Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Good Days

Luke’s first day here was one of those days that I spend time and energy trying to create and recreate.  When I was typing this we were the only yacht anchored behind our own little deserted island.  And we weren’t just anchored behind it – we were within a stone’s throw.  Super cool.


Luke Made It


Luke was supposed to arrive by plane at 6:30 AM, but naturally that didn’t work out.  The little airplane company didn’t give him the correct information regarding surfboards on the plane – so he ended up having to take a cab, then jeep, then boat.  He arrived about five hours late.  No problem though.


Boat Christmas


Every time someone comes to visit – my boat has a small Christmas party.  It’s not a Christmas in the sense that everyone onboard gets a bunch of useless crap.  It’s a Christmas in the sense that I get the chance to import the stuff I need to fix everything that continues to break around me.  Over the last two or three months, I’ve actually begun enjoying (some parts of) working on the boat – so this makes me happy.  I was stoked when I started pulling out all of those hard-to-find boat parts from Luke’s bags.


We stowed gear and then went on a pineapple, rum, and egg run.  Within two hours we were picking up the anchor and shortly thereafter sailing out of Porvenir at 7 knots.  The was a steady wind, the right amount of sun, and only a small chop.  We made it to our island within two hours.


Our Island


Originally I tried to drop anchor really close to the inhabited island of our little two-island chain.  But one of the Kuna’s started yelling something from shore, so I backed out and headed further away from relative “civilization.”  Easily accomplished in the lee of the uninhabited island just a kilometer away.  So I nosed S/V NOMAD almost onto the beach of this island and dropped the anchor in about 10 foot of water.  I backed out and left 100 foot of chain on the bottom, and we were hooked in a near-perfect anchorage:  nice breeze, great view, alone, and no waves to speak of.  The pictures here look kinda dark, we’re working on that – but rest assured it was sunny and breezy.


Dinghy Fixing


From Our Island From Our Island


Adventures in dinghy-land left me with a deflatable dinghy.  Meaning that I was pumping it up daily, and generally getting sick of dealing with it.  But Mom had found the three pinhole leaks that we thought were responsible – so armed with some superglue we beached the dinghy, deflated it, and superglued the crap out of those pinhole leaks.  Judging from the way it’s sitting behind the boat this morning – we at least temporarily fixed our problem.


Freediving.  Really.  Finally.


Luke was beat, but he was being a trooper.  I wanted to go for a dive to check this area out – he joined with a GoPro and a polespear.  The area that we were diving was a stone’s throw from the mothership in fairly protected waters – which is a dramatic change from diving the outer edges of barrier reefs (our previous dive spots).  It wasn’t great visibility, but we had 25 feet – maybe a little more.


Freediving in San Blas Freediving in San Blas


In the lee of our island, there was a ledge where the coral dropped off to about 50 feet.  Again – no current, no waves, decent visibility.


With only a couple of hours of sleep the night before and no lunch, I wasn’t in perfect condition – but I did start actually working on my freediving.  I managed a couple of dives upwards of 1:30, which felt great.  Luke had already returned to the boat, so I didn’t really push it – but I have a feeling with a couple weeks of diving more consistently I’ll be upwards of 2 minutes.  That’s where I need to be to hunt well around here.  The fish are really spooky, so you have the best shot at them when you dive deep (surprise them) and stay long (intrigue them).  Both of those require a pretty significant breathhold.  This is working time underwater, while actively spearfishing.  That’s different than hanging out in a pool and holding one’s breath.


We had a great dinner of grilled fish, coleslaw, and some grilled vegetables.  Then I had a Cuba Libre and started reading Moby Dick again.  Mellville’s style really isn’t that intriguing to me, so it’s a struggle.


It’s rare when you get to combine sailing, free diving, and time spent on a deserted island all in one day.  It’s even more rare when you do that and nothing breaks, and there aren’t any almost-emergencies. After nearly eight months of this, I can count those days on one hand.


So when we have days like yesterday, it’s a great reminder of why I started doing this.



Good Days

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