13.10N 73.56W On route to Porvenir - 6.00am – my dawn watch on
this, the third, morning away from Bonaire. I
am not sure how many dawns I have seen in my life but I am really enjoying them
now. The stars still out, often the moon already set, the transition from
dark to light very pretty with the sky lighting up like a sun set in reverse.
This morning we have a huge golden orb shining on big but gentle following seas
with the wind ‘up the chuff’ – I am not sure if this is a
true nautical _expression_ but it is a good explanation! Amazingly we have been
sailing at over 8 knots all night rising to 10 knots and more when we surf off
the waves and have set a 24 hour record for ourselves – 190 nm in 24
hours!
We had a last night to remember in Bonaire,
largely due to the kindness of the owners and staff of the Argentinean Steak
House in the marina. We enjoyed a delicious meal with great background music
– a compilation of artists all with their own interpretation of ‘As
Time Goes By’ -‘Play it again Sam’ from Casablanca. When Pablo realised how much we
loved the song he sent his wife at home at midnight to burn two cd copies for
Zippy and Anahi as a memento for our trip! They even bought us drinks on the
house while we waited!
The first two days I was dogged by my sea sickness again and Bennett
felt even worse than me having begun, and had a bit of a reaction to, his
Paludrine anti malaria pills in readiness for the San Blas mozzies. We finally
got the Twistle rig up in all its splendour yesterday although it is a mean and
dangerous job for Paul and Bennett to erect the poles in these swells. It does
however steady the boat and make the journey much more comfortable. In an ideal
world we would have a dedicated furler and sails for the Twistle which would
negate all the necessary sail changes when the wind varies. Happy Wanderer,
the hydro vane, is in full swing – tilting and bobbing about to keep our
course and it is a great relief not to be hand steering.
The radio net is functioning at 1000 and 1800 again so most of the
yachts are in touch with each other with positions and news. We were meant to
be net controllers on Monday but missed our moment as we had just left Bonaire. Rascal took over for us. Alarmingly we heard
Hakuna Matata had hit a reef in the San Blas two days ago but we understood
through the grapevine yesterday that they managed to extricate themselves with
only superficial damage to the cat and nobody hurt. Reading the pilot books on
this area this is a likely occurrence as the there are over 300 islands
surrounded by reefs.
I quote from Nancy Schwalbe Zydler and her husband’s excellent
Panama Guide:
The Comaca de San Blas or, Kuna Yala, appears little changed from the
times before the Spanish Conquista, a result of the tenacity of the Kuna
people. Under pressure from other tribes or possibly Spanish invaders, the
majority of Kunas moved to the coast and later to the offshore islands. After
suffering from violent inroads by outsiders the Kunas rebelled in 1925. In the
process they killed many Panamanian policemen and children of mixed blood
living in the islands. Eventually in 1938 the government of Panama granted the Kuna leaders
almost autonomous rule in the officially recognized Comarca de San Blas. The
traditional hierarchy of the tribal leaders on national and village levels has
provided the cohesion that makes the 55,000 Kunas one of the strongest nations
among indigenous Americans. Their law that the land belongs to all Kunas has
prevented a division of the people into ‘haves’ and ‘have
nots’ and helped them perceive themselves as the blessed co owners of a
wonderful country.’
Yesterday was one of those days: first we dropped the spare binoculars
through the main hatch and broke them; closely followed by one of the remaining
tea mugs; then there was an electrical short somewhere (as yet undetected) so
the generator tripped out - so around 1700 we decided to run the engine in
neutral to charge the batteries (to keep the fridges cold amongst other
things). One hour later the alarm went off in the cockpit – the water
pump which cools the engine had failed! It was all too hot in the engine room
and dark to tackle last night but obviously will be the priority of today as
without generator or engine we will have to by pass the San Blas and sail all
the way to Panama
for help!
