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| San Blas - more days in paradise |
To our loyal readers complaining in Sanskrit and Gaelic about our tardiness, for the last time......by the time we translate your feedback we could already have created two more posts. Cease and desist!
On a more serious note, part of our tardiness has to do with sad family news. After a heroic 13 year struggle following a devastating stroke, we lost Kirstin's mom in April. There was a lot to attend to in the States, and Kirstin's father and the extended family did an amazing and graceful job under very trying circumstances. As we intimated earlier, we had planned on transiting the Panama Canal in March and heading for French Polynesia. Glad we didn't. Man plans and God laughs.
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| So thankful we had Mom with us on the boat |
We've ping-ponged back and forth between Panama and the States of late........visiting and ferrying boat parts in abundance. And they've been needed. L'ORIENT hasn't moved much in 2019, but boats don't age in the way most people think. The sea, salt air, heat, and UV rays ceaselessly attack fiberglass, electronics, and canvas. The result is the occasionally overwhelming list of things to fix. Bow locker floor- rotted which resulted in two weeks of 12 hour days in 95 degree heat. Outboard's carburetor, main battery charger, black water tank #2, wind generator, anchor chain, 13 main batteries, master suite mattress, etc..........all broken down recently and repaired or replaced.
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| Kirstin disassembling the carburetor ? OK, maybe we staged this one. |
Lots of work and we now calculate expenses in "kilo-dollars", since a $100 bill barely buys you a water filter in this neck of the woods. But our worst day is better than a great day of work, so whatever. Long live yachting.
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| My small contribution to canvas work- knocking grommets into the finished product.....but look at those guns ! |
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| Cleaning the stuck carburetor float. What idiot left old gas in it for 3 months......hint, he's in the pic |
And if you're going to spend a year somewhere, there's no better place than the San Blas Islands. We can't get enough of the Guna Indians and their idyllic archipelago. Waking up every morning and seeing them on the move in their dugout canoes is amazing. We even found a restaurant (OK....awaiting its first Michelin Star, but functional nevertheless).
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| L'ORIENT anchored in San Blas |
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| We swim only in areas with a sandy bottom......to better see crocodiles approaching (3 so far) |
In the town of Portobello we stumbled across the annual Diablo (devil) festival which featured hundreds of men wearing elaborately hand maid paper-mache devil masks. Unlike Mardi Gras or Carnival, this "event" was completely devoid of choreography or organization.....just a bunch of people milling around dressed in costumes. It is astonishing how many times we run across an event that we don't really understand......but we figure any reason to skip work, right? They capped it off with fantastic fireworks that we watched from the bow of the boat.......or were those children stepping on land-mines ? Hey, nobody parties like the third world.
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| Weirdly grotesque diablo masks |
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| Kids the world over are complete hams |
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| Satan meets Grumpy (one of the seven dwarfs) ? |
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| Off, off, off Broadway.......but a guy can dream, right ? |
We're learning a bit about cruiser economics and realizing that L'ORIENT is actually quite posh compared to our neighbors. In replacing our mattress (tempurpedic foam doesn't do well in the tropics), we removed it in sections and brought it to the garbage area. It was badly decomposed and we were somewhat ashamed we had waited this long to replace it. But like a gaggle of geriatric vultures, 3-4 fellow yachtees began arguing over who found it first. Gross. Just wondering what theses folks are sleeping on now makes me want to grab the Windex and Lysol and start cleaning and disinfecting.
We're exercising again. Each morning we take a 3 mile walk on a jungle road before the temp hits 90. Lately we've been serenaded by a troupe of howler monkeys in the trees. They sound like lions. We've seen a large sloth up close, moles, and all kinds of exotic birds. The best sighting was a group a baby monkeys, about the size of a Barbie doll. Incredibly cute. We're told that jaguars are common here also, but they're afraid of humans. Good.
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| Kirstin and her new passion |
Kirstin is now an alternative sportsperson. We bought an inflatable paddle board from a retiring cruiser and she hasn't gotten off of it in about 3 weeks. She takes quite long trips on it (partially because she is having trouble learning how to steer) but it's quite impressive. She pointed out that knowing there are crocodiles in the water is powerful motivation to stay upright. I'm still trying to stand up on it. That's what she gets for marrying an old man...........but it was probably part of the plan. If I can't stand up on it, I can't borrow it, I guess.
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| Another spectacular anchorage |
The stories we've heard about rainy season range from Florida-type showers daily to biblical flooding 24/7 so we've taken the liberty of booking a European adventure with our princess (Emily) who is always up for a free trip (she's an accountant, remember). A month away from the rain should keep us sane.
And piracy is alive and well here in Central America. One neighbor was attacked off Nicaragua by a mob of fishing boats and rammed, boarded, and looted. You know you're having a bad day when you find yourself shooting your flare gun at pirates from inside your boat through the shattered hatches. But they were lucky. Nobody injured. Another cruiser was shot dead by some Guna Indians (of all people). But there's speculation that there was more going on there than a random attack (we don't gossip........except sometimes). Anyway, Mom, if you're reading this..............an AR-15 makes a great Christmas gift for your son the sailor.
