Now you can follow our new adventures at:
fromvanille.blogspot.com
July, 2012
Goodbye Nikan
Since our last blog entry a lot has been going on. First Nikan finds itself with a new Chilean owner and will probably spend the rest of its days in Patagonia. Goodbye Nikan! Then we started to look for a new floating home around this planet! That decision involved a lot of thought... possibilities are endless... but no perfect boat yet in production anywhere. One thing was clear in our minds and that was to get a bigger boat for more storage and living space. After four years of living full time on-board of a 10 m boat, it was time to go for a bit more comfort and elbow room. So now it has been one month since we are in the Med (sweating, as it is very, very hot here!) on our Amel Santorin ketch, 14 m of length, born 1992, 20 years old boat but in a great shape. Due to the shipping cost and logistic difficulties we left lots of material behind and flew out of Chile with our personal belongings only, some diving gear, a bit of electronics, and landed in Barcelona with 138 kg divided in six pieces of luggage. We took possession of the Santorin in Roses, Spain and after a hull-up for new antifouling and mechanical check up we sailed to Port Camargue, France, only 96 nautical miles away, to bring the boat to Sun Marine yard to replace the standing and running rigging and to update few equipments. And if you are wondering what is the name of our new sailboat, so are we! The current name is Vanille, and if Transport Canada approves that, we are going to keep it - sounds sort of sweet.... And as far as planning where we will go from here - we will decide that when we will come back from our summer visit to Quebec. All is uncertain, life is great. Have a good summer, all of you, or mild winter, our friends down south.
March, 2012
How the time flies....
...we are already at the end of March and since September we had logged some 2,100 miles. The last three months we have been surrounded by thick rainforests, snow-capped volcanoes stunning fjords, narrow canals, many, many streams and waterfalls, especially since February has been such a unusually wet month. Shinning ice fields with their bright, light blue color astonished us on the rare sunny day each time we had seen one. Patagonia is also about emptiness, during the whole month of February, we have seen only two other sailing vessels. March brought us much better weather, sun practically every day, so we could enjoy Chiloe region, which is a string of 40 islands with many wooden churches, 16 of which are declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We could easily spend here another season and still not cover all the cruising ground that is between Puerto Montt and St. Rafael Glacier. “He who hurries loses his time”, locals say! How right they are...the weather decides all in this part of the world, sometimes harsh but always rewarding. Right now we are back in Puerto Montt, the sun is still shinning, but there is a hint of winter in the air. We still want to go and see few places around here, before we head to Valdivia, where Nikan is going to spend the winter. So what more can we say? Time is running by way too fast...
February, 2012
Northern Patagonia, Ensenada Baja
We are planning to spend this summer cruising between Puerto Montt and Laguna St. Raphael (latitude 46º40'S) including Los Chonos archipelago as well as Chiloé Island. Well, summer here is from December to March with a bit of luck. So far we had been very lucky and had a warm beginning last month (they haven't seen here this kind of warm weather since 30 years!) with daily average around 25ºC, but we knew it wouldn't last and since then it's rain, and more rain with some strong gusts to remind us we are after all in Patagonia. (Some islands were even out of drinking water and had to have it shipped from the mainland.) We provisioned here in Puerto Chacabuco, as well as did a short trip to Argentina to renew our emigration papers for Chile, something we have to do every 90 days. Since the past few days we want to resume our cruising but the port is closed! No cruising zarpes are issued since the local condition is around 25 knots of wind, with gusts to 45+!!! So far this cruising ground is incredible - many waterfalls, rivers, rainforest followed by scrubby steppe - it's impossible for us to describe the feeling of solitude and the grandness of the nature. We crossed path with only two sailboats in the past month! They are many bays we can anchor in, gather drinking water from the many streams around full of minerals from the glaciers' caps and on few occasions we share our anchorage with the commercial ship servicing one of the many, many salmons farms around. (There is a colour wheel the owner can use to pick up the colour he wants his salmon to be!) For now, see a little sample of photos from this remote region in the slide show. We will update you again when we can, as Internet services are far apart...
November, 2011
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
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!
“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
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.
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
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
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
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.
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
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!
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
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!
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
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.
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
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!
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
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...
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
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!
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!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
