than our southern hemisphere real pelicans, and a browny beige colour. Ours are
tall and elegant with their black and white livery.
But the funniest thing about the local guys, at least to those of us who have watched
and admired the beauty of a huge southern pelican gliding in to land, water skiing
the last bit of the touchdown, is the face flop.
The first time we saw it we burst out laughing. Here were these prehistoric looking
birds gliding gracefully across the water, and just at the point where we expected
them to lower their landing gear, they just flopped face first into the drink.
We couldn’t believe it.
It was as though they had never finished flying school. Take off and in flight skills
they have down pat, but nobody taught them how to land. Fortunately they’ve
discovered that water is more forgiving than concrete, and they’ve been
crash-landing for so long they don’t even look embarrassed.
Every now and again we’ll see one surface and shake his head and swallow as
though he’s caught a fish, pretending that was the intention all along. They really
should fly south to see how it’s done with a bit more grace.
But apart from watching the bird life, we’ve both been struggling with
incredible lethargy. The heat and humidity can be blamed for some of it, but we
both feel it’s also a case of having pushed so hard to get the work done on the
boat in the USA, and then the ongoing work along the way, and the various passages
to Panama, plus the transit itself… It’s as though reaching the Pacific ocean is a milestone
and we need to take a breather before plunging on.
We’ve still been doing things, but at a slower pace. The silly thing is
we really haven’t reached a point where we can just chill for a while. The
season for starting the crossing of the South Pacific is from February to end of
May. We’re knocking on the door of August already.
But we’re starting to get moving again. This morning I installed a new
fridge/freezer that arrived yesterday. We’ve been waiting for it to come from
the USA. It’s the type that has become popular with campers etc. It runs on 12v
and opens from the top. It was the cheapest solution for now, since our proper
fridge/freezer died in St Martin. We now have 2 of them, both lashed down under
the dinette table and I've run power to them under the floor.
Getting the fridge to the boat was no small task. We motored around 2 islands to a
marina with a floating dock that would enable us to use our little folding trolley right to the dinghy. Once we had it on board it was the 20 minute trip back around the islands, this time against a choppy swell. We were drenched by the time we got to the boat and I'd been racking my brain for a way to get it on board without donating it to Davey Jones's locker.
Eventually it was quite simple. We just left it in the dinghy and I cranked the whole thing to deck level on the davits, manhandled it across, and Sandy unpacked it in the cockpit.
There are a lot of little jobs to take care of before setting off.
Sandy has been reorganizing the food supply and making a final provisioning list
and I’ve been checking our charts to make sure we’ve got everything we need. The
spinnaker pole is now lower on the mast so we will be able to pole out the
yankee more efficiently. I’ve still got to repair the watermaker, but I’ve got
the parts and it shouldn’t be too big a job.
We get storms here almost daily. Usually with a bit of wind, not usually much rain,
but plenty of lightning and thunder. We had one come through the other morning
with the strongest wind we’ve had, and we dragged our anchor. Not much, but enough
to put us closer to a big old trawler on a mooring than we want to be. In fact we were
still trying to decide how much we’d dragged when Jeff from Xanadu came by in his
dinghy to tell us from where he was it looked like we’d dragged. First time since we
put on the much bigger anchor than before. Basically, it’s a mud bottom and the
5:1 ratio just wasn’t enough.(chain length 5 times the depth).
We started the engine, took in the anchor and moved to a place where we could put
out more chain without worrying about swinging into any other boats. Smaller, lighter
boats than us can get away with less line out so they don’t swing far enough to keep away
from us. We put out a lot more chain and haven’t had a problem since.
Last Saturday night we caught up with our crew from the canal transit. They showed us a bit
of the old city of Panama and took us out to dinner.
It was a great evening. The old city has a very poor, run down sector, and as you approach the
new city there is a part that is still the old city but is becoming renovated and is trendy in a bohemian kind of way. It was a mild night and we ate outdoors, watching the world go by.
It was an eye opener when Alessio told us that it was just such an
evening when America invaded to try and capture or kill the then president,
Noriega. Suddenly, without warning rockets were pounding the buildings and
streets. Over 4,000 people died and they didn’t get their man, initially,
because their intelligence was wrong and he wasn’t there. There is still a lot
an anti American sentiment here. I can at least understand it in part now.
We’ve met a few other cruisers at this anchorage, and there are at least 4 Aussie
boats here. Some of them, I’m not too sure how many, maybe 3, will be leaving
in the next few days and sailing to Las Perlas, about a day from here before
heading for the Marquesas.
It coincides with our timing too. While it sounds like we’ll be a fleet, it doesn’t
work that way. Each boat travels at a different speed and all will sail their best
on slightly different headings, so within a day each boat is out of sight of the others.
But those of us with ssb radios will probably be able to keep in touch.
It’s a long voyage and a big ocean, so knowing the wind and sea conditions
others are experiencing is helpful, and if anyone suffered rigging failure or
worse, there would be help within a few days.
It’s our aim to have everything done so we can start our passage to French Polynesia
on the weekend.
Until next time…