Hi Everyone!
It was with heavy hearts when we threw the lines off from
the Antigua Yacht Club Marina. We anchored in the harbour for a couple of hours
so that we could prepare Marmax for her next leg across the Caribbean Sea. With
sails hoisted, we drifted about on the pick while the 3 new reefing lines were
marked off on the winches, general maintenance carried out and the spray dodger
taped up again as it had copped a fair bit of ocean waves since Glenys and I
had last strapped her up in Gibraltar. Leaving at 1.15 pm, we had a crisp south
easterly coming from behind us, headed downwind in a pleasant 10-15 knots on a
beautiful blue ocean.
What unbelievable luck! As we slipped alongside the
magnificent mountainous volcano of the island of Montseratt, facing the stern
and randomly chatting away to the gang when, in full vision, a huge burst of
white foam and spray shot up around 30 foot in the air. INSTANT PANIC!!! We had
not passed that close to a reef! “What the heck is THAT?!” I gasped. Next thing
this huge humpback whale came firing directly up in the air with his side fins
twisting sideways, with a mighty crash, it came crashing down. Wow! All hands
on our 3 sets of binoculars. You heard me mention our screams of delight
before, and you’ll hear it again here. On an otherwise uneventful long-distance
sail, the thrill of seeing such an incredible performance of nature really does
get the crew jumping around like a bunch of school kids watching fireworks!
There were at least 3 of these magnificent whales performing, shooting up with
a whoosh, then crashing with water in all directions. I wish they were ahead of
us rather than behind as we had to sail away from the show. Sadly, we did not get photos! It was a pretty
amazing welcome to the vast voyage we were beginning. Thank you, Universe!
There was nowhere near the apprehension (for lack of a
better word) beginning this crossing as when we started the Atlantic, The seas
are very flat by comparison, a lot more birds about, no dolphins but a constant
display of small flying fish which burst out of the waterlines and across the
waves like a giant throwing handfuls of diamonds across the surface of the sea;
all day long they skim along the surfaces in directional schools. Quite
mesmerising!
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| Bruce has a birthday aboard! |
Today we are into our 7th day of our crossing and
easily the most tedious yet! The weather has been so perfect, 10-22 knots
downwind. Still no dolphins to be seen anywhere, a few passing ships at night
and still miles of that pesky Sargassum seaweed streaming alongside us. This is
the bain of Les’s life as we are always egging him on to catch fish for us, but
the weed is just so thick. If it gets caught on his lures, he has to waste time
and energy constantly hauling the line into the stern of the boat, and besides
that, if we are sailing at a speed of over 5.5 knots, we are simply moving too
quick. At 7-8 knots, the rod is strapped up to the mast in the saloon biding
its time for the next “fish” opportunity. This run across to the Panama has,
fish wise, been as dead as a door nail to date.
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| Sargassum seaweed everywhere! |
A problem we do have on board, since the gas lines were
fixed in Antigua, the flames on our stove top have become “cooler” so my fancy
curries and paellas are now bordering on “stews”, which is frustrating. (which
is just a dent in my pride when I seek to cook authentic, tasty dishes for the
crew) You know when you get some gas bottles filled with a good gas, and
another gas bottle of gas will not burn as well because the mix is lousy? No,
it’s not that. It’s the same gas bottle. Worse than that…the fridge/freezer has
completely shut down! Effectively, we now have a fridge getting hotter, and a
stove getting colder!
We have just stocked the boat with our meats, salamis,
cheeses, veges etc. So, guess what we are having to eat up in a hurry? Food
that was supposed to get us through to at least the Galapogas Islands! So, the
UHT milk is now hot, so is the beer and water! We have a big tub of butter
which curiously does not require refrigeration, so we are keeping an eye on
that one. Another variable to all this, is the fact we are moving towards the
equator and the humidity and heat is getting heavier by the day. The beer cans
are swilling about in a bucket of salt-water, while the closest to being drunk
are wrapped in wet towels. Is Les happy?
Bruce drinks rum and water, he’s okay.
Glenys and I are rum and coke girls, so the coke cans have joined the dance
with the beer cans in the bucket of water on the floor of the forehead
toilet/shower as this seems to be the coolest place. The seawater is about 28
degrees outside in case you are wondering why it’s not over the side. And a great deal of side swipes from an uneven
ocean, the hatches are battened down. Sometimes we sneak them open in our
forehead “head” (toilet/shower/ensuite) just so we can breathe but woe betide
anyone who leaves one open in a sea! Les and I have a small hatch open in the
head which forms part of the new beer cooling factory and I figure, since it is
effectively a “wet room”, the occasional wave on the lee side of the boat will
not do any damage but it will make the beer more drinkable. By opening the door
up, the air flows from there, through to the saloon and gallery areas. I dread
anything going mouldy as we head to the Pacific. Thank God Marmax is well
equipped with Heller fans and, now and then, we are spoilt when Bruce cranks up
the generator to run the air-conditioning – its brilliant, especially when we
are in the depths of teaching Janelle at Marmax College!
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A typical mundane scene in the saloon whilst
under sail - Les watching a movie |
We started getting thunder and lightning 180 nautical miles
from Panama and a gentle drizzle of rain as we got closer to the Venezuelan Coast. Glenys was liaising with our Panama agent, “Eric” to organise everything
for the Canal transit. Now we must fix, or perhaps worse, replace the big
fridge; this definitely throws a spanner in the works. Hopefully there is a
refrigeration guy around. This is not expected to be one of the most hospitable
of ports, but we are attempting to get into Shelter Bay Marina for 2-3 days to
sort this fridge problem and restore Marmax with fresh food again (hopefully).
In the meantime the wind dropped completely off and we had
to motor just to keep moving and to avoid that dreadful clanging of sails and
rigging when you have a yacht flapping about in an uneven ocean.
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| The idiots from up forehead |
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| Glenys and Janelle shampooing on the deck |
The Marmax College curriculum is under full steam for
Janelle and, as her English teacher, I am happy to report that we have already
completed 90% of her year of work. Now it is my job to ensure she remembers it
all and keeps her antennas up and lively as we go over it all again. The little
monkey! We have had no dictionary or Thesaurus on board for lessons which as you
can imagine, had become a major handicap for her learning for Year 10. Remember,
there is no wi-fi aboard!
While in Tortola in the BVI’s, Les found another yachties
book swap in the marina office. Low and behold, he scored a beautiful
Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus. “Shhh…” Les whispers to me. “Don’t
tell Janelle about it, I’ll give her as a present when we are back out at sea!”. Two days later, moments before throwing the lines off the
marina to head away to sea, Janelle sidles up to me in the cockpit, sighs with
relief and reveals to me that she had gone into with Bruce to complete the
marina paperwork when we had arrived in Tortola and in the office there was a
book swap with a stinky dictionary on the shelf. “Well”, she says, “Thank God
no one found it and now we are leaving”. Let me reveal to you that we really
struggled to get this girl interested in schoolwork at the start of the trip;
she has many higher priorities in her mind! Bruce has suggested downloading the
book earlier on. Little did Janelle know that Uncle Les was one step ahead of
her, had already swooped on it. The delight on Les’s face when he presented
that dictionary to her at sea was just gold! Janelle was crushed while he
stomped around like a victorious Indian Chief with all of us howling with
laughter. The Webster is very popular and used constantly much to Janelle’s
disgust. High five Les!
With the boat rhythmically lurching as she sails along, the
food, drinks, plates, you-name-it are continually being picked up, mopped up,
cleaned up as they jump out of opening fridges, cupboards and cubby holes. Poor
Glenys is constantly doing 4 things at once, so if she takes her eye off something,
while doing something else, she suffers. Those of you who know her will
appreciate this trait. While we all stuff things up, one often wonders why it
is she, who so often, is on her hands and knees cleaning up. At this point, we
now have only 3 porcelain cups left with handles.
More messages in bottles have been thrown over the side by
Janelle, we are all speeding through some very large novels, we sleep when we
can, lift weights, play music, nurse our huge bruises which are accumulating, draw pictures on vegetables, Les has a bit of bark missing off him from his knocks. Yesterday he had to
resort to playing “beads” with Janelle to keep himself occupied until 5 o’clock
sundowner timed! My son, Nick, downloaded a hundred or so movies for us in
Barcelona to a hard drive. This hard drive is one of the most precious pieces
of equipment aboard Marmax I believe! Thanks again Nick!
Now moving this close to the coast, it was time for a pirate
briefing. We do have a full game plan if we are in any sort of danger. These
baby ain’t stopping for no one! We have learnt a few strategies from others
before us, so we are feeling comfortable about it all. One simply must prepare
for the worst whether we like it or not. It is rather spooky to be gliding
along in full moonlight on a dead flat sea knowing a notorious jungle coastline
is coming up. It was so quiet when on watch, you are quite conscious that a boat
could actually sneak up and board behind you quite easily. We would feel a lot
more comfortable being approached by another unidentified boat in 25-30 knots
and a 4 metre swell!
More birds, more fish, more insects and oppressive tropical
heat started arriving as we got closer. Time for a swim. Over the side, 4 of us
went, sheer bliss! Yes…that water still an incredible luminous blue, you can
see forever under water. It seems, not quite forever! 20 hours on, Les caught a
beaut yellow-fin tuna and as he was gill and gutting it, upon biffing the first
lot over, 4 enormous sharks (looked like Tiger Sharks to us Aussies) came
zooming up behind us. OMG! Glenys, forget that swim today! Frightening to think
we had been swimming not so long before. We had our bit of fun with them, Les
had to abandon fishing after that as it was pointless; these guys were in a
feeding frenzy by now!
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| Our dolphins finally arrive! |
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| Shark fodder |
Finally had a visit from some speckled dolphins after the
sharks disappeared, then spent the rest of the day motoring and occupied
watching enormous schools of tuna charging about chasing flying fish…acres of
them!
Early morning dawned and, surrounded by marching rainstorms,
we sighted land and arrived at the entrance to Panama. The first city we had
seen in 3 months, 40+ cargo ships lined up and waiting to get through the
canal, all shapes and sizes! Through the massive sea wall and slid through a
narrow entrance into a little piece of totally unexpected paradise! What a
lovely marina facility! The marina guys were so friendly and welcoming, and we were
delighted to find we had this big sparkling swimming pool, laundry, mini-mart,
chandlery, restaurant and bar right at the end of our marina arm. Unbelievable!
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| Always a story about Glenys! A day out of Panama, Glenys announces that we have no Panama courtesy flag so she pulls apart the St Maarten flag and created this very stylish, individual flag. As we are entering the seawall, Bruce remarked that it was up-side-down, so here she is making a very quick sewing repair! |
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| The final product! |
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| Time to navigate through some ships waiting to get into the Panama |
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| The huge seawall entrance to Panama |
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| The entrance to Shelter Bay Marina - What a surprise! |
Most of the boats here are very heavily laden with ocean crossing gear aboard,
lots of travelling families from England, France and South Africa. The mix of
accents is really fun, and we have thoroughly enjoyed meeting so many
interesting people, swapped books, clothes, recipes, experiences, and when the
beer and rum is only $1.50 to $2 at Happy Hour, well, guess where you will find
us! Apart from the lack of English-speaking officials and red tape making life
so difficult, our time here has been most memorable and nothing like we
expected. We are on the edge of a jungle, seriously, in the middle of nowhere.
When you are in the pool, there are vultures sitting in the palm trees watching
over everything. Early in the morning you can hear the Howler Monkeys sounding
like a kennel full of dogs. The rainforest wraps around the marina complex; we
could be anywhere in Far North Queensland here. So much like the Daintree, only
different animals and birdlife. It was great to hear birds again! The Caribbean
sadly lacked this due to there being no trees after the hurricanes.
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| Our cool marina swimming pool - quite a relief in this humid weather! |
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| Marmax safely docked in Shelter Bay Marina |
Yesterday we clambered aboard the free Shelter Bay Marina
bus into Colon. Safety in numbers! It was a 20-seater coaster type. We lurched
and swayed our way through a jungle road fringed by lush growth and sugar cane
and protected by an army security outpost. Through a derelict and abandoned accommodation
precinct, bizarrely, through new road developments which were being put in
place for a gigantic suspension bridge which is already proudly stretching
across the canal. It is massive, impressive and so seemingly out of place in
this lower socioeconomic environment. When we got on that bus, we really had no
idea what to expect so it was a bit of a neat surprise to actually drive across
both of the locks while gazing up at these huge cargo ships above us as we went
by.
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| Waiting to catch the marina bus to Colon - safety in numbers |
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| Crossing the Panama Canal locks by bus |
Have any of you ever been to Colon? It is the type of place
you would be curious to visit once in your life, but a relief to leave. Half
the guys got out at the Supermarket, but, always up for an adventure, we stayed
on the bus to go to a place called the “FreeZone”. Sounded dangerous, um…yes,
it was. Until we got to the guarded entrance with armed security buzzing
everywhere, we didn’t know the “FreeZone” was the Duty-Free shopping zone. Der!
We had to show passports and a Customs type of procedure to get into the
shopping area. It was full of derelict commercial buildings with an enormous
amount of security grills, guards, procedures everywhere. You go into a shop,
we had to leave our small backpacks with either a guard at the door, or you
could not come in. You are not allowed to try clothes on, just buy them.
Passport shown for every Visa transaction. Electronically “wanded” outside the bank,
bank unlocked with a key so you can get in, another guard on the other side to
check you out. The place was insanely cheap! Now we have a full appreciation of
how inflated our prices are back home!
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Colon- the type of place you would be curious
to visit once in your life, but a relief to leave |
They had all the big brand names, loads
of wholesale shops for merchants, lots of gorgeous traditional food stalls
cooked from open fires and under various forms of shelters in the streets, very
little English spoken or written and it drove us mad having these little shop
assistants standing a foot or so from you the minute you walk into the shop.
They obviously have their problems there. The streets were filthy but now and
then you could score a smile from someone in the street. It was a whole enclosed
city, worth seeing once and a great adventure for us all.
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| The taxi ride to the supermarket |
Leaving was interesting. We had to catch a taxi back to the
supermarket so we could link up with the bus. There is no way you would walk
there outside the guarded compound where we were! If you just adopt a useless “I’m
a tourist look”, a taxi will sweep in alongside. So, this tiny beaten up Fiat stops.
The 120kg+taxi driver is an Albino native, a heck of a nice guy. There are 6 of
us that need a ride, we have another Captain sticking to our group, “Johnny”. 6
people will not fit in a Fiat…or can we?? “Jump in” he gestures (English is not
an option here) What?? 6 of us plus our bags? Bags get jammed in the boot, Les
in the front seat, Johnny, Bruce, Janelle, Glenys and I in the back seat, all
in hysterics! We had to go through the security checkout. The guard peers in
our windows to check our faces, no problem with looking straight at Glenys’s
back side which was jammed into the window; he must have been wondering where
her eyes were. That was a pass. Opened the boot and checked it out. All good to
go. Phew! Found the fabulous supermarket, cheap, cheerful, every brand
imaginable, clean, first decent meat we had seen for sale since at sea; wonderful
helpful staff. What a land of contrasts! Filled half the bus up with our groceries,
the rest of the yachties arrived soaked to the bone with a torrential downpour
in action and we merrily took off back to the marina, a 45- minute ride
through, what was now mud most of the way. The driver told us to buy a lotto
ticket, we had scored a safe bus passage through both locks on the Panama Canal
again without having to wait an hour plus as the other buses had. Hallelujah!
We are having great difficulty getting official authorisation
to get into Galapogas’ and are considering visiting the Ecuadorian Embassy in
Panama City once we get through the canal locks.
This was going to be a blog about the Panama Canal transit
through the locks, but life is just so full of action, we’ll sneak this story
in before the next one. I suspect that we’ll have plenty to report from
tomorrow. We begin our canal transit from midday today and apparently it will
take two days to get through. Read all about it in the coming story; we can’t
wait for this one!
It feels like we are heading home now although we still have
so far to go. We are leaving the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Caribbean
in our wake; what an amazing adventure it has been!
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| Marmax is ready to roll and Panama lines and fenders have arrived! |
All is well on the good ship Marmax, and we hope all is well
with you all too!
If you want to follow us on a live link through the Panama in a few hours, click onto https://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html
We will be going through the Gatun Locks.
Cheers from the Marmax Crew!
Bruce, Glenys, Janelle, Les and Debbie
(Nearly forgot to tell you - the fridge is fixed!)
Bring it on!
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