Sea Legs

I’m back! Briefly at least.  The radio silence has been due to massive technology fuckups.  My 75 peso Mexican phone charger died (it literally fell apart) and my refurbished-new-to-me laptop (a Dell Latitude 6320 or something) kicked the bucket.  It might just be the battery, but I’m never near enough to civilization for long enough to find someone to fix it.  I’ve been bungling along on my phone (until the cord fiasco), trying to decide the best course of action.  Feels stupid to buy a new laptop, but I need to write. 

So I bought a new laptop.  Bummed around a mall in David, Panama for 2 hours comparing notebooks and ended up with an HP somethingorother.  I realize that’s a stupid way to buy a laptop, but I really only need it to 1) not die, and 2) process words.  Words are lovely, no?  The computer was cheap, so I figure it’s worth my word-joy.

I’ve been on Kia Ora, a 46’ Beneteau Oceanis, for about a month now in Panama, cruising up the coast slowly towards the border with Costa Rica.  Cruising is new to me; I’ve lake-sailed for 5 years but prior to getting on board in Panama City, had never slept a night on a boat.  I wasn’t really sure what to expect, especially because the skipper and current crew were total unknowns before I got on board.  Cruising gives you lots of time to reflect (especially when your tech goes tits up), so I put together a list of the ups and downs that I’ve experienced so far, which will hopefully give some of my desk-bound readers a better sense of what it is I do every day now that I’ve quit the real world.  So, beginning with the bad, in no particular order:

The Bad

• Nights when the wind is blowing counter to the current, so the boat isn’t facing bow-first into the waves.  This makes the damn thing rock like a sunbitch, often as much as 30 degrees in either direction, making a 60 degree swing every couple of seconds.  I’ve only felt one twinge of seasickness so far, and it was during one of these nights.  Pretty miserable.  Also thankfully rare.
• Nothing is ever really dry.  The breeze is wet and the morning dew is thick enough to drink.  Clothing left out overnight on lines will be damp in the morning.
• While the boat is comfortable (at 6’4” I have enough head room in the main area and in my quarters), it’s still quite a tight fit for 3 or more people.  There’s nowhere to hide on hot days when being below decks is out of the question.  I’m basically stuck with people from ~7 in the morning until bedtime, which is usually around 8:30. I get sick of even the most lovely people after a little while, but here it’s just a matter of getting accustomed, shutting the hell up, and trying not to kill each other.
• On days when we need to make more than 60-70 miles, we get started at 4am, in order to get to an anchorage before sunset.  Everyone else seems to be able to go back to sleep after the autohelm is set, but I can’t.  At least I get some alone time.
• The water all tastes funny.
• Minor inconveniences can turn into major hassles when you’re far from civilization – see my bitching re: phone charger for example. Duct tape and DW40 can only go so far.
• I’m constantly covered in small wounds, usually on my hands and feet (I don’t wear deck shoes – way too hot).  Nothing really worth mentioning in isolation, but combined, something is always either bleeding or sore.
• While traveling by boat, you never get to see more than coastal towns and ports.  These places can be fun and/or interesting, but they rarely offer a real perspective on a country. Rather, they feel like they cater to boat life – convenient, but an unauthentic view of a place.
• And of course, I miss my people.  

The Amazing

• All the sea life.  Coming from Toronto, a gorgeous city on a busy lake, I’m used to being near the water.  But seeing a fish is rare, let alone the rest of the crazy crap I’ve encountered out here.  I see turtles lazily flapping past, miles away from the nearest land, going a speed that will take them weeks to get to any destination.  At night, jellyfish with glowing neon blue dots drift by the boat, making the black water look like some ‘80s videogame backdrop. Huge schools of fish, from tiny baitfish to meter-long things I can’t identify (yet) crest the surface in thrashing droves. Golden-blue marlin fly five feet out of the water, running from some predator or just fucking showing off like jerks.  A four foot manta ray similarly jumped out of the water, looking like a black and white flag waving in the wind for a few seconds, before flopping gracelessly back into the blue.  Shark fins periodically appear, and while they cruise along within view, some prehistoric instinct in the base of my brain recognizes their particular way of moving as inherently predatory. One afternoon I caught a wrestling match between a shark and a swordfish, both about six feet long – they thrashed around, breaking into view and churning up the water for more than a minute before somebody threw in the towel. A massive whale shark drifted past us, only its head and back visible.  And that’s all out at sea; nevermind the view from the deck into crystal clear waters while we anchor near a reef.  I’m constantly amazed at how not-empty the sea is.  I guess I expected to see these kinds of things once in a while, but instead, I rarely go more than half an hour without witnessing something alive come up to take a look at us.
• And of course, the dolphins, which deserve their own bullet.  I’m not some sappy wanker, inclined to getting all worked up about the majesty of nature, but watching a pod of dolphins play under the bow of the boat, rolling and jumping and audibly clicking at each other as they ride the underwater wave we push in front of us, is magical to the point of sentimentality. It’s an experience that strips away layers of built-up curmudgeonly cynicism and puts a childlike smile on your face, my bitter ass can say without an ounce of exaggeration. And then you get to see it again the next day, and it hasn’t lost an iota of impact.
• Another thing city life robs us of is the night sky.  I’ve always been a camper, and getting up north in Ontario provided an impressive view of the stars.  But being anchored in an untouched cove in the middle of the night, hundreds of miles from the nearest town, is an order of magnitude apart.  The Milky Way is so bright you can read by it.  Every constellation you learned in school jumps out at you.  The moon is so big and bright it’s almost tacky. I see shooting stars every night, and usually don’t have to wait more than 3 or 4 minutes to catch my first one if I’m looking. I should have saved this one for last, because I think it’s my favourite, and one that I can’t find words enough to do the spectacle justice.
• Almost every night I see a thunderstorm in the distance.  With the huge vista of sky available along the coast, you can see a storm so far off that you get the side-on view, illuminating layers of clouds that climb so far up into the atmosphere that the actual lightning strikes visible below them look like glowing toothpicks.
• The simple joy of sighting land after even a few hours of sailing with only water visible on every horizon.
• Uninhabited islands with a beach and a stand of palm trees.
• The volume of phosphorescence is sometimes inconceivable.  The first time I jumped into a glowing midnight ocean and had my limbs light up like I was on blue fire, a whole nother layer of rat-race misery was permanently scoured from my psyche.
• Crashing through waves while beating up wind in a heavy blow.
• Discovering a new town, even if it is only a fishing village.
• The guilty joy of finding a wifi signal.
• Fresh fish ceviche.
• Surprisingly, most of the food is really good.  The skipper and one of our current guests are great cooks.  I was expecting (and perfectly happy with) camp food, but this has been three good home-cooked meals a day, every day, for weeks.
• Swimming in salt water, every chance I get.
• Maps, charts, navigation and trip planning.  Have I mentioned I like maps?
• Going to bed exhausted at 8pm and waking up at dawn.

No doubt I’ve missed some key joy or misery, but this is a good start and should give y’all a better idea of what my life has been like since I traded in my ties for flip flops.

I think we’re leaving Boca Chica tomorrow, making our way towards the border and onwards to Golfito in Costa Rica, where we’re meeting Greg, our new crew member.