New Crew!

Hello again! The wind has dropped. The water is a beautiful mirror, and the air is an infernal hell. My morning yoga went from being blown out of poses to collapsing because of the heat.

The mainsail is up. It involved four people, pouring rain, and two broken battens. Battens are long poles that slot horizontally into the sail and give it a more aerodynamic shape. They are unfortunately made of uncovered fiberglass, so for the next few days experienced the lovely sensation of having fiberglass splinters in most of my exposed skin, including between my fingers.

We have a third crewmember! Her name is Anna, she is English, she is my age, and getting her here was a heck of an ordeal. She had been volunteering at a surf camp in Costa Rica for the past month. Originally, we had planned on sailing to Puerto Limón, Costa Rica, and picking her up from there. Then the sea border closed, so she bought a bus ticket to cross the land border, with a stopover in San Jose to get a covid test. However, once in San José, she found out that the land border had just closed so she had to get a plane ticket to get to Panama city. While in San José, she stayed at a very sketchy hostel with an even sketchier owner, had difficulties with taxis at 4am, and finally arrived at the airport only to find out that she had accidentally booked her flight for the 11th of March instead of the 11th of February. (I did a similar thing for my Panama-Montreal flight, as was mentioned briefly in a former post.) Luckily she managed to get it all sorted out and arrived Thursday evening.

Fun fact about Anna: when she was a kid, her family would fish for crabs off their boat and she could stroke a crab's back in such a way that it would stop moving. Another fun fact about Anna: upon trying a shot of 85% Sunset rum, she exclaimed, "Jeez Louise!"

Friday we went into town to do a big groceries haul. We were ambling around the grocery store, taking our time to line up, when we realized that it was 2:56 and the shuttle bus left at 3:00. I ran to the bus and asked the bus driver if it would be okay if we were two minutes late. To say that he was displeased would be an understatement. At 3:01 we were finishing packing up our groceries. At 3:02 we could see the shuttle bus outside, honking madly. At 3:03, the bus driver stomped into the supermarket. Luckily, by that time, we were walking out. At 3:05 we were in the bus. I was sitting with an enormous grocery bag on my lap next to a non-socially-distanced stranger who kept accidentally elbowing me. It was humid, even for Panama. I was sweating too much. There was salsa music playing on the radio. It's a miracle we made it back alive.

Saturday evening, Susie, the owner of Jester the shaggy dog and giant golden lab Tashi, offered to take Anna and I down to the beach near the lighthouse and watch the sunset. The lighthouse happens to be designed by Gustave Eiffel, from back when the French tried to build the Canal.

The beach was very pretty, as were Susie's dogs.

Much like many other people met during our travels, Susie has a great life story. She started out in England as an art teacher while dating a minor rock star. To get a job, she moved to a city where gender equality wasn't exactly prevalent. People didn't want her to sail, or even go to the pub unaccompanied. Eventually she had enough, and went hitchhiking across the Pacific on various cargo ships and dugout canoes. She moved to the Caribbean twenty years ago, first to Saint Lucia and then to various places such as Antigua and Bonaire. (She lived in the latter for two years, working at a local orphanage and teaching dinghy sailing to kids.) She's been in Shelter Bay for almost a year due to covid, but should be heading out soon.

We have a new itinerary! Instead of leisurely cruising around Central America, we've decided to sail to England, because that's what you do when you want to kill time. We'll pass by some Panamanian islands, go to maybe Colombia or Bonaire, sail up to any north Caribbean island that the winds will allow, go even further north up to Bermuda, cross the Atlantic to get to the Azores, then arrive in England, and pop into Jem's beach house while we're there. I'm excited! I'll be sleep-deprived and wifi-less for weeks, but excited! We leave sometime next week. I might not write in a while due to lack of internet. We'll see. Byee