Tag Archives: Cruiser

Heading to Puerto Velero.

Puerto Velero to Puerto Obaldia

The weather forecast estimated between 1.6 and 2 travel days which gave us a huge window to guess our arrival. Puerto Obaldia is not a good anchorage and should only be used as a day stop. We wanted to arrive Puerto Obaldia in the morning so we could clear in and head to another anchorage for the night.

First thing in the morning we decided to replace our wind vang which had lost its cups during the previous night’s storm and was not working properly. So, we hoisted Matt up our 70’ mast to replace it with a new wind vang. Now we could see the wind speed and direction. What a novel idea for a sail boat!

As we were leaving the channel, we were chased down by the Armada National. They instructed us to follow them back into the bay where they could board our boat out of the swell. Great, we headed back into the bay, put out our fenders, and got our documents out. Technically, we should have had the yellow flag up and called this a boat repair stop or safety stop. The Spanish/English language gap made it a little exciting. Matt showed them our broken wind vang and pointed up the mast. The guard obviously wasn’t a friend of heights and returned a wide-eyed gaze and asked if Matt had gone up there. They searched our boat, checked our paperwork, called into their boss and informed them we had a boat repair – an hour later we were on our way.

As we left the bay for the second time, the wind dropped down to 6-8 knots and the waves were less than 1 meter. Looks like a motor day.

As we were passing Cartagena, the AIS goes off stating that “Sugar Shack needs to notify Cartagena Port Authority when entering or leaving Cartagena.” We were not going there, tried to call on VHF, got no response, gave up.  Then 45 minutes later another message appears on AIS. We called again on VHF, think we heard them tell us to change to a different channel and did. However, the channel was already occupied and conversation was already in progress. Matt tried to explain, in broken Spanish, that we were heading to Panama, not to Cartagena. We waited on VHF 16, got nothing and continued on.

We switched off sitting at the helm randomly until about 1800 when we set 3-hour shifts. I took the first shift 6p-9p followed by Matt, then Wayne. As you know, almost everything happens between 2am and 3am which happened to be just as I was coming on my 2nd shift. A nasty storm was brewing on the radar right in front of us. We got our foul weather gear out, put the eye brow down and prepared for some wind and rain. But as it turned out, the storm parted right down the center and we motored right on through it with only a few sprinkles – not even enough to wash the boat.

Storm parted to let us through with just a few drops of rain.

Storm parted to let us through with just a few drops of rain.

What the storm did bring was a huge wind shift-180 degree. Instead of being a broad reach it was now right on our nose which made it impossible to sail! It didn’t really matter as the winds were still too low to raise the canvas so we continued on motoring. We attempted to fly the jib periodically, but it never filled for very long.

DAY 1 Puerto Velero to Puerto Obaldia
• Total Daily Miles: 142
• Max Speed: 10.9
• Avg Speed: 5.9
• Hours Moving: 24
• Wind Avg: 5-7 knots
• Wing Angle: Broad Reach to Run then shifted to nose
• Wave Height Avg: > 1

DAY 2 OF PASSAGE TO PUERTO OBELDIA:

I love the dawn shift as the moon sets and the sun rises. It is such a great reflection time.

Pretty sunrise on journey.

Pretty sunrise on journey.

Somewhere during late morning, we received a hitch hiker. Not sure if it was a huge moth or a butterfly, but it flew right into our cabin and perched on our shelf. I gently tried to scoot it out the cabin door, but it ended up flying out the front hatch, around the cabin and back in through the cabin door! What. So, I tried again and this time it flew down into the office. I opened the small hatch in the office and gently nudged it out the window – again only for it to fly right back into the cabin. Well, clearly, she needs to rest from her long journey so we will let her be for now.

INSERT IMAGE OF BUTTERFLY

Large moth or butterfly?

Large moth or butterfly?

Several hours later, Matt urged the butterfly to leave (not so gently) and she repeated the same process, out a window and back in. Finally, we got smart and closed the main cabin doors and shooed her out but not before she tried to get back in several more times. As she left, a huge moth arrived and perched on the sail bag. This did not seem to bother us as much as she was outside and up high. She stayed with us until the next morning.

We raised the main and attempted to fly the jib, even though the wind was still on our nose. Mostly to no advantage.

Give us wind please.....

Give us wind please…..

We alternate between sleeping, eating, or reading, while not on shift.  Anything to pass the time.

Passing the time on a passage.

Passing the time on a passage.

The wind did pick up, but it stayed on our nose which did not help us get there any sooner.

Good wind, but right on the nose.

Good wind, but right on the nose.

Watching the time of arrival on the GPS can be an emotional rollercoaster. One minute it says you will arrive in daylight and the next minute it says you’ll have to bob around in circles for 12 hours till the sun comes up. We soon realized that we were not going to arrive Puerto Obeldia in the day light so we changed course and headed to another bay that had better anchoring, Puerto Carreto. We arrived just as the sun was setting, dropped our anchor and sat down when we noticed a small hand carved dugout coming our way. The welcome committee stopped by to say “hello” and welcome us to Panama. He handed us his line, and promptly jumped on the sugar scoop (whoa).  We both tried to communicate in our broken Spanish as he was a very nice Kuna Indian.

Puerto Carreto has a very small, primitive, ultra-traditional village in the northern corner of the bay.  Television, filming, and photography are banned.  Visitors are expected to leave the shore before dark, even though the villagers  are very friendly. Since we did not have documents to go ashore, we stayed on the boat.

In retrospect, we should have left Puetero Velero much later in the afternoon to try to arrive Puerto Obaldia in the morning – but hindsight is 20/20. Luckily, we were able to change course in time to arrive during the day light to another safe anchorage.  Had we waited until later in the day to change course we would not have been so lucky.  Puerto Obaldia will have to wait one more day for us.

DAY 2
• Total Daily Miles: 57
• Max Speed: 10.9 (from yesterday morning)
• Avg Speed: 6.1
• Hours Moving: 9
• Wind Avg: 15
• Wing Angle: Nose
• Wave Height Avg: >1 meter

Land a ho! Puerto Velero.

Land a ho! Puerto Velero.

Puerto Velero.

Puerto Velero.

See our next blog post to continue our voyage to Puerto Obaldia.

Cruiser

Cruisers Helping Cruisers

I find it hard to explain my relationships with other cruisers to my land lubber friends – do other cruisers have this problem too?  One type of relationship does not demean the other in any way, but they are uniquely different.

With other cruisers you have a shared way of life, comparable highs and lows, and similar problems and solutions to those problems (be it mechanical, electrical, plumbing, etc…).  You are thrust together into a situation where you know the other is transient and will move on and you may or may not see them again for months or years. Yet, you instinctively find yourself bonding and relying on other cruisers rather quickly.

In the small sailing community of Bonaire (there are 42 moorings), Matt and I have had to good fortune to meet, assist, benefit from, and enjoy many new cruiser friendships.  It is a community, where like so many other cruising communities, where you rely on others to help you.  And I just wanted to share a few examples of cruisers helping cruisers:

  1. Cindy, Jane, and Rose walk me daily (yes, I need to be walked to keep my joints from barking and having a regular walking group motivates us all).
  2. On one of our walks I mentioned our Splendide washer/dryer issue and Cindy on Tranquility mentioned she has had the same problem with her machine and might have spare parts.  Their machine has given up and they generously gifted us with multiple spare parts enabling us to repair our machine without having to ship parts from the U.S.
  3. About a week later, the fridge/freezer compressor decided to take a hiatus on Cindy’s boat, so we stored frozen tuna, salmon, steak and shrimp in our freezer until their compressor arrived – it was a challenge not to cook up some of that amazing fish!
  4. Jane has had some engine issues right when she needed to move into the marina to do rigging work.  Cindy, Lee, Matt, and I used our dinghies as propulsion (a whopping 3 km/hour) to get them to the marina and Dan and Rose assisted with docking – everything went smoothly!
  5. Moorings are far and few between this year with so many boats here from the hurricane ravaged islands and Bonaire’s 50th regatta anniversary, so when one boat moves another is on it immediately. Some moorings are temporary and you cannot be on them during the regatta, other moorings are better for smaller or shorter boats, and yet other spots have better moorings (concrete blocks vs. sand screws).  So, we pre-arranged a mooring swap:  when Cheetah II went into the marina, Sugar Shack took their mooring and Badger’s Set took our mooring.
  6. Wifi is a hot commodity on a boat and we are constantly shuffling to see where we can get the best signal.  Matt helped Ad Astra with some cables and connectors until they were set up and then worked with them to diagnosis and repair their wash down pump, engine, and compressor.
  7. Ad Astra has generously taken Matt and I out on several dive excursions, filled our tanks, taught us tricks and tips for better diving, loaned us equipment and oh so much more!
  8. Matt lent his muscles to Mara who is replacing their main sail and needed assistance removing their old sail since it is big and bulky.
  9. Pay it Forward:  Matt is always one of the first people in the water when a dinghy is in trouble offering a tow.  You never know when you will need one yourself.
  10. Earlier this year, Matt and I had taken our dinghy to shore (St. Barth’s) to go on a big hike and the tide came up sweeping Sweet N Low into the sea.  Many other boaters rushed to our aid (unbeknownst to us) to retrieve her and place her safely back on shore. Pay it forward.
  11. Bonaire did not have a forum where other cruisers could communicate (no morning net or Facebook page), so I created a Bonaire Cruisers Facebook group for information sharing.
  12. Matt and I met our friends Exit Strategy (Rose and Dan) and Jane at a dive site called “Cliff” but someone was already on that mooring, so we took another mooring that was fairly close.  Typically you are not supposed to tie two boats up to one mooring, but our dinghies are small so we thought why not.  We assembled our gear, jumped in and began our dive.  When Jane came up, she noticed that the dinghies were missing, WTF?  Some locals shouted that they were drifting away so she flagged a dive boat that picked Matt up so that they could retrieve the dinghies.  Luckily they had two huge engines and were able to get them before they made it to Venezuela – they had drifted several miles before Matt retrieved them.

 

Dive boat retrieving our dinghies that floated away.

Dive boat retrieving our dinghies that floated away.

This is all in addition to the shared recipe’s (thank you Exit Strategy and Noel’s Delight), tips for cleaning, cooking, baking, and sewing.  Life on a boat is so much easier with the feedback and guidance of others.

If it is not one thing it’s another as things break on a boat and parts are not always easy to come by on a remote island.  Having other cruisers to rely on makes it so much easier.

Good friends!

Me, Cindy and Jane.