Nikan News

November, 2011

2011-11-14T10:37:00.000-08:00

We reached our destination

Rainbows of flowers cover the only village on the spectacular, volcanic Robinson Crusoe Island (the Juan Fernandez archipelago), today having the population of 600 of very welcoming, friendly people. It was Scotsman Alexander Selkirk, who at the beginning of 18th century spent four years and four months scanning the cobalt horizon for some ship to save him and was an inspiration for the fictional Dafoe's Robinson Crusoe character and in whose honor the island was renamed. Nowadays there is one fishing village, famous for the Juan Fernandez lobster, which is still recovering from 2010 tsunami, that hit them at 4 am with no warning whatsoever. Two percent of population lost their life that early morning, as well as many houses were washed out to the sea and reconstruction is still in progress. As we were leaving Robinson Crusoe behind us, we both agreed, this is one of the most beautiful islands we ever visited. Another five days of peaceful sailing and motor sailing found us in front of Chacao Canal, where the current runs up to 8 kn and so one has to time oneself carefully to get safely through. Now we are finally at Puerto Montt, where after 18 months Nikan will come out of the water and get a new antifoulling paint in preparation for the summer cruising in this area. There are at least nine other cruisers' sailboats that spent winter here and now are preparing to be on their way, some south to cross to the Atlantic ocean, some north to warm waters again and some west to cross the Pacific. As far as we know, we'll be cruising this area alone, and all of them are telling us, how beautiful this cruising ground is. Something we are looking forward to!

October, 2011

2011-10-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

Leaving the flowering desert behind us...
“Desierto florido” is how they call this phenomenon that occurs only every three to ten years, when the parched land of desert wakes up to life after a long period of inactivity and starts to blossom, due to the correct mixture of humidity and temperature. We were lucky this was the year! Now, we are back in Valparaiso region (which we visited this spring - for you, fall for us), precisely in a modern yacht club, in Concon, about 20 minutes by bus from Vina del Mar, and we are waiting for a weather window to go either to Valdivia or directly to Puerto Montt. The spectacular shows of bio-luminescent plankton during the nights, as dolphins raced along Nikan, or of any other fish which disturbed the water, slowly disappeared as we moved south and for days we have observed no sea life, except several sighting of whales, one just few meters from us, but on sighting us diving down, to be only seen again from some distance. The spring here is in full progress, and all the flowers everywhere and trees in blossom confused me to such a degree, that for a while I thought the Santa material in stores is some leftover from Christmas, until it hit me that Christmas is not gone, but just around the corner! On the way down we stopped in Yacht clubs of Caldera, on the edge of desert, and than Coquimbo, both of them very welcoming with friendly, curious people, as they don't see too many foreign boats. From Coquimbo we made a little excursion to La Serena, Chile's second oldest city with some beautiful colonial architecture and churches. From now on (latitude 33 South) the weather is going to be influenced more and more by southern depressions, so J-P is going to be quite busy with weather charts!

September, 2011

2011-09-14T08:48:00.000-07:00

Getting ready
Our tank is full, yesterday J-P made two taxi-trips to the gas station to bring some 280 l of diesel in preparation for our passage down south. Today it's cutting down and adjusting the new chimney we brought with us from Canada. The new battery is in place, the local dive diver is reserved to scrub the bottom of Nikan from all the weed that made it's home there, all kinds of touch ups are done, bottom plates painted (so the condensation from cold water is easily wiped off), vacuum is out and being used daily - the spring cleaning is in full progress. The sun is showing it's face almost daily now, temperature is going up, nights are warmer, it's hard to imagine we are at the beginning of spring, as we just returned from the full blown summer in Canada. City is sprucing itself for the warm days ahead as well, flowers are being planted everywhere, structures on the beach varnished, houses being repaired and painted, although one can still see signs of a serious lack of money for city's infrastructures. At the next weather window we will cast off the dock lines and say good-bye to Iquique after almost six months we spent here. At the end we are pleased with our choice to winter here, we didn't have any rain at all, temperature was always pleasant, the fish market around the corner, food stores close by, pleasant, several kilometers long boardwalk with lots to observe around, especially surfers and para-gliders who finish their long flights from nearby cliffs on the beach, many prowling homeless dogs, never too skinny as people here feed anything loose, including hundreds of pigeons. We also witnessed many peaceful protests by students, and all kinds of military parades almost every weekend, as well as weekly shows of local talents open to public on the main square. Now some 1400 miles separate us from our next cruising ground – the land of fjords, canals, islands, snow-capped volcanoes of Southern Chile – we hear the scenery is spectacular! and we are looking forward to it, despite the harsher conditions we will encounter, but are ready for.

June, 2011

2011-06-27T08:48:00.001-07:00

We walked on the moon: San Pedro de Atacama
It began with a very unusual event for us: while sleeping in an overnight bus, suddenly, at 2:00 am we wake up and see, that everybody is getting up and gathering their belongings. We are at some kind of check point in the middle of nowhere, as far as we can see, and we notice that everybody has to pick up their luggage and open it for an inspection by some kind of agents. Weird...as we are not crossing any border. Pinochet is dead, but it looks like the system structure remains the same. Apparently, this is a control point to nail smugglers of prohibitive substances? We are back on the bus about 30 minutes later. We arrive in Calama at 4:00 am, and, another weird thing, we are supposed to continue sleeping in the standing, by now quite freezing bus till our connection to San Pedro at 8 am, but get kicked out at 7 am and have to wait outside, as everything around is closed, including the bus station. Finally, at 10 am we are in San Pedro! a little town in the middle of the Atacama Desert and one of the most sought after destination in the northern Chile. From this town wide variety of tours are available through the Atacama desert and the pre-Andean summits. The town is situated in the centre of the most spectacular nature scenery of the region. On the main street tour operators, souvenir shops and restaurants line-up one after the other. Before heading to a higher altitude we decide to stay for a few days at this level to acclimatize, and start by exploring the Valley de la Luna, one of the driest places on the planet and the Valley de la Muerte. WOW! surreal lunar landscapes with sand dunes, incredible rock formations - yes we walked on the moon - sunsets here are spectacular and create a superb changing of color all around us and on the distant ring of volcanoes. After three days of perfect weather we are ready to tackle the higher grounds and higher altitude, although some heavy clouds started to roll in during the night. We begin with the Laguna de Chaxa, a National reserve for flamingos. These birds love the salt flats, don't mind the cold, and are concentrated in one of the biggest lithium reserve in the world. As we continue up, we see something, not many Chileans had ever seen here, snow at 3000m! Our tour guide is quite exited, snapping photos as we drive - none of us are though, as snow flurries and no-visibility forces us to turn around. We see nothing beyond 30 meters. (Yes, even here they are talking about unusual weather patterns.) We don't see the lagoons, we don't see the world's highest geyser field, all the roads to these attractions and Bolivia are closed for at least the next three days. We even experience some rain, although this region receives only 14mm of rain a year, and not at this time! Mother nature has the upper hand. So we had seen what many Chileans had never seen, but we don't see all that we came to see. Maybe we'll be back later.

May, 2011

2011-05-18T17:50:00.000-07:00

Exploration of central Chile
It takes some twenty-five hours from Iquique to reach Santiago by bus, and so we took an advantage of quite inexpensive internal flights and hopped on the plane. We had an awesome view from the window of the Andes and could see, if traveling by bus, we would have been going for hours and hours through the brownness of Atacama Desert. Our first destination was Valparaiso, only 120 km from Santiago. It's a charming city, with many hills (42 of them!), a maze of steep streets, stairways piled high with colorful, often crumbling mansions, covered with graffiti, that the locals are quite proud of, as they are of the fondness Pablo Neruda, the poet, had of this place. (By-the-way, Pablo Neruda took his name from the Czech poet Jan Neruda, not because he admired his poetry, but because he took fancy to that name!) To explore the wine routes, one either has to take very expensive tours, or rent a car, which we did and headed for the best established wine region called Colchagua Valley. We drove through a beautiful autumn scenery, low hills lined with row upon row of vines, the sun shinning through falling leaves, colors of nature indescribable. This is the time of harvest and so the best time to visit and taste some wine. We took a fancy to Carmenere red, one of the wines produced here and recommended by Chileans. On the first day of Easter weekend, and that was the only day we had some rain, we drove to the coast to visit unofficial surf capital Pichilemu. That was also the only place where it was quite chilly and we couldn't but admire the brave surfers in the freezing ocean, and although they wore wetsuits, they had no gloves or hoods and, many of them bare foot, while the watching Chileans, or tourists were shivering in winter jackets and boots. After two days we turned around and headed to the mountains, to one of the favorite weekends destination for Santiaguinos, to Cajon (canyon) Maipu, where we spent the rest of the week in a beautiful, private nature reserve, where we could easily hike on their property, which included some water falls as well. The last week we toured Santiago and felt for the first time, this is a town we could live in. Modern, creative, green, less hectic than other big South American cities we had seen so far - we were sorry to finish our stay there. Now we are back in Iquique, where the whole town is getting spruced up for May 21, celebrating the Battle of Iquique of 1879 and Naval glories in Chilean military history. Workers are washing windows, painting flag posts, polishing bronze plaques, cleaning bird shit from statues, practicing marches and decorating the city in general. We'll be part of this celebration, as they asked us to sail with Nikan out of the harbour (at 6:30 AM!) to welcome with other local sailboats Esmeralda, the 113 m long brigantine of four masts, the training ship for Chilean Navy. Should be fun!

March, 2011

2011-03-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

Iquique (northern Chile)
We are late in updating our blog, but we haven't had a decent Internet until now, here in Iquique, in the hemisphere, where the seasons are opposite to yours. From Lima we motor-sailed along this incredibly arid coast and it took us one week to get to Arica, the first Chilean town, averaging about four knots (7.5 km/hr), against light winds and at times strong current. We didn't stop along the coast, since Peruvian authorities are extremely difficult to deal with and the fees are outrageous (entry and exit in any port in Peru, $900 US minimum). But what a dramatic, barren coast!, and although desertic, we have never tired from looking at it - the light changes during the day paint these hills in all spectrum of colour. From Arica we took a tour to Lauca national park and we reached 4500m driving through some stunning scenery in approximately three hours! which made all of us, tourists, quite queasy and breathless (headache, tired, loss of appetite), and although they served us nice “almuerzo (lunch)”, only the young ones were able to consume it. J-P didn't smoke the entire day - and that is something! After Arica we moved to Iquique with a day stop in the bay of Pisagua. Here in Chile it's an entirely different feeling from Peru, the authorities here are very cruiser friendly, with a well organized safety maritime control, which we had a chance to experience during the tsunami alert. We never felt a thing, since we spent it out at sea drifting with all the cargo ships and some fishing boats for 24 hr, but on our return were told, the sea raised by 2m and some of the fishing boats that stayed in the port suffered damage. We are presently in the driest desert on this planet, land of dust, rocks and steep hills, as well as by surfer friendly beaches with quite a cold ocean. From here we went to visit old nitrite mining towns, now ghost towns, with stops in oasis villages and by the slopes with geoglyphs from many years ago. It's quite unbelievable, that already from around 7000 BC this land was inhabited and cultures prospered for all these years in this inhospitable environment. Originally we were going to winter in Valparaiso, but after speaking with many locals, we were convinced to stay up north for this coming winter, since here we are out of the storm area and the sun and the warm weather is guaranteed all year long. So our plan for the next six months, with a base here, is to visit Chile by land, as well as Bolivia, Argentina and eventually pay a visit to Canada as well.

January, 2011

2011-01-23T15:30:00.000-08:00

Yacht Club Peruano, Calleo (suburb of Lima)
At New Year we toasted all of you from Paita, Peru, where we anchored for a rest after zigzagging around Cabo Blanco for two days (two days - 60 miles – a new record in snail pace for Nikan!). This time the weather and the sea were much calmer, also it was considerably warmer than at our first attempt in September, which is winter in this part of the planet. After that it was mostly smooth sailing, motor-sailing, with a rest at Bayovar and Isla Lobos Afuera, a tiny taste of Galapagos, minus tortoises. Lima underwent incredible change for better since our last visit some 20+ years ago. Renewed urbanization amazes J-P, while I still can't get over how clean this city is with parks almost around every corner, the cleanest place since Cuba. Lots of outdoor cafes remind us of St-Denis or Crescent street – wow, what a treat, espresso machine in every one of them! The yacht club, where we secured a safe mooring, with water taxi at our disposal is a very friendly place, and is also located in a very safe area. Although we are not far from equator, and in full summer here, it gets quite chilly as soon as the sun disappears behind clouds or the horizon. Of course nothing like the brutal cold that awaits us in Canada, where both of us are flying to visit and take care of our parents. We will resume our navigation south around mid February, while it's still summer here, before autumn blows in even more cold air and harsh winds. Hasta luego, amigos!

December, 2010

2010-12-24T17:03:00.000-08:00

Nikan's renovation is completed!
For the past two months I had been reminded of what I definitely do not miss from my working life, and that's an alarm clock, in my case J-P, who goes to bed and gets up with chickens! It's been quite hard to function in all the mess of renovation, and at the same time to have two more people around (in 33 ft boat), marine carpenter and his helper, who showed up at 8 a.m. exactly, 6 days a week (yes, people here work Saturday!), and took over the interior of Nikan, usually for the whole day. But now, all is done and we are very happy with the result. We are planning to be on our way by the 27th of December and will toast you all, hopefully from the calm sea, January 1st, 2011!

November, 2010

2010-11-26T17:40:00.000-08:00

Nikan is 30 years old: now with a new interior!
After two weeks in Puerto Lucia, J-P woke up one morning and announced we are going to remodel Nikan's interior. (I knew something was brewing in his brain, since for days he has been staring at nothing and everything with a dreamy expression on his face.) Two months later, after six sheets of Formica, three liters of varnish, one liter of polyurethane paint, two and a half sheets of plywood, 30 linear feet of different shape moldings and hours and hours of sanding, Nikan's interior is starting to look as we imagined. Stewart Yacht Services provided us with the manpower: one very, very shy carpenter with slow, but golden hands (don't even have guts to take my camera out, let alone to ask him if I can take his picture!) and his helper, both of them working without stop, starting 8 am., half an hour for lunch, till 5 pm., no coffee breaks as we are used to, no brakes at all (majority of people don't drink here coffee anyway, even though it's one of Ecuador's major export - and if they do, it's an instant kind). J-P assists daily with various tasks, sometimes I pitch in as well, although my main function remains typical of a woman: meals preparation, vacuuming, swiping...etc. It has been busy, busy eight weeks. Unfortunately J-P has to fly back to Montreal, since his father is quite ill, so I'll try to step into his shoes as a project manager and we'll be on our way as soon as possible, since our visas are expiring shortly.

September, 2010

2010-09-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

How we left for Chile and ended up in Ecuador, Puerto Lucia, Libertad.
Although being three months earlier than the recommended time to take this passage to Chile, we made a try by the coastal route. Unfortunately, the conditions around Cabo Blanco (Peru) with waves of 2-3 m, with interval of 3-5 seconds, with the cold Humboldt current (nights were freezing, had to put winter gear on, including warm hat!) and the wind against us as well, we didn't progress very fast, sometimes, loosing ground as well. After nine hours of patiently waiting for conditions to improve, we took the decision to go back 120 miles of 220 miles we already covered, this time with the wind in the back, which made for some really pleasant sailing. After five days at anchor, debating each day the departure, we decided to put into Puerto Lucia Yacht Club for three months and try again in December, when the sea is supposedly calmer, less wind and less cold, as this will bring us to the beginning of summer in this hemisphere. It's a very comfortable private club, with big swimming pool, well equipped gym room, everything we need close by. Salinas, few km away, is the summer playground of the wealthy Ecuadorians, right now quite deserted, as it's the winter season here. We will hit the road again, as there are many places in this beautiful country we still didn't cover. Overall, no complain from this crew of two!

August, 2010

2010-08-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

Back to Bahia from Canada
It started with a phone call from the car rental office, where we left the car just minutes ago, before taking a taxi to the airport. They informed us there is a damage to the front of the car, although we didn't notice anything (and why didn't we walked around the car when we dropped the keys off??) Than close to an hour wait on the runway in Washington almost had us miss the plane from Bogota to Guayaquil, where we arrived just after 1 AM. Surprise! although we expected it - no luggage - so after filling up the claim form, we hopped on the taxi that took us to our reserved hostel. Another surprise - no room free, although our reservation was in their book, printed and clear, but somehow the hostel couldn't understand 1 AM doesn't equal to 13 hrs. After a short discussion, the guy at least called around to find us another hotel, returned our deposit, but of course no courtesy of paying us another taxi to our new destination. In the morning we awoke to our bed rattling like crazy. What's going on? Earthquake! Could the building collapse on top of us? After another trip to the airport, we discovered our luggage is still sitting in Washington! (Yes, they do expect you to go and pick up your luggage at the airport.) Finally, day 3 - our luggage arrives, we hop on the bus, get comfortable, when an hour later, in the middle of nowhere, another surprise! The bus breaks down. After sweating in the standing bus for an hour, a new one arrives - get comfortable again, movie is playing – oops – a filling from my tooth falls off! What else? Nothing. All ends well, we are back in Bahia. Nikan is still where we left it, a bit dusty, but no more surprises. We are cleaning and preparing to depart August 28, with the big tide to cross the bank here, direction Chile. It's going to be a tough ride, winds and current against us, could take about three weeks, if not longer...

June, 2010

2010-06-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

Across Ecuador
We got the first glimpse of the spectacular countryside from the 8 hr bus ride from Bahia to Quito, also the first cool weather we had in a long, long while. The beautiful colonial city, the old town's narrow streets are full of restored churches, monasteries, plazas, also car exhaust fumes, yelling street vendors, streets full of people. It was fun to be in a city for a while, but Andes countryside was our favorite. And what a countryside that is, full of gently rolling hills in contrast to high volcanoes (mostly its' peaks hidden in clouds, although we did manage to see some snow), rivers, waterfalls. We were amazed, how the agriculture is carried out high on the mountains, amazed how farmers can work on such steep hills, where we got out of breath just hiking up for some spectacular view. We enjoyed steaming thermal baths in Banos, saw many, many waterfalls, and on the day we were leaving, Volcano Tungurahua surprised everybody with a first serious eruption since 1999, and when we arrived to Guaranda, over 100 km away, the whole town was covered in volcanic ashes, all face masks sold out, although at the end we managed to buy some. Air traffic was stopped from Guayaguil for several days and we just hope there won't be any repeated eruption and the wind won't carry ashes in the same direction, as that is the airport we'll be flying from to visit back home. I'll be leaving in few days, while I have to admit I am quite jealous of J-P's plan to go back to a beautiful Cuenca – the colonial jewel of the south (with international restaurants, art galleries, cool cafes and bars) - to take 2 or 3 weeks of Spanish course. We spent there several days, enjoyed some good food, and everywhere we went in Ecuador we really took advantage of almuerzos, which means lunch, where you receive big plate of soup, main dish, could be any meat or fish, or in case of Cuenca also vegetarian dish, juice and often a desert, all this for under $2!! We visited many colorful markets, where the prices are cheap and one can get any local craft, but we were disappointed in the materials they use for textile, mostly synthetics rather than natural fabric. But we weren't disappointed in the countryside and when we'll be back from Canada, we intent to explore this diversified country some more, before our visa here will expire.

May, 2010

2010-05-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador
Our pilot-adviser finally arrived as the sun was going down, although we have been scheduled to be ready to depart “the flats” as they call the waiting area for the yachts crossing the Panama Canal, by 16:00 hrs, and immediately we proceeded towards Gatun Locks. There was just one other sailboat crossing that day, and as for once we were the bigger ship, after rafting together (up to three boats can be tied together), we became the tow boat for going through the locks, with our military-style adviser Emile taking control of both sailboats' safety. Once through, with the adviser gone, attached to the mooring on Gatun Lake where we were to spend the night, our job for the day wasn't finished yet, as we had to take care of and feed our four hired line handlers, as we had to do for the next day as well, supplying everybody with endless drinks and food (my job!). By 06:30 hrs our new adviser for the day arrived and each sailboat under its own power crossed the lake, where once again tied together, under cloudy skies, heavy rain and lightening we passed through Miraflores Locks and by 15:00 hrs finally welcomed the Pacific Ocean, leaving the storm behind us. We spent three days in Panama City, provisioning and visiting and also took an advantage of an excellent health care in Panama to visit the dermatologist as well as the dentist. With clean teeth and J-P's two suspicious looking moles removed, we raised the sails first for Perlas Islands, than for Ecuador. We had a very little wind for the first four days of our trip, enjoying visits by dolphins in the calm sea, observing turtles floating by, birds (hey, we even had a hitchhiker with us for the whole night, one with bright red legs, first pruning itself thoroughly and than sleeping on our balcony, taking off again with the first rays of sun), flying fish, night sky full of bright stars reflecting in mirror-like Pacific, its surface only disturbed by long gentle swells. Unexpected patch of bad weather heading our way, and after some reflection, made us turn Nikan towards the Colombian coast, which gave us a chance to see a rarely visited port by any sailboat, and also the bustling Tumaco City, full of people, cars, motorcycles, fumes...and to buy some fresh fruit and vegetables. After five days we lifted the anchor again and two days later we reached our original destination of Puerto Amistad in Bahia de Caraquez. Right now, anchored in the river, surrounded by mountains, with some refreshing breeze, lower humidity than we ever had for this past year in tropics, we wait to be cleared by the customs, so we can go and explore this town and beyond.

March, 2010

2010-03-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

Shelter Bay Marina, Colon
Owning is maintaining! This means once a year Nikan has to be hauled-up and all her systems have to be checked and revised. Just to give you an idea:
• Propulsion: engine, sails, winches, running and standing rigging, mast, propeller
• Ground tackle: chain, anchor lines, windlass
• Energy: solar panels, wind generator, alternator
• Hull: anti-fouling, hull and deck top coat, deck anti-slip paint
• Interior: complete spring clean-up
• Mobility: dingy and outboard engine
• Safety: life raft, flares, all instruments inspection
• Future: spare parts inventory and renewal
Living on the hard adds some complications in this hot and humid environment - the inboard bathroom and sinks are out of order, boat access is by a ladder only (lots of! up and down), dust everywhere – and so we try to limit this time to minimum, which is not always easy, as the speed of having anything done is not on a par with North America (endless phone calls, suppliers' follow-ups, internet research and lots of diplomacy is required to get parts on time and services performed. But after a bit more than two weeks we are glad to report Nikan is back in the water. Of course there are still things that remain to be done, but we can now start to organize the transit through the Panama Canal and to get prepared for our next destination – Ecuador.

February, 2010

2010-02-26T20:16:00.000-08:00

Colon, Panama

4 ½ months since the last entry and we are once again back in Colon, a jump-off point on the Caribbean side of Panama for crossing the canal. Nikan is going on dry and we have to tackle a long list of preventive maintenance projects J-P prepared, besides the annual "spring cleaning", as everything is saturated and covered with salt. The first two months I spent in Toronto, helping my mother with her rehabilitation after the stroke she suffered. Meanwhile J-P sailed alone to Cartagena, Colombia, where he waited for me very patiently, taking long walks in this very beautiful colonial city. Very hot and humid during the day, pleasantly cool in the evening, as I had the chance to find out during the three days I spent there, after I joined him there by mid December, and by which time he was anxious to move on. The last two months, without any Internet anywhere, we cruised through the San Blas archipelago of over 340 islands, many uninhabited, full of coconut palms and sand beaches, with some unbelievably beautiful “National Geographic” snorkeling. Others, home to semi-autonomous Kuna Indians, who have best preserved their culture and traditions out of all the tribes in the Americas. They believe, that money changes one's way of being (selfish, greedy...etc.), although today, even in the most traditional villages we saw signs of civilization one needs money for (solar panels, cell phones, battery radios...and other little pleasantries of modern life). Until a few years ago coconuts were the official means of exchange, now they are sold to Colombian trading boats one sees all the time passing by. Another mean of making money is by selling to cruisers “molas”, which are beautiful traditional blouses Kuna women wear. The most famous part of this dress are the panels that decorate the front and the back of the blouse, made by cutting and sawing different layers of colourful cloth into all kinds of figurative or geometric designs (ex.: see the header of this blog). San Blas is a very enjoyable cruising ground in calm water, heavy swells stopped by the many very healthy reefs, with picturesque islands, where the traditional villages blend into surrounding landscape. Kuna people are always polite and friendly with a big smile. Although Panama is a very interesting country, after the nine months we spent here it's time to move on.

October, 2009

2009-10-05T09:25:00.000-07:00

Shelter Bay, Panama
Howling monkeys are everywhere. A lonely sloth, hanging on a branch across the little stream that we are exploring on the dinghy is so close, we have to watch not to bump into him-her? Parrots are screeching as they fly from one bank of the river to the other one, always in pairs. And we even have a bit of scare, twice, when we chance on a snake, which quickly disappears, probably quite scared of us. There is an atmosphere of mystic silence, except for the cries of wild birds and animals. This is what we imagined jungle and tropics should look like and we are not disappointed. This is the Rio Chagres, a beautiful tropical river surrounded by virgin rainforest, where we anchored for few days, after an overnight sail from uninhabited island (Escudo de Veraguas). One can go up the river for about six miles, up to the dam, which was built in 1910 to create the Gatun Lake, which supplies the water for the locks of the Panama Canal. When our food supply gets low, we get moving back to civilization and now we are in Shelter Bay Marina, with a restaurant, a swimming pool and a daily bus which takes us to food stores in Colon. Reputation of this city, one of the world’s largest ports, is that it’s a surprise, if you don’t get mugged at knifepoint! We are advised visitors should have no problem – as long as they take taxis everywhere and never set foot on the streets. So we follow this advice, as do all the other boaters, and contribute to the economy of this town full of poverty in many taxi fares. We are (or rather J-P is) installing a wind generator to increase our energy production, so we can play music, make water, and have all the lights on at the same time! Of course he has to change the oil in the engine, fix the outboard engine where everything is plugged from the dirty gas they sold us here, and do all the other man stuff (sometimes it pays to be a woman!). Overall we saw many beautiful places since leaving Bocas archipelago and we are looking forward to meeting some new fellow cruisers at the potluck organized in this marina. And if J-P would want, he could even meet some non-smoking friends in the daily afternoon volleyball game!

September, 2009

2009-09-07T12:07:00.000-07:00

Isla Bastimentos and around, Panama
The famous strawberry poison-dart frog, also called red frog, can be hard to spot because of its small size (18-25 mm), but once you see one, they suddenly seem to be everywhere. We see lots of birds, parrots especially get very busy towards the end of the day, but we haven’t spotted any sloth yet, although they had been spotted where we go just seconds before we arrive. These supposedly slow-moving animals are very fast in our case! We had some nice visit on surrounding islands, more as observers than participants. While we could stroll on the beech of Zapatillo Island (part of the national park) during the day, at night only the park ranger is allowed and we could observe him from Nikan as he made his tour every night with the red light checking for endangered species of turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs. In Bluefield Lagoon, where we stayed for three days anchored in the well protected bay, with just few huts scattered here and there, we observed the locals of Ngöbe-Buglé tribe holding onto their culture, their daily life so different from ours, basically spending their days in gathering food, as the little store they can paddle to in their wooden cayocos, has really only few necessary basics, and there is no road to bring civilization closer anywhere close by. Fishing is the whole day occupation, as is washing clothes by hand. Back here in Bastimentos we are back to civilization with a great Thai restaurant, with a 100% real Thai cook. Most of the population here, descendants from Jamaica, who came here originally to work on banana plantations, speaks English. The town is quiet and clean, with laundry service and Internet as well. We are patiently waiting for the parcel to bring our new sail bag (the old one got burned by the tropical sun) and than we will move west towards Colon. Did you know that Panama has set aside more land as National Parks and protected forests than Costa Rica, so famous a destination for thousands of ecotourists?

August, 2009

2009-08-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

Bocas Del Toro, Panama
We are leaving this Saturday (August 15) to explore the islands in Bocas del Toro archipelago. There are eight major islands, 51 cays and over 200 minor islets. Till now, since arriving from Jamaica, we haven’t moved from this marina on Carenero Island. Being at dock means upkeep and repairs and we are putting the final touches to Nikan. J-P installed the two sliding hatches we brought with us from Quebec to the dodger, which will make our cockpit breezy and fresh in this tropical hot and humid climate. We already notice the difference, although it’s open-close-open… as the rain comes and goes. It’s a rainy season now, although we are told rains were six weeks late this year and while we were in Quebec, there was rationing of water, it even went so far as no shower. Now it rains almost every day, sometime with violent storms, I still have laundry to do but am not afraid for lack of water. There are no rivers on this island and all the water the habitants use here comes from rain. We are looking forward to be at anchor again, to swim, snorkel and fish. All this is not possible right here, the water around marina, as the village itself, is quite dirty. We are going to miss the daily access of Internet and the library, although the owner of this marina doesn’t like women’s books or movies, so mostly I had to settle for murder, espionage, action. Right now we are here three boats from Canada, few from Argentina, rest is from USA. There is another marina on Colon Island and many other boats at anchor. I am sure we will cross some of these people again, everybody is heading more or less in the same direction.

June, 2009

2009-06-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

Bocas Del Toro, Panama
Half an hour by water-taxi and four-hour bus ride through spectacular mountain cloud forest brings us to David, capital of Chiriqui province. It’s not a particularly scenic town, it rains every afternoon quite heavily, it’s hot and humid and so we continue to a cooler destination. Boquete, a mountain town on the east side of Volcan Baru, said to faintly resemble a village in the Alps, is a popular tourist destination. However, this time of a year is a low season and so we don’t see too many tourists around. We have to get up early in the morning to go for our hikes, as each afternoon clouds roll in and it starts to rain. Early in the morning we can admire volcano Baru, before it disappears in the clouds. It’s pleasantly cool and we even have a need of long sleeves in the evening! Besides hiking the most popular activity here is water rafting, but with all the rain, rivers just run too wild. I feel sad to leave this cooler, pleasant town, but I know, I’ll have some cool temperatures again (?) – on our planned visit to Canada. Back here J-P once again continues with his never ending list of maintenance... This is a friendly marina, with friendly people, dogs, cats, even birds some people keep on their sailboats. And of course, none of us yet found the perfect way to keep those irritating sand flies away… After nine months of travelling it’s nice to just relax and enjoy the place, surf the net, read books, join the Friday potlucks with the other cruisers - our stress of working days is somehow fading in memory. Nikan is striped of all her sails, cleaned and prepared for our absence from Panama (June 16 – July 29).

May 2009

2009-05-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

Bocas Del Toro, Panama
We leave the never ending blasting reggae music of Jamaica behind us and for the next six days fall into the rhythm of three hours on, three hours off watches - only the hypnotic crushing noise of waves against Nikan is heard. On night watches, under incredibly black sky sprinkled with blazing stars, to keep awake, I interrupt this meditative sound by listening to the Spanish lessons on MP3, trying to etch in my aging grey cells some new vocabulary I will need in Panama. But here in Bocas, there is a lot of English spoken, but nevertheless, I try to practice my new Spanish vocabulary as much as I can. I will get more chance of that once we go a bit inland. We are in marina now on Isla Carenero, just a few minutes by boat from Isla Colon, the main island in this archipelago. We are entering the rainy season here, basically it’s hot, humid, and sand flies, locally known as chitras, are dining on us in full force daily!! Yesterday, I learned they only live for 45 minutes, but believe me, in their short life they get very, very hungry! Real estate seems to be booming around here, and from what we hear everywhere in Panama, expatriates, mainly from USA and Canada are building their fantasy tropical gateways. We have seen some on our walk yesterday, and even here, in the marina, they are boaters looking for their perfect piece of land. For now we are wiping the salt from everywhere, cleaning the sails and next week we are going inland for a little trip - we hear it’s a beautiful area, lush, tropical and even cooler in the mountains. We will also visit David, the main city of this province for a taste of some civilization, although it’s quite touristy here as well, minus the stores. We’ll keep you posted….

April, 2009

2009-04-25T06:38:00.000-07:00

Port Antonio, Jamaica
Yah Man, we are still in Jamaica. Yah Man, music blasting 24-hours a day, Yah Man, the same tunes, same rhythm... Respect Man, food is spicy, jerk pork, jerk chicken, curries...spices melt and mingle in our mouths - a big change from the Raoul’s country! It’s lush here, green folliage and flowers of incredible colours everywhere… Blue Mountains just step away. This place was made famous by the actor Errol Flynn, who said Port Antonio was more beautiful than any woman he had ever seen – hmmm…maybe he really didn’t look around that hard, it has it’s charm, but… Still, it is the safest parish of this country and it’s free from tourist crowds. This was a thriving banana shipping port, even as far back as 2003 when we stopped here, but now due to global competition this industry is gone. Port facilities here are modern and guarded around the clock. We took advantage of their new yard and pulled Nikan out to see what’s going on with the keel coating protection. Surprise! - the damage was more extended than we suspected. We had to redo the entire underwater protection, 6 days, 14-hours a day working under the blaring sun, 30+°C – not an ounce of fat on J-P’s body left. Can’t say that about my aging middle age figure! There is always something to fix or maintain. Like one of the fellow sailors said: “People think we are retired and on vacation, but man, this is work.” and I have to agree, although now we should be good for a while…till something else goes. We had a great day rafting on Rio Grande. Rafting here means sitting on the bamboo raft with a guide and gently flow down the river with a stop for a beer, home made lunch on the river bank. After a month here, we are slowly getting prepared to head towards Boca del Torro in Panama, about 600 nautical miles from here, which should take us between four to five days. As they say here, later….

March, 2009

2009-04-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

Port Antonio, Jamaica
We say good-bye to our friends in Cuba. Before leaving communism behind, we rent a car and visit Santiago. For sure we would be still lost, wondering around the signless countryside, signless city, if it wasn't for the never ending mass of hitchhikers that direct us. There are no signs anywhere, except propaganda billboards and if you don't follow the main highway, it's very easy to get lost. We drive a family with their sick baby to the hospital in one city, another sick woman with an infection after her cesarean and with her new baby to another hospital, in another city, students to university after their weekend with the family in some village....endless, we always try to stop for a woman with a child. These people sometimes wait for hours for a bus, and it has been known - personally by J-P (when I was in Toronto) - that sometimes bus doesn't show up at all! On the way to Fort El Morro J-P makes an exception and picks up two young, cute, sexy girls who visit the place with us. This is a bit of diversion for them. as there is not much happening in people's life, except maybe dreaming about a bottle of good shampoo! I get fed up with the never changing propaganda signs and wonder if majority of people are really, really brainwashed, as signs are not only in public places, but in the city we see them on private doors, windows and always it's the same something or death. Good-bye Cuba!!
We arrived to Port Antonio, Jamaica after uneventful passage of 2 1/2 day. J-P discovered some damage on the keel coating protection, so that has to be fixed here, before we continue to Panama. There is no shortage of fruit here, or vegetable. and although grown on this island, is more expensive than in Canada. And finally Internet! We are enjoying everything that free market has to offer us here and J-P is trying to gain some weight he lost in Cuba, ice cream in on his daily menu. I just have to watch that he doesn't over-do it!

February, 2009

2009-02-20T20:05:00.000-08:00

Puerta Vita, Cuba
We are in Cuba – that is, J-P is in Cuba, I am once again in Toronto, finalizing the sale of my mother’s house. Nikan is anchored in front of the marina in Puerto Vita – amazingly they let us do that without any charge, while we are using their facilities, like cold shower and toilet without any toilet paper (like everywhere else in Cuba, even with their good education, sanitary conditions are deplorable). There is no other boat here, except the catamarans that take tourists from nearly hotels for a cruise each day. There is a restaurant here as well, the village itself, with a population of about 500 has one questionable bar and one store for locals with empty shelves, Cubans are not allowed to the marina at all. When we arrived here there was an Australian couple, their sailboat packed with all kinds of items, like 50 pairs of shoes, reading glasses, clothing, dishes. They have been to Cuba before and came prepared, unlike us! The eye of the hurricane passed through this area last summer, taking off with some roofs, walls and destroying the crop - this is a very poor village (except for the few lucky ones with relatives abroad) - but entrepreneur spirit prevails with some, and we get invitations for meals, in exchange of money, clothing or whatever. We are happy to help – these people are no beggars, insisting on giving something back, be it some vegetable from their garden, artisana, or some service. My listening to Spanish on tapes pays off, and I can communicate quite well. The average salary here is between 10-20 CUCs (1 CUC = $1.39 Canadian!!), a typical meal for a tourist can be found for 6-15 CUCs. All the essentials for a decent living can only be bought in CUCs and for western price (things like detergent soap, shampoo, sanitary napkins – no CUCs, you have to use rags, and wash them by hand! not too many washing machines in these houses). They get some rations from the government, like 5 eggs a month per person, 40 g of beans, or 1 toothpaste per family!, their typical ration lasts for about two weeks, so there is a lot going on to survive, we can’t imagine what, or how - but smile is always there and good humor as well. At least they are not starving here, we see some vegetable and fruit trees in their gardens, as well as chickens, pigs, goats, sheep roaming around. Horses are still used for transportation in the country and I am admiring how magnificent the riders look on their beast. The countryside is stunning. We already visited Holguin, fourth-largest city in Cuba, full of diesel fume and in need of restoration. Sico could literally sell thousands gallons of paint, although the fading and pealing paint has its charm. We are planning to visit some other places once I am back, and if we ever get on Internet in Cuba, will keep you posted!

January 20, 2009

2009-01-23T09:08:00.000-08:00

Long Island, Bahamas
Long Island, most likely our last stop in Bahamas. The last two weeks we hopped from island to island, traversing through Exuma Cays with its many shades and tints of blue water…light blue, sky blue, turquoise, navy, sapphire blue…you name the hue and it’s somewhere here. The crystal clear water, besides making it so easy to observe the rich sea life, allows us to navigate safely around the many shoals and coral heads. Food in Exumas is incredibly expensive, everything arrives by boat and there is no agriculture on these rugged little islands. We didn’t buy red pepper for $8.50 a pound, neither did we treat ourselves to milk for $9.50! (dried milk is nothing to turn the nose up to, and that gives us so much more space in our fridge for other stuff one can obtain on these island, like cabbage, or maybe some carrots!). Small loaf of bread, that tastes more like a cake, sells for $6US! And so, we are proudly reporting, that today, we successfully baked our second loaf of bread! Czech recipe I obtained from Internet was my contribution, while J-P did his part in this process by mixing and all the five minutes of kneading required for a heavenly taste. We will never be without decent bread again! Also our first - converting salt water to drinking water. Our Reverse Osmosis Water Maker is performing as advertised. And so we will never stay dirty for too long again! We are quite self-sufficient now – the sun (solar panels), yeast, flour and some fish – we can survive whatever, wherever! Here on Long Island there is even some agriculture going on - right now it’s a season for papaya, tomato, okra – and all this for pennies! Finally some decent prices! Today, once-a-week ship arrived from Nassau, with all kinds of goodies, so tomorrow, with a crew from “Chenou”, that we sailed here with, we are renting a car and besides admiring beauties of this island, we will hit some food and liquor stores to stock-up on essentials before heading to Cuba. We read in American paper there is food shortage in Cuba (propaganda?) after getting hit by three hurricanes this summer (possibility?) We will let you know.

January 9, 2009

2009-01-09T10:24:00.000-08:00

Highborne Cay, Bahamas

Finally, the first fish – just for two, small Amberjack, on the way to Royal Island, and first lobster (2), which I spotted while swimming around Nikan, always with my goggles on, keeping a sharp lookout around me for imagined or maybe real? danger from watching too many adventure movies in the past. Still, it took J-P good half an hour to spear them out of their holes and they made an excellent supper (barbecued) on a New Year’s Day. We couldn’t have had it fresher than that! And just before that we spent hours searching the reef, while all this time they lived their soon too short life just few meters away from us. Next we sailed to Spanish Wells, prosperous island with easy going and friendly locals, almost empty food store after the holidays, with a ship full of provision due sometime soon. We were lucky to meet a friendly local who offered us a lift in her golf cart (which we really didn’t need, one can probably walk around the whole island in an hour!) but with a bucket full of tomatoes from her daughter’s garden and she very generously shared with us, as the ones in the store were half dead. Golf carts and cars create no stop procession on the main street, which we found quite amazing, considering how small the island is. Few days later, after zigzagging for a full day over the sand bank full of coral heads and shallow water on the way to Exuma Cays, we stopped for several days in Allan’s Cay (one of the remaining habitats of iguanas in the Bahamas), just relaxing and fishing every day on surrounding reef with zilch result! Too many boats, it looks here all fished out. There are about six Canadian sailboats here, definitely outnumbering Americans. Only “Voila” we are travelling with is English speaking. Tomorrow we will move to a marina for a day to touch base with civilization (understand Internet!), to update this blog, do some laundry, and to see what provisions we can find. Some fresh fruit would come handy. And! J-P decided to update his culinary skills by baking some bread, unfortunately we couldn’t find any multigrain flour here (oh, why we didn’t shop more on American continent!), only white variety of anything and everything is available here. But more on that next time.

December 24, 2008

2008-12-24T13:21:00.000-08:00

Port Lucaya, Grand Bahama Island
December 16, we made our first jump of 40 hours, basically motoring in a calm sea to Palm Beach and the next day perfect conditions found us crossing the Gulf Stream to make our entry to Bahamas in West End Marina, Grand Bahama Island. Our plan to move right away to Eleuthera was interrupted with weather broadcast of cold front (= strong winds) and so we decided to await more pleasant weather in Lucayan Marina. Just as we and the sailboat “Voila” (friends from Quebec spending winter in Bahamas) started to salivate (remember Pavlov’s dogs?), J-P’s first effort at fishing ended in disaster and the nice, fat, colorful Mahi-Mahi escaped at the moment of being pulled on the deck. Oh well, there’ll be many other times….We are spending the Christmas here, as the cold front is followed by SE winds and as we are moving in that direction, we have to wait for the wind to turn around. We wish you all restful and peaceful holidays.

November 10 - December 14, 2008

2008-12-24T13:19:00.000-08:00

Beaufort, NC – Fernandina Beach, FL and Toronto
Family emergency kept me in Toronto for five long weeks, meanwhile J-P slowly sailed Nikan to northern Florida to escape unseasonably cold weather all along the eastern sea shore this year. He even had some snow one morning and another day, while rinsing the bow, the water immediately turned to ice. Only layers and layers of clothing kept him reasonably warm. I must have brought him warm temperatures, December 14 was the first t-shirt day for him since a while.

November 1, 2008

2008-11-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

Beaufort, NC
Still here, waiting for the right time to hit the sea. There were few very cold days with lots of wind, one night with winds up to 50 knots, everybody keeping watch of their boat as well as the ones in the near proximity. One sailboat beached out during that time and had to wait for the next tide (6 hours) to get back into the water, spending the night at 45 degrees and freezing temperature! The nights continue to be cold, even frost time is announced daily, but days are reasonably warm. We bicycle around the town, or just relax in warm Nikan, our stove working full time. Today we will get some more of the best sausages we ever had, made right here in Beaufort. Food becomes quite important on the boat, since we don’t have to worry about work, deadlines, bills… - we only have to make sure our stomachs are fully satisfied. Getting some goodies is a daily occupation!! But be assured, that I am keeping a sharp look-out on J-P’s waistline (as well as mine) to make sure it stays slim and trim...

October 23, 2008

2008-10-24T07:21:00.000-07:00

Annapolis to Beaufort, NC
We anchor at Rhode River, than Solomons Islands with it’s charming Marine Museum, Mill Creek, and than spent three days at marina in Norfolk – laundry, clean-up, gathering supplies and for us a treat – hot shower! Mile 0 of Intercoastal Waterway (some 1 000 miles long) finds us waiting for opening of the first of it’s many bridges at its first opening of the day after the rush hour, exactly at 8:30 a.m. 60 miles a day, starting at sunrise and ending the long days at sunset. We are part of snowbirds parade heading south, motor boats, sailboats; one after each other, the Intercoastal is quite busy at this time of year. We get interrupted by a cold front, hot summer days changed overnight to almost winter, with rain, cold and gale winds of up to 40 knots, but at anchor behind Buck Island, Nikan is safe and warm, stove working and we rest, read, sleep. Nothing to complain about. And than some more of the same schedule, till Beaufort, our last stop before heading to sea - direction Bahamas, if a weather window permits.

October 3, 2008

2008-10-03T09:31:00.000-07:00

Annapolis, MD
We explore this charming, little town, calling itself “America’s Sailing Capital”, in full preparation for the nation’s oldest and largest in-water boat show. While on mooring, one dark, early morning J-P jumps in full preparation to confront thieves that are after our dingy – but what he confronts is a dingy full of ducks! You see ducks everywhere, trying to climb on anything dry, having their natural environment taken away by greedy boaters - there isn’t a piece of land within sight that hasn’t been taken over by some marina. The amount of boats around here is quite overwhelming!

September 26, 2008

2008-09-26T07:24:00.000-07:00

Baltimore, MD

After a day of rest and swimming in Bohemia River we tied up in Baltimore. Once again I walked J-P to exhaustion (which put him in a very, very bad mood the next day) to whip him back in shape. Looks like older women have much more stamina! We like Baltimore a lot, old pirates' quarters as well as architecture of today. We are forced to stay here longer than planned, through rain and gale strong wind, safely tied in marina. We don't mind, we know how to pass the time in a big city - there is no shortage of entertainment. This is one city really geared towards tourism!

September 17, 2008

2008-09-22T17:56:00.001-07:00

Cape May, NJ
Time certainly flies when you are enjoying yourself. Our legs, so much stronger from all the walk in NY, are being used once again for the bike ride around Cape May, where we arrived after an uneventful 24-hr crossing from Sandy Hook. We made some good friends with “Chenou” sailboat and we are planning to continue with them through Delaware and will take some time for cruising Chesapeake Bay. J-P is anxious to visit one of the biggest boat shows in Annapolis, but for today it’s groceries, although we feel a bit wasted after a huge lobster dinner last night at the local dinner “Lobster House”.

September 9, 2008

2008-09-08T15:12:00.001-07:00

Port Washington, Long Island
6 A.M. (time reminds me of my working days...) and we are on the way to NY…New York, New York…we will have to take the train from Long Island and visit you tomorrow! We are attached to a mooring, courtesy of Port Washington. First it’s groceries, than... New York, New York…..

September 7, 2008

2008-09-08T15:09:00.000-07:00

West Haverstraw, NY
Hanna…Hanna is coming, Hanna…the tropical storm Hanna…the warning for the past few days of high winds and flooding (not that we care about that!) makes us seek a shelter in Haverstraw Marina, one of the last few marinas before New York. The air is saturated with water, the sky covered and grey, the barometer drops 13 mb in as many hours, but the true fury of the storm passes east of us and we just listen to the progress of the storm on the VHF radio. We take an advantage of the laundry machines in the marina and this morning the air is crisp, humidity that tortured us for the past week gone and the evening finds us anchored just before the Tappan Zee Bridge.

September 1, 2008

2008-09-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

Waterford, USA
We passed through the Champlain Canal, 12 locks in total, in 2 days. The weather is great, more than great, it's hot and no rain at all. We are in Waterford, tied next to several boats, all heading south. Try to buy here small quantity of fruit or vegetable, everything comes in huge amount and is more expensive than in Montreal. Junk food is cheap and comes in huge quantity as well! American flags on almost every house or just stuck in the flower beds or gardens. Very patriotic people here!

August 26, 2008

2008-09-01T11:22:00.000-07:00

Champlain Lake
We wake up to a crisp autumn morning, leaves are starting to turn red all around us and slowly drift to ground. There was a frost warning already, mountain region only, where fortunately we are not, but we start the stove this morning anyway, to take the cold and humidity out. By 12:45 we leave the Canadian water behind us and just as soon I am watering American bushes with some good, smooth Cuban rum – we wish we thought about this and left it with somebody who would appreciate this more than the American soil. What a waste!!! The air is cold, NW wind gives us a hint of what we are to escape, but by the evening it feels like summer again and we are on the way to join J-P’s friend with their catamaran for a day or two of leisure on Lake Champlain. Life is good!