January 1, 2009
Hello Everyone and Feliz Ano Nuevo;
We are still in Balboa, Panama with a plan to leave first thing in the morning. We've been having a great time here and meeting lot's of new people. Once again, it'll be hard to say all the good byes but with home, family and old friends at the end of this next passage we are very excited!
We had a great opportunity and joined our friends Doug and Linda as line handlers when they made the transit on S/V Que Linda last weekend. It was a totally different experience! Not just because it wasn't our boat and responsibility, but they came through with two other boats nested together. Que Linda, 33 foot, was tied to one side and another boat rode through on the other side while the boat in the middle, a 61 foot steel French boat, did most of the work! We spent the night in Gatun Lake and then traveled the 27 miles to the Pacific Locks separately then we nested up again to go through. It was like a Forth of July raft up in the harbor and everyone seemed to have a good time. Great food and great fun, they could have charged us....instead, they treated us to lunch a few days later. Our new best friends!
Our list of things to do is almost completed, our hangovers from ringing in the New Year have subsided and the Spanish Stroll is raring to go! We plan to leave tomorrow morning after filling every available tank and jug with diesel. From all we've heard and read it may be a hard sail to weather, but we are going to plan on long tacks and try to keep it comfortable. A straight shot 1,000 miles off shore gives us about 3500 miles to go. People sometimes find they have to go out as far as the Hawaiian Islands and if that's the case it will double the mileage! We've provisioned for sixty days and hope we won't have to stop in Hawaii to shop, we hear the prices are high! ;]
Ideally, we won't cross our outward bound route until we hit Catalina Island where we plan to celebrate with Buffalo Milks like never before! We'll let you know how things are going and remember it you don't hear from us it may just be our radio or something. Unless our EPIRB goes off, no worries!
Take care of yourselves and we'll be in touch soon.
Jim and Barb
S/V SpanishStroll
At Sea
January 5, 2009
LAT 07 09 N // Longitude: LON: 82 39 W // Time: 13:52 UTC
Hello Everyone,
Everything is going as expected. Mother Ocean finally noticed we'd left Panama and now the wind and current are right on our nose where they should be. That's exactly why we filled up with 93 gallons of diesel before we left. We were lucky. On the daily local cruiser's net we found two, thirteen gallon diesel jugs for sale. They're high quality, well sealed and fit right into the rear of the cockpit. That doubles our usual "extra" supply and we also filled up our six gallon outboard tank with diesel for this passage. The weight doesn't seem to be making any difference and the fuel will help us to get off shore where we can start tacking and taking advantage of the winds. At least that's our plan!
We took most of Friday morning getting the last minute things tucked away on the boat. When we finally went to pull the anchor it turned out that a French boat, who anchored too close a week before, had actually dropped their anchor over our chain! They were not on board and we had broken down our dingy so we waited for them to return. Didn't want our anchor pulling theirs and watching their boat drift away! Once we weighed anchor we made our way around a small island and entered Flaminco Marina to fuel up. Their fuel dock was full and we had to take an end tie and wait for a couple of HUGE yachts to fuel up. A hour or so later we finally tied up to the fuel dock. The boat right before us had taken 1,000 gallons! It took us awhile just to get our 93 gallons and wait for the office to print all the receipts. Panamanians are very fond of paperwork. Hurry up and wait!
We finally left Flaminco at 5:30 pm and headed out. By the time we reached Taboga Island, where we thought we might stop for one more good nights sleep, it was already dark and we were already into leaving. We just sailed on by. First night and day out Jim caught two yummy tunas. The weather is very mild with clear, sunny skies and just a touch of white puffy clouds. The moon is just starting to grow and the stars are awesome at night. Can't wait to sing, "When you've seen the Southern Cross for the last time!"
Take care of yourselves and we'll be home soon!
Jim and Barb
S/V SpanishStroll
At Sea
January 17, 2009
LAT 11 09.04 N // Longitude: LON: 100 40.13 W // Time: 15:43 UTC
Hello Everyone,
Good thing we bought all that extra fuel or we'd probably be in Costa Rica filling up again! For the first week or so we spent half our days motoring, half sailing into the current, sometimes as slow as 2 knots! We kept watching the weather as we headed further and further out and further away from a fuel stop. We knew we were taking a chance. There are two weather patterns along the coast of Central America that interested us. Low, narrow land areas where the strong Caribbean trade winds funnel through and create gale force winds on the Pacific side. The Papagayos off northern Costa Rica and the Tehuanapecs off southern Mexico. We figured that if we were a few hundred miles out that we could take advantage of the winds which would be diminished that far out and hopefully the seas wouldn't be too built up. Like a surfer getting in position for a wave, we marked a specific waypoint on our chart and headed for it. It paid off and now we're sailing along in 20 to 25 knots of wind with about 8 to 10 foot swells. It's lively sailing, for sure, but for the last four or five days we've made well over 100 miles a day!
There's a lot of sea life out here but we haven't caught any more keepers. We did catch two huge things that took our lures and smoked the drag on our reel. Don't think they even knew they were caught! Then, after finding a couple of flying fish on the deck we tied on one of our pink and blue plastic squids (aka flying fish) and within minutes we had a marlin on, going crazy. We brought him to the boat, took pictures and sent him on his way. We think he was a black because he was brown. We hooked a good sized bull mahi, mahi that was almost to the boat then made a couple of impressive jumps up into the air and threw the hook right at the last moment! He was a florescent blue green and yellow color...very stunning! Smaller mahi mahi and tuna, but nothing to write home about (just an expression). Jim spotted a whale one evening, saw him blow close to the boat but he never resurfaced within site. It's whale watching season in Southern California so we may run in to more as we near home! Run into more, he, he, get it? We've had bunches of boobies visiting the boat regularly. They seem to enjoy flying along and buzzing our sails, with only a couple, so far, trying to hitch a ride. If they were potty trained we wouldn't mind, but as it is we fend them off with our gaff hook. A sharp whack in the knees seems to make an impression. The other day we kept hearing a little squawk and attributed it to our wind steering vane, Dory. After a bit we discovered it was actually a booby being towed by our fishing line. We pulled him in and released him. He's lucky we've still got plenty of food on board!
All in all it's an excellent passage. The moon, now in it's third quarter, has been lighting our way each night. The stars are awesome and Venus is in a good position and bright enough to make a reflection across the waters surface. It's still plenty warm, about 80 degrees day and night and we can still see the Southern Cross. We've been mostly headed west but once we're way clear of southern Mexico we'll turn in a sharper northward direction and the weather will start changing rapidly. We were just talking today about getting our foul weather gear out to make sure it's ready to go. Brrrr... foul weather gear???
Take care of yourselves and we'll be home soon!
Jim and Barb
S/V SpanishStroll
At Sea
January 24, 2009
LAT 14 22.79 N // Longitude: LON: 109 11.66 W // Time: 23:45 UTC
Hello Everyone,
Slowly but surely is our new mantra. Those winds from the Papagayos and Tehuanapecs gave us some lively sailing and we even had one 24 hour period where we made 148 miles! That's good for us...but unfortunately it was short lived. We've since done as little as 45 miles a day. Our usual is 100 and we haven't hit that for a week. Slowly but surely, slowly but surely...
We continue to have lots of interaction with sea life, but none of the good eatin' kind. Had an incredibly huge barnacle colony growing on the boat bottom and although it made a beautiful tinkling sound as the water flowed by, it was slowing us down even more. Jim took advantage of the calm seas one morning and jumped in for a two and a half hour bottom cleaning session. Barb stayed topside to act as gopher and huge sea creature look out! Usually when we clean the bottom the loose barnacle pieces attract fish. Thankfully no feeding frenzy materialized this time! Jim's never swam in deeper water...over 3000 meters! Once back on board with the clean bottom the speed picked up and we caught a fish right away. Can you believe it...it was a SHARK!!
The flying fish are still committing hari kari nightly and we pick them off the decks each morning. One night we had a little guy jump right into the dorade vent on the top of the house! What a lucky shot and what a racket! He really was lucky cause with all that noise we went right up and pulled him out. He made it back in the water still kicking. Yesterday we found one on the floor by the v-berth. He had jumped through the front hatch, and although that sounds like a lucky shot too, he didn't make enough noise and wasn't discovered until he was jerky.
Still can't believe what a wonderful trip we're having. Everything we'd read and heard had led us to believe this would be a hard sail to weather. So far it's been mostly downwind and today with the wind on our beam, the seas are fairly flat and it's a smooth and comfortable ride. We've still got plenty of miles to go and could still get our butts kicked, but it's all right so far! The moon's gone for a bit and that makes for some incredible star watching at night. With the big and little dippers to the north, the southern cross to the south and the milky way a thick band across the sky we sometimes find ourselves gazing skyward when we should be looking on the horizon for ships. Oh well, there goes the timer, better go and do a look about.
Take care of yourselves and we'll be home soon!
Jim and Barb
S/V SpanishStroll
At Sea
February 1, 2009
LAT 21 05.93 N // Longitude: LON: 117 48.61 W // Time: 06:50 UTC
Hello Everyone,
Slowly but surely is still our mantra. We did have one day of lively sailing with fresh winds right on our nose and we thought, okay, here's the beat to weather we've been expecting. That only lasted a day and now it's back to calm seas and little or no wind. We measured our fuel this morning and decided we could spare some to motor for a day or so. Hopefully we can get in position to take advantage of some light winds that are predicted just a bit north of us. The weather info that we get keeps showing the wind just out of reach.
Jim jumped in again yesterday when it was very calm in the morning and cleaned off the new growth of barnacles. They were not bad, but we want to keep them from getting out of hand again...and the water is not getting any warmer so it was better not to put it off! His deepest swim ever at 3900 meters! That's 2 and 1/2 miles! Hopefully that will be the last time. The smooth bottom and increased speed did result in us catching a nice little tuna. We've had sashimi and seared ahi for dinner the last couple of nights and still have a couple more meals to look forward to. Still hoping for that mahi, mahi! Sailed by Clarion Island a few days ago, which is a popular sport fishing destination. We were about six miles off and we didn't see anyone and didn't catch anyone either ;[
The moon is back and will continue to grow as we complete this passage. Can't believe it's been almost a month since we left Panama. It's sure starting to get chilly as we make our way north. We are both wearing long pants and sometimes even socks in the evenings. It's still gorgeous but not as wonderful to sit outside in the cold dark of the night. Guess we should think about jackets next. It was at about this latitude, as we headed south on our way to the Marquesas, that we started noting the nights getting warmer. We even started taking showers out on the foredeck and thought it was so comfortable. Granted it was in April so maybe a little warmer, but we may have lost our edge after all this time in the tropics.
During this passage the winds have been anything but steady and we've made as much as 148 miles per day down to 45 miles a day and everything in between, so you can see that it is too hard to calculate....and it's way too early to commit...but....it looks like February 14th will be the day we sail into King Harbor and complete our circumnavigation! We're so excited!
Take care of yourselves and we'll be home soon!
Jim and Barb
S/V SpanishStroll
At Home (Torrance, CA)
February 27, 2009
Hello Everyone,
Let us start by thanking everyone for all the emails and phone calls of congratulations. It does make one feel good to have an actual CIRCUMNAVIGATION of the EARTH under their belt!
For those of you who haven’t contacted us, believe us, we understand. We’ve been home for almost two weeks now and this is our first attempt to write. We weren’t so good about contact when we were kicked back, relaxed and cruising and we don’t expect too much to change along those lines.
Besides, there’s not much unusual and interesting happening here in Every City, U.S.A. Would you like to hear about the hassle with the DMV we had reregistering the truck we’d left out back? Or about the celebration we were able to join in to welcome our new little grandson, due in April? And then there’s the birthday party we’ll host this weekend for our daughter, Shell? Yeah, we’re busy, but it’s all sounding a little mundane to those of you we met out cruising in exotic places…and typical to those of you who’ve had the joy of participating in these simple pleasures all along.
We have found on returning to reality that prices have skyrocketed here in California! The cost of a slip for the Spanish Stroll is astronomical! We sure do miss the free anchorages…BIG TIME! So we’re both spending most of our days searching and applying for jobs…yuck! Ideally we’ll find something that will allow us to work together, drink beers with our lunches and accommodate an afternoon nap!
We hope to hear from all you guys out cruising. Please help us remember what life really is all about! And, you land lubbers can support us with your understanding. Okay then, guess we better go. Our favorite television show will be on in just a few minutes.
Take care of yourselves and we're home!
Jim and Barb
S/V SpanishStroll