came aboard with a big bag of mail and a huge duffel bag chock full of all sort of parts, equipment and goodies. Among the loot were 24 tapes made up by a number of our friends, who responded to an ingenious request by Shayne, which included faxes to our respective past places of work - and we are delighted at the response! Now those night watches don't seem so long. Shayne and Caroline cruised with us for about two weeks from Puntarenas to Golfito, which is the last major stop in Costa Rica before entering into Panama. We took it very easy on this stretch with only one overnighter, to let Caroline and Shayne get a feel for night sailing. The only problem was that we didn't have any wind, and had to motor pretty well all night. One afternoon, when we sailed into Bahia Herradura, we saw three Spanish, 15th century Galleons at anchor. They were part of a film being made of Columbus, and the ships were replicas of Santa Mario, Nina and Pinto, Columbus' fleet on his first trip to the New World. The ships were built on top of English trawler hulls, and had been sailed from England. The film company was British, and the head actor, who portrayed Columbus, was Gerard Perdue. They had constructed a false front castle, and a long dick was full of barrels, ropes, guns and all kinds of supplies. We had to leave the bay the next morning, since they didn't want modern sailboats in the movie! We stopped at several beautiful anchorages, one being Drake Bay, where sir Francis Drake had been holing up one of his trips to the pacific side of Central America. Here we went for a three-hour guided horseback ride along the beautiful beaches and into the jungle. The next day, we took a dinghy trip up a very shallow, winding river way into the jungle, where we had a lovely, cool, fresh water swim, hair shampoo and wash - a wonderful break from the constant exposure to salt water! Shayne and Caroline was great crew. Poor guys - they had to sleep in the cockpit, because it was too hot and stuffy in the aft cabin. They would wake up at daybreak, full of energy, while the air was still cool, and they would put in 2-3 hours scrubbing and cleaning every morning before breakfast. By the time their stay came to an end, they had polished all the stainless steel components on the boat, which was badly needed! Unfortunately, the water visibility was very poor in Costa Rica at this time, so we didn't do much snorkeling. The fishing wasn't that great either, although we caught a big, nice Sierra mackerel one day - delicious. Anne and I took a two-day bus trip to San Vito, a small town way up in the mountains, which had been settled by Italians in the 1930's. Nice, cool climate (mid 20's), which was a welcome relief from the hot and sticky Golfito (35 degrees plus). The town was pleasant, small and clean with a population of 10,000 people. We stuck out everywhere we went, as very few tourists ventured up in that area, which was isolated and off the beaten track. We went out dancing in the evening, and the young men even asked Anne to dance! The hotel here cost us only $20 per night. A good dinner for two about $25 including a bottle of good wine! We especially enjoyed the scenery at this high altitude of 1,000 meters, with coffee, banana and rice plantations - and something growing and cultivated in every square inch of soil. Costa Ricans seem to be very industrious, well organized and clean. Their farms have small neat, freshly painted houses and landscaped grounds, look well kept with lush, green and fertile fields. There is no sign of garbage strewn about the countryside, which was an appalling sight wherever we traveled inland Mexico. One morning, before leaving Golfito, we tied up to a rickety dock on pilings, to take on water and fuel at high tide - only to find out, to our horror, that we were aground after half an hour! We managed to get the boat propped up along the dock, and turned the initially scary situation to our favour, by spending the next six hours cleaning the hull and repainting the top three feet of the bottom next to the waterline. This was actually badly needed, so that worked out very well in the end. We left Golfito and Costa Rica in the afternoon of March 26, for an overnight trip to Isla Parida in Panama. We had a lot of thunder squalls during the night, but could see them on the radar, and managed to sail around all of them. They don't seem to move very fast. Isla Parida, or a narrow channel between Parida and a small island called Paradita (little Parida), turned out to be the most beautiful anchorage we have been in yet. We had not heard much good about Panama, and were a bit apprehensive when a voice in broken English came on the VHF Channel 16, welcoming us ashore later in the afternoon. He turned out to be an Israeli, who with his wife and 7-year old daughter, had bought this fantastically beautiful 100 hectares island just six months previously, and were now settling down for good. They had worked very hard, and in just a short time cleared a perfect area on top of a hill, overlooking an incredible paradise of islets, and built two primitive, but comfortable straw houses. Already, they had about 100 chickens and chicks, and were about to acquire a couple of pigs. Everything necessary for survival was available on the island, including alligators! They had fresh water, all kinds of fruit and palm trees, plenty of fish and lobster, shellfish, birds, etc., etc. Elan and his wife, Bella, had cruised in Panama and Costa Rica for three years on their 44-foot sailboat out of California. They fell so in love with this area that they decided to settle down here in the wilderness, where there are hundreds of islands, mostly uninhabited, and a wonderful climate. It is not too hot because of a pleasant breeze flowing through most of the time. After hearing of our plans, they were appalled that we are "rushing through paradise"! They urged us to slow down and enjoy the Pacific Coast of Panama, and that is exactly what we have done. Panama has turned out to be a fantastic cruising area with lots of beautiful islands and bays with peaceful and quiet anchorages. The people are also very, very nice. They are not as aggressive in pushing their goods on us "Gringos" as the Mexicans. The Panamanian coastline is much more isolated and primitive than Mexico, with all its tourist resorts, and even Costa Rica, which has better developed road network down to the coastal areas. Local people come out in their dugout canoes and often just sit there and look at us. Some of them have fruit and fish that they want to trade for sugar, salt, powdered milk, fishhooks, line, clothing, or whatever. One day, we went looking for what seemed like a river mouth through a big mangrove swamp, leading up to an open valley. After several blind alleys that just petered out in the swamp, we found an arm that seemed to continue. It looked like it would end several times, but always there was another bend around the corner, and it would keep on going. Finally, after about 2 km., we started to see a few coconut palms and banana trees. These would obviously not grow in a mangrove swamp - and then suddenly, we came to a fairly large Indian village. It looked like everyone in the village was down at the river just staring at us. Kids, who were swimming in the river, were laughing at these funny, white people in their orange, inflatable dinghy with an outboard engine which sounded like a thunderstorm ripping through the peaceful jungle. One man, standing on the riverbank, invited us to come up to his "house", a simple straw hut, but comfortable with a porch, palm leaf roof, very neat and clean. He had four boys under the age of eight, and his wife was highly pregnant with number five. She looked tired, and about 40, probably much older than she really was, because her husband was 33. He took us through his fenced-in plantation, and cut down a large stalk of bananas, a bunch of papayas, pineapples and some cashew fruits, and gave us two Indian artifacts (stone hammer heads) for two of my old T-shirts. Everyone was very shy, quiet and curious, but very courteous, and thanked us for the visit when we left. Anne had some candy, and the children were swarming around her - instant success - children are children, wherever you are in the world... On the way back down the river, we towed a large dugout canoe, loaded down with coconuts, to a village on an island in the main bay, where we were anchored. The three Indian women in the canoe had a ball, and laughed their heads off every time they almost tipped over coming around the bends in the river. After these wonderful experiences in Panama, we have decided to really slow down, so we can enjoy the people and countries we are going through. We finally have realized that our "schedule" of going down the Pacific Coast, through the Canal and the Caribbean all the way into the Mediterranean this year was crazy. It could have been done, but was becoming stressful, as we would not have time to stop and see what we wanted along the way. We also haven't had enough time to maintain the boat as well as we like. It really takes a severe beating with all the wind, waves, salt water and air, strong sun and dampness, and is in need of continuous care, in order to be kept in safe and seaworthy condition. So we have decided to spend the spring and summer in the Panamanian area, the San Blas Islands on the Atlantic side, and the islands of the Western Caribbean along the Coast of Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras. During the hurricane season, from July to November, we will have the boat in the Rio Dulce River in Guatemala, which is outside the hurricane area and perfectly safe. We will then take land trips from there to all the Central American countries, as well as a trip to Norway and Vancouver. In November, we will continue our trip north from Guatemala past Belize (old British Honduras) and the Yucatan Peninsula to Florida (maybe via Cuba), where we will be spending Christmas, re-provision and fix up the boat for the next year of cruising. We will then proceed eastward from Florida through the Bahamas to the Virgin Islands during January and February. During March and April, we will slowly work our way southeast through the Lesser Antilles (Leeward and Windward Islands). We would then like to leave Bermuda for the Azores around the beginning of June, get into the Azores around the middle of June and then on to Norway around the English Channel during July with arrival in Norway around the last week of July. That would allow us two months to cruise around the south coast of Norway before settling down there some place for the winter. We have about a week left of cruising the islands in the Gulf of Panama before transiting the Canal around April 15. We will probably spend some time in Panama City and Colon, provisioning and working on the boat before heading into the Caribbean. Copyright © Anne Brevig & Martin Vennesland. www.norsiglar.com | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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