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| A video game ? No- L'ORIENT (top right) dodging 153 freighters in the canal zone |
Today L’ORIENT returned to the normal world, leaving the San Blas Islands and the Guna Indians behind. Kind of a jolt, seeing roads, cars, and (pleasantly) restaurants and grocery stores again. But duty was calling. Time for our annual haul-out and bottom job activities.....about a week of hot, humid, hard work in toxic conditions........the price we pay for the other 51 weeks of bliss we enjoy.
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| Departing San Blas.....sniff, sniff.....if only for a few weeks |
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| The advantage of Guna travel.......bottom job every 1,000 years; trees float no matter what |
The week of backbreaking work begins with our home being lifted out of the water. Gulp. A year's worth of barnacles and growth on the bottom need to be dealt with, as well as service to our propeller, bow thruster, electronics, etc. But this initial moment is always the scariest. Boats are routinely dropped by careless boatyards..........years of lawsuits yield nothing but legal fees. We hover around praying and hoping the crane operator didn't opt for that 4th beer with lunch.
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| L'ORIENT hoisted from the Caribbean Sea for some much needed work |
The boat’s bottom is painted with anti-fouling.......essentially paint that is toxic to marine (and human) life. But before this can begin, you need to sand the old paint (now only toxic enough to kill humans, not barnacles). Ramon followed a long line of paid helpers who quickly lost interest in us, resulting in Kirstin and I finishing for him. Ramon, donde estas ? Yo no soy feliz. (Ramon, where are you ? I’m not happy.) Due to our admittedly not so protective clothing, we were itching for 3 days after this chore, performed under the scorching Panamanian sun. Small wonder Ramon disappeared.
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| Segundo helping me fabricate a rudder part out of fiberglass |
But I did find "Segundo" who has been like a crazy uncle to me.......he's a 73 year old semi-retired master boatwright who admittedly seems quite smitten with Kirstin (hey, anything to get some help on the boat). Anyway, Segundo and I have tackled a few small projects in-between his stories, one-liners, and general non-sequitur lessons on life.........
Tom (to Segundo)- Hey, it looks like your trailer has just about everything in it (a lot of boat parts)
Segundo (to Tom)- I have everything but porn and money..........
Tom (to Segundo)- Blank stare......can't help him with either
Segundo's other past time - besides boat work and, apparently, porn - is capturing jaguars that he sells for $400 each. Tom spent some time debating the snuggling merits of a baby jaguar on board when Kirstin pointed out that we couldn't even keep Les, the gecko, (from a few posts back) alive as he was found dead on the boat during our bottom job. The one positive of having a pet jaguar would be the elimination of our boat security worries.
The repainting was uneventful.....we watch our $200 per gallon poison paint like hawks lest some of it disappear. Other projects included a rebuilt stuffing box, various and sundry electrical problems, continued goblins in our anti-collision system, etc. The stuffing box sounds innocuous but it is why your boat doesn't flood through the hole for the rudder post. Kind of embarrassing if we sink at the dock and become a monument to failed do-it-yourselfers.
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| Back to work......the ground around the boat is a sand pit of toxic atomized paint dust. It gets everywhere. |
The aforementioned dust from atomized antifouling is so pervasive that we are still making black foot tracks and hand prints all over the boat. It looks like a murder scene after they use the black stuff to dust for prints. The only victim here though was our wallet.
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| The marina at Shelter Bay.......mostly folks beginning a trip through the canal and on to French Polynesia |
The goblin problem in our anti-collision system reared its ugly head at possibly the least opportune time possible; when entering the breakwater for the Panama Canal (our marina and boatyard are adjacent). No chance of a collision in the world’s busiest shipping area. Note for the future- ships with the word “global” or “transstar” in their name are at least 100 times bigger than us and should be avoided. The initial picture in the blog shows us attempting to dodge freighters by going into water too shallow for them, since our anti-collision system was malfunctioning.
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| The Guna Whole Foods ? No, just another indian who owns his own island |
So we are back in the marina trying to recover from our recovery. After a quick trip to the USA we will head back to the San Blas Islands and commune with our Guna Indian friends. And double the amount of food we bring. This year is all Central America all the time.
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| Next destination......back to Guna Yala |
