It’s been a busy couple of days around here, and I’ve been trying to make this post for two days – the Internet here is intermittent at best right now.  I’m getting everything in order to leave S/V NOMAD for a bit.  I really don’t like leaving the boat for any period of time.  It seems that when I come back there’s more wrong with it, and all repair/refit is completely at a standstill when I’m gone. That said, it’ll be nice to see folks back home, get some much needed boat gear, and generally take a little break.

The finger is fine.  I’m completely convinced is was a mycobacterium marinum infection.  I’m also convinced I’m on the right drugs.  It’s healing, to the point that it’s starting to itch – which is a great sign, considering how painful and infected it was just a few days ago.  The flip-side is that I banged it on the engine today – and it opened up a little, revealing a pretty deep hole.  So there’s quite a bit of healing left to do.

But on to the big news:

 

Rob Allen Spearfishing Gear Sponsorship

I met Rob Allen at The Blue Wild Expo in Florida.  We spoke briefly and then exchanged a few emails.  I’m happy to say this was my first choice in spearfishing gear sponsorship – quality gear, affordable prices, and a full range of spearfishing gear.  I’m even more happy to say that I was able to navigate the Panamanian postal system and get ahold of the gear.  Rob Allen shipped it to Shelter Bay Marina, as I was planning to be there with S/V NOMAD – but of course the plans changed…  Nevertheless, with a few delays, a few dollars given to the right folks, and a few hours of wasted time – I was able to get the spearfishing gear.

After getting back to the boat with the gear – I was as excited as any kid at Christmas.  I tore into the boxes and pretty soon there was spearfishing gear scattered all over the catamaran.

 

Christmas in August…

I’ll dig into the individual pieces when I have a little more time and a better internet connection – but I’m happy to say that I received the 4 pieces of kit I really wanted – a Rob Allen Snapper 130 Railgun (complete with reel and reel line), a Rob Allen Tuna 140 Railgun with a double-flopper shaft, some (super high-quality) Rob Allen carbon fiber fins and footpockets, and (finally) that 3MM Open-Cell wetsuit I’d been wanting (my last one started to disintegrate).  In addition to this, they hooked me up with a ton of spares – and perhaps more importantly:  a couple of coozies.

The thing that I was most concerned with was a quality set of carbon-fiber freediving fins.  Mine died in San Blas when I capsized my dinghy.

Remarkably High-Quality Freediving Fins/Footpockets

I’m a bit picky about fins and footpockets.  They’re really important to deep diving (and for comfort).  The footpockets I lost were my “soft” ones – meaning they were my all-day, go-to footpockets.  And I was naturally skeptical about any other footpockets.  You can imagine how excited I was, then, when I pulled out the Rob Allen carbon-fiber fins and footpockets and found them to be very high-quality and very comfortable.

The hardcore freedivers generally prefer a stiffer footpocket, as it transfers more energy to the fins.  I’m not a hardcore freediver though, I’m a spearfishermen.  As such, I need something that I can fight fish and current with all day without leaving blisters on my feet (even though that happens anyways when I’m diving hard).  The Rob Allen fins and footpockets look like just the ticket.

Of course, with a hole in my finger that’s far from healed – I’m staying out of the water for a bit.  I guess it’s good I’m taking some time to spend in the States – otherwise the temptation to try the new gear would likely be too strong.  So, when I get back and whip S/V NOMAD into shape – I’m going to put the gear through the ringer.

I can tell you this – a Rob Allen speargun was my first speargun, and that very speargun is hanging on S/V NOMAD right now.  It would be tough for me to have any better proof of durability, as I’m known for being hard on diving gear.  And I would have sold it in the States if it wasn’t deadly accurate.  If you’re looking for quality, affordable spearing gear that stands up to some serious punishment – look no further than Rob Allen spearfishing gear.

Crew

It sounds like I’m all booked up onboard S/V NOMAD.  A couple of folks reached out after my last post, and if schedules work out I’ll have a full boat for the next couple of months (when I return).  That’s cool with me, as I welcome the help.  At the end of the day, I think paying crew makes sense if you’re a single-hander.  They get a cheap ride in exchange for some helping around the boat, I get some help around the boat and split expenses.  As long as everyone gets along, it’s a win-win.

At least in theory.  The reality of it might be different, but this whole thing is one huge experiment – so we’ll see.

 

Boat Stuff

I should have been complete with all boat refit/repair by now.  The hole in my finger and the associated infection have kept me from doing even a fraction of what needs to be done, though.  That’s not a huge deal, but it is inconvenient.  Pressing projects:

• I believe that I’ve lost my fuel pump in my starboard engine


• I have a couple of saildrive seals that need to be replaced


• I’m positive that my generator needs some work


• I still need to rewire my instruments and autopilot


• I’m going to replace my fresh-water cooled refrigeration in the galley


• My sailcover fell apart in San Blas


• I’m replacing my solar panels with the new Kyocera 140W panels


• Replacing the dinghy w/an 11′ (+) Caribe and a 15HP Yamaha, both new


• I need to go over the bottom and the props when I return


• My watermaker keeps flipping the breaker (but it’s back in operation, other than that) – I think this is wiring-related

There’s more – but it’s getting a little overwhelming.  You get the point.

The real issue isn’t the work – all of that is pretty straightforward stuff.  The issue is that it’s so much damn trouble to get parts/wiring/etc here in Puerto Lindo. I know many people like this place, but I deem it a major PITA.  A refit would be so much easier in a first-world country, or at least in a major city of Panama.  Make no mistake – Panama is a third world country.  They don’t have a reliable postal system, they don’t have addresses (really), and the way Panamanians do business is nothing short of ridiculous.  Most of them are crooks, and it’s hard to tell the difference between honest folks and crooks.  Even the locals reference”Panama- time”  as a real excuse for never getting anything done.

All of this is pushing me to get to Columbia or cross the Canal.  The word on the street is that Columbia has three major exports:  cocaine, pretty women that like boats, and cheap boat work.  It’s kind of amazing how many single-handed white guys are running around with Columbian girls.  It’s almost a given.

Home

I’ll be in Houston Tuesday, and Austin by Thursday (maybe before).  And there’s a little shindig on Saturday that you shouldn’t miss if you’re in Austin.  Then it’s onto riding the motorcycles before they’re sold.  And finally, hopefully, some down time to just relax in the A/C with a real internet connection.  So I can do some work/updating on this site.

Rob Allen Spearfishing Gear Sponsorship

Sailing San Blas, Again

Sailing through San Blas, as captain, has been a blast.  I dig it.

The wind has been decent, the weather has been fantastic, and I haven’t put S/V NOMAD on the reef.  All positive things.    The only negative thing is that I’ve failed pretty miserably in the “bringing home dinner” department.

 San Blas, Again

The first day I sailed to Western Hollandes Caye, where I dropped anchor and hung out for a couple of days.  I got to try out the new kayak (awesome), do a bit of diving, and hung out the underwater LED light to see what came around.

The diving was decent, but not great.  I managed to get outside the reef and saw my first Black Grouper here in San Blas.  Great, but they are skittish here.  Moreso than in the Bahamas for sure.

At night the LED light would bring in huge tarpon.  At first I had no idea what they were – they were 5 + foot long, though.  Sharks?  Huge mackerel?  Cobia?  Eventually I got up the nerve to stick my head in the water (remember, it was night) and saw them.  Massive things, great fighters, but no good to eat.  If they would have been worth eating, I’d likely have jumped in and tried to put a spear in one.  I tried everything to catch them on (hook and line) light tackle, but they weren’t interested in anything but the baitfish under my light.

Eventually I headed to Eastern Hollandes Caye, where I anchored for a couple more days.  I had a little trouble finding a good spot to anchor without crowding the other yacht in the area.  I drug anchor once, and decided that he’d have to deal with a neighbor.

The fear of dragging anchor at night is horrible.  It keeps me awake sometimes and is always in the back of my mind.  It’s even worse when I’m diving alone and have the dinghy anchored somewhere.  If I lose that, I’m up shit creek for sure.  I’m getting bigger anchors and more chain.

Finally anchored I started exploring a bit – all around the Swimming Pool and Hot Tub, to most of the islands (except the aptly named Bug Island).  I found a couple of spots that I was sure would hold fish – but they didn’t.

Nonetheless I managed to spot a Hogfish in shallow water when I was kicking around.  He came back with me and was promptly scaled.  Not a giant, maybe 6 or so pounds.  But he’ll eat.  I absolutely love Hogfish, probably my favorite of the reef fish.  Good, white, flaky meat.  Great in ceviche, great panfried.  If I’d done better keeping my vegetables good I’d have made ceviche – but I screwed that up a bit.

I also found a Kuna family with a little pet monkey.  Cute thing, but I felt pretty bad for it.  No camera with me (I’m doing horrible with pictures right now, aren’t I?) so you’ll have to take my word for it.   By the end of it, I was having trouble prying the damn thing off of me so I could leave.

I got tired of Eastern Hollandes Caye pretty quickly.  Not much there.  Pretty anchorage, no doubt, but it was time to move on.

 Coco Time

The next stop was Coco Banderos.  Another group of islands that’s almost as far offshore as Hollandes Caye.  Sailing here was great, but getting into the anchorage and anchored wasn’t easy.  I had to squeeze between two other anchored yachts on my way in, then I couldn’t find a shallow spot to anchor.  I’m a 3X scope kinda guy, so dropping anchor in 10 meters of water means I need to let out at least 30 meters of chain.  And I found out that I only have about 40 meters of chain on my main anchor.  Meaning that I’m pushing it anchoring in 10 meters, preferring to be anchored in 5-7 meters.

So I pulled NOMAD almost up on the beach on one of the islands, dropped anchor and backed down on it.   And the anchor pulled.  So I picked it back up, circled around a bit and eventually found another spot in about 8 meters.  Good depth, and by the time I’d let out 3X scope – I was almost onshore of another island.  It’s a great view when I wake up, for sure.

My backyard…

But it’s also a little worrying to be that close to shore/coral.  The anchoring thing is still pretty stressful for me, I’m hoping that starts to go away as I get more salty. Fingers crossed.

 

Diving Coco

I’ve dove this area pretty hard now.  Hard enough that I’ve got serious blisters on both feet.  In three days I’ve seen two interesting fish – a 25 pound Mutton Snapper and a larger Black Grouper.  Both of which took leave before I had a chance to dive on them.  Skittish, really skittish.   I’ve also blown a couple shots on small Cero Mackerel too, so it’s partly my fault.  When they’re that skinny, it’s hard to hit them.

Yesterday I had a nice lobster lunch and went out to a spot much further offshore.  The rollers were coming in pretty high and breaking over the reef.  Not exactly the weather I needed to get into the deep water to make some proper dives, in search of proper fish.

After nearly running the dinghy aground on some coral, nearly flipping into the rollers, and definitely having a bit of a scare – my survival instincts got the better of me and I moved back inshore.  This is the kind of thing that I want a 12+ foot dinghy for (with a 25 hp Yamaha).  Unfortunately I can’t afford a boat big enough to put that kind of dinghy on, so this one will have to do.

Today I’m sailing back to Western Hollandes.  Thanks to a fellow diver/sailor/fisherman (Mark, thanks dude!) I have a couple of numbers to spots that ought to produce a dinner or two.  Which is going to be necessary after tomorrow – as I’m running out of protein onboard.

 

Sunset Over Coco

The protein lasted longer than the beer though, that’s for damn sure.   I have no idea how I’m going to store enough beer for the Pacific crossing…

Sailing San Blas, Again

San Blas Sailing - Part 2

This is the second part of my trip to Panama – San Blas sailing.  San Blas is a remote island chain on the Caribbean side of Panama. It’s inhabited only by the Kuna Indians, who are independent of the local Panamanian government.  It was the beginning of the rainy season there, so we had a nice mixture of clouds and bright (blinding, hot) sunshine.  I received the worst sunburn of my life here, despite bathing in sunscreen every day.

Sailing to (and around) San Blas

 

With everything onboard and the diesels warmed up, we pulled up to the mooring ball and unhooked.  Free at last.

Motoring out of the anchorage at Puerto Lindo was a little more tricky than I would have thought, but easy enough if you knew the way.  Finally out in the Pacific, we raised the mainsail and unfurled the Genoa.  We were doing 5 knots in no time, with windspeed being about 12 knots.  Not too shabby, but not exactly speeding either.

Once we were underway I set the autopilot and dropped down to set the rods up for some trolling.  I have a few lures, but need some more – and the reels need to be broken down and cleaned.  Nonetheless – we trolled.  We had a couple of bites on the way, but nothing pulled in.

The winds were changing often, which required adjusting the sails often.  Eventually we were taking wind head-on so we fired up the diesels again (we wanted to reach San Blas before the light ran out), easily making 7 knots.

Chichime sunset

We arrived at Chichime just before dusk and navigated into the anchorage (which can be a little tricky), and dropped anchor in a sea of other sailboats.  We were not the only ones with this idea.  Tino (the previous owner of my Lagoon 380) has a thing for Cuba Libre’s (the liar’s drink), so we fixed one and started unwinding.  We broke out the pate, cheese and crackers.  Then we opened up a nice bottle of wine.

Not a bad life, this one.

 

Diving Again, Finally

Tino was more interested in showing me around than diving.  Which was smart – after all, it’s more important to learn the boat and the islands.  Then I can dive whenever.  But I hadn’t been in the water for way too long.  So I insisted and we made our way outside of the reef to get lunch.

Getting over the reef was a challenge in the dinghy, with rough surf breaking.  We anchored in about 15 foot of water, and I dove down the anchor line and secured the anchor.  Done.  Time to dive.  The visibility and the reef structure was nice, but the fish were noticeably absent.  And the ones we found had clearly seen divers before.  Crafty buggers.

Our dive was cut short when I looked up and saw our dinghy loose, heading for the reef.  Luckily Tino made it to the dinghy before it was capsized and smashed on the reef – that would have made the trip pretty crappy.  Apparently when Tino tied the anchor to the anchor-line, he didn’t make a great knot and it came untied – leaving our anchor somewhere in the blue.  Close call.  Our diving for the day was over.

 

San Blas Sailing

San Blas sailing is phenomenal.  We had decent wind a couple of days – making 8 and even 9 knots at one point.  Averaging (again) a little less than half-windspeed.  I was beginning to feel comfortable trimming and adjusting the sails.  Anchoring wasn’t too difficult either, and having twin engines allowed me to move the catamaran in very tight spaces.

My boat, from the islands

At one point I wanted to get in behind a particularly nice island, but Tino was a little nervous about the entrance.  It was shallow and windy, with reef patches not on the charts.  But we have a shallow draft on the Lagoon 380, and it was sunny enough to figure out what was what.  We made it to the island easily, but we did have a close call on a sandy-bottom.  Not an emergency, and we didn’t scrape – but it raised the pucker-factor.

Our little slice of paradise

 

I think it was worth it.

The Kuna

We visited the island pictured below and found a couple of Kuna making repairs on their canoe and cleaning the island.  I found a coconut and they helped us open it up.  That was a win for the home-team.  A little coconut in pan-fried fish is a treat.  Tino spoke with them for a while, and I explored the island.  The only structure on it was a small thatched hut and a smoke-house, where the Kuna smoke fish with coconut husks.

A Kuna dugout

 

Cayo Hollandes

The next day we sailed through the islands to Cayo Hollandes. Tino has a favorite anchorage here that was occupied by a much larger Lagoon.  So we moved past and found a nearby anchorage.  This was, hands-down, my favorite of the spots we visited.

Stark contrast of cultures

I desperately wanted to freedive and spearfish a bit – as much to clear my head as to get dinner.  Luckily there was a small inshore reef right off our Port bow.  I wasted no time getting rigged to do some diving.  I was using some ancient spearguns with rotting rubber, make unknown.  The spearguns were Tino’s, as I brought a pole-spear, but I was worried about getting in range.  In hindsight, the polespear would have been better. The spearguns may have had a 4 foot range.

Freediving here felt great.  It always starts out with me not being able to dive very deep, but within an hour I was comfortably hitting 50 foot. Then 60.  I didn’t push much deeper as Tino was doing his own thing.  Again – not much fish life.  There were a few mackerels swimming around, but they’d seen divers before and I couldn’t get within range.  I ended up settling for a couple of monster lionfish, which I’d heard were good eating (though they have poisonous spines that must be removed).  Having done my part for the local ecosystem (lionfish are invasive and nothing eats them) – I got back onboard.  Cleaning the lionfish was a little tricky – but after cutting the spines off, I manage to get some nice, white fillets – which we promptly cooked for a late lunch.  And washed down with Atlas beer.

Not a bad life, this one.

 

Running Out of Rum

It was an emergency.  Nothing can kill a good day sailing, but not having a drink at sundown is serious business.  So we headed into town, if it can be called that, and picked up the necessities – a couple of tomatoes, a bottle of cheap rum (which, incidentally, wasn’t cheap at $12), and some more gas for the dinghy.

When we bought the tomatoes, there was bout $.50 leftover in change.  I left it with the girl running the counter, and you would have thought I gave her a $100 bill.  She beamed a big smile back at me.  I’ll never win any awards for most-charitable, but it felt really good.  Tino said they never get tipped here, and remarked that we could have bought another Coke to replenish our dwindling supply of Cuba Libre making materials.

The “town” was interesting – all thatched roof huts.  Electricity was available, but sparse - rumor has it that it’s provided by the engine of a large boat that wrecked on the reefs.  I regret not taking pictures, but the reality of hauling a huge DSLR camera across the ocean to a “town” where they have nothing… Well, it just didn’t make sense.  Next time I guess.

 

Eating Bonita

If you’re a fisherman in the States, you either a) throw Bonita back or b) use them for bait.  They are rumored to be poor eating, although a cousin of the tuna.  We hooked one while sailing and trolling, and when I said I was going to throw it back – Tino gave me a dirty look.  So I removed some big fillets for our dinner.  I usually eat pelagic fish undercooked or raw, but Tino made a marinade from soy, vinegar, garlic, and oil for the fish to sit in.  An hour later he pulled the whole concoction (and the fish) in a pan and sautéed it.  I was skeptical, but willing to try.

It was delicious.  Absolutely fantastic.  Usually these types of fish (heavy, dark red meat) aren’t good cooked-through.  They get dry and almost inedible. This was an exception to the rule.  Fantastic.  Of course, a cold beer really helped.  I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Atlas (a local beer), but it’s really nice cold on a hot/humid day.  Its official; when sailing in San Blas – cold Atlas is a treat.

Not a bad life, this one.

Chichime Again

Our last day was spent sailing back West, to Chichime so that we could begin sailing to Puerto Lindo early the next morning.  We arrived before dusk and had the obligatory Cuba Libre.  I wasn’t sleepy so we stayed up late and talked, attempted to fish off the back of the boat, and drank. Another good bottle of wine was sacrificed.

Chichime, sailboats, and sunsets

Shortly after sundown, the boats around us came alive.  A large blue monohull in front of us was smoking marijuana by the ton – much closer and we’d have had a contact high.  And then there were fires on the beach, some music, and some general rabble-rousing.  I was tempted to go, but Tino wasn’t too keen.  He let me know, disapprovingly, that any drug one might want could be found onshore when this crowd was here.  That didn’t deter me, but I was willing to oblige Tino.  Truth be told, I was a little worried that if I went ashore and had anything else to drink, I might not be fit to run the dinghy back to the mothership.  So we drank aboard, and slept soundly.

It was the end of my time sailing San Blas – but far from the end of my little adventure.

 

San Blas Sailing - Part 2