Pearl Islands

At 4:45 today we anchored off Contadora. Lat/Long are 8.37.9 N and 79.02.357
W. No wind. Will wait a few days for wind.'

Received from Jennifer... they will try to find wireless on land and post some more information. Hope for good winds!

El Valle de Anton

Saturday, the four of us hired a driver/guide for a day trip to El Valle de Anton (Anton's Valley). It's only about 1.5 hours north of Panama City and gave us a nice opportunity to visit the countryside, see some rain forest and see some of the village culture. It was a lovely day of well deserved shore leave.

Our guide was named Bo and he was great. He his an industrial engineer at the local power plant, but is a tour guide on the weekends to keep his English up and make some extra money. He loved all kinds of sports and knew almost more than Jon about college and professional sports. He has never left Panama. He told us that Panama was an indigenous word, not Spanish, and meant "Butterfly, Tree, Fish."

El Valle is a lush valley today, but about 3 million years ago, it was a huge volcano crater, created by a violent explosion. The valley now is home to a small village and is surrounded by forest covered mountains. It's quite beautiful there and the pace of life is much calmer and slower than Panama City.

After breakfast at a roadside cafe (breakfast was either chicken or beef, empenadas and yucca), we stopped at the market, where there were fresh flowers, fruits and vegetables, and crafts made by the indigenous peoples of Panama as well as local artists. The people were very friendly and eager to show their products, but they were not too pushy if you did not want to purchase anything.

Below, Bo is showing Jennifer bougainvilleas. There were colors I have not seen before in the United States. Maybe they exist at home, but I have not seen the orange and pink ones before. They were my favorite.

Guita bought a woven bracelet from an artist and Jon and I purchased a "Mola." Molas are traditional pieces of cloth used for blouses and are made by the Kuna women. They are made of multiple layers of colored cotton, by hand, and reflect traditional symbols of their tribe. I think they are beautiful. Here is a picture of the mola we bought from the lady who made it.

After the market, we went to a small park that protects a rain forest. It was much cooler in the forest and they gave us walking sticks to make the hike. We crossed swing bridges and ended up in front of a waterfall. Some of the trees are quite large and have huge roots exposed to the sides of the mountain or creek banks. Jon is standing on a root, just to give you a sense of the dimensions.

After the hike, we cooled off in a swimming pool that was a partially damed up creek. It was very quiet, except for the chirping of birds and the humming of frogs. We were visited my numerous butterflies, some quite large and exotic.

After a delightful lunch, we ended the excursion with a visit to the nearby hot springs, where people come to bathe in the warm mineral waters. They also put mud on their faces and bodies, let it dry and then wash it off. All in all, we left El Valle de Anton quite relaxed and tired. We come back to Balboa Yacht Club via a different route, which brought us across the new Pan American Highway Bridge; the bridge in the photo of me during our canal transit.

Tomorrow morning, February 23rd, we leave our mooring at Balboa and head about 30 to 50 miles southwest for the Archipielago de Las Islas Perlas (The Pearl Islands). That will be our launching point for leaving Panama and heading to the Galapagos Islands.

Water in the Port Bilge

I do not generally use this blog to complain or focus on the more unpleasant aspects of living on a boat, but in the interest of giving you a more complete picture of what we experience at sea, I will make an exception in this case.

As some of you may recall from my posts on the Atlantic crossing, ile de Grace had more than a few leak problems, beginning the day out from La Rochelle, France as we crossed the Bay of Biscay.

Since arriving in Annapolis, Maryland in June 2008, we have resolved many of them. The starboard bow leak, caused by poor caulking at the salon window seam, was fixed with black caulk. The leak at the mast seam needed to be re-caulked. Fixed. The leaks into the engine lockers was caused by improper sealing of the seams underneath the back rub rails. Fixed.

The port bilge leak, however, has been another problem.(For non-boaters, a bilge is the part of the hull that lies below the floorboards—it is V-shaped and is often used for storage space.) The source of leaks are very difficult to diagnose because when you are at a dock, the boat is not experiencing the sea conditions of waves splashing from up below and all the rocking and rolling. However, a powerful hose can help. Usually, the diagnostic process includes drying out the bilge, taping paper towers to the inside bilge walls, spraying a hose wherever you think water might be getting in, and then watching to see which paper towels get wet. Even this can be difficult, because the leak could be in one place and the water trickles down the path of least resistance to where you see it.

Last spring, Jon and I did this process and found a source of one leak coming into the port stern bilge (once water is in a bilge, it spreads throughout the hull, flowing to the lowest point).

We have 3 drains in the floor of our cockpit. On a boat, they are called scuppers. Two of them had a lot of cracks. We had originally thought water was coming in through the seam where the cockpit sliding doors are connected to the floor. We had it re-sealed at the boat yard. But no, it was leaky scuppers. Our boat yard filed out the cracks and re-sealed them. We thought the problem was fixed. But on our way down the Atlantic coast, we still had a lot of water leaking into our port bilge.

This is what a leaky scupper looks like. The dark lines are cracks.

We saw some small cracking in the scupper, and Jon resealed it with a more flexible caulk. Boaters call it 3M-5200 and we crossed our fingers that the problem was solved. 

But again, the answer was no. In the Bahamas we were still taking on seawater. We began to suspect that the rub rails on the outside of the boat had not been properly caulked, so after a water test at anchor, using the dinghy, we found wet paper towels. The rub rails help protect the boat from being scratched if it bumps up against another boat or dock. But they also cover the seam where the top of the boat is sealed to the bottom of the boat. So, before leaving Georgetown, Bahamas, Jon re-caulked the top and bottom sides of the rub rails. (The bottom side did not look like it had ever been caulked.) We crossed our fingers, hoped for the best and headed for the Caribbean Sea. Within a day, there was seawater in the bilges. :(

This was so heartbreaking. It has been our most persistent problem with this boat and we need our bilges for storage. To make the long ocean passages, we need to carry a lot of provisions and we need a place to store them. It’s not good when your food and toilet paper are sitting in seawater, even if they are double wrapped in plastic bags. With every leak, the bilges had to be emptied, and dried out. (Not fun!!!! And difficult to do because someone has to crawl down into the bottom of the hull in areas under the floor boards and you get cuts and bruises from the rough undersides of the fiberglass.) We finally gave up using the bilges in the Bahamas and stored things under the cockpit table and on top of the bed in the port bow cabin, until we are sure there are no more leaks.

As you see below, this is NOT a comfortable position to be in. And Guita is the smallest person on the boat, weighing 100 lbs! Stephen is 6'2", Jon is 6' and, while my stats are classified, I am bigger than Guita.

In the Atlantic, we were taking 4-5 buckets of water out a day. Here, we took out just over one bucket along the Atlantic Coast. This was too much water to ever be acceptable, especially for a new boat.

Once in Shelter Bay, near Colon, Panama, Stephen took the newly caulked rub rails off the port side. Once exposed, Jon discovered that a number of seam screws were missing and most of the seam caulking underneath the rub rails was gone, if it was ever there. It really makes me wonder if Fountaine Pajot used Elmer’s glue to put our boat together instead of epoxy and fiberglass. Or, FP should have given us 2 cases of caulk before we left France and said good luck. I know other Orana 440s have never leaked, and those owners don’t know how lucky they are. But there was very poor quality control when our boat went through the assembly line.

Now, additional screws have been added to the hull seam. It was been sealed thoroughly with 3M-5200. The rub rails have been re-attached and re-caulked with UV resistant marine caulk (3M-4000).

So, dear friends and family, before we head out into the Pacific Ocean on our next leg to the Galapagos Islands, please keep your fingers crossed with us that we have finally fixed our leaky bilge problem and can actually enjoy more free time on the boat instead of mopping up nasty bilge water and caulking in one of the hottest and most humid places on Earth.

I’ll let you know when we reach the Galapagos if the problem is solved.

Canal Webcam

A person who was on one of the sailboats ahead of us on the second day contacted me. (We were tied up with his boat on Lake Gatun.) He was able to download our passage through the Mira Flores Lock from the Webcam that is positioned at the top of the tower.

Go to the following site to see how the lock works. Just let the page load, and watch carefully -- it will show a time lapsed series of photos, with boats entering, the lock emptying, and boats leaving. Our catamaran is the last boat (you cannot see the French boat very well) entering the lock. Three small cruise ships enter first, then two mono hulls, then us. We are the last boat to leave -- then the lock fills again to accept the next Pacific-bound boat.

http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Cat=3&Res=1901

Poof!

We’re hanging onto a tire just off the docks at the Balboa Yacht Club, watching a steady stream of ships enter the Panama Canal from the Pacific Ocean. Our tire mooring is attached to the bottom with a stout chain, as befits an anchorage with 12-15 foot tides, and sits 100 yards from a channel where 1000’ ships pass in a steady progression of global commerce. Container ships, reefer ships carrying refrigerated goods, oil tankers, and an endless stream of pilot boats carrying men to and from the ships, all pass by our fair Grace just 100 yards to the west. We spent the last 24 hours transiting the Canal, and our boat rolls sometimes not so gently in the bow waves of these (very) large vessels. Guita put it well: we spend all of our time at sea avoiding these ships, and now we sit, by choice in fact, practically astride them.

It’s been a vivid testimony to the old adage that cruising in a sailboat is really just an excuse to work on your boat in exotic locations. Upon arriving in Panama last Thursday, we’ve been balancing the need to address issues with Grace with the desire to see the country. It’s a tough balance, especially for me, and I have yet to let go completely of my “need to get all the work done before we play” mindset. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

In short order, upon arriving, we engaged the services of Victor, an agent whose business is to help cruisers navigate the labyrinthian bureaucracies of the Canal Authority, the Port Captains, Immigration, Customs, and the local economy (more on that later). Put it this way: if carbon paper and Selectric typewriter ribbon ever became scarce, Panama would grind to a halt. Entering the country on the Atlantic side adds another dimension to these many officials, forms, and offices: they are all located in the city of Colon. Here’s what the Lonely Planet says about Colon: “Simply put, Panama’s most notorious city is a sprawling slum of decaying colonial grandeur and desperate human existence.”

There are 2700 taxi cabs in Colon – a city measuring 16 blocks by about 6 blocks, and thus, there are just 2700 “safe” places to be in Colon. Victor knew his way around. I got into his car, and his immediate demand was for me to lock my doors, place my case on the floor, and keep the windows shut. Thus ensconced, we drove from building to building, hustling inside to offices with TVs blaring soap operas, and whose furniture would not have looked out of place in 1950s. The offices’ staff were, by contrast unfailingly polite, forthright, and solution-oriented – as long as they had their carbon paper and rattling typewriters.

We couldn’t finish all of our paperwork on Thursday, so back to Colon we went on Friday – with the additional burden of having to find $1500 in cash to then deposit into a Citibank account, from which it would be transferred to the Canal Authority, at which time they would schedule a measurement of my boat. No boat can pass through the Canal without such a formal measurement – but once measured, we were assured we need not be measured again. Once we had paid, and were measured, it was just a matter of a few hours before we received a call from the authorities: would we like to transit on Tuesday or Wednesday? Poof! Hand-written carbon copies, a cash deposit, a few faxes, and we had our date. Magic.

(Each serial number of each bill is also recorded. ATMs are guarded by men in bulletproof vests with rifles. And thus, we know we’re not in Kansas anymore.)

Other boat chores also took up our time: we’ve been leaking into our port hull – nothing serious, as they say, but annoying at best. We had thought we had fixed this in Annapolis, and then again in the Bahamas, but half-fixes left our bilges wet. So off came the rub rail, where we discovered large gaps. Stephen took the lead on this, and as of now, our fingers are crossed that we’ve identified the source of the salt water. In addition, our wind generator suddenly decided to stop rotating. Again, with Stephen’s help, we dismantled the entire generator, learned all about rotors and stators, and bearings, and seals, and failed to discover anything amiss. So, we put it back together, having cleaned it up. Nothing. (Yesterday, after frantic calls for a replacement, it started working again like magic. Poof! Now we make electricity from the wind again.)

Back to the Marina, where we all took Sunday off, honoring our to-date steadfast rule that we rest at least one day a week. Lounging around the pool, catching up on email, etc. Meanwhile, the boats that arrived with us were making their own preparations for leaving, and boats that arrived before us would up-and-leave for their appointed transit time – with the required 4 lines of 125 feet each, 4 line handlers, and the obligatory ten used tires wrapped in black plastic to protect their hulls from the lock’s walls and dirty tugboats (more on the actual transit in a subsequent post). Here today these boats, gone this afternoon. Poof!

So now we lie in Balboa, where we too plan to go Poof! in a few days. That is, after we fix the autopilot that’s on the fritz, after we take some time to visit the jungles and rainforests of Panama, and after we’ve had a chance to savor the end of the beginning of our trip. Just south lies the Pacific Ocean with its new ecosystems, its longer, more gentle swells, and an ocean of islands sprinkled like magic dust. Poof!


Postscript: The autopilot failed because of condensation arising from being on the bulkhead between our air-conditioned cabin and the humid outdoors; taking it apart, drying it off, and re-soldering some leads did the trick, and we’re back in action. We challenged the sailing gods with our A/C … live and learn! Tomorrow, we visit the countryside.

Survival Instincts

A late posting – revised 2/17/10, but originally drafted February 9, 2010:

Enroute to Panama: With all of the planning and preparations for our trip, I knew that deriving accurate weather forecasts from the various public sources – NOAA data, open use forecasting models, etc. – was not likely to be an option. While more than a bit familiar with the sources, the models, and with actual forecasting, there were too many other non-delegable responsibilities (like closing hatches prior to passages) for me to try and predict the weather along our intended routes. Happily, there is Susan, a trained meteorologist based in Rhode Island who came well-recommended as a provider of voyaging forecasts for intrepid sailors. She helped us plan our trip down the East Coast, allowing Grace and its crew to avoid nasty weather outside of Cape Hatteras, and here, in the Caribbean, she has been invaluable in allowing us to slip in between several persistent weather patterns – patterns termed “boisterous” by Jimmy Cornell in his classic World Cruising Routes (fifth edition). Yesterday ran true to routine: I called Susan in the morning to give her our coordinates and for her to give me any updated advice from her direction of a week or so ago: “go now; it’s an ideal weather window.” She let me know that things stilled looked great; NE winds going from 10-15 knots to about 20-25 in the evening, and westward-running swells in the 4-8 feet range. She did mention that we might see an occasional 10-12 foot swell. I mentally prepared myself for a long night.

By evening, the winds had begun to pick up, and Grace began to accelerate to 7-8 knots of speed regularly. As she literally surfed down the waves coming from her port stern quarter, the sensation was a bit magical – a few times before (around Hatteras), she’d surf in the 12-14 knot range, throwing up a small rooster tail from her stern. Before turning over the watch to shipmates, and based on Susan’s forecast, we took some time as a boat to discuss the peculiar S-shaped path a sailboat takes when surfing down then climbing up the wave. Unprepared, a boat can take a larger wave on the stern quarter and pivot in the direction of the wave, as the stern is swung down-swell just as the boat begins to accelerate down the swell. In the worst of conditions, the boat can turn broadside to the wave (and, usually, the wind, since waves emanate from steady winds), and the wave can push the boat sideways down the wave, either digging the near side underwater, or tumbling the far side underneath itself. In either case – in the worst case – the boat can roll over sideways just like a toddler might push a toy firetruck over on its side. As we talked, such possibilities were far from my mind; it was a brisk wind, but nothing out of the ordinary, and the seas while nicely moving us to our destination, were modest. Nonetheless, the wind and seas were nothing to sneeze at.

Over the course of the night, as I lay in bed between watches, I could feel the wind freshen; I was up on deck a few times to reduce the amount of sail presented to the wind. We were sailing hard on a broad reach, and the boat was moving briskly, as they say.

At 5:15 am, in a dim light sleep, I heard a crash of water, felt an unexpected lurch of the boat, and a yell of surprise. I’m a light sleeper in the best of times, and on boats, on passages, I catch my REMs when I can. Within seconds, I bolted up the stairs from our cabin, out the door to the cockpit, and saw water already flowing out of the cockpit into the large drain scuppers designed to rapidly evacuate incoming waves. I did not see my brother Stephen, who was on watch.

By the time I arrived to this empty cockpit, we had already reduced our main sail to its smallest possible area – three reefs – and done likewise to our genoa. We were flying along on the smallest of sails, surfing down waves in 20-25 knots, just as Susan has predicted. As it was, we were making a strong 8-9 knots, and surfing into the low double digits. The sea swells had grown to about 8 feet, and in the blackness of the pre-dawn, I could see the tips curling over, a white foam specked with small tiny lights from the bioluminescence. It was dark; the seas were high, and the cockpit was empty.

The next morning, as we all – including Stephen -- safely recounted the events that began to unfold, Jennifer said that she never wants to ever hear the tone of my voice as I screamed Stephen’s name into the wind and night. I had personally checked his life jacket before turning in, and made sure the shackle was locked tight, and secure around a stout pole. How could he have fallen overboard? In the same breath and as I again screamed Stephen’s name, I ran to the back corner of the boat where we keep a man-overboard pole and life preserver. The arrangement works as follows: the preserver is attached to a light that, once upright and floating, is well-lit. The preserver is also attached to a 12’ pole, weighted at the bottom and buoyed at about the 2 foot level, a pole topped with a light and an orange flag. Finding a preserver floating at sea-level– even if lit – is unlikely in 8 foot seas; the brief windows of visibility are too short for a struggling victim. Having the pole is essential, since it’s high enough to see above the cresting swells. Not seeing Stephen, and instinctively recalling the lessons drummed into me by countless man overboard stories and admonitions, I pitched the pole and preserver into the dark sea, and I ran back to the wheel to begin a mentally-well-orchestrated and oft-replayed but rarely executed minuet by which a boat under sail turns to retrieve a man overboard.

We had not yet had such an unexpected trial, and I was focused completely on the task before me. Instinctively, Jennifer had pressed the Man Overboard button on our navigation software, placing a large red dot on the luminous screen in front of me, a priceless bit of latitude and longitude – down to the several feet – indicating a spot very near to where the preserver and pole were launched. Already, as I began to run the boat, I could see two bright lights in the water behind me, rising up and down on the passing swells. I had a target, and more importantly, I had Jennifer, my co-captain, by my side.

Just as the boat began to swing around, Stephen’s voice called out from below: “I’m here. I’m here.”

He had gone below briefly, as we all did from time to time on our solo watches. Just as he was readying to come up, a much-larger-than-usual wave had broken atop our stern quarter, dumping hundreds of gallons of seawater onto the decks and into the cockpit. Jennifer – next on watch – was dozing in the main cabin. It was her startled voice I heard crying out. Even with two good ears, Stephen could never have heard me screaming into the night from below. Total elapsed time from my bunk to deployment of the pole and preserver? At most 10 seconds, probably less.

A wave of relief passed over me and Jennifer – we had everyone on board, and everyone and the boat was safe.

Now we had another situation. With adrenaline running at decade-long highs all around, we all paused a moment to assess the situation; we were all on board; the cockpit was draining nicely, and, ahead of us, two lights, a pole, and a life preserver bobbed uselessly in the warm, windy and jostling Caribbean sea. I briefly considered abandoning them to the elements, but Jennifer’s Atlantic crossing story stared me in the face. “It’s time to practice our man-overboard procedure, gang. Get the boat hook out; we’re going to retrieve the pole, preserver and lights.” The sight of those two lights bobbing in the sea – bright against the black rise and fall of swells – will linger long in my mind: I was surprised to see how bright they were, and how close they appeared – and I was also struck how small they seemed against a horizon-to-horizon stretch of darkness.

I’m glad to report that we recovered the three items rapidly – in less than 5 minutes or so -- assisted by a pair of strong Volvo engines, by Jennifer who was willing and able to stand on the stern platform and hook the trailing yellow polypropylene line with a boat hook (she was safely and securely tied in, of course) as Grace drifted slowly downwind onto the items, and by a captain who has mentally reviewed the possibility of a real man overboard thousands of times in his head, reducing to instinct what he had first read about some thirty years earlier in a different time and a different place in his life.

In reviewing the event the following day, I recalled that my earliest “gut-level“ realization of the seriousness of a man-overboard situation came when I read William Buckley’s several books on sailing. Buckley related in his almost preternatural detached fashion the loss of a shipmate in, I think, Long Island Sound, on an otherwise unremarkable and quiet night sail. The shipmate drowned. Since then, I’ve read dozens of accounts of man overboard procedures, and they all stress the same points. The difference between survival and death in man-overboard accidents is timing and luck. If the person is conscious, and if the person can swim, and if they can find a life preserver or are wearing one, and if the boat’s crew can find the victim, then the odds of survival rise to, oh, maybe 50-50.

More recently, when Jennifer crossed the Atlantic in our boat, the skipper we hired knew to practice man-overboard maneuvers, and, more importantly, knew to practice them at unexpected times. A few days after leaving, he spotted a fisherman’s lost float bobbing in the Atlantic. Immediately he began to scream: “MAN OVERBOARD! MAN OVERBOARD.” In Jennifer’s frequent retelling of the incident, his effort at initiating a real-life, out-of-the blue practice run brought a gasp of initial surprise, then curiosity, and, finally, seriousness of purpose from the unprepared crew. Eventually, on a calm sea, in bright daylight, and after one-too-many efforts to bring the boat alongside the fisherman’s float, the float died. They were too late – and eventually, on a second practice, the crew succeeded. (We still have the float, and she still tells the story – always fresh in my mind)

I spent a few minutes contemplating whether I had overreacted, and whether I should have checked below to see if Stephen was OK, before deploying the pole and preserver. In reality, I never gave it a thought; I acted on pure instinct. More logically, at 8 knots, the boat travels 16,000 meters in an hour, or roughly 250 meters a minute. In 10 seconds, the boat has sailed nearly half the length of a football field – nearly two laps at a community pool. Had Stephen been washed overboard, he would have had a difficult time swimming the 50 yards – that’s why we all wear life preservers AND safety harnesses at night in adverse conditions. So no, I’m sure I did the right thing, and I’m glad we had the chance for a real-life rehearsal.

I’m also glad for books on sailing, which have taught me a lot. I’m glad for Jennifer’s stories, and for acquired instincts. I’m glad for accurate weather forecasts. I’m glad we got a chance to practice a man overboard drill under trying conditions. And I am beyond grateful to the gods above and all that is good in the world that this was only a drill.

Postscript: It's been a bit over a week since this happened; so much else has passed that it seems a dream of sort. It left us each considerably shaken the entire next day, to the point where I was reluctant to have any sail up the following night, even though it was much calmer. I think I -- if not we -- needed a quiet night. Sicne then, we've entered Panama, passed thru the Canal, and now are moored off the Balboa Yacht Club. Cruising is like that: moments of sheer terror and anxiety amid days of quiet and peaceful surroundings. I think it's the variation that draws me to blue-water sailing, that, and the sense of utter self-reliance we blue water sailors face on the ocean. Thanks again to Jennifer for being alongside me that night, and for helping me make sense of the before, during, and after. She's amazing.

2nd Half of the Transit

We entered the canal with our pilot, Fernando, on Tuesday evening at 7:40. We went through the first 3 locks and then spent the evening tied up to 6 other sailboats on Lake Gatun. Guita was the official photographer during that portion....Jon was driving and Jennifer and Stephen were helping with lines and fenders as we were tied up to a tug boat during that stage.

As you see from these pictures, Guita often has a camera in her hand and actually does most of the picture taking:

So Guita will post photos from that half of the transit. What follows are photos from the second half; Lake Gatun to the Pacific Coast.

Stephen did some of the motoring as we left

the lake and cruised along the lock-free area of the canal. He seems to be enjoying himself. Just before we got to the locks, we passed an area called "The Cut" which is where the canal goes through the continental divide and was some of the most difficult section of the canal to dig, having to go through mountain and mud. Now, at this point, the Panama Canal goes under the new Pan American Highway. Here is Jennifer as we approach the cut. The bridge is in the background.

Our second pilot was William, again a very calm cool dude, who clearly was in charge but also polite and nice. He assisted Jon in navigating into the locks and tying up to the French mono hull. Here we are in one of the locks as it finished draining. In the first 3 locks, we were climbing elevation, so once the lock doors closed water filled the locks and we ended up almost level with the top. But the last 3 locks (going toward the Pacific) are decending, so we entered high and water drained out of them and we ended up with the lock walls towering above us.

Jason and Tialingua were our two linehandlers. Here they are hamming it up for the camera.

Here, we are entering a lock and you can see that the lock walls are barely visible. Ahead of us are two sail boats tied up together. We are tied up to another sailboat on our starboard side. It is a carefully choreographed dance of big and little boats. This time we went through in the center with the two dock lines (bow and stern) on the port and 2 on the starboard. The line handlers on the canal work with the line handlers on the boats, to keep us centered and steady as the water level changes.

Here is one line handler walking along with us above the lock. And the other photo shows the two boats in front of us and how we are secured into the loch. We were just the same.Once in the lock, I had to make sure that Jon and Stephen were photographed under their mother's family crest. So Marlene, if you're looking down, I know you're smiling and would be so proud of your sons. The photo on the right is proof that Marlene's family crest is in the Panama Canal!

PACIFIC COAST!!!

The boat is currently moored at the Balboa Yacht Club on Panama's Pacific coast. Canal transit was great according to Jennifer.

Internet it seems is hard to come by on the Pacific coast, but they are trying and hopefully I'll hear more tomorrow.

Thanks for all the comments, they really enjoy reading what y'all have to say.

Headed for the Canal Entrance

Two line handlers are on board, we depart soon for the Flats (a holding area) to wait to be boarded by our "assistant" (pilot). Then we are scheduled to enter the canal at 6:45 PM.

Will talk to you from the other side.

Canal Transit

We are scheduled to transit the Panama Canal beginning Tuesday. Tomorrow we'll find out what time the assistant pilot and line handlers will board and what time we are to enter the canal on Tuesday. We will spend Tuesday night on Lake Gatun (not quite mid-way through the canal) and arrive in Balboa on the Pacific Coast Wednesday afternoon. We promise to post pictures!

How Our Boat Got Its Name

It took us longer to name our boat than it did to name either of our children.....I don't know what that means, but we've contemplated boat names for years. Once we ordered the boat in June 2007 and it began to become real, the name search was no longer theoretical but real and serious, because all the boat's documentation requires a name.

I was happy to let Jon lean toward Dutch names, in his family tradition of naming boats, or to pay homage to his late mother and her family name. Jon, on the other hand, was happy to pay homage to my family's Cherokee heritage with a Cherokee word. We did end up naming our LLC, which owns the boat, Tahlequah Voyages, but no word seemed to make the personal connection necessary for a boat name.

One criteria was that it be short and easy to understand over the radio. Jon suggested Grace and it eventually rose to the top of a short list. It certainly met our first criteria. It also resonated with our romantic notions that we might experience some grace on this journey, especially as we withdrew from the hectic pace of our land lives.

But both David and Katie disliked it. While they did not have veto power of her name, their dislike kept the name on hold.

By January 2008 I knew I was going to go to France to help sail the boat back to Annapolis, Maryland and was often thinking about what a transAtlantic passage would be like.....I was going, but I was a little scared. The upcoming passage was always in the back of my mind, even as I was in Denver, Colorado helping Katie move into her dorm to begin her new college life at Regis University.

Somewhere on the fourth level of stairs, carrying Katie's college dorm stuff, sweating in the winter of Denver, it popped into my head that a catamaran--half as wide as it is long with its two hulls--was more like an island. It would be my island in the ocean and that was less scary than the thought of being on a heeled mono-hull.

Because our boat was being built in France....and thus would be French, the words ile de Grace rolled off my tongue. (For those who do no speak French, it's pronounced eel-duh-GRAAHSS). Island of Grace. And that settled it. Everyone was happy, but the first criteria was out the window. (In truth, Jon and I use only Grace when talking on the radios.)

Without now going into the many theological definitions of the noun grace, all I can say is that so far we have rarely experienced the adjective "graceful." With a few exceptions, our dockings and anchorings have often been anything but----mostly comical, but occasionally stressful. We are learning, though, and I will keep you posted as we experience moments of grace and gracefulness.

Thanks To Those Who Got Us Started

This posting should have happened a long time ago, but better late than never.

Our launching point for the circumnavigation was Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. But before we could launch, we had to get the ile de Grace from Bodkin Creek, Maryland (between Annapolis and Baltimore) to Florida. Jon and I owe a special thanks to all who helped us get our boat there before the winter set in on the Chesapeake Bay.

November 14-15. We left Bodkin Creek November 14th for a 24 hour sail down the Bay to Norfolk. We were joined by Jon's brother Paul, his wife Darlene and Mary Houghton, our sailing friend. As predicted, it was an easy sail, and we actually had to slow the boat down so as not to arrive at night. Here we are after tying up the boat in Little Creek Marina, Norfolk, Virginia. Jennifer stayed on the boat for a week to re-rig our reefing system for the main sail.

November 20-22. The second leg began November 20th with Jon, Jennifer, Mary Houghton, Terry Burke and Gary Nyland. With high winds blowing us against the dock, we precariously left Norfolk and motored straight into strong headwinds until we could turn southwest after passing the Chesapeake Tunnel and Bridge. This journey included navigating between the notorious ship graveyard of Cape Hatteras and the Gulf Stream, and then later passing Cape Fear. It was a cold, wet and hard journey with a lot of rock and roll. We had seas to our quarter stern and were sailing at 8-9 knots and surfing waves at 14 and 15 knots. It was the closest to flying a boat as I have ever come. A big thanks to the hale and hardy crew.

December 11-14. The third leg did not begin until mid December. Jennifer did not make this trip and so Jon was joined by the very experienced captain and friends, Geert van der Kolk and his wife Olina Jonas, as well as Steve Lieberman and Jeff Sanders. This was another very difficult leg due to rough sea conditions and head winds. After a tough beat down the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia,we finally made into the wonderful town-operated marina of Fernandina Beach, Florida, which is just north of Jacksonville. Thanks to the crew and we sincerely hope the chilly and wet experience will not preclude you from joining us again in calmer waters and nicer climes!

December 28-30. Jon and Jennifer made this 300 mile leg on their own. It would be the longest sail we had taken together with just the 2 of us---a good test to see how well we might do on our own. Here is a photo of Jon as we left Fernandina. He's extending the Man Overboard Pole before we head into open water.

This was a straight shot south southwest and we were never much more than three miles offshore so it did not feel too risky. We took 3 hour watches and made it into Ft. Lauderdale mid-morning on New Year's Eve. Driving the boat up the canals through downtown and past more mega yachts and mansions than I could imagine was possible, was a new experience for both of us. But we ended up in a wonderful boat yard, Lauderdale Marine Center, where we made final adjustments to ile de Grace prior to departing. The gang at Just Catamarans -- Johan and Raf -- did an amazing job helping us with cabinetry, final maintenance and various upgrades. Nance and Robertson's Rigging installed a much needed preventer, made further upgrades to our new reefing system, and provided much-needed advice. Silvio and John helped with last minute gel coat repairs. JT Haldren, who commissioned our water maker and gave us much good advise and moral support, remains in touch with us, and we hope to see him on the waters sometime!

We were joined New Year's eve by David and Kate and were able to spend a few days together as a family for what will be for us a long time. It was too short, but lovely. Jon's aunt Johanna, cousins Dominique and Michael and Michael's partner Artur joined us one day. Thank you Artur for taking these photographs.

Life had come full circle, because 30 years ago Jon went to his aunt's house in West Palm Beach before walking the docks in Ft. Lauderdale looking for sailboats that were looking for crew. Jon spent 1978 and 1980 crewing on other peoples's boats. Now, for the first time in his life, he had his own boat and was its captain.

At the lunch, seated from left to right, are Johanna, Michael, Dominique, Jon, David, Jennifer and Katie. Prior to leaving a few weeks later, we were visited by Michael's sister, Christina and her two sons. It was great to have family support as we neared our departure. Thank you again Artur for taking the photos!

Footnote from Bimini

Although we left Bimini, Bahamas a long time ago, our stay there deserves this footnote.

Jon, David, Katie and I sailed to Bimini from Miami during the kid's spring break in 2001. My two most vivid memories are 1) going to the End of World Cafe and eating the best conch salad I've ever tasted in my life and 2) hanging out at the Complete Angler, an old hotel for sports fishermen where Ernest Hemingway stayed in the mid-1930s. It had a library with walls that were covered with photographs of his Marlin fishing exploits, some letters and postcards, and other memorabilia from that time in his life.

I read The Old Man and Sea in high school and didn't have a clue what it was about. Then in my junior year of school, I saw my Dad reading a biography of Hemingway, called "Papa." He was so intensely reading it, that I checked it out when he was finished. I couldn't put it down, and when finished, I read all of Hemingway's novels. I was a scrawny kid from the middle of north Texas and had never been anywhere else other than Oklahoma and Colorado. Hemingway's novels and his own life story opened up a world of possibilities for me and were my first inspiration to travel and try to live life to the fullest. Later, Jon and I visited his home in Key West, Florida.

I was looking forward to showing the Complete Angler to Stephen and Guita while in Bimini and on our second day there, we went out for a walk looking for it. I knew I'd recognize it. After walking nearly the complete length of the island, I finally asked someone for directions (the island only has one street going the length of it). We were told that it had burned down several years ago. We got several versions.....arson, electrical, it was so old. But we had walked right past it not far from where we were docked. Everything was lost. Here is the photo of that remains. So sad.

In addition, the End of the World Cafe was closed down and was no longer the end of the world as there were newer buildings jutting farther out at the southern most end of the island. Oh well, just a reminder that nothing is guaranteed to be permanent. I think Hemingway's advise would be to grab everything with gusto while you can because it (or you) may not be here tomorrow.

Coming into Panama

We left Georgetown, Bahamas at noon on February 3 and arrived in Colon, Panama on Thursday, February 11 so it was 8 days at sea. Postings from others will follow, but here are a few photos.

Here, Jon is steering us toward Colon, Panama after spending the early morning hours dodging a lot of cargo ships. This was mostly done with the aid of our wonderful AIS system which identifies everything you'd want to know about another large ship remotely near your boat, and by talking to the skippers on VHF radio.

Prior to coming into to Colon, I began (slowly) my Farsi lessons with my sister-in-law Guita. Here she is teaching me the alphabet in the cockpit. Yes that is bandana tied backward on my head----that's because it has an ice pack that Jon made for me to help me stay cool in the ever increasing heat. (I know all our friends and family in snow bound Washington, DC area might be jealous, but it is really hot here. I am probably one of the few people who would have thoroughly enjoyed the blizzard.)

Here is a photo of Jennifer sewing at sea...working on some mosquito netting prior to our arrival in Panama. The sea behind me is a swell--about 8-10 feet. You can tell it's a swell because you cannot see the horizon, but no photograph can ever truly convey what a swell looks like as it's coming upon you. When coming from the stern, it's a gentle rolling. From the side or front, we call it "getting the sh*t kicked out of you."

While we all participate in tracking our course and Jon is our primary navigator, Stephen and Guita have played special rolls in our navigation. We had only paper charts in the Bahamas where the waters can be quite shallow and dangerous due the shifting shoals and coral reefs. While Stephen and I sat at the bow on watch for coral heads, Jon drove the boat with Guita at his side giving him minute-by-minute updates on our exact locations on the chart. She was superb. Coming into Panama, Stephen took over the navigation while Jon kept his eyes on the ship traffic. Here is a photo of Stephen the Navigator:

Panama

The boat made it to Panama today and after some tricky moments with anchor and getting settled in, all seems fine. Spoke with my mom (Jennifer) briefly and all seems good. I'm sure there will be a good update soon but just wanted to let all know that they are in Panama and safe.

I'm sure they would love some comments on here after their first significant passage... Please feel free to leave any comments short or long to let them know y'all are keeping track of them.

Hope all is well with everyone out there.


Kate Glaudemans

Rhythms

February 9, 2010: En route to Panama


After a few days at sea, the body, boat, and crew fall into rhythms. With the amenable watch schedule leaving everyone more rested, the mornings take on the kind of summer beach vacation dreaminess, with people awakening as they will, fixing a light breakfast, and acclimating to another day of sun, sea, salt, and the gentle swaying of a broad-beamed catamaran pushing thru Caribbean seas. The days are sunny, with temperatures in the mid-80s. The sea temperature is a steady 81 degrees, and this morning, Jennifer spotted a school of porpoises greeting the dawn by surfing our bow waves. Flying fish scatter the surface, propelling themselves through a wave face, and fluttering their 'wings' furiously as they skim across the surface, only to lose altitude eventually and dive back in. The purplish hue of the tiny Portuguese man o' war colors the occasional wave, their air-filled oblong bladders aligned with the prevailing wind. We are passagemaking, on a boat at sea.

By mid-morning, with the sun already high and bright in the sky, we're all up and about. There are the usual chores - cleaning up any dishes from the evening watches; putting away the long pants and jackets (windy nights are cool even here); and for me, tuning into my ham radio to listen to weather updates, check on notes from family, and send a position report to a tracking service. I also check in on a marine net, which hosts fellow cruisers who share current weather and wave conditions. These nets will prove invaluable in the Pacific, where weather monitoring stations are scarce, resulting in uselessly general 'official' weather forecasts along the lines of comedian George Carlin's famous forecast: "getting warmer toward summer." It's good to practice using these radio-based resources while we're still headed to Panama; after Panama, assistance becomes scarce. These daily contacts become part of our morning rhythm.

We try and have lunch and dinner together, to connect on what's happening with the boat, our route, and our morale. Being at sea, alone on an ocean on a small boat, can be disconcerting in the best of weather - better to stay checked in during good weather, to ease any transitions to less pleasant conditions. Today being the third day since we ran our watermaker, I refilled our 140 gallon tank with pure water - made using our very efficient Spectra Cape Horn watermaker. It uses a reverse osmosis process, where 10 gallons of sea water are forced at unimaginable pressure through tiny membranes that yields 1 gallon of pure water molecules to pass through. The slightly more-saltish waste is discharged overboard, and after testing a sample to make sure its mineral content meets specifications, I flip the lever to send the newly-made water to our tanks. We can shower every day, and use water freely in cooking and bathing - a luxury unheard of in small boats prior to the advent of these efficient watermakers. We run the watermaker every three days; our tanks are full.

Managing energy consumption is also part of our daily rhythm. All in, our routine electrical use includes our autopilot, which steers the boat for us, our navigation instruments, our refrigerator and freezer, and our water pumps and lights. Together, we use about 250 amp-hours a day. Our batteries store roughly 540 amp-hours, so without regular replenishment, we'd be energy-dry in two days. To produce energy, we use a combination of solar panels, capable in these latitudes of creating about 100-150 amp-hours per day and a wind generator that puts out another 100 amp-hours or so a day. For the balance, and for any shortfalls, we can either run our Onan generator - which sips fuel at about a gallon per hour, or one or both of our engines, which each burn about 1.3 gallons of diesel/hour. Today, we are close-hauled, with our sails tucked in tight, making a course of 203 degrees with a wind blowing from about 155 degrees. In these conditions, Grace likes to motor sail (catamarans are happiest with the win aft of the beam). Our batteries are full.

Tonight, we will eat dinner together as sunset colors the western sky. On the menu? Baked mahi-mahi, rice, and broccoli. The night sky is awash with stars, and the moon rises around midnight, half-full of the light of a sun passing over the Pacific Ocean, where we hope to be in a few weeks. Now that we're in a rhythm, the time will pass gently - each passing watch moving us 20 or so miles closer to Panama, in a kind of metronome of passage-making. Our bellies are full. We are passagemaking, in our boat Grace, across a gently rolling Caribbean Sea.

Received via e-mail on 2/9/2010 from Jon Glaudemans

Tracking IDG

Now you can follow IDG as they sail around the world! Click here and you can see where IDG is on their journey around the world.

Seeing

February 7, 2010

I'm not used to not having the sharpest eyes on the boat. Time was, I'd be the first to spot the buoy, to see that the light in the distant ship was green and not red, indicating a starboard-facing view. Today, I have reading glasses tucked away in every corner of the boat, and my brother Stephen (who's suspended his life as an architect in these no-new-construction times) is the first to see things. Perhaps not coincidentally, he is deaf in one ear, the result of a bicycle accident as a teenager. He and I were riding up to get some pizzas, and in a usual-for-Stephen bit of derring-do, he carried the pizzas home - look Ma - no hands! One turn too sharp and over the curb he flew, landing on his head and bleeding from an ear. I ran to an adjacent house and called home to let our Mom know.
My mother, who could see around corners sometimes, reacted with calm borne of raising six sons, and (as the story goes) told us simply to call an ambulance and she'd meet us at the hospital. By that time, we had our own orthopedic surgeon on call, and were on a first name basis with the nurses. Since then, Stephen's sight seems to have compensated for his lack of hearing, and he's the one to see the buoy and to distinguish the direction a passing ship is taking.

Well after the bicycle accident, when I decided to quit college, abandon my full scholarship, and go sailing on the oceans for a year, my mother's reaction was equally calm (although now, as parent, I can only imagine her torn feelings). Beyond calm, she supported my decision, a decision with a lifelong impact. I changed my course of study from the sciences to the humanities, and learned to see more clearly the world around me. Facts mattered, but facts were not the only things that mattered. That was also the year I deepened my desire and experience to sail extensively at some point in my life.

Since then, my mother has passed away, her eyesight clear to the end even as her mind's ability to process the images faded inexorably. She would have liked to see where her sons are today - together on a boat named Grace, pursuing a dream that perhaps she saw in my eyes when I broached the subject of leaving school.

Here, tonight, beyond the raft of glasses I've managed to strew about Grace's cabins, I've got other compensating strategies for my slowly deteriorating eyesight. I can listen to the sounds of the boat, and know when we're off course by the different sound the water makes as our angle into the waves changes. I can feel the wind on my cheeks, and can 'see' the wind change direction. I know by the pattern of the boat's rocking and heeling motions whether the waves and swells are increasing or subsiding. And tonight, even with these aging eyes, I can see - against a black sea - a lane of light stretching from Grace to the horizon, reflecting a ribbon of light from a low-lying southwestern star so bright that it lays a path from here to the horizon on a flat ocean. And I don't need the eyes I had thirty years ago when I left school to now see streaks of shooting stars against the fuzzy background of a star-saturated Milky Way, or the smeared light of a rising gibbous moon behind the eastern clouds.

Writing all of this on the midnight watch - knowing all of this - helps me see why I've come to this place - 16 degrees north, 75 degrees west - on a road lit by stars, flanked by the Milky Way to the west and a rising moon to the east. At night, we seem to see things clearly. Maybe my mother could see that Stephen would be fine; maybe she could see that I would be happier leaving school for a year. I know I'm happy that I can still see stars shine on the tops of Caribbean waters. I also know I'm happy there's a pair of glasses within reach wherever I am on Grace, and that my mother supported my decision to go sailing, and I'm happy that my brother is here to help me see.

Received on 2/7/10 From Jon Glaudemans

Keeping Watch (Last part)

The schedule will result in each person's watch schedule moving up one time slot, each day. Tomorrow, I will have the 0000-0200 watch. It seems like this will work well; two hours under a faintly-moonlit sky, with reflected sunlight shimmering on rolling swells seems right and easy, even if tonight, the gentle forward motion of Grace as she crosses the 18th parallel makes me want to stay at the wheel through dawn. I need my rest, even if Grace doesn't, and I'm looking forward to greeting Guita with an early 'top-o'-the morning' and then crawling into a warm bed with Jennifer, my co-captain.

Keeping Watch

February 6, 2010

While on passages, Grace sails 24 hours a day, continuously. No rest stops, no motels, and no breaks. While the sea is a big place, there are other ships and boats also underway, and a collision at sea can ruin your entire day, as the saying goes. Thus, ever since man set to sea, watches have been kept. The classic watch system is to deploy the crew to take a rotating four-hour command of a vessel even as the captain of the ship is ultimately responsible for a safe passage. This watch rotates among the crew, and on short-handed ships, the four-on, four-off routine is part of sailors' lore. Often, these watches are shared by two people - allowing for a degree of companionship, and, more importantly, a second pair of eyes, ears, and hands in the event some change in the ship's sail plan is required.

On watch, my two rules of sailing come into sharp focus: don't fall off the bat, and don't hit anything. The watch is responsible for the safety of the entire vessel while other are asleep. In addition to staying on the boat, we take routine scans of the 360 degree horizon for ships and land masses. We've been in busy waters lately, sailing well-established shipping routes, and there's usually been one ship or another ahead or astern to keep an eye on. Most travel faster than us, and thus either close quickly, or overtake us. Each situation bears monitoring, and we're assisted by a recent innovation whereby larger vessels are required to transmit their course and speed, among other date, to other ships. We have a receiver for these signals on Grace, and our navigation display conveys this information to us in an easy-to-understand fashion.

When Grace set off from Fort Lauderdale, we adopted the 4-on-4-off approach, pairing Guita and Stephen with me and Jennifer, respectively, thus providing a mix of experience. Our initial passages were short: less than a day to Bimini and overnight sails to Nassau and Georgetown, and we were experimenting as well as learning about the boat and each other. We left Georgetown a few days ago, and as I write this at 3:00 a.m., we are on our third night of a seven- or eight night passage to Panama. This evening, over an al fresco dinner of fresh-caught blue fin tuna (cubed, marinated, skewered, and barbequed, over a bed of rice pilaf), we discussed our watch system and made a few adjustments.

With everyone feeling more comfortable with the boat and each other, we decided that we no longer needed two people awake and on watch together. If a second person were needed, they could readily be called or roused (we carry a whistle, easily heard). Further, the 4-on-4-off system made the night watches long and grueling, and resulted in each person (or pair) having the same watch window each day. There are as many theories of watch schedules as there are religions, but we decided to go with three-hour watches from 0600 (6 a.m.) through 2400 (midnight) and to use 2-hour watches for the wee hours of morning. I came on watch at 0200, relieving Stephen; in (now) less than an hour, Guita will relieve me. At 0600, Jennifer will take over, for the first three hour watch of the new day.

The schedule will result in each person's watch schedule moving up one time slot, each day. Tomorrow, I will have the 0000-0200 watch. It seems like this will work well; two hours under a faintly-moonlit sky, with reflected sunlight shimmering on rolling swells seems right and easy, even if tonight, the gentle forward motion of Grace as she crosses the 18th parallel makes me want to stay at the wheel through dawn.

More to come on this... the e-mail was cut short.

Received on 2/6/2010 by Jon Glaudemans

Leaving Georgetown

We are leaving Georgetown, Exuma today continuing southeastwardly to either the Windward Passage or the Mona Passage, depending on wind and weather. We expect to be away from land from anywhere to a few days to a week or more.

All is well.

Jennifer