Closing of the First Chapter: With us leaving Gijima

Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Sun 12 Dec 2010 15:02
Yesterday as the plane rose through the jungle trees and banked over the bay of Golfito, off to port just below me, I could see Gijima sitting calmly at anchor in the sunlight looking very peaceful. It was a strange feeling, one of emptiness in someway like I have always felt when we you embark on a new challenge especially unknowns, I have done it so many times in my life and many times in the last year, but the "butterflies" in the stomach are always there, but so is the excitement of looking forward. Friday I opened up my navigation software and zoomed into Australia and started investigating the routes Brisbane north, and Brisbane south to Yamba, the hours past quickly as I became absorbed in investigating, and it became like a new country as I have never sailed these areas and only some I have been to by land if that years ago. I was pleased see that there are many anchorages and bays to break up the trips into very doable day legs which will please Tracy, so my mind has already switched, and the excitment of the new adventure new places captivated me.
For the last couple of days I have been very busy cleaning, and packing away Gijima, Tracy and boys arrived back in California to our friends Helen and Warren, and are happy and excited to see everyone, attending parties etc. I got on and went through all the systems on the boat cleaning, shutting down things like watermakers etc, and the boat is amazingly clean and tidy. But by Friday evening I was complete, so I went to happy hour at Banana Bay Marina with all the locals, I spoke with a lot of the sport fishing captains, they swapped stories I added in with my fishing from Kenya, a nice community of people. I then rowed out to a new boat who had come in two days ago, on a Petersen 44 they from Seattle and are heading north, after just completing 5 year circumnavigation. They left South Africa in March and are now heading home to go back to work, and do local northwest sailing, they had come on board Gijima to take photos of many of ideas we have done. They have a nice boat but have some needs to make things easier as they will not be doing ocean passages any longer. So we had drinks talked allot about their trip and places as they have been Australia, South Africa and also really enjoyed Vanuatu (which is where Tracy and I want get to in a dews years when the boys have grown a little).
The Panama Canal closed earlier in the week due to heavy rain and the lakes becoming full, first time it has been closed since 1989 when the USA invaded, so shipping is a mess. Our last shipping date was the 19th, but to be honest none of us (the Shippers local agents) and I believe that it will hold to 19th as canal has put at least 2 to 3 day "spanner in the works", I believe it could be 24th but we will see. That is why it is not worth just sitting around when we have many things to do in California to clean things up ready for the transformation.
As I flew up out of Golfito I looked down on the Gulf of Dulce as we flew along the coast the clear water and the areas we were sailing a week ago, and then over to Drake and up the coast to Quepos I could recognize it all, a clear day not so high up so I could look into the bays and imagine it on the water. You could see the big brown intrusions into the blue water from the rivers still running off the wet seasons rain. Yesterday afternoon I went into San Jose which was closed off for the Christmas parade 1000s of people. I walked miles wandering in amongst the people, and looking at things, as I have never spent any time in San Jose. The parade was much bigger than I had expected with huge floats and the whole town (1/2 the population of the country) had turned out, they even tried to make snow in 80s but everyone was dancing and as I watched it was a nice way to say goodbye to Latin America after 12 months in the Spanish speaking world. With Christmas carols in Spanish, songs and dances in the bright colors as so typical in this part of the world, and happiness in the faces of the people and kids.
It has been a rewarding year of absorbing and experiencing this part of the world one I have hardly got to before, and now feel I know reasonable well, the people cultures, nature and natural wonders, so many good memories, yes 2010 will be a special year in our memories.