As dat Crow flies

Panama Canal

2011-11-27T09:54:00.000-08:00

After three months on the road we left Peru and arrived back at the boatyard. From the simplicity of living out of a backpack with no real worries the reality of the boat set in along with all the chores required to head back out. But our luck held and the boat was in good shape thanks to Moise and the other staff at Shelter Bay. I had some problems with bronze thru hulls or rather lack of them after snapping a piece moving the galley sink while Deb made a new bimini to match the last years dodger project. A new main and mizzen sail from Doyles loft in Barbados complete with matching toast sunbrella sail cradles were added to complement Deb's stuff and will make the old girl preen for her birthday.In 2012 SeaCycle turns 40.
In the midst of all the work we took a break to help our friends on Darramy through the Panama Canal and into the Pacific. Also along were Peter and Sue sailng buddies of Darramys from over home. Deb and I worked the bow lines as we first passed through the three Gatun locks behind a freighter and then out into Lake Gatun for the night tying up to a shipping buoy. After some rum fueled story telling (Shackleton freezing) Peter pulled out his concertina and gave us a brillant little concert. Still it was a sleepless night for me out in the cockpit as the buoy was right next to the new canal construction due to be finished on the hundred year anniversary in 2014. There was a steady stream of truck activity all night and all reports point to them being ready on time. The new locks will be deeper and wider to handle the larger cargo carriers coming on line. Our advisor( all small boats have an advisor rather than a pilot on board during the transit) showed up at six and we were on our way across the lake first to the Pedro Miguel and finally the Miaflores locks and out into the Pacific anchoring off Flamingo point.

The locks going up were a little bit more difficult than the locks on the way down because of the turblence in filling their chambers. At each lock two line handlers on each side throw messenger lines with monkeys paws(heavier knots or rings) at the boat handlers. This proved to be the only real challenge but ours went quite smoothly. The down locks were a breeeze plus the fact we only had a tourist boat for company. As soon as the hook was down Brian and I untied the tire fenders and extra lines and delivered to Eric the canal agent who had provided them as part of his service. After that it was a sad parting. We first met the Darramys three years ago fifty miles up the Orinoco Delta exploring along with Audrey Page when thinking we were alone we came around a bend and saw two British flagged boats Malarkey and Darramy already at anchor off a wilderness lodge. We have run across them every year since somewhere but now they are entering the big pond so only the gods know when we will cross wakes again. Roger gave us a lift back to the Caribbean side and we were back to the marina just in time for the rain to really kick in for a few days. This held up our insurance survey, but in the end fours weeks after arriving, SeaCycle assumed her natural position splashing back into the water.
to be continued

2011-10-14T12:58:00.001-07:00

August 29/2011 to October 16th/2011

BOLIVIA

Bolivia, a country of extreme heights, temperatures and political passions. With possibly the worst roads and buses in the western hemisphere the land locked terrain offers something unique for intrepid wanderers. Intending to stay for two weeks we stayed six. The first few days were spent in La Paz and then we headed out to the south west entering the stunning 12000 square mile Salar Salt Desert through the backdoor of the Quebrada gorge country around Tupiza (where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid took their last payroll).
La Paz was interesting spilling down a hill at one end of a valley with the houses clinging to the montainsides and stretching down the valley where the snow capped Mount Illiami backdropped the scene. A very busy city with market stalls everywhere making things loud and thanks to the total lack of emission controls, smoggy. Walking is a cautious performance of dash and dodge at every street crossing due to the absence of traffic lights. Every motors rev seems to spew out a bilious black exhaust and by late afternoon between the smoke and altitude it can be dangerous if you are in bad health. There seems to be a constant cacophony of people hacking and coughing.

We spent several days here exploring that included watching three or four protests close down the roads. It seems to be the national sport. One night a traditional street fiesta burst out of nowhere below our hotel window at 1 am. With fireworks exploding so close to the hotel we thought it prudent to shut the windows. I thought we were under attack by the Shining Path until I saw the Chola women (yes, that is what you call the ladies wearing those bowler derby hats) in their wide multi layed skirts dancing to a brass band that was joyously out of tempo and tune. It went on for an hour and then disappeared just as suddenly. Leaving for the south early the next morning we never found out what that was all about. We caught the bus to Oruro and from there the overnight train to Tupiza arriving at 4am wandering the much warmer streets till we found our hotel. After a couple of days we joined up with a young Dutch couple Wouter and Michelle heading out for a four day high altitude jeep trip through partially roadless country. It was cold and barely breathable at times with thin, hard air but the view made it worth every bump in the road. We saw dry season gorge country, multicoloured by mineral content and sculpted by the torrential water from rainy season. At 5400 meters geysers in the frigid cold coexisted with flamingos that somehow in evolution had missed a turn from the Caribbean and live well feeding on the frigid climate of the high alto salt lagoons. Finishing up at wind swept Uyuni we took an overnight bus ride up through Potosi pass Montana Cerro Rico. For two hundred years Spain's economy depended on the silver dug from the mountain at a cost of eight million lives. Then we descended into Sucre the White City and home to the South American Independence movement, a tranquil university town. Meaning to stay only two days we made the mistake of checking out the Spanish school Fenix and immediately got hooked by the great atmosphere. In fact if we hadn´t had tickets back to Sea Cycle from Lima I swear we would still be there staying at La Dolce Vita our favourite Hostal yacking it up around the communal kitchen with all the younger backpackers. In the end time ran out and we headed back to La Paz spending a few days before crossing the border again and running down to Arequipa where we once again tagged up with Edison who had helped us with rooms the first visit three months earlier and then having had enough of bus rides we let the moths out of our wallets and flew back to Lima for a couple of days R & R before heading home to SeaCycle in Panama.

to be continue

2011-10-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

August 28/2011

To La Paz

We hung around Cusco for a week after the girls left. Deb had slipped the second day on the trek pulling something and after a week of hyper activity the break was needed. We had to wait a few days because of protests blocking the road into La Paz by Ayrama Indians at Alto. Evo Morales might be the first indigenous leader elected president in the Americas but he is certainly feeling the heat from the kitchen with street protesting a way of life in Bolivia. We finally shipped out on the recommended bus to La Paz which turned out to be an old wreck. Rubbing insult into injury was a competing Nuev Contintenal, a brand new Marco Polo cama bus which ran with us all the way. Oh well luck of the draw. The window bled cold along with an incessive rattle which I finally jammed into silence. A heavy blanket was issued to each passenger and we huddled up looking for some nocturnal bliss. For me an Ipod with the Thievery Corp catalog finally did the trick. Arriving at 7 am the next morning we pulled into Desaguadero, where the bus pulled into a riot of a traffic jam and just parked.
We noticed everybody getting off and headed into a mob. Trying to straighten out my knees which had twisted into prize looking bonsai we headed a quarter mile through a bustling scene of border vendor market chaos finally finding a line of a couple hundred strong and all stamping their feet to keep warm. The line moved quickly and we checked out of Peru, Deb hit one of the dozens of money changers to pick up some bolivanios and then we casually strolled over a bridge and walked into Bolivia. No one challenged us and in fact I had to ask where we should go to stamp in. Deb got 90 days and I got 30. Guess I didn´t wink fast enough. When we left the office the bus was miraculously waiting, so all aboard, then moved two whole blocks and then a thirty minute wait while the road was graded (all dirt) and then a few blocks later on to a paved road. Now this one of several things that didn´t add up. You would have thought the paved road would lead to the border. No the border was like a small town that had been bypassed by the highway. But this was only the beginning because walking across the border I could have smuggled any type of contraband we wanted on to the bus. Then between the border and La Paz maybe a three hour drive we were boarded three times by armed soldiers on the make. First a papers please check, then the second time just an eyeballing perusal of everybody but the third time was in Alto that unplanned sprawl of a city that crowds the rim overlooking La Paz and considered the Ayrama Indian capital. Here two policemen got on and started hasselling two Indians over something at the back of the bus. Then a young what I took to be a student had words with them. Next thing I know he is pulling out a Cannon Rebel camera and starts shooting pictures of them. He basically chased them off the bus with the camera. I have to say I was impressed with his command of the situation but we were about to learn Bolivans have had enough abuse and are not afraid to stand up for themselves and have a habit of taking to the streets. Fittingly I couldn´t help but notice a big statue of CHE made of wire as the bus left the Alto and started down the Toll road into La Paz.

To be continued....

2011-10-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

August 18th /2011
I ended up at Machu Picchu fully expecting to be disappointed. Didn´t happen! Even with the crowds it would be hard to remain cynical and you can only wonder at the skill and tenacity of those involved in building this site. Easy to see why the Spanish never found it tucked as it is so high and off the beaten track. American Hiram Bingham stumbled across it in 1911 while seeking the lost city of the Incas. A campesino family using the site for farming led him up the summit. It was only after an exhaustive search for the last Inca hideout (which he found but didn`t realize at Vicabamba) that he returned here and let the world know of his rediscovery of the site through a National Geographic article. His later book published after WW11 made him famous and he is considered the template for the Indiana Jones character. We lucked out with clear weather and a brillant morning to look around the site . Miguel our guide spent three hours with us and gave us all the prevailing theories. I found that about four hours was enough and the girls concurred so we headed down and caught our train riding through the stunning Urabamba canyon that hides the site on a train back to Cusco arriving late in the evening. The next day was hectic and sad as the girls head back down to the coast via Nazca and then on home to Toronto for a visit before returning to their home on Interlude in Guatemala.

Lares Valley Quishuarani to Cuncani and over Huacahuasikas

2011-10-11T14:04:00.000-07:00

August 15th to 18th There is not much I can say about the trek that the pictures can´t do better.The climbing was hard on the lungs, the nights were frigid. At the highest peak on the second day we topped out at 5100 meters or around 16500 feet. At the last peak we were walking a hundred feet or less , stopping and just drinking in the air. The porters had prepared a horse and saddle for anyone who wouldn´t or couldn´t finish the last summit. I was proud of Deb as she graciously turned down the offer several times. Finally at the top we got clouded over and of course it started to snow. Nobody was too interested in pictures as everyones thoughts were on heading down so we could get warm and breath. We only saw other trekkers once at a common campground on the first night. As you can see the landscape was beautiful. On the third afternoon after decending at Urubamba the bus picked us up driving us to Ollantaytambo with its magnifacent terraces where we picked up the train to Machu Picchu and warm hot showers.
to be continued

At the TOP!!

Lares Valley Trek August 19/2011

2011-10-02T11:54:00.000-07:00

The Trek
I had booked this trek back in late May on the advice of Brian from s/v Darramy. We had decided against doing the Inca Trail after hearing the number of daily walkers was(500)and figuring there would be no peace. Other issues for us included no road hiking and quality porters. Brian assured us this was the case with the Qente agency and also provided his actual guides name whom I requested on booking.
When we finally arrived in Cuzco we went and met my booking agent Wilbert and a few days later had our briefing from a guide named Ferdinand. By this time we were getting some feedback from other travellers who had already finished other Lares treks and there were a couple of negative reports. None of these concerned our agency but some of the others complained of un-hygienic cooking practises, camping compounds littered with garbage and long stretches of road as well as poor transfers back to Cuzco.

Our attention also went up when Wilbert told us that the back end of our route was now closed to foreigners because of concerns over littering and noise. This didn't really surprise us after what we have seen the last few years regarding young backpackers behaviour. This was something I have always rightfully or wrongly cut some slack on, because of my own behaviour in a some what misspent youth. On the other hand the amount of garbage I have seen strewn and carelessly discarded by locals in almost all third world countries leaves most first world backpackers looking like saints.
We had our final briefing and then finished renting our sleeping bags, walking sticks and a last minute flurry of shopping for thermal linings and socks. Early to bed on Sunday night after packing our allowance of eight kilograms which was all we were allowed on the mules and had to include our potable water for drinking. Everything and anything else had to be carried on our day packs. We got up at three forty five and were surprised when our guide showed up early and with two of the porters to help carry stuff. We were already leaving early because of a road closure around Calca and so were feeling a bit rushed. Our hostel was just off the Plaza de Armas so we walked the bags down to the square and were rewarded with the first of many pleasant surprises. Instead of a little white car van we found a luxuriously appointed tourist van. We made a quick exit from the quiet city streets climbing the hills to Sacsayhuam and heading off to Calca via the Sacred Valley. After the lackadaisical attitude of most of the other bus drivers we had experienced it was refreshing to have a driver who actually slowed down and took care on the corners and with approaching vehicles in single lane situations. After a quick pit stop at Calca for some supplies we left the main road and headed up what can only be described as a goat trail or at best a rough construction road. I don’t think that any North American or European would even consider taking a vehicle like this into these conditions. Again at times I swear only parts of the tires on the outside were touching the road on the canyon rim. Sometimes the abyss was easily in the thousands of feet with the added bonus of a raging boulder strewn river coursing below. Most of the time I would just look away or worse close my eyes but that only brought visions of the Toronto news dailies announcing the demise of four of its citizens in a tragic South American bus tragedy. Finally arund nine am we arrived at the starting point where a breakfast tent was set up and while we had tea the horses were loaded.
to be continue

Cusco August 10/2010

2011-10-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Cusco the Niagara Falls of South America as far as tourist attractions go. Everything here is geared to the glories of the Inca culture starting with Machu Picchu and the surrounding Sacred Valley. Its impossible to go more than a few feet without being hit on by touts shilling everything from tours to massages. Prices are up sharply from the rest of the country and tourista bling bling is for sale every few feet. Despite all of this it is most definetly worth the visit.
The city is a mason´s dream with a smorgasbord of all types of stonework on show. Road, sidewalk, walls and up to the tiled roofs it is all some sort of stone. It can be pebbled, cobbled, blocked, granite slabbed to just plain found stone with plenty of the wonder of warm adobe. The great Inca stones are keyed into each other mortarless with a precision that is probably unmatched anywhere on the planet,any millennia. Even today´s construction techniques would be hard pressed to match the quality.It is also unknown precisely how they did it creating a lot of the mysterious air that attracts a lot of new agers and other true believers. After the conquest the Spanish used some Inca sites as quarries for the construction of their colonial buildings. Qoricancha the sun temple is located in downtown Cuzco and is believed to have been the heart of Inca religion and astronomy. The Spanish destroyed it as pagan and surprise, surprise they built a Catholic cathedral on top of it using the Inca stone as foundation. In the 1950s an eathquake destroyed the colonial church structure exposing the orginal foundations. Amazingly the Inca work stood.The Inca empire consisted of four states with all roads leading here to city square. After a briefing at our trek company (QENTE) we then spent the rest of the week wandering the streets and sites of Cuzco including an off the wall tour with a young guide Jonathan who gave us the bohemian tour including a stop at a house that had some fresh fermented corn Chica marked by a bag hanging above the top of the door. Chica is the locals favourite party drink. He also took us to the large San Pedro Market where we had a look at an herbalists who offered a cactus extract that gives off hallucinogenic vibes something like mescaline and totally legal here. I made a few smart comments about having already done the Carlos Castaneda thing thankful I am a little too old and wiser for all that argy bargy. We also took a trip out to the Sacred valley just north of the city visiting the Salinas salt pans, a series of drying ponds fed by an underground stream leaching from the surrounding hills. Looking out over the ponds was a view of the mountains and a valley running down to the town of Urabamba.

We admired the view, little knowing that we were looking at where our hike would end. Not far from the ponds we visited the site of Moray an Inca built amphitheatre where Dylan would have been happy performing. Turned out to be an agricultural centre or laboratory where the Inca experimented with crops at different altitude levels. Temperature range from top to bottom was 27 degrees Fahrenheit mirroring the climate range of the empire. Archaeologists have found different soil types from all over the empire here and of course many people wanted to get down to the center, leave an offering and feel the vibe. Finally it was time to organise and get ready for our hike and then Machu Picchu.
to be continuednote the pumas head in the picture above

Lake Titicaca August 5/2011

2011-09-03T07:49:00.000-07:00

Puno is a city that has grown from its location as Peru´s city at the one end of Lake Titicaca. Traditionally a centre for agriculture, along with some mining activity, it is a main tourist attraction on the gringo trail which is mostly young backpackers along with the occasional should know better elder like myself. Still it is on the list and demands to be crossed off. The downtown mainfare is Lima Calle a lively pedestrian walkway of restaurants, souvenir and assorted nefarious clip joints. Street touts are everywhere. The restaurants are great to superb which is the main cause of our budget dysfunction. Its also rare to sit down here to eat without being entertain by buskers and I have to say the level of muscianship is a joy to listen to. Many youger troubadours are just playing guitar with a pan flute hooked up like a Dylan harmonica and playing with skill and passion. The larger bands have drums, guitars and a variety of flutes and a small stringed instruments that produce a full rich sound. Like the great cooks and fashion designs here the music stands on its own. We managed a couple of side trips here taking the boat ride out to the reed islands which was very disappointing because of the atmosphere in which they were being presented and then on out to the island of Taquile. Regardless you have to do the islands even if it is totally Disney. They will tell you they are living there but there was not a chance. The cooking areas were definitly not being used and I had a hard time keeping a straight face as an indian named Hector wearing a fedora and flashing a couple of gold teeth delivered his hard sell trying to guilt us into buying his wife´s tourist bling bling. The visit to Taquile made the whole trip worthwhile as we landed there for the end of St.James feast enjoying our own lunch after the somewhat strenous uphill climb followed by a then knee crunching down hill hike back to the boats. The boats I might add carrying 24 passengers each were comfortable but as watercraft totally sucked. The rudders are so short that control is a battle and our helmsman (cell phone glued to ear) kept over steering just avoiding two close collisions one of which was only avoided by the girls and I all yelling at him. One other interesting trip was an afternoon run out to Sillustani a pre-Inca ruin of burial Chullpas located on Lake Umayo. We had a great guide on this trip and also visited a local family who showed us their home in a walled compound of stone with adobe structures inside. We got to see the cooking methods and all the ingredients as well. One big highlight of the trip was a visit to the Yavari one of the worlds oldest iron ships and definitely the one on the highest lake in the world. It has been lovingly restored by some brits and is fully functional.Finally after a week in Puno we elected to head for Cusco. We took the Inka Express bus because it offered 4 stops at archelogical sites. Unfortunately this turned out to be a cattle run with not only minimal time at each site but also where you jostled with the crowds from other buses. We arrived in Cusco as the evening dusk set in. Each bus station has its own stop and we were picked up and transfered by the Hostal that the girls had arranged.We had a full week to relax and explore before our Lares Valley trek.
to be continued

Puno August 1/2011

2011-08-29T09:13:00.000-07:00

Friday morning I was feeling much better but still short of breath as we started the six hour ride to Puno, another 1200 meters up. We took the bus back up around El Misti again and at the Park sanctuary turned off to Puno climbing high through a range of dry wash river beds and alpaca herds. The scenery matched anything out of a western including the stone and adobe houses. We passed a lake and hundreds of flamingos feeding in the salt flats. This time we were seated on the upper section where there were four seats instead of three but still very luxurious and comfortable. I carefully monitored my health and was studious in drinking water since dehydration was a big issue. By one pm we hit Juliaca (pictures below) which I can only describe as the armpit of Peru, a town of red stone brick with every avenue appearing to be a variation of the previous with unfinished structure after another. All of them offering rebar from their top floor usually decorated with laundry. Garbage mostly plastic was strewn everywhere, in fact at one point I swear the bus had to slow down to cross a speed bump of it. It wasn’t far from out of town that we were once again in a wilderness ,till finally we came over a hill and saw Puno laid into hills steep on the incline, uniformly brownish red in color but still a spectacular site as it ran down to the shore of Lake Titicaca, highest lake on the planet. There streets were crowded with vendors, fruit piled and splashed out on blankets as Indian women all wearing their typical bowler hats sat on their Lama mats, coca bulge in their cheeks. We were picked up at the bus terminal as arranged, by the driver to what turned out to be the hotel from hell. Unfortunately we were booked in for three nights all pre paid. We beat it by avoiding it from 8 to 4 sight seeing and then again from 6 to 9 by eating out. One the third day we found a great room at the Luna Azul a block from the town square and began to feel normal again.
to be continued

Colca Valley, Home of the Condors , July 30th/2011

2011-08-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

Monday morning we were picked up by a bus and started the five hour trip up to the alto Plano and the Colca Valley. Arequipia lays at 2650 meters and we had planned to spend at least a week here acclimatizing. It did not seem to matter. We climbed to an altitude of 5,000 meters before heading down to 3600 meters at Chivay. Well three out of four of us ended up with bad headaches. This was always compounded by sinus problems with a cold. It’s winter here and Peruvians have no heat, what so ever. We visited the hot springs in Chivay first where the cool air made us reluctant to go in, but we succumbed and were glad we did. The temperature in was 36 but the air was 10 Celsius. That evening we had a quick walk around the square settling on a nice modern fusion style restaurant where we had Alpaca and fresh water trout. Back at the rooms it was a quick strip down and under the sheets in an ever increasing chill. We woke the next morning, had a quick breakfast of coca tea and pan along with jam and juice and hit the road. The road was what one should call real estate challenged. Bare inches separate you from the hereafter. One feature we have noticed are a lot of roadside memorials lining the shoulders on all the roads in Peru. I mean a lot, like every kilometer instead of curbstones. At times I swore the wheels were hanging over the edge. Deb gladly relinquished the window seat and I spent a lot of time tuned out visually eyes straight ahead and mentally tuned in to my IPod. The road along the southern edge of the Colca valley takes you to see the Condors at a lookout the locals have created. Evidently they nest at the steepest part of the valley for security and spend the early morning hours circling as a group, waiting for the days thermals to heat up before moving on to search for food. They are not predators but scavengers although we heard tales of them doing flybys on unsuspecting cattle hoping they would fall to their deaths.
The majority of the valley is terraced on both sides wherever there is enough earth to till and it must have taken more than a millennia to do all the construction involved. Frankly its a bit mind boggling. We were also shown some pre-Inka burial crypts of stones set high on the clift walls seemingly to get the intended closer to the heavens.

We had a nice hour long hike along the rim looking down into the gorge when we spotted the first of the condors. They were very active and certainly seemed to play to the crowd. After the trip back was a two hours with a stop at the village of Maca and then lunch at Chivay before the climb back up the Alto Plano to 5000 meters and down again to Arequipa. On the way we witnessed a series of small dust twisters, very cool. By this time I was having a hard time breathing and wasn’t feeling all that good by the time we arrived back at the hotel. After dinner the real agony started and I spent the night offering goods to the porcelain god and then spent the entire next day sleeping off the ritual. By Thursday I was well enough to venture out again but everything was small steps and slow. Meanwhile the girls in my absence had made an executive decision and had bought tickets and hotel reservations for Puno on Lake Titicaca.

to be continued

Arequipa July 25th

2011-08-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

.

We spent the next few days exploring the streets of Arequipa as well as seriously shopping for warmer clothes. Karen and Cheryl caught up with us late one evening after riding the buses all the way up from Santiago in Chile. They are keeping their boat Interlude IX in Guatemala up the Rio Dulce and were hooking up with us for a month starting here. We planned to do the big trek to Machu Picchu together. Our hotel turned out to be rundown and after two days we moved to much nicer digs at the Terra Mistaca built around a colonial courtyard three blocks from the Plaza de Armas. The move was arranged for us by Edision who I had met at the bus station and he proved his worth a couple of times with guides and accommodation. We spent all of Saturday and Sunday just wandering the streets of the old city sucking up the ambience of the old town, first settled in the 1540s. The cities colonial masonry construction is built from silar, a white stone that literally gleams in the light giving Arequipa its moniker of the White City. Its impressive main square the Plaza De Armas is centered by the Cathedral on one side facing three sides of an arched colonnade back dropped by a snow capped Mt. Misti. The city has a number of historical sites to see including the Convent de Santa Catalina a small city in itself which had a controversial role in the Catholic Church for its acceptance the nobilities daughters and their rich dowries, a practice outlawed during one of the churches many self serving reformations, really just a kind of a pay as you go plan for the rich. There is also an archeological Museum displaying mummies including Juanita a sacrificial virgin recently discovered buried in the ice up on the Alto Plano. For us we were using the city first to acclimatize to the altitude at 2650 meters and secondly as a base for a trip up to Chivay to see the Colca Canyon, second deepest canyon on the planet and also the best place to see the Andean Condors. After that we planned a short return to Arequipa before heading on to Puno on Lake Titicaca and then on to Cusco and the trek.
To be continued

Up Into the Mountains July 22/2011

2011-08-26T09:45:00.000-07:00

A couple of days in Lima and we were set to head off. We had spent one evening wandering around the streets settling on a sidewalk cafe as the locals went looney over the tournament football game which they ended losing to Uragauy. We had also spent the afternoon at a trendy mall shopping for warm clothes. The mall was precariuosly perched on the cliffs that form the coastline here.One good quake and you would bet it would be gone. We had booked a ticket on Cruz de Sur bus line for the 16 hour trip up to Arequipa where we were hoping to rendevous with Cheryl and Karen from Interlude IX who were heading up from two weeks in Chile. We were all booked into the same hotel the Viza located near the town centre. After checking out, the hostal stored our bags and we had a last go at the town also looking for some snacks for the bus ride. At the mercado I had an incident at the checkout, where in the ten item or less line the woman in front of me first held up the line while her husband went to add to the already overextended item list. Its a funny set up with two cashiers sharing single line in tadem. I asked in spanish, permisso, to sneak by with no response so turning away from her I made my move and pushed by with my daypack nudging her. Well the world came to an end and all I got was a Senor followed by some verbolose so being on good behaviour I said Los Seinto, plus disculpe, but that wasn´t good enough so at the point my bitchometer tripped in and I just ignored her as she chattered her self away. Still it didn´t exactly set the mood for the bus trip. But the trip was a surprise starting at the station where the security was almost airport like. They wanted passports searched carry ons and videoed all the passengers for security. I joked to Deb that the filmimg was just to identify the remains as the South American roads are notorious for losing their travellers especially in the mountains. The bus chairs are called camas and are basically full recling lazyboys which were extremely comfortably along with stewardesses, blankets and movies but I put the IPOD on shuffle and immeadidiately dropped off. Hours later I noticed the light peeking in from behind the curtains and taking a deep breath realized I had no headache which meant hopefully no altidude sickness. Great I thought as I opened the curtains only to see the ocean and its long waves breaking on miles of sandy beach. Certainly had misjudged the timing on that one. Even worse the road was a series of switchbacks which while very dramatic suffered from a serious lack of real estate in fact such a shortage seemingly under the wheels that I immeadtialy dialed up my innner coward who drew the curtains back across. Looking out the other side only brought miles and miles of sanddunes, no lets call them wind straked hills the like of which I have never encountered.A short time later we seemed to head inland into a scene out of a spaghetti western, adobe huts and tumble garbage mostly bluebags and plastic waterbottles punctuated by the beginnings of snowcapped mountains in the distance. All very exciting but a bit desolate. Around one pm we enterd the outskirts of Arequipa and pulled into the bus terminal. A short taxi ride brought us to our hotel where we checked in and hit the sack for a couple of hours shuteye.
to be continued

Canadian Eh!!!! July 20th/2011

2011-08-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

True story I swear. The first morning in Lima we found a bank machine and in I went inserting my card only to have a screen full of binary talk flash at me followed by a Microsoft annoncement that the window was shutting down.Now one thing to strike fear into a traveller is a disconnect from the life line of funds or even worse the suspsion that you have just been had. In any case not pleasant. As I came out of the booth I told the next lady in line that something was wrong and it turned out she spoke english as she pointed me down the block and across the street to a branch of the same bank which happens to be my prefered one because of no service charges. Then I watched her go off just as the traffic light in front of me changed so I crossed the road and hoofed it along to the chosen spot. Then I went in and tried the card again along with the sinking feeling you can get when uncertinity rules. Well all was well with the machine kicking out my daily limit at a not quite three to one rate which always makes you stand up a little straighter and left the booth. Again the same lady was there and expressed disbeleive we had beat here to the machine. Smiling I wandered off . A few blocks of window gazing later I went to cross the street and sure enough there she was again. Before I could open my mouth she smiled and assured us she wasn´t stalking me. She then went on to say she lived in the neighbourhood.Then out of nowhere she said to us you are Canadian aren´t you. Well I was a bit taken back as I said yes how did you know. She told us she had lived in New Jersey for years and couldn´t help but notice us as we stopped and wait for the traffic lights when everybody else had moved on when the traffic cleared but we had waited till the light changed. I thought that was hilarious. So I told the joke How do you get 200 Canadians out of a swimming pool.Punch line==== Just ask them to get out. That got a laugh and we went out seperate ways. It may be a national pastime discussing what it means to be a Canadian but it seems the rest of the planet has us figured out!

Into Peru July 19th/2011

2011-08-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

Waking up in Lima was a shock. On the plane my nostrils cleared up right away after the humid Panamian heat of the previous six months, which was very refreshing. Even at the Lima airport the weather was a novelty. Damp, misty and cool was different and different was ok. Waking up though was a different thing as we both relucantly cocked one eye open each challenging each other to be first to get out from the covers. This was the chilliest since last November in Toronto the previous year. And guess what? No central heating! It seems this is the way things are done here just throw another blanket on, dress warmly, wear a scarf,and suck it up. And if it gets really cold well you might get one of those toy radiant electric heaters that may or may not take the chill off the air but certainly isn´t going to heat the room. After a ooh,ooh aw,aw shower and speedy towel down it was into clothes and off for breakfast.I did notice the coco leaves by the tea pot with some interest(reputedly the cure for altitude) sickness but caffine won out over curiosty. We spent the next few hours finding a bank machine and poking around getting the lay of the land in Miaflores the which is one of the suburbs of Lima sittting on the ocean. We also found the South American Explorers club paid for a membership and began to realize that our clothes just were not going to cut it in the cool and damp weather which was only going to get colder as we headed up into the mountains. So the search was on for outdoor stores and thinsulate type clothing.

Escape from Panama July 18th/2011

2011-08-25T08:28:00.000-07:00

Hard as it was we left Shelter Bay with Seacycle sitting tucked away on the hard in the fenced security yard. We took the marina bus to Colon where we caught the express bus across the isthmus to the Albrook Mall in Panama city. Three fifty for the ride. A short taxi ride later and we were in The Costa Inn where we stayed for two nights before our flight on Monday night. The weekend was spent picking up odds and ends for the trip and some new shoes for myself. We are travelling light everything is in our 40 litre backpacks from Mountain Equipment Coop the same drill as on the camino and small enough for carry on. The jury is out on whether this will work for a three month trip. The reasoning is that we can always pick up a cheap bag for checkin if we end up with too many trip items. Not a big worry when you live on a sailboat. Roger pick us up on Monday morning for what turned out to be a futile hunt for an ac adapter for the Ereader and then it was off to the airport where we were early enough to be offered the 5pm flight to Lima instead of the 9:30pm. That was great except for the fact an arrangement was already made for a pickup at the Lima airport to take us to our hotel. That was fixed with a quick phone call back to Toronto where Nicole called straight through to the Lima hostel and rescheduled our pickup for the earlier flight. It was our first time on Copa airlines and it was short and very comfortable.On arrival in Lima I was stopped for the luggage scan which was a bit of worry since there are restrictions on electronics and I was carrying two of my IPods as well as Deb[s, plus my EReader. Anyways they didn´t seem interested and we breezed through found an ATM loaded up on Peruvian soles and found our taxi driver getting to the hostal at 12:20am and crashing a lot sooner than expected getting a great nights sleep.

Bocas del Toro January 2011-May 2011

2011-08-24T14:20:00.000-07:00

An overnight sail brought us to Bluefields about twenty miles south of the Bocas by three in the afternoon. We promptly celebrated by running aground, one minute in 40 feet and then aground. Thirty five anxious minutes later we freed her in what has now become a once a year annual event. The next morning we ghosted along past the Zaptillas and down the Boca channel past Bocas Town spotting Audrey Paige and Willow so we headed up and dropped the hook. Intending to come for three or four weeks before heading back to our intended cruising grounds the San Blas, we ended up staying four and half months getting throughly bocatized. The cruising grounds here are divided into two large bays covering about 30 square miles each. Each bay is a gunkholers paradise. In places the water is murky and not necssary a swimmers paradise but it will do. Occansionally there are just too many jelly fish to go in anyway, probably because the locals have decimated the turtle population.
The hub of all activity is the town of Bocas a former banana port. Chiquita the big player here has moved its shipping dock across the bay a short way to Almirante. In its absence the town has exploded with tourism but still has few buidings over three stories and the big chain holiday operators have yet to show, but it is just a matter of time. In the mean time it has become a back packers haven.
The Smithsonian operates a volunteer program and the areas beaches are a magnet, being acessible and laying so close to the Costa Rican border. There is also a quickly growing population of American expats. The area was also the scene of the infamous Wild Bill murders last year but more on that later. The town boasted a variety of shopping and you would suffer for nothing here with two gourmet shops and a variety of mechanical services. All of this made it hard to leave especially with a wide selection of restaurants.
We had our first ever visit from our busy daughter Nicole and right on the heels of that young Josh Brodie and girlfriend Ivanka dropped in from Nicaragua pleasantly surprising us and giving me a chance to play big Kauhuna for a week. Added to all this was a number of old eastern Caribbean friends who had washed up here as well as new friends you always make on the road.
In April Deb went back to Canada for a month to deal with some family issues the biggest one being the return of our youngest son Nicholas from four years abroad mostly in Japan. While she was away I did some boat work and got Sea Cycle ready to run down to the San Blas for a month before we laid her up for some land travel in South America. As soon as Deb was back we caught a weather window and headed out.It was an unusually calm and we managed to day hop down the coast which for most of the year is untenable with the trades. We even stopped in to see Billy on AnnVeraLynn who was also taking advantage of the weather and had stopped in Rio Miguel which marks the end of the road heading north east from Colon and is a wide open anchorage. Eventually we visited Portobello to reprovision and managed an entire month in the San Blas before running back into Shelter Bayand hauling SeaCycle on the hard.

to be continued

Portebello

2011-08-22T07:58:00.001-07:00

Portebello to Bocas del Toro January/2011

We spent a week sorting out SeaCycles teething problems in Portebello. Our stay went well and it was good meeting some old friends and picking up a new aquaintances.We had just missed a lot of friends who had been holed up here for weeks forming a small fleet which finally got a weather window to the Honduras winter cruising grounds via Providencia. Thats another part of the Caribbean circuit which puts them a step closer to home and the end of their trips. I refuse to head that way yet.Portebello is still recovering from Decembers diasastrous rain floods in which a mudslide ocurred wiping out a swath of houses and killing four people.
Panama had so much rain they had to shut down the Panama canal twice for the first time in a hundred years. The town still has no internet and the drinking water is suspect. But reconstruction has started with the rebuilding of the fort which also suffered damage.These pictures were taken four months after the events. But after a few hundred years of a rich existence the town and center will survive.This was one of the most fabled treasure ports on the planet.Sacked by Morgan and taken by Admiral Vernon it was the transit conduit for all the South American treasure mostly Potosi silver looted by Spain for 250 years. In fact Portobello Road in London was named in honour of the Vernon event. The orginal treasure house is still here as well as walls of the forts and just outside the harbour Drakes body lies supposedly buried off Isla Draque in a lead coffin. Today designated as a world UNESCO site it is a sleepy small town trying to finds its feet through tourism and a bit of port activity. With no road between Panama and Colombia there is a thriving if somewhat controversial trade in runnig backpackers between the two countries. Portbello is the eastern hub with Cartagena being the western port. But more on that later. A couple of packbacker boats have set up a bar and hostel here which as started to act as a center of gravity for the cruisering community and bringing more activity here than we have seen before. After a week we lifted the hook at 6 am and headed out to Bocas del Toro on the Panama and Costa Rican border. We were hoping to arrive the next afternoon.
to be continued

Departure Lessons

2011-08-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

November 2010 Shelter bay to Portobello
After six years out and five different boatyards you would think we would have the work and launch routine down and more importantly what comes after. Like sea trialing a vessel before a long trip. Unfortunately hubris prevails and after eight weeks of various scheduled and more unexpected projects we slipped the lines and left Shelter Bay intending to head out doing an immediate overnight passage to Bocas Del Toro. Slipping the lines after an extended stay anywhere always has you nervous, especially in the close quarters of a marina and heavily used anchorage. Well we got past all that, cleared the break water and got out amongest all the freighters anchored offshore waiting for their canal transit. First we tried our revamped autopilot. After it steered us into several near collisions with anchored boats I unhooked the controls and decided to send that one back to the drawing board. No sooner was that was put away when we noticed white smoke starting to come out the companionway.
This was a replay of an earlier experience from the first year out in the Erie Canal when we melted the exhaust system. Not wanting a recurrence I quickly shut the engine down went below and started the process of getting at the engine which means stairs and sink out. Leaning over the hot engine while Deb sailed I spotted the problem. A loose hose connection at the Vetus water muffler dripping on a hot engine. Realizing that fixing the motor in the bobbing seas was going to make for an uncomfortable job we decided to jibe and headed back down to Narjana a small island with a well protected anchorage just outside Colon. We pulled in there and licking our wounds I got down to fixing the muffler.Once I was satisfied with that we hooked up the spare auto on the tiller as well as readying the wind vane. We got down for a good nights sleep but were worried about having missed our weather window.This coast is notorious for its ever changing conditions epecially the ones that come in the form of quick and windy squalls.Throw an adverse current into the mix and it can mean hours of wet uncomfortable sailing. Next morning we woke and got a quick jump but by noon we hadn't even made the Chagres River, only 12 nautical miles and we were soaked from the constant rain. I looked at Deb and asked if we had signed any contracts she said no so it was a mutual no brainer to turn around and run back even further to Portobello and lick our wounds.

to be continued

Atmospheric Vibes

2011-06-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

May 2010—San Blas Panama

We have a new gig. Once a week I am the Net controller on the SW Caribbean radio net. The Caribbean and most of the worlds cruising grounds all have Single Side band or Ham nets. In off the grid locations like here it is sometimes the only way to get any news and the all important weather updates. The Caribbean supports numerous nets with the lesser Antilles being full of them mostly early morning and late afternoon time slots helping cruisers focus on weather reports and vessel traffic. The net we are doing covers the south west portion of the Caribbean from Honduras down to Colombia and is a net primarily providing communication for vessels under way. There is a larger net coming out of the San Blas called the Panama Connection net that while facilating communications mainly acts as a much bigger social network for boats from San Blas to Colombia area. In the winter transit months there are usually a couple of hundred vessels plying those waters including a lot of expats from Europe and the US who spend their winters here. In the summer, hurricane season there are rarely more than twenty five to thirty boats hanging around.This time of year is also rainy season here with a lot of thunderstorm activity.Basically for the hardcores.
For years all down the eastern seaboard and through the eastern Caribbean we only received a signal through our little 150 dollar Grundig YachtBoy a legendary radio that you can now only find on EBay selling at more than its original purchase price. We only used it for weather reports from the major weather routers in Florida. These outfits route vessels throughout the region to avoid heavy weather and storms. We also could pull the NOAA Tropical Atlantic reports. Our faithful little YachtBoy used to get us the weather even when larger yachts with expensive setups were having trouble. I would just go to a mast shroud, clip my antenna on and presto. Not great reception but readable and more so if I taped it with my little radio shack recorder deciphering it later on playback. Anyways the unit gave up the ghost thanks to years of use and salt air corrosion and since we were wandering further afield Deb insisted we go for a more permanent set up. We settled on the Icom 802 complete with an auto tuner. We built a ground plane in the bottom of the boat using copper foil and attached it to a sinistered bronze dynaplate attached to the outside under the waterline although these were four more holes I didn’t want in the hull. For an antenna I did a variation off of the Alberg page from Shearwater tweaked by Dennis on Tiger Lily running a straight copper wire as a triadic stay between the masts and then down a mizzen shroud insulated with plastic pieces of cut pipe converting to the GTO cable just out of arms reach for safety from transmitting voltage and on to the tuner. I finished the hook up in Aruba and put my first call out getting a response from George of Silver Sea in Panama and then Sojourn later on their way to Panama from Cartenga. It was pricey but at least now we can talk back which if you know me is important. Anyways every Tuesday I am now the Peter Mansbridge of their air waves taking down vessels coordinates running relays and helping with the weather reports. I do a morning broadcast and another shout out to pick up the moving vessels at 5pm.
We only have three more weeks to cruise and then we are due to haul out at the Shelter Bay marina located at the mouth of the canal. This will be the longest time Sea Cycle has been laid up as we have several inescapable issues to deal with at home. But hopefully it will be warm by the time we arrive.
To be continued

2010-09-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

San Blas April – Food

After two months in the San Blas the galley is bare. Ah, separating want from need. After a lifetime of lessons still such a struggle. Living on a small boat where your total living space is about the size of an average kitchen you learn to put things in perspective. When we left to go sailing we had no idea what the future might hold. After 36 years of accumulating we had to go way beyond the usual rites of downsizing shifting a life time of goods to various family members and surrendering the rest to charities like GoodWill. When the dust had cleared we were left with a ten by ten room of family mementoes, twenty some years of business records and a reduced library of hardbacks and music which still comprised the largest part of the storage area.
Six years of boat life and a Camino trek still leave me shedding more goods every time I return home for a visit. When we left Toronto we were immersed in sea advice and had fully loaded the vessel with canned goods and personal favourites, as if that half dozen jars of smooth Jiffy peanut butter might be the last we see for years and that even after severe rationing. Never mind we were leaving for and transiting the heaviest and most cosmopolitan areas of the eastern seaboard. We had taken so much advice on what was must have marine items that I swear we look like the Clampetts coming down the ICW. Six years later we have gained much of our waterline back and the sage advice of “if you haven’t used it for six months get rid of it” holds for the most part. Certainly advances like IPods and EReaders have allowed us to gain back some of our limited shelve space. Same goes with boat equipment. Most of what we were told was either nonsense or redundant and today we are a pretty stripped down vessel by modern comparisons. After all it was meant to sail not become a condo. Of course some of that was dictated by our older narrow designed boat and in any case we are certainly not what would be considered a high tech boat. Two people, organised, can live comfortably without feeling like you are camping.

We had loaded up on supplies before leaving from Cartagena but slowly as the days dripped by all the goodies get eaten up and you are down to canned goods and whatever fresh vegetables you can buy from the Kuna Indians. I mean you can only eat so many sardines! I keep having the recurring dream where I have walked in a supermarket at home and break in the song” Food Glorious Food” from the musical “ Oliver” heels clicking me down the aisles. To leave the area would require two day hops down the coast to Linton or Portobello and then a bus out and a loaded taxi ride back to the anchorage. The other options were to fly and pay some incredible freight charges or take the new unfinished Kuna road only open during the dry season.
This would involve sailing over to the Carti islands and then paying a driver to ford you over a river, the Cordillera range and into Panama City. Sounded like a scenario from the movie “Wages of Fear”. In Panama City a cornucopia of modern grocery supermarkets, luxury hotels, hot water and sat TV waited. Kind of like Oz.
We took the boat down to a Carti and made arrangements to reciprocate boat watches with a sister ship Sojourn later in the month. Dawn found us with Dennis and Allayne from Audrey Paige and other cruisers waiting at an abandoned airstrip crowded with Kuna. We had to grease some palms with a couple of bucks each to pass through and then found a driver with a four wheeler who for twenty five a head agreed to drive us through the Kuna frontier post and across the mountain ridge. Short one seat and with Dennis pleading claustrophobia I drew the short straw and I had to ride in the back in the open storage area. The driver wore a high stiff collar black shirt with a sequin design and slicked back hair. I immediately christened him Elvis and while he didn’t speak a word of English he knew how to hum the tunes. The trip was interrupted by two breakdowns something to do with the timing. That could have had something to do with his driving which had us thinking we had a train to catch as he spun the gravel off the road at every turn. The girls sat with one arm on the forward seat the entire way over the mountains. Each breakdown Dennis helped under the hood.
We spent two days in Panama City acting like sailors on shore leave trying to cram the most into the least, loading up the hotel rooms with goods and eating out. We were told just to show up at the Cinco de Mayo square but with all of our goods we would have been a regular caravan so Allayne arranged for another driver to pick us up at the hotel as we sucked up the last A/C and internet we would see for the foreseeable future. I took the girls out to visit ATMs and a bit of last minute running around as Dennis prepared to load the vehicle. After a quick stop at Rotten Ronnie’s to buy the driver lunch we hit the dirt road an hour later and the adventure started. We ended up with two flat tires and stuck in a river. Both times on the tires I played class clown with the girls while Dennis helped the driver strip down one bare tire for a completely bald one. We limped back into the airstrip around 4pm and then negotiated with a supply canoe to deliver us and goods back to the boats. One of the American boats had gone up on the reef and after some work was freed. They had been using an all rope anchor rode and got caught in a wind reversal. Dennis later described it as the trip from hell but I kind of thought it was pretty cool about as close to National Geographic adventure as I am going to get.

To be continued......

2010-09-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

San Blas, April
Down here in this corner of the Caribbean the North East trades are only a component of the daily weather which can be dominated by the local conditions like the Cordillera mountain range which links the Rockies with the Andes forming the backbone of the Isthmus. At its narrowest part only fifty miles separate the Caribbean from the Pacific. Unless there is a dominant weather event the evening breeze pours down off the mountains blanketing the daytime trades for miles offshore. At night here the stillness can be complete.
It’s usually just a whisper of voice or maybe a small splash from a paddle but lying in your bunk you sense their presence, out there in the pre-dawn. The Kuna are up and on their way to work. Back at home the morning commute is that part of modern existence pouring stress to your morning like cream to a coffee colouring the rest your day. Down here, there is no congestion, no gridlock just an everyday open weather event with the elements, sky above, sea below, as the Kuna make their way from the island villages to their small farm plots on the mainland. The villages were moved generations ago for defence to the outer Cays from the mainland. Choice of vehicle is the Ulu which comes in that perennial model the dugout and just like at home where we have rust proofing to protect from road salt here too they have rot proofing covering the outer shell with a layer of tar that if you are lucky usually leaves a streak on your boat’s topsides when they come calling. If you are not so lucky then it leaves a nasty scratch!

Paddles are roughly carved, very wide bladed with a large knob on the top and when sailing it doubles as a steering rudder. The mast is bamboo or a small stripling tree trunk with a smaller one acting as a boom. Together they support a sail which is usually an old bed sheet or sacks sewn together. The whole thing installs and collapses very easily from its lateen type rig. The small farm plots are cleared by burning and machete and can be bananas, mangoes, cocoa, cane sugar and of course the mainstay, coconuts, which sell here for 25 cents each. A family may own a coconut tree or grove miles from its village. Side by side lots are delineated and marked by palm fronds carefully laid out sometimes adding a fallen tree or two. Every coconut is owned by someone.
Helping your selves is a grave offense. They say a family here selling twenty coconuts in a month have enough money to get by supplementing their diets with the produce from their farming along with fishing. The staple here is rice bought off the trading boats. In this part of the San Blas known as the eastern San Blas the villages are traditional and are intent in fostering their way of life. The area where we were heading towards is known as the western San Blas. Villages there have already abandoned the traditional ways probably because of their closer proximity to the rest of Panama. Bamboo and stick have been replaced with concrete, thatch roofs have given way to the tin and the paddle has been replaced by the two stroke outboard. Even in the more traditional villages I have notice the youth here aren’t much different than anywhere else. Dressing hipper with the obligatory cool shades and maintaining a detached attitude modelled on the gangstra hip hop thing that seems to be universal.
The early morning commuters return to the island by noon and most will stop by the boat to give you a friendly hello and offer to sell you whatever they have harvested. By North American standards the sizes are small and have none of the dressed look that signals the modern grocery. The Kuna bake small buns like miniature hot dog buns and on the sweet side. Depending on the time of day you might have to visit several houses to find out who is baking and selling. The cost is 5 0r 10 cents depending on the size or vendors mood. Some canned foods and beverages are available in the small tiendas . For the most part they are the front room of someone’s hut. Men dress like workman in other warm climates. Women on the other hand seem to spare no effort to dress up. Intricate beading makes up a legging on their calves and their dresses are made from colourful cottons topped off by their mola blouses. The molas are known worldwide and their price depends on the intricacy of their designs and stitching. No two molas will be the same. This is a matrilineal society for the most part where the woman picks the man for a mate with the male moving into the woman’s family compound.
The centre of each village is dominated by the congress building where the elders known as Sailas lay in their hammocks hold session to a seated crowd and governing the village and the surrounding areas. At one time the population was as high as 500,000, but now is around 60,000. Marriage outside the tribe is not allowed.
The huts here blend in with the landscape and every family seems to have its own compound enclosed by a palisade of sticks. Kuna are the second shortest race after the pygmies and many times when strolling around I had to duck overhangs or lose an eye. Everyone sleeps in hammocks. In most villages you are not welcome after dark. In the evening from SeaCycle we watched a show a flashlight signals and listened to a steady stream of whistles. We never could figure out whether it was just the younger people courting or everybody having a go at communicating. By 9 or 10 pm there wasn’t usually any sound but the jungle night music with the constant backbeat of ocean surf in the distance.
To be continued...

SNAKES ON BOATS

2010-09-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

San Blas, Panama, March

We left Mamitupu shooting through the narrow pass on the village’s north side and then threaded through the reefs headed for Mono Island where the anchorage had a reputation for being well protected and a good spot to go up your mast. The spot fit the bill on all accounts, except for not mentioning the reptile factor, because we had our second snake experience. The first time was when a boa had got on board in Trinidad, an exciting day that had ended with us being in a bay on the south side off Venezuela’s Paria Peninsula where the locals tried to settle an argument with some gun play. Not an experience I wanted to repeat. (See Log Archive November 2007)

Our VHF radio was working but didn’t seem to have a good range either broadcasting or receiving. I had new couplings and had changed the one at the foot of the mast but was waiting for a calm spot to do the upper swap out. Mono seemed to fit the bill. The repair went well and after a pleasant evening we hit the sack planning an early morning run up to Snug Harbour. After breakfast I up went to the bow to start lifting the anchor. Exercise on a boat can be a challenge and as a diabetic for the last twenty years and insulin dependent I figured working the windlass was a health benefit despite the effort. The powerful modern electrical models seem to be one item cruisers are constantly complaining about being on the forever broke list. SeaCycle has a manual windlass which over the years I have managed to develop an understanding with. The windless doesn’t bother me and I don’t replace it. Been relatively problem free over the last five years other than a persistent oil drip. Using the larger 3/8 chain at a pound and a half as a rule we rarely run out less than 120 feet even in shallow anchorages which along with a 45 lb. Delta anchor leaves 200 lbs. on the seafloor and has been almost foolproof over the years. Following the sea writer Bruce Van Sants' teachings I have developed my method lifting ten or so feet at a time letting the catenary action of the boat do the work instead of the coronary. It’s not quick but unless it’s an emergency it works. Under the bow roller I keep a rag for wiping my paws down with and this time after cranking a few feet of chain up I reached down to pick it up. Somewhere between the bow roller and me standing up straight again the realization smacked me that I had a visitor curled up under the bow roller behind the rag.
I was thinking “oh shit” which I must of thought out loud because just as I was speaking the words “you are not going to believe this” Deb immediately and intuitively said "SNAKE" and preceded to have a right regular girlie moment . Strange thing, that, even the most hardened feminist ball busting types, when challenged, insist they are permitted, indeed, entitled to have (funny how the double standard clause kicks in). I immediately asked for the camera which for some reason always seems to bother her. She would rather supply the machete, a loaded gun or an atom bomb at that particular moment anything but a camera. The snake didn’t seem to be bothered by my presence. I couldn't help but be thankful I hadn’t been bitten when I pulling the rag out with my bare hands. I somehow seemed to realize immediately that this was a deadly one. I took the obligatory camera shots for the record thinking at least they would have an ID on the cause of my imminent demise. Having no idea how to approach the question of removal but with Deb starting to sound like a Greek chorus of Cassandra’s I couldn’t help acting like I was thoroughly in charge to calm my excitable mate. In my best Eastwood tone I coolly asked for the fishing net and the boathook, tools which had worked with the boa extraction. I was planning to prod him out of his spot under the roller with the hook and persuade him into the net. Unfortunately the windlass and anchor bit were configured in such a way that I couldn’t lay the net properly. Faced with the need for action, I decided to cowboy through which ended up with me doing a jittery tango and just getting the hook all caught up in the net. The snake didn’t move. I retreated to untangle my mess. Next I asked for a bucket thinking maybe I can just flush him out and he will go back down the anchor chain. Filling the bucket I washed it up in the roller. Finally some movement but not enough, in fact with the warm water washing over him and a towel in sight he probably thought he was at the spa. Realizing I had no choice but to piss him off I gave him a poke. Well that was the ticket and he started out on the starboard side tongue flickering. He found a clear spot and immediately started to coil himself. Now I have seen enough westerns to know this isn’t a good thing so backing off I towelled him to gain some time. That was when he made his mistake coming out and putting his head on the outside of the lifeline stanchion. Seizing the opportunity I got the hook behind his neck and flung him off the boat.

He immediately started to swim away which was a relief because last time the boa returned and tried to reboard. I quickly started to pump the windlass to bring the anchor up. The problem was if I pulled too fast I would end up on top of the reef since I had dropped the anchor right on the edge of an opening in the reef Suddenly my attention was grabbed from behind as I heard Deb yelling “he-ssss back”. Sure enough he was headed back with three or four inches of his body raised right out of the water.I couldn’t pull the boat forward any faster without grounding us so I grabbed the boat hook and ran back to the rear quarter where he approached. Meaning to just scare him off I tried to beat the water in front of him with the boat hook to scare him off. Instead I end up clobbering him on the head. He curled up laying like one of those curly garden hoses leaving his nostrils out of the water. Getting back to the windlass I started to work the windlass again when sure enough "he-ssss coming again" sounded the alert hysterically from the helm. Jesus back to stern, sure enough swat again, curled up again, back to the windlass pump, pump, and bingo anchors up and away we go.
The coiled snake laid still as SeaCycle a 37 foot, 9 ton, full keeled deep water boat planed out of the anchorage running from a 6 foot snake like something out of an old Beany and Cecil cartoon. Further out in the bay and hopefully safer I asked Deb to stop the boat. Giving me one of her WTF looks I explained we had better check below for any other stowaways before we found ourselves out sailing through the reefs with a problem on our hands. The only place that concerned me was the anchor locker which on our boat is open and accessible from the forepeak right where we sleep. Two doors with finger holes and latches provide access to the locker. At first I was going to put my eye up to the hole and have a peak but I had this vision of the snake on the other side and my eye to the hole presenting itself like a tooth in a dental dam for a target, forget about it. Flinging the doors open, the next problem was if the snake was overhead waiting to pounce. Finally a cautious look and I figured it was clear although it was awhile before anybody slept in the front berth again. This was our second experience with a snake getting on board. I can only think that our dark blue hull maybe retaining it's heat well into the night acting as a draw for any reptile swimming by. The only way to get on board was up the anchor chain which may present the answer for a snake proofing solution.

As we sailed towards Snug Harbour Deb declared no inshore anchorages tonight. After eyeing the charts I was informed we were going to drop the hook a good two miles offshore at the Ratone Cays. I couldn’t help but hide my smile as the name conjured up other fright night scenarios. After the hook was down we were approached by an old Kuna looking for the obligatory anchoring fee (three dollars). I showed him the pictures of the snake on the camera and his face went into a worried frown turning side to side as he kept repeating Venemo,Venemo.
To be continued

February San Blas Panama

2010-08-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

We started what we expected to be a two week cruise working our way up the coast from Mulutupu just north of the Colombia-Panama border into what is referred to as the Western San Blas. There we would check in at Porvenir the very last port in the San Blas before you enter Panama proper. It is possible to check in on the Colombian- Panamanian border at Oblida but then the clock starts ticking on your ninety day immigration status so it makes sense to take your time coming in from Colombia. Many boats are in a transit limbo for weeks if not months and while the practise of taking your time is frowned on, at most there is a mild slap on the hand from immigration in the form of a fine of twenty dollars, certainly making the price right. At home or in the states this kind of behaviour would get you locked up. It also highlights the ease in which runners of contraband flourish. We entered at Pinos in what is called the Eastern San Blas and while some islands lay inside the reefs there certainly isn’t the protection offered by the islands further to the northwest which lay behind a reef system with only a couple of major openings. Sailing in the tropics is tricky requiring diligence and good light, preferably directly over head or behind you. We have learned not to count solely on the charts, using our eyes and depth sounder as much as anything, especially electronic charting. It’s not unusual to find yourself sailing across dry land according to the chart plotter. Morning skies have been a flat dull overcast till noon when it usually burns off. Instead of being depressed about it we found a sense of relief from the hot sun. Anyways most afternoons are spent in some sort of post lunch siesta stupor where a short read turns into a duelling snore session.

We left Mulutupu at first light and took the sea route around the Isla Pinos heading up to Estupu area not knowing exactly where we would put in. Estupu is the largest of the Kuna villages at close to 5000 people and a couple of real concrete block buildings, but after Mulutupu we were looking for something smaller. The islands here lay close to the mainland and all the rivers that empty into the sea make the water cloudy and a bit brackish but quite fine for swimming. The Indians moved the greater part of their population off the mainland generations ago to get away from the bugs on the mainland as well as for defence. Each morning there is a daily commute in their ulus (dugout canoes) to the mainland where they tend to their small jungle farm plots growing mangoes, coconuts, bananas and plantains. The insects leave nothing to the imagination but the only ones that are a source of irritation are the no seeums (sand flies) which are only a problem on board when the wind disappears, a rare occurrence during the winter when the trades are blowing steady. The sail up from Pinos was mostly a motor sail with only the main hoisted. This is one of your more common ways of getting around. Your main is hoisted and since the wind is on the nose a lot you just point up to a few degrees off and then you get a big lift picking up speed. Pure sailing would require a set of close hauled beats here as high as you can point and then tacking form port to starboard through the wind. Great if you have a lot of time and a lot of room to run out on each leg but a little impractical in unfamiliar reef strewn waters. At the island of Mamitupu we found an anchorage behind the village which had extra protection provided from the barrier reefs further out. The village is on a small island just off shore opposite the mouth of a river which provides the road up country to the farm plots. There is also a small airstrip on the mainland built with a series of other small strips down the coast by the Americans during world war two. These are the quickest way in and out of these islands with a short hop over the mountains to Panama City. Villages are supplied by Colombian trading boats which ply the coast purchasing and bartering for coconuts and scrap aluminum (beer and pop cans). In return they haul canned goods, diesel, some basic house goods and the like. There are also official Kuna trading boats bringing in suppliers like cooking gas bottles and the like from the Colon area. These all seem to be painted an official blue.

The main fella here to see is Pablo who once was married to an English woman. The marriage ran into problems when the couple returned to Panama from England when the missus wasn’t accepted fully by the village. Kuna do not intermarry although like this one, there is the odd case. Pablo explained to me that today his former wife has gained a degree of acceptance grudgingly won over the years and makes annual trips back to visit. We have also seen a number of albino natives which must have something to do with the no outsider marriage taboo. When in Manitupu we watched the kids playing volleyball just outside of the congress (the village’s town hall). The girls were demolishing the boys and I kept thinking, man those girls have big shoulders when (I am showing my age) it suddenly dawned on me part of the team was transvestite.
This is an old practise here and just part of a very open society. So much for our culture's sense of leading edge social practises. In the Bauhaus guide Pablo is mentioned for his coconut press but after showing it us he explained he is not using to anymore it is economically unfeasible. He also runs a small tourist hotel. The hotel is the same structure as a village house and you sleep in a hammock and get a river trip to look for salt water crocs amongst other things. This is the extent of tourism here, very low brow being sold as a form of eco tourism with individual villages hosting a small set up and a little less than American pricing. The visitors must fly in. Certainly not your typical all included. There are also charter boats here. They are all captained, no bareboat chartering, understandable with all the reefs and no yard facilities. I could hear the insurance company’s whinge already.
We stayed for a few days enjoying one short river hike following the trail along the water pipes to the local cemetery which is located on the river on an opposite bank. The Kuna run their water from the mainlined to their offshore islands through a basic pipe system. They simply run a type of PVC pipe up into the mountains along a river till the elevation is higher than the tank they store in. Pablo explained to us that every year the pipe breaks during the rainy season usually where it crosses the river because of the rushing currents during rainy season. The cost is usually several hundred dollars a year to fix. The anchoring fee we paid here was five dollars and is one of the only ways the villagers have to raise hard currency. There are two sailing guide chartlet books for this area. The older Ziedler edition and the more common Eric Bauhaus because its charts are colour coded as well as being accompanied by air photo charts with routing. Both are good. After a week we decided to start up to the western San Blas. We were experiencing some VHF radio problems and a trip up the mast look inescapable. The charts showed a calm well protected mangrove anchorage at Mono Island so we decided to haul up and head that way. <
To be continued

2010-05-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

January, to the San Blas

.

“There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away”
Emily Dickenson

I blame all on the library. Somewhere buried deep in my memory, way back in my personal Jurassic, I must have laid my hands on a book or maybe it was even a movie which fired the beginnings of my juvenile imagination and set the tone for a lifetime of reading and hankering to be out there. In my case the two big events were the British conquests by sea and the opening up of the North American continent by the coureur des bois and later fur traders. The giants of the first epoch for me were men like Drake for his natural leadership qualities and in a lesser light William Dampier for his curiosity and power of observations, despite his reputation as a cowardly cut throat opportunist (one of many incidents had Dampier involved in the marooning of Alexander Selkirk, later fictionalized by Defoe in Robinson Crusoe one of the first modern novels). Now I was capitalizing on one of the big advantages our mode of travel offers by heading to the spot along the same route where Drake and Dampier had gained a large part of their notoriety, the remote San Blas, accessible only by air or water

One of the most famous of all the hidden pirate and privateer rendezvous, the Eastern San Blas is a section of the Darien Gap, that large roadless wilderness that separates Panama from Colombia and by extension separates the Americas. Adventurers from Drake forward used this tropical archipelago as a refuge to sortie from on raids against the Spaniards. These off shore islands difficult to navigate act not only as natural hideout but for the same reasons make surprise attack difficult. Sadly there are few if any historical markers to see except the islands themselves. On the other hand, other than the drone of the occasional clutch cargo type plane or the whine of a native’s outboard you are seeing exactly what those early adventurers did. In Drakes case his famous Fort Pheasant is believed to be the present day Kuna Village of Escoses. Isla Pinos a few miles away, was a famous rendezvous location, because of its visibility as a landmark as well as its easy accessibility. There are also ruins of the Scottish attempt to colonize Panama in the form of the Darien Company at St. Andrews, but increasingly hard to find with the relentless jungle creep. It was the bankrupting of this enterprise that brought Scotland to its financial knees ensuring political assimilation into Great Britain. Historically the east coast treasure hubs were Nombre de Dios and later Portobello roughly twenty miles and forty miles respectively from the northwest corner of the San Blas archipelago. Incas treasure was brought there overland from Panama City on the Pacific side either by a route that off loaded at the halfway point onto the Chagres River to come by water or directly along the jungle path. Shipments were then convoyed to Cartagena for the annual treasure fleet home to Spain. After Drake and others had ravaged Nombre de Dios the Spanish moved the treasure site to the secure natural harbour at Portobello establishing a treasure house and a series of forts to guard the harbour. Both were plundered numerous times and in many cases the pirates laid in rest somewhere in the San Blas or at Isla Pinos known to the indigenous Kuna Indians as Tupac or the whale.

We had left Isla Bernardo off the Colombian coast and made landfall at 8:00am the next day seeing the Isla Pinos from about ten miles out with its whale like shape. There were no dangers as we approached the island from the south side rolling up between it and the mainland. Along the north-west side of the island the channel is protected by a reef. The reef has a narrow entrance carrying ten feet of depth with breaking water on either side indicating the cut. The anchorage is very well protected on three sides with only a south-east wind leaving the bay exposed. We spent three days here anchored off a lush beach rimmed with coconut palms and back grounded with greenery to the hilltop where a radio tower perched. The first afternoon a Kuna came by and collected an eight dollar tax for anchoring. This is commonplace at all Kuna anchorages. The following day we dinghied into the village where we had to go to visit Mr. Lombardi the village Chief and get permission to walk around. He clipped us for another two dollars each and then tried to get us to buy a Kuna Yala flag for fifteen dollars. Of course all figures are in the American dollar which trades at the same value as the local currency the Balboa. The "you got to buy" line for the flag was that all yachts would have to exhibit it as well as the Panama flag when sailing in the San Blas. The Kuna Yala flag has a swastika in the middle. The swastika is an ancient native symbol and has no affiliation with Nazi Germany. But in today’s world where optics play such a leading role I thought it would be interesting to keep an eye out for any German flagged boats to see if they were going to fly it. The Chief introduced us to an older Kuna named Horatio Perez who befitting a seventy two year old slowly walked us around the island on a hike of three hours.
This set us back another two dollars each. In my case an old set of progressive eye glasses was thrown into the mix. By the third day the wind picked up and a slight swell was making the boats in the anchorage start to roll uncomfortably so we decided to head further south and visit the village of Mulutupu. The population of 3000 makes it the second largest Kuna Village. It was a short three mile trip but once we left the safety of the bay at Pinos it turned into a struggle with large short swells coming right on the beam. When we finally turned to starboard the swells picked us up and it became a surf board ride into the quiet bay behind the village which occupied a spit and sat very low to the seas. In fact the villages sit so low that flooding is now common place. The Kuna claim this is a recent development and of course you start to think of global warming. We got double clipped here on anchoring fees because the village is actually two, the result of some long ago forgotten dispute. One side hit us for ten and the other for five dollars. The five side though got us a village tour with Mr. Green who also had us and Equinox to dinner with his family at their hut. The hut is in a compound and the walls and palisades are all bamboo. The roofs are larger tree branches or logs acting as a ridge board and then thatched with large banana leaves or something similar. We were told depending on the leaf quality the life span of the roof is usually ten to fifteen years. Floors are dirt which is kept tidy by bush broom and everybody sleeps in hammocks.

Traditionally the families are run by the maternal side with the male moving into the female’s family home. After being introduced to the extended family we had a dinner of rice cooked in coconut water and bananas which was finished off with a coco (sweet) drink. All of our time was spent conversing in English so Mr. Green and his daughter could work on improving their command of our language. The Kuna speak their own language with the majority also speaking Spanish. Striving to have a third language can give you an indication of these people’s keenness and curiosity. The following night we reciprocated with a visit on Sea Cycle followed with dinner on Equinox where Dick pulled out pictures of a Maine winter which I am sure put the kibosh on any thoughts of immigration. Next morning we weighed anchor and weaved our way through the morning commute of Kuna paddling their canoes known as ulus to their farm plots on the mainland. We decided to head up the coast twenty miles starting the slow crawl to Porvenier where we would officially check into Panama
To be continued......

2010-05-21T04:41:00.000-07:00

January, to the San Blas
Five weeks in Cartagena was just not enough, but the circumstances dictated that it was time to leave. The harbour waters are a hot zone for growth and Sea Cycle was filthy, bottom fouled, decks and rigging covered in grime from the dry gritty city air. Also there was the fact that we weren’t insured although that seems less of a reason to worry about the longer we stay out. Our carrier won’t cover for Cuba, Haiti or Colombia or the waters surrounding any of these places. Sometimes I am not too sure if we wouldn’t be better served by investing the insurance money in better ground tackle or a bigger bilge pump if we could take the weight. When you think about it, the insurance is really a bet against yourselfSailing departure windows were only going to get shorter and scarcer as the winter trades started to fill. A favourable weather window of four days seemed to be opening up. We finished provisioning, filled up with water and fuel, checked out and headed for the reef strewn outer Colombian island groups known as the San Rosarios and San Bernados. Our first stop was at the San Rosario group where we skirted along the eastern reefs and came up in the anchorage at Isla Grande from the south-west. It was a late arrival and a planned early departure. We spent the evening there enjoying the swimming and pouring copious amounts of water over the decks to start the process of cleaning the boat down. At 0800 the next morning we set off on a motor sail heading southwest to the San Bernados. Here we had a waypoint for the supposed entrance on a photo copied tourist pamphlet which friends had marked up for us warning about missing buoys. Such is navigation in the southern Caribbean. .We nervously approached the channel between the largest island of Tintipan and Macreo. We had three converging channels all using red right returning, which depending on your angle and the missing buoys made for a nerve racking entry. We had to feel our way in with Deb on the helm and myself perched up on the bow as we threaded our way through some very thin water trying to use the light and our polarized sunglasses. At one point we had to reciprocate back out showing only six feet under the sounder but finally we made it through into deeper water and anchored behind Tintipan the larger island. We were joined later in the day by several other boats all of which took the longer but more prudent route around the island. The next day was spent off loading the dinghies and continuing to wash down the boat. We have now had the hard dinghy for a year but it has only seen the water twice and after looking at the clear decks the decision has been made to sell it off at the first opportunity or failing that, give it away to the Indians. Maybe I can get my face on a totem.

The weather reports indicated a tightening of the weather window with a call for increasing seas due to a northern swell but accompanied by light winds starting in 48 hours. This can make for a slow rolly and sloppy passage so we decided to leave on the Sunday morning hoping to make landfall on Monday morning at Isla Pinos in the eastern San Blas before things got worse. The San Blas are also known as Kuna Yala an autonomous territory inside the republic of Panama and home to the Kuna Indian tribe. We decided to take a route out of San Bernados a few miles to the south by looking for a charted entrance shown at the western edge of the reef. The chart showed a narrow deep water channel but it wasn’t mentioned in any of the literature. The local guides did mention another preferred route with eleven feet in the middle but no mention of the charted exit. This is not unusual when the charts are based on old admiralty soundings from the last century Early morning light is not the best time for threading a reef especially when compounded with a flat or overcast day. In these situations the best vision comes around noon when the sun is directly overhead or behind you so you can see directly into the water. Again polarized glasses are invaluable. The best tool for navigating these waters is by eye if the sun is correct. We have had too many situations where the charts and especially the electronic ones have been off
In the end we spotted the channel with its dark blue ribbon running between the yellow and turquoise reefs and using the visible western reef as a guide we passed through to deeper soundings where we set the main and then rolled out the jib and reached off for Isla Pinos 120 nautical miles awayTo be continued......

2010-01-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

To Cartagena Colombia, January 2oth 2010

Ah, all those old pirate movies where the swashbuckling captain urges his crew on with a cry of “To Maracaibo”. Well we found ourselves hove to, in the dark, worrying about the Majone islands and all their rocks. The Majones were just north of the Maracaibo Lake and a common stopping place where you tie off to a line at the Venezuelan coast guard station between two islands. We had opted to pass by headed straight for Capo de Vela, an overnight run. Eight hours out of Aruba the new wind vane wheel adaptor unexpectedly gave up the ghost. As we floated, we disassembled it and discovered it was missing a piece that had caused it to wear down another piece, leading to failure. Oh well, the best laid plans. We were already nervous enough. Our insurance company wouldn’t insure us for this leg; “too lawless” Cornell’s cruising guides call it the planets fifth worst passage and then there is all that contra being run off its shores and the danger you might get caught up in someone’s crosshairs by anyone called Escobar. Well we rigged up the tiller pilot and by one am the wind finally totally died and we motored into Capo de Vela after a 28 hour run. Equinox and Audrey Page were all there anchored and we pulled in with Cocee. A few hours later Evening Star and Quest pulled in and that was everybody who had left Aruba when we had. We all had a day off and then the next morning we set sail at 10am headed for the Five Bays area 125 nautical miles away. Our newly McGivered fix on the wind vane which consisted of a cut up cutting board mat and a long screw with a thru hull handle was holding up and we had a great run till 2am when we finally gave up and turned the motor on. The seas were totally flat and it was very hot with no wind except what our movement through the water created. We arrived at Five Bays in the same pecking order as the day before and then sat out a late afternoon thunder and lightning show. All I could think was great, one hit and there goes my new SSB radio.
We pulled around the corner the next day, Christmas Eve, into Roderaro and spent one night before pushing on the next morning. The rest of the fleet decided to stay and have an Xmas day get together but we followed our instincts and decided to keep sailing. We were trying to keep offshore here to avoid the Rio Magdalena and its huge outflow. This is also a repute dangerous pirate area so we were hoping they would all be at home having Xmas eggnog and not worried about the sparse pickings we represent. Again we had a beautiful sail on a broad reach till about 75 degrees west which we hit around midnight. There we had to turn in towards the shore and run downwind but the seas were a little too big go out on the foredeck and set up the pole. Between the headsail jibing and the wind vane and the increasing cargo ships I opted to hand steer through the growing seas for the next five hours. At one point it seemed as if we were on a highway and we counted 12 ships, three of which were cruise ships and none of which would answer a hail on the VHF. Dawn found us off the city of Cartagena riding large 12 foot rollers and trying not to let the boat broach up. The narrow entrance over the sea wall was out of the question because of the swell so we opted to go down to Boca Chica entrance to enter the huge harbour there. It wasn’t our first choice since there had been a boarding there a week earlier but we had no choice. Two hours later we pulled up safely in front of the old city and the Club Nautico and dropped the hook in 32 feet of water. We tidied up Sea Cycle and hit the sack .
This is an old city and the walls surrounding the old city with the Fort of San Felipe looking over everything would cost a trillion dollars in today’s money showing how important the Spanish considered the location. We spent a couple of hours just doing the fort and it's tunnel system. This is also not the standard slave built fortifications. The masonry here is beautifully crafted and for the most part stood the tests of time. The city is loaded with museums. In the old city, night life is vibrant with the music throbbing and pouring out of the salsa bars which don’t really begin till ten. Of course that means not a lot to a cruiser who live by the sun’s rise and set. To the west of the old city lies Boca Grande section of the city which from the boat resembles Miami Beach. Everywhere the roads are a mix of cars, buses, taxis and donkey driven carts with everybody’s horn playing a song or greeting. I couldn’t help but think at home how all the cacophony would lead to road rage.
Well a month here and we are ready to leave. The only knock against the place is that the harbour waters are filthy. You cannot go swimming off the boat and the growth on Sea Cycle's ground tackle and bottom is like a garden. We are leaving at the end of this week January 20th and headed down to the Darien Gap and Panama to the Isla Pinos in the San Blas Islands. This is a big one for me. This is where childhood heroes like Francis Drake and William Dampier would gather to raid Nobres Dios or Portobello and the huge Inca treasure shipments to the old world. Today it is still occupied the Kuna Indian tribes. We will be out of touch for a few weeks since there isn’t any internet or phone service

.
.
.

.

2010-01-20T08:02:00.000-08:00

Curacao to Aruba October to December 2009
We flew into back into Curacao via Miami. Just out of Miami we crossed the Gulf Stream and I could see the Biminis below and then we crossed the Ragged islands. Soon Iguana Cay and Matthew Town were below with its distinctive shape. Just as the sun was going down we started across Haiti and finally crossed Santa Domingo flying into the growing dark. For those of you, who think this life is all palm trees and Cuba Libras, think again. One thing I know after five years into this odyssey is that a boat is a consumer able item on more than one level. We had arrived to discover that our order was delayed for a few weeks, so we started other jobs. We painted new anti skid on the decks, which had turned into a skating rink last season. We then lifted our diesel tanks after inspecting them and then cleaning them, ripped out an old fridge and installed a new one along with a complete new battery array.
Add to this a new SSB radio and a Wind Vane. There always seems to be something to do and you don’t get paid for what seems to be harder work than you did in your previous life, in fact you pay. After five weeks in a cheap hotel we had enough done and moved back on the boat in the yard finishing up there in a couple of weeks. The yard let Seacycle slip on the travel lift when splashing her but this time there was no damage. The reinforcing we had added the last few years was paying off big time. We finally got in the water and checked out heading up to Santa Cruz at the northern end of the island where we jumped off to Aruba some fifty miles away. Aruba was different, kind of a Vegas by the sea, but that was alright for a short change of pace. We caught up here with cruising mates Audrey Page and then Equinox pulled in having jumped all the way from Annapolis and the boat show, a very impressive sail. On December 18th we got a weather window and nervously set sail for the Colombian coast.
To be continued

2010-01-20T07:35:00.000-08:00

Santiago to Finnisterre to Muxia Sept. 6th to 9th
I left Santiago at the square saying goodbye to Eric from Gaspe. I was a little down after saying goodbye to everyone the day before even though all the aquaintances had been brief; there was a strong common bond. Even so I told myself it was St. John de Pied I Port all over again starting out knowing nobody, but looking forward to a fresh new adventure. In the square I had heard somebody come up behind me whistling the Popeye theme song and as I turned around there was Emmanuel grinning. I asked after Pascal his walking friend but he said with great sadness she had gone home already. Sure enough he had already had another female accompanying him. I marked him up as a player and he told me he was also setting out for Finnisterre as soon as he had a good breakfast. Almost immediately I fell in with a Spaniard and two Germans, a mother and daughter act. The walk was uneventful through the same beautiful Galician countryside. I crossed the bridge where legend has it God destroyed the bridge as James followers carried his remains towards Santiago escaping from the Romans. By one o’clock I was in Negriea and in the middle of a medieval festival. One thing that blew me away was a Galician pipe band that had the crowd enthralled. I thought of my eldest son Nathan and knew he would love this sound and probably wouldn’t go home without a set of pipes. I found the Albergue which was fast filling up, did my routine, then wandered back to the festival, admired all of the Celtic jewellery, had a pizza and hit the sack. At the albergue I had a reunion with Bushido who I hadn’t seen since the beginning of the Meseta weeks ago where he developed a shin problem. We had a good chat about Kurosawa movies before turning in. The next morning, even though I never left till seven it was still dark, even the full moon wasn’t much help as the trail immediately headed into the woods. The walk was uneventful although I did see the German mother and daughter head down the wrong path ahead of me at a confusing marker. The rule is that the direction of the ribs on the Camino shell emanating from the spine or back bone is the direction. There have been times though where these have been misplaced. In any case the women had seen me unsling my pack and stop to check and I am way too old to be chasing women down garden paths. The countryside was more of the same, beautiful woods and pasture. Two Spaniards a Basque and Galician caught up with me and then passed.
I had stopped for a latte and toasta and also had a ham boccadio made to go for lunch. The two Spaniards, Manuel and Valente knew a little about Toronto because of the Raptors basketball team which I gather had signed a couple of their countrymen. I walked with them till the next Albergue which only put me a day from Finnisterre where the Celts worshipped holding the place as holy because the sun dropped from the sky there. They used to have a copulation rock there where they had performed a fertility ritual. The Catholic Church in a burst of priggishness had it destroyed. Killjoys! The albergue was pretty full in Finnisterre but I managed a bed. And later in the evening watched the sun go down. I spent the next day walking with Valente just the two of us and finally ran out of road in Muxia. I stood outside the church where they were having a service for drowned sailors and I got a room in the totally modern but sterile albergue there. It was an early rise to catch the seven am bus back to Santiago where we pulled in at nine. I found a room at the hostel Linda the Norwegian nurse had recommended and bought a ticket to Madrid for the next day then spent the rest of the day wandering the city still running into friends like Ben from Holland and Javier who was in my albergue the very first night way back in St. Jean de Pied. We would see each other every week or so even though he spoke not a syllable of English we always had a warm greeting for each other. But hey, that’s the Camino for you. The next morning as my bus was pulling out of the terminal I saw Bushido getting off a bus and then his hiking stick clicking away as he headed into the city. A fitting end for my Camino.

2010-01-20T06:57:00.000-08:00

Last night and into Santiago
The square in front of the cathedral was still and just stirring to life except for a few pilgrims like us. Over the next couple of hours we familiarized ourselves with the church and square constantly recognizing other pilgrims as they slowly filtered in the square over the morning. We all lined up at the church office and received our documents and then headed off for a group breakfast. Gina, it turned out, was the first person I left the Albergue, crossed the street to the bar and after espresso and a croissant I walked down the hill towards Santiago 22 kilometres away. There was a bit of hill climbing as the trail wound its way towards the city. Around 10:30 I came across David sitting at an outside patio with a young Canadian, Eric from Gaspe. I walked with them till lunch where I had a bacon boccadilo and beer then pushed off telling them I would meet them at Mozo de Groto the big dorm before the city. I had decided to stay the night in the 400 bed Albergue and walk into the city the following morning. The last few kilometres were sparsely marked and a couple of times I thought I was lost but in the end I was on the right track which a couple of k before the albergue was confirmed by the sudden appearance of a growing mob behind me. Just after I had arrived Gina, Enrique, David, Eric and Rebecca came in. Someone pointed to the spires of the Cathedral obscured by trees but visible. The monument was built by Pope John in a holy year during the nineties to honour the pilgrims. There was a mob of tourists all wanting their pictures taken so everybody had to jockey for a camera spot. David continued on into the city as he was anxious to get in to buy a bus or train ticket to get to Madrid and meet his girlfriend. I showered up and went off wandering to find a placed for dinner. Just as I was finishing my dinner Rebecca and Gina brought David, who had returned from the city after finding nowhere to sleep and we finished up dinner together. Everybody wanted an early night so we all turned in and hit the road at 6am. We walked the last few miles through the modern outskirts with a growing excitement under a full moon into Santiago. Finally we came to the old walled section and after a few winding narrow streets entered the church square which was just stirring to life. We spent the next two hours exploring the church and greeting fellow walkers as they came in and getting our scrolls from the church office. Gina was very excited when they informed her she was the first from the Barbados to do the entire pilgrimage, quite a feather in her cap. At breakfast t Rebecca seemed the most relieved getting in true English form to order her cup of tea even if she still had to ask for milk. I found a small hostel room with Eric and cleaned up and started to figure out what’s next. Almost everybody was leaving for somewhere by Monday if not home. I figured I was on a roll so I decided to get a good night’s rest and just keep going the next day heading for Finnisterre. I would do the tourista thing when I returned but right now I wasn’t finished with the road
To be continued.

2010-01-20T06:34:00.000-08:00

Si. Julian to Argua
I got a good start after what had to be one of the quietist albergue I have slept in. It was still dark with an overcast sky as I walked through the woods heading towards Leboreiro and hopefully breakfast. Unfortunately it was brewed coffee with no espresso. I had a piece of breakfast cake with it and lit off again for Melide. Almost immediately I fell in with an English woman transplanted in Spain for the last twenty years. I walked into Melide where they are famous for their pulpo, a local speciality made from octopus. At only ten in the morning that didn’t sound to appetizing so I pushed on stopping on the large hill at the edge of town for a shirt change and then took off for Argua where I hoped to make my mind up about how far to go. In the end my shin made it up for me and by one o’clock I was tucked away in a private Albergue which was very modern and nice but the younger travelling carnival pulled in an hour later and an afternoon of rest wasn’t in the cards. My shin was also really getting sore so I decided to take Linda the Norwegian nurse’s advice and went to the Farmacia to see what they suggested. The lady there offered an inflammatory cream or pills. I decided on both and by the next day they had done a noticeable improvement. . I had a big lunch and a big dinner and was making an illicit visit the local candy store when I heard a voice behind me say “I thought you were a diabetic?” to which my usual answer is “Do you have a warrant?” and then "don't tell my wife" I turned around to find Stephanie, a young Texan teaching ESL in Barcelona. She had walked all day with David who was planning on walking into Santiago that night. She said his feet were really bad and that he was tired but still determined to follow his plan through. She knew we walked together a lot and wondered if I could talk to him before he got too far. I found him in a restaurant feeding up and between the two of us plus the fact that it was overcast with no early moonrise he capitulated agreeing to let us find him a bed which they did in my Albergue somewhere in an overflow. He said he would leave at 6:30 so I said I planned to leave at 7:30 and would catch up and walk into Santiago with him. I headed back to my bunk and listened to my IPod since I have nothing but my guide to read or my log to write and in the end drifted away to Quicksilver Messenger’s Happy Trails.
To be continued

2010-01-18T16:44:00.000-08:00

Porto Marin to St. Julian September 1st.
I couldn’t help but notice all the hard suitcases lining the hallway as I made my way out into what was a still dark morning. I was now in the land of the hundred kilometre pilgrim and over the next hour I realized I had probably a big mistake by timing my arrival in Santiago for the Labour Day weekend. Within the first two kilometres I started to come upon walkers with either no packs or ones just large enough to carry a toilet and snack kit. I couldn’t help but think of all the fortitude I had witnessed from the previous four weeks as I had watched fellow walkers push on through blisters, pulled tendons and fatigue. Somehow it just didn’t seem just and I wondered how the church could allow it especially when looked at through the prism of history. I walked past the first few cafes full of chattering new walkers all examining their feet from their first couple of kilometre. I figured if I could just get in front of the main bulge I could pit stop for a quick espresso and toast and stay in my own space. I found an empty cafe and had a quick shot and bite and was just slinging my sack when David came grinning into the cafe commenting on the trails newest additions. He wasn’t too concerned with just two days to go and one of which he was planning to walk through the night under a full moon into Santiago. I intended to stop early today and rest my shin. I was at least two days earlier than I had intended but at no time did I feel like I was rushing and I had intended to take a couple of lay over days in Burgos and Leon which I had found swamped with tourists. So I let my feet doing the talking and just answered the call of the road, I walked into Palais de Rei and found the usual crowd and decided to push on to little village of San Julian where I found a private albergue and booked in. The building was gorgeous a combination of stone and timber with local nick knackery provide by the owner who ran the small bar and restaurant and 14 beds with two washrooms. Here I met Rebecca and Gina two lady hikers who had been school mates and had reunited for the walk. Gina was coming in from Barbados and Rebecca was a British expat who was now chasing her dreams in Florence Italy. Definitely in my top three alburges to stop in with a great soundtrack ranging from Nina Simone to Howling Wolf to Lorena McKenna. That night we had a group dinner with a full house and a lovely meal. There were two nice Swiss ladies and also the couple I had mistaken for Germans the very first day who turned out to be welsh showing how far out of it I must have been on that mountainside fighting my jet lag. I commented on the good time they had made and they informed me they had bussed over the entire 250 kilometre Meseta which made me feel pretty good. Later I don’t think my head had hit the pillow and I was gone.
To be continued

2010-01-18T16:20:00.000-08:00

Monk in the Monastery August 30th
I didn’t rush out today but waited and got all my stuff together slowly, finally leaving well after the pack at 7:30 am. The trail picked up right outside the Albergue in the laundry hanging area and started off through the woods. I fell in with two older German women for a couple of kilometres both of whom were in their seventies. One of them was a sailor and told me how she and her husband had managed four years in the Mediterrian before her husband passed to cancer. She said out of a group of couples, ten sailor friends in all, only she and one older fellow were left. In summing up she basically said get while the getting is good. I left the two by the pilgrim statue a few kilometres from O Celibrio and fell in with the Estonian couple I knew Ain and Ille. They were travelling fast with plane tickets later in the week so after a morning espresso I parted company. I found a spot to change back into my shorts. Today had been an experiment the only time other than laundry I had worn long pants. I couldn’t wait to get back into my shorts even with the cool mountain air. The rest of the morning was a peaceful walk with long vistas of cultivated hillside pastures on the descent into Tricastela where I stopped at noon and had the local soup Galega and a beer. My choice now was a split with a high road and low road. The guide said the high road was shorter with a good view from the top of the Galician foothills. The lower route was almost 9 kilometres longer but described as an interesting river walk through pastoral fields and forests. It also ended at the huge Monastery at Samos which once held a spectacular library. I opted for the lower river road and it was everything promised. A glorious walking afternoon playing hide and seek with the sun as I tramped alongside rivers on trails with long walls built of slate and overgrown with green. A total Frodo Baggins afternoon. The major use other than Camino walkers was its use as a cow trail to move the herds from pasture to pasture. The trail was littered with cow patties in various forms of decomposition. Every once in a while you would enter a hamlet where everything was built of stone including the slate roofs. The trails and walls are ancient construction dating back a millennium to the 1000 AD period. Fortunately they are still a work in progress. I ended up limping into Samos around 4pm shin splint quite sore and found the Albergue in the Monastery. Mark in a Monastery! I could hear my teenage friend chuckling as Monk was my childhood nickname. I went through my usual routine, shower, laundry, bought some fruit for the morning and then paid an obscene price for a salad and beer at a restaurant across from the monastery. I retired to my cloister and spent the evening listening to Brian Eno and writing.

2010-01-18T16:09:00.000-08:00

Cascacebo to O Celibrio
I was awakened somewhere around 4am when I heard the door open to my cubicle and a strange woman started to tug my foot. I sat up and immediately asked what was wrong in English but that spooked her and she withdrew shutting the door. My bunk mate awoke and asked what was going on but I didn’t have a clue. Ten minutes later the routine started again and in my spanglish I just said Mi Para espousal which led to another quick exit. This time the roommate recognized what was happening. Turned out he was a priest (Canadian) and had arranged with her for an early exit. Well I didn’t know what was worse, strange women waking me up, or the fact I had been sleeping with a priest. Luckily no harm from either.
By then I was a wake and by six was walking down the roads looking for a side trail in the dark which would lead me into Villafranca de Bierzo where I was hoping for an ATM as well as breakfast. Success on both counts and then shortly after crossing the river bridge I was confronted with a choice. A steep 1200 ft climb or a stroll alongside the highway. I opted for the climb and as the guides say I really felt like I was walking on the roof of the world, always looking down into the valley dominated by the highway. Just before the turn to descend I managed to lose the trail and found myself wandering down along a goat path finally connecting to a road. I had planned to stop at one of the Albergues at the bottom of the mountain and do the last steep climb to O Celibrio fresh and in the early morn’s coolness but while cooling off my dogs in a stream David came smiling around a corner and since he was going to do the climb I decided to tag along even though it was my second ascent in one day. I hadn’t seen David since the day out of Leon. We climbed up the final steep ascent, the last big one the Camino and while I had to stop a couple of times I finally found myself in the province of Galicia stunned by their beautiful vistas. At O Celibrio I decided enough for one day and said goodbye to David who was walking on. My shin was shot. I checked into the new municipal which was large and clean. Later that evening I ran into Ain and Ille an Estonian couple I had met previously. I had a great dinner including their local soup Galega and hit the sack listening to the Strawbs and John Martyn.
To be continued

August 28th

2010-01-17T06:37:00.000-08:00

Through Rabanal to Cacabelos
Cold, very cold, an unfamiliar feeling for the first time in weeks. No warm breakfast, just a banana and peach washed down by some water as I worried about my shin in the dark, also hoping I didn’t lose the trail before the sun came up. After a while I came across a Swiss girl who was totally winded. When I asked if she was alright she just nodded which brought back memories of my first day in the hills. A couple of hundred yards up higher and I found two of her friends resting. They said it was only their second day. By daylight I had climbed through the village before Foncebadon with its old stone and rough hewn timber huts and was walking along the high ridges surrounded by deep valleys in which pools of fog formed and laid giving a rather surreal feeling and truth to the name Misty Mountains. This is where Shirley MClaine and Paul Coelho go all airy fairy in their books and its easy to see the attraction to succumbing to their flights of fancy. After a couple of hours I came to the cross at Foncebadon where everybody leaves a stone from your home country. As if, I would have jettisoned it a long time ago in aid of lighting my load. I stop in a village for a coffee and bun where I chatted with some Portuguese hikers doing a one week segment. They were all familiar with Toronto and seemed to have relatives there. Mid morning found me in a steep descent to Ponfferrda and I really started to notice that going downhill was harder on my shin than going up. I had been advised to stop in M but I was there before noon and so I pushed on into Ponferreda past the huge dominating castle of the Knights of the Templar and realized I couldn’t get a shot of the whole thing. The man in the info booth said 12 kilometre to the next albergue so I took him at his word and soon discovered he was off by at least half. I struggled through the hot afternoon sun on a flat section and finally limped into Cacabelos at 5pm a total of 51 kilometres, what was I thinking, besides they shoot horses don't they.I found the albergue which was quite unique to others. The church had a wall around it and built into the wall on the inside where chambers two beds to each which was quite an arrangement. I got my bag ready for a quick exit in the morning and fell away into IPod land with Jim White.
To be continued

Off the Meseta

2010-01-16T15:52:00.000-08:00

August 27th off the Meseta
After a nice breakfast in Orbigo I set off well aware of a definite problem in my shin. After half an hour the pain dimished and was a dull throb and by 10 am I was in Astorga which sits high guarded by its stone embankments. This isw where the southern Camino joins into the main route making it an ancient crossroads. Here I met and said goodbye to the five Spaniards who got lost with me back before Leon. Their two week holidays were up and they were returning to their homes. A lot of europeans do the Camino in installments year after year during their holidays. I looked around for a rumoured sports store hoping to find new gels for my shoes but found it closed and not wanting to wait I pushed on and at the outside of town by the Ermita shrine I sat and took my gels out and put the original soles back in. Within an hour a small blisters had grown but rather than put the gels back in I figured to rough the day out and deal with it in the evening. I rubbed a hot liniment on my shins and started off again. Now the walk was starting to climb off the Meseta into the hills before me and the villages were starting to become stone instead of adobe. I walked up through the afternoon heat steadily upwards and finally came to Rabanal where I checked into the Albergue run by the friendly English fraternity, washed up and had a nice pilgrim’s meal with a young Italian I had kept running into. Knowing I had a big climb in front of me the next day I hit the bunk early and fell into la la land listening to Dylan.
To be continued

2010-01-12T16:18:00.000-08:00

August 26th to Hospital de Orbigo,
I got off to a very quick getaway leaving the albergue just after 5:3o am. Just as was leaving one of the Irish Johns whispered goodbye as I left the dorm. I had known the two Irish johns for only a few days but they were already good friends as were a lot of the hikers along the trail. Maybe it’s the common interest or even the common goal but there is an intensity springing from it. I walked towards the edge of the city and by the time I came to the river on the outskirts I noticed a young lady obviously lost trying to figure out the way. I pointed out the right way and she fell in walking with me. It was her first day and she was from Norway. She was carrying a huge pack and didn’t seem to know about the trail blazes. We walked together for about half an hour talking and then the weight from her pack was giving her trouble so she asked it was safe for her to stop as we were in an industrial suburb and I said yes people would be coming to work shortly and there were already other hikers in sight.
At Valverde de la Virgin the first town out of Leon you are given an option of a longer field route or the much shorter route alongside the busy highway on the way to Astorgia a major pilgrim centre where the routes merge on the way to Santiago. I grabbed an espresso and headed out on the longer option taking the field route and immediately fell away from the road music and smells. After a kilometre or to I crossed on another highway empty by North American standards and descended into a village where in found the square filled my water bottle and had some fresh fruit for breakfast. Walking out of town I was greeted by a pup or certainly what appeared to be a young dog despite having what could only be described as a face of the ancients. I seemed to be walking through a series of ravines none of which were visible from the flat Meseta. By the second descent I was getting concerned because my companion was showing no signs of leaving. Last year laided up with Seacycle in Medregal in Venezuela I had been adopted by a young female pup much to the amusement of the French cruisers. The situation there in the yard with the dogs was deplorable but unfixable with the way the locals treat the dogs. It was heart wrenching to leave with the young dog on the dock whining but at least two buddy boats Nautilus and Vagabond were there to pick up the pieces. Not wanting a repeat I tried to shoo the pup away but he or she wasn’t having it. In the end I had to resort to throwing stones and it finally left.
After a couple of hamlets I finally found myself out in the fields with long vista stretching to the south and off to the north the mountains curving down to the west where I was headed. I passed through a couple of small villages over the morning and at one of them sure enough I came across David and then losing him to a sock change I had a Irish lad fall in with me who was a physics major. We got caught up in a discussion about climate change. The conversation started with my observation of all the frogs in the ditches that seemed to be doing all right despite global warming and then it fell apart as I confessed to not be convinced that we were directly responsible or had a solvable problem. Well that destroyed all my credibility with him as he was fervent in his beliefs as well as the expertise of the scientific community using the moon shots as the litmus test for creditably. Not wanting to escalate the argument I didn’t bring up that according to the experts the earth used to be the centre of the universe, then flat. Or the remedy of bleeding, use of thalidomide, ureaformaldihyde foam, trickledown economics or the Hubble telescope, etc, etc.
My shin was starting to develop a worrisome hurt so I decided to call it a day and headed into Hospital de Orbigo. I think in hindsight it was the road construction of loose stone and gravel, more of a pit run with disportionate stone sizes causing an uneven trail that did the shin in. At the entrance to the town I found one of the longest medieval bridges at seventeen spans. This town sports a famous folktale that has a knight suffering from unrequited love vowing to wear an iron collar till he has fought a thousand knights to show his depth of his true affections for his muse. Evidently this was one of the stories that inspired Cervantes to write Don Quixote. Personally all I could think was the guy had more than rejected love blues wrong with him to fight a thousand times wearing an iron collar but that another discussion. I found a private albergue across from the municipal albergue that was very nice, checked in and went for dinner that night with a Flemish gentleman who gave me the dirt on the Flemish and French problem. It wasn’t the first time on this trip I have listened to aspirations of separate nation hood and it is putting my own countries issue in a different perspective. Back at the albergue the night keeper was into the local Ouzo and insisted I take a shot which immediately restarted some hair growth somewhere. On that note I headed for my bunk and turned off, tuned in and dropped off to some Fred Neil on the IPod.
To be continued

August 25th

2009-10-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

It was only a few kilometres to Leon with the first part along a busy early morning rush hour highway and then supposedly through an industrial suburb which the Irish contingent said they were going to give a pass by taking a taxi into the city. Well the industrial suburb was more like a box store strip and one thing I have picked up on is to ignore what the guides tell you. This certainly wasn’t in the same league as the industrial wastelands I spent the majority of my working life in.
As I entered Leon I was walking past a pastry shop which seduced me into entering and then while walking and gorging I found myself down by the river that runs through the city, totally lost. It took half an hour and some backtracking to figure out the right way and as I was coming up to the old city walls I heard a taxi beeping like crazy and then heard someone yelling Canada which turned out to be the two Irish johns.
Fifteen minutes later I walked into a big albergue run by the church and there they were signing in. The one John was having some trouble with his credential and his full name John Connor was spoken out loud which caught some of the younger walker’s attention queuing up behind us. John didn't get it till I explained to him his name was the same as the hero from the Terminator who saves the world from the machines. Leon has been an important pilgrim centre since the eleventh century and the albergue was another large one like the one in Burgos. I looked around hoping to find Gontranh but there was no sign. I did my usual routine laundry and shower and then went out exploring to find tomorrows way out and an internet where I was hoping to catch up on my blogging by spending an extra day laying over. Well five hours later and a lot of sightseeing I decided that the blogging was going to have to wait because there was just much to see and take in and the town was crawling with tourists. Leon has a lot of beautiful old architecture, tapas bars and is full of public art. The huge gothic cathedral was under reconstruction so I could only do the outside but just walking around the old city is a perpetual eye full. The cities origins go back to the Roman Legions of the first century BC and the name is somehow derived from the Latin word legion. Bagged out by a full afternoon of exploring I had an early dinner went back and spent some time at the albergue just hanging around and charging my IPod and camera. I had decided to move on again in the morning. I was ahead of any schedule I had set and was really into my stride now enjoying the daily hike and really didn’t wasn’t to spend the day in the city. It was a full house in the dorms but with the pod spinning some Richard Thompson I fell asleep,
To be continued

August 24th

2009-10-24T13:34:00.000-07:00

I was packed the night before and was on the street early. By six I was on the road out of town but after crossing the Rio Cea bridge the signage disappeared and by the traffic circle on the outskirts of town I had totally lost the trail in the dark. After a kilometre down a farm track in the dark I finally returned to the traffic circle. Retracing my steps and with the light coming up I finally spotted a rock arrow pointing the way probably placed by other pilgrims who had lost their way but who had generously taken the time to place the marks. Soon I came to another one of the ubiquitous traffic circles (the Spanish love building roads) and saw the arrows indicating the trail’s split. I followed the road through the village of Calzada del Coto crossing a railway bridge at the end of town where the road turned to a farm track heading to Hermanillos 12 kilometres away and the last town before the 21 kilometre stretch. It was a pleasant morning walk to Hermosillo’s and while I couldn't see anyone behind me I got the sense someone was there. I arrived in the village and found a cafe in the first building where the owner prepared me a nice breakfast. Sure enough about ten minutes later Arvy showed and then to my surprise John and John showed up proclaiming they were worried about me and thought they should check up on me. They also said they had passed David sitting in a rest stop changing his socks which he does every few hours to combat blistering.

Eventually he showed and we all finished up breakfast before pushing on. I had walked a few blocks when I went back to the cafe realizing I had forgotten my staff and it was an hour later before I caught up with David. J and J were well ahead and Arvy way back having lingered over his coffee. We seemed to be the only walkers out on the flat Meseta. The trail ran parallel to the rail tracks for three quarters of the day with the long fields of the Meseta stretching off to the cordillera in the north in an endless run. Along the way we kept coming on pieces of roman road ancient stones covered in lichen. They say you are suppose to be in touch with past life’s walking on this ancient stone but the best I could seem to summon up was a couple of past bill collectors.< Sometime in the early afternoon we walked into Mansilla de las Mula found the municipal albergue and grabbed a bed. Later that evening I had dinner with the same breakfast club and one extra Irish priest. The priest I had noticed earlier in the afternoon at a bar reading a Harry Potter book. I didn’t realize at the time that he was a priest and thought that was pretty funny in retrospect because I am pretty sure the Catholic Church frowns on the Potter books. Don’t need the competion I guess. John and John kindly picked up the dinner tab despite our protests so we moved into a bar paying around three Euros per bottle of Navarre Red and carried on till bedtime.

to be continued

August 23rd

2009-10-23T13:38:00.000-07:00

I was off early stopping at the town's only restaurant for a very expensive breakfast, 7 Euros where there had been a reasonable priced pilgrim’s dinner at ten Euros the previous night, go figure. I was hoping to be in Sahagun by lunch and have an early day organising my gear and rest up for the 41 kilometre walk I was planning for the following day. The route I was thinking of taking was the field route with an uninterrupted twenty one kilometre stretch between villages. After Sahagun the road split to one route along the highway with stops and a longer one through the fields, much of which ran along the old Roman road supposedly still intact.
On the way I took a wrong turn outside Ledigos leading some Spaniards down the garden path for a kilometre before I realized I was wrong and stopped. The Spaniards asked a cyclist who pointed to the right way and by the time I got to the next village they were resting and watering up at the village square where one of them gave me a hey Canada and with the two pointed finger sign to his eyes let me know I should take better care with the map. I looked back over at him and just said uno pointing at myself and then looking at all five of them I pointed and said cinque. They made a big laugh out of it every time I saw them over the next week.
It was a lovely quiet morning as I walked through three villages before coming to Sahagun which was a little rough around the edges. The town was brick construction, modern and not the most inviting place but more of a shirt sleeves rolled up working agricultural centre. I found the alberque in an industrial suburb across from the Toro ring and was pleasantly surprised when I went inside finding a calm cool oasis out of the heat with built in bunks that afforded some privacy. I went out and walked around the town finding the square which was very busy for a Sunday afternoon and then checked the way out of town for the morning. At the edge of town I met two Estonians Ain and Ulle and we compared notes.
They were pushing on trying to keep to a schedule. Back at the albergue two Irishmen I knew from Fromista John and John had arrived via a taxi after one John's leg had given out. At dinner I was fairly mocked by them for my intention to walk the 41 kilometre field route the next day which they thought was hilarious asking me if all Canadians were as bent. One leg was 22k between stops. We had a great dinner and after an english girl I had met briefly before Frances arrived late. She was suffering from foot problems but was in good spirits and determined to push on. Wanting a good nghts rest I hit the sack. Two mothers and their teenage daughters were in bunks next to mine and the giggling went on for a while so I played some Bruce Cockburn drifting off.
to be continued

August 22nd

2009-10-22T13:30:00.000-07:00

It was 9:30 when I got back to the dorm and the lights were out with people already sleeping. Not wanting to wake anybody I didn’t bother to pack my sack but it wasn’t any easier in the morning because people were still sleeping but they were going to have to get up shortly so a little noise didn’t matter. I had prepaid for a breakfast the day before which turned out to be a disappointing coffee and a small Twinkies all for 3 Euros so I downed the coffee and pocketed the cake and headed out. I was already in a bad head space because I had discovered my plug adaptor for the camera and IPod charger was missing. I must have left it in the plug in Ages. No IPod is a catastrophe for me. It was a quiet walk through four villages over twelve kilometres before I found an open cafe and managed an espresso with a ham and cheese bocadillo.

Next stop was Carrion de los Condes and by 11am I was there walking by the beautiful stone monastery where I met Bushido who walked up to me smiling but with a limp. I asked him if he was OK and he told me he could walk but that was it for today. The next stop along was Cadezadilla de la Cueza a long flat hot notorious 17 kilometre stretch. The guides all suggested it was better done in the early morning's coolness so I had a decision to make. I first poked around the town hitting the cash point machine then found a hardware store and managed to replace the plug adapter for my battery chargers which was a relief. A visit to a panderia and then I walked out of town and over a bridge looking down at a quick running river. An elevated preserved piece of Roman road was in a forested conservation area bordering the river and across the road was another beautiful monastery which had been partly converted into a classy hotel.

I was soon standing at the edge of town by a busy crossroads looking down a county road deciding whether to walk back into town or try the hot afternoon crossing. One thing I have reaffirmed about myself on this trip is I don't like waiting around. When I was a teenage back during the hippie thing I had a favourite poster. There were two vultures sitting on a branch. The one vulture looks at the other and says F#%* the waiting let’s kill something. Well that kind of philosophy has always directed my thinking so I watered up, put on my full brimmed hat and programmed the IPod to the soundtrack from Lawrence of Arabia and with tympani’s crashing, staff in one hand balanced by a dry baguette in the other I set off on my long march. The guide was right, seventeen kilometres of a basic track with no stops. In hindsight it would have been easy in the early morning coolness but it wasn't all that bad. At the three quarter mark a pack of female Italian bicyclists passed me, all lithe and tightly bound in those wicking fabrics. Well I am part of the human condition and what can a man say especially one three weeks out from his mate. I like to be honest in personal matters and unlike Clinton I did admit to inhaling and now like Jimmy Carter I must admit I too have sinned in my mind. The albergue was right at the end of the trail and to compound matters there was a pool. Of course the bike team was there swimming and frolicking and I couldn't help but think of Ulysses and his crew with the nymphs. I managed a bed by a window looking west on the second floor and after a shower and my laundry feeling every one of my years I drifted off into a nap fanned by a cool breeze.
The pilgrim’s dinner was down at a local hotel and here I ate with Arvy and Elizabeth two Swiss nationals. Arvy I had known for a few days while Elizabeth was only into day 2 of her walk. She told me her husband was retired and at home. I made a comment about how he should have come along for the walk but she told me no way she was walking to get away from him because since his retirement he was driving her crazy at home. Well that was easy to believe because she showed me her GPS and said she had to phone him her coordinates nightly. I told her to punch in the south pacific and really play him but she just smiled. After dinner I went back to the dorm plugged in some Peter Gabriel and was drifting off when I sensed someone beside me and smelt the fragrance of fresh soap. I opened my eyes and it was a young German girl I had met back in Belarado with her Spanish guitar carrying boyfriend. It was a case of young love and I couldn’t help but noticed how devoted she ministering to his bad feet. It was hard to tell who was prettier her or him and I wondered who was in charge. I watched her as she watched the sun set into a layer of soft pinkie reds and wondered if years from now when she was as old as me if this was one of those moments she would remember.

To be continued

August 21st

2009-10-08T12:34:00.001-07:00

Leaving the narrow streets of Hontanas I was being chased by the sound of the church ringing seven bells. Smaller villages use the bell like an alarm clock and in some places it rings all night like an old ship bell. A couple of blocks down I ran into Gontranh who was limping bad and very down in spirits. We talked about it and I encouraged him to take a bus to Fromista and sit for a day to rest.

As you leave town you walk along a path mid way up the ridge along the ever widening valley. At the very bottom a creek wanders through marked by a thin ribbon of green foilage that borders and separates it from the surrounding dry hills. Soon you descend and start along a road which brings you to the Convento de San Anton which was a hospice for a type of leprosy that plagued the country during middle ages. A dramatic arch rises over the road with the abbey to one side and as I walked up a flock of morning doves took off in unison leaving me with one of those sights that etches itself into your memory. Inside the arch were cubby holes used to leave food in for travellers after the abbey gates had been closed for the night. Now pilgrims use the holes to leave messages for each other. A couple of kilometres further brought me to the town of Castrojeriz with its ruined castle perched high on a hill. You enter the town at the Igesia de Santa Domingo marking the towns western entrance. I stopped here had an espresso and sweet roll, then pushed on crossing a main road and walking by a preserved stretch of Roman road and then a marsh always heading towards the climb at Alto De Mostelares with its exposed seams of mica that were mined by the Romans in ancient times. The climb was a steep 1200 feet but by now I wasn't experiencing any of the problems that had bothered me the first few days. At the top was a big sky vista.
Feeling like some music I tuned in the Chieftains and Lorenna Mckennitt and then after a short walk across the flat hill top I came down the other side and had a beautiful stroll along a farm track towards the Rio Pisuerga and its eleven arched bridge the Puente de Itero. I stuck my head in at the thirteenth century Hospital de San Nicolas for a quick look and then headed off to Itero de la Vega the next town.

Finding a supermarket I went in for a baguette and some fruit. While at the fruit stand a woman got quite agitated pointing at the Canadian flag on my backpack. My first thought was oh no she had remembered the Spanish Canadian Turbot war and I was thinking thank you Brian Tobin when I realized she was just amazed that somebody from Canada was walking the camino. I certainly didn't think I would be a novelty as a great number of my countrymen do it every year. Then when I got to the cash register she wouldn't let me pay and despite my best efforts that was the way it stayed.
I gave her a kiss on the cheek and took a picture of her and her mother outside before high tailing it back to the track which again led through the farmland. The fields have a great system of irrigation ditches and sluices all being fed by a canal system. Farmers here have really worked hard at getting the water to where they need it. Around 1pm I walked into the village at Boadilla watered up and took off for Fromista walking alongside the Canal de Castilla an engineering wonder that was just finished in time to be displaced by the even newer railway craze. It was a quiet walk and soon I was in Fromista, flat and dominated by brick and adobe construction so unlike the stone work of Basque country. I found the municipal albergue did my shower laundry routine and spent the rest of the day putting entries into my journal. Gontranh was there resting and had made his mind up to take the train into Leon three or four days away and rest. Later that night I went out and there found David who joined myself and some Italians for a pilgrim's dinner after which I headed back early to find all the lights out in the dorms. I laid on my bunk in the dark covered by the nights heat listening to the children who played well towards midnight. Looking to fall asleep I put Leonard Cohen on the Ipod and fell asleep

to be continued

Yahoo! Canada Toolbar : Search from anywhere on the web and bookmark your favourite sites. Download it now!

August 20th

2009-10-03T06:14:00.001-07:00

In Burgos I slept in a little later and didn't rush but was still on the way by 7am walking through the cities' west end and then the large municipal park that borders the outskirts. Stopping at a cafe for breakfast I exchanged language lessons with an older waitress and her son before I headed off walking through a new housing complex and into the countryside. One thing I have noticed, at least in this part of the country, there are no sprawling suburbs. The walk out of all the major centres has been an immediate shift from urban to field. Even in the smaller centres the houses are all clustered in the towns or village. The use of land here has evolved over time and with a heavy agricultural culture no fields or arable land seems wasted. Also the towns are elevated with a clear view of the countryside surrounding them. This speaks to the historical threats and the defences the people must have employed to confront them. I haven't seen any of the countryside enclaves of predictable bland McMansions that dominate North American landscapes. As I hit the edge of town I ran into Tewlly an Estonian girl I had met before. She was walking the camino for the second time and over the next hour I got a quick lesson in Estonian history, political systems and life in general. Like many others I have met she was in a transition stage of life changing careers and had come to the camino to walk and think.

We entered the town of Tardajos where she stopped for breakfast and I moved on and after a gradual climb came onto the high dry flat Meseta stretching off into an endless horizon. Shortly after I found David sitting on the side of the road under a tree changing his socks. He was having a lot of trouble with his feet. His hiking boots are goretex which just don't breath and were leaving his feet swimming. I told him to chuck them at the first opportunity but he had sentimental attachment to them having used them hiking to Machu Piccu the year before. We walked together and got into a discussion . I had seen a book for sale with a display of many copies back in Logrono of Somerset Maugham's "Impressions in Andalusia" and with all the Hemingway stuff around it got me thinking about mislabelling and the whole perception thing surrounding who ends up where in history. I was wondering why Hemingway should be celebrated as the voice of the lost generation when Maugham clearly and in fact wrote just as much about displacement and seekers than old Ernie. It wasn't even Hemingway who coined the term lost generation but Gertrude Stein and if you stop and look at both of their works Maugham scores big with the Razors Edge and Moon and Sixpence never mind all the short stories. Was it because Maugham was older and a popular seller. Maybe not as fresh as Hemingway who was considered a serious artist because of the shift in writing styles. In the end they are story tellers. Interestingly they were also both in the ambulance brigade during the WW1. In turn I got a lesson in Stephen King whom I haven't read. Everything from The Stand to the Dark Tower series was laid out for me to have a look into. Like I said in a previous blog you get a lot of time to think on the camino.

.We stopped at Hornillos de Camino and grabbed lunch, refilled the aqua bottles and set off. A few hours later having left David changing his socks I was walking on a flat plain with nothing in front of me when I came upon a sudden drop into a valley with a small village straddling the road and descent. It was like walking into a spaghetti western but even more so like one made in Argentina instead of Italy. I stopped at the first bar and pushing aside the beads at the entrance went in. The place was spotless and they showed me a bed again in a spotless room with five bunks . I signed in and had a shower did my laundry. By then David, then Tewlly and Ben the Dutchman I had met back in Grano all showed up. There was an Austrian already here. There was a rumour of another place offering both a pool and milkshakes so we went off to see but the pool was exposed to the sun and the water hot and the milkshake machine was a broken.

I went back to my bar grabbed a beer and met a Spaniard and Italian girl Teresa who I knew from my time in Cirauqui with the Basque boys. I then got into one those afternoon discussions with Teresa about lit and cinema. Having no common experience and from someone a good twenty years younger and from a totally different continent and environment she matched me blow for blow as we ran the gamut from James Jones novels to the career of Oliver Reed and Sterling Hayden and then the films of Bertolucci and Terence Malick. I was reluctant to break it up but the Spanish fella who was part of the Basque group she had been travelling with was kind of an odd man out on the conversation because of his English and it was both their second last day of walking so I excused myself and went for a nap. When I came back a few American student musicians who seemed to be travelling on bike with their instruments did a dixieland concert entertaining a small but enthusiastic crowd. The bar did a Pilgrims dinner with two sittings and the second sitting was a rambunctious affair with the Italians, a lot of whom were on the last days of their holidays closing the bar down. Wanting to fall off I put on the ipod and drifted away listening to Paul Weller.
to be continued

Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail

August 19th

2009-09-22T07:37:00.000-07:00

The party outside the window didn't end till 1:30am. But it is bloody hot with highs hitting the low forties and people are just taking in the coolness of the evening. The one thing I had overlooked in my pleasure at finding a lone bed against a wall by a window was any noise but hell who would have thought in such a small village. The rose with its thorn. But it is fiesta season and even so the Spanish live a lot later into their evenings than where I come from. Even the children were playing till well after midnight.
The cafe was open at six so I managed a breakfast of espresso and toast before heading off to Burgos home city of the Spanish hero El Cid portrayed by Charlton Heston in one of his Demille like epics. Also the site of a recent Basque bomb at the local police station injuring sixty people. I walked down through the village of Atapuerca tuned left and started the short climb to a summit where a large cross had some very large rock circles added to its location by artistically inclined pilgrims. From up here I had a good look at Burgos and a hint of the Meseta beyond. I had a quiet morning walk opting for the longer route around the airport and down to the river and its urban path that leads you right into the heart of the city. I misturned once as did some others but a Spanish and Finnish girl called me when they spotted the way and I walked a couple of kilometres enjoying their conversation. For both of them their camino was coming to an end as their vacation time had run out. I left them as they sat for a break pushing on into the city past the bullfighting stadium and deeper into the city. Soon the cathedrals spires came into sight and and I finally turned on a bridge seeing the big El CID statue before walking along and entering the cathedral square. Half an hour of walking around finally brought me to the big institutional like albergue with it's two hundred beds. I signed in did my routine just in time for David to slide up silently greeting me after not seeing him since Lasronna ten days earlier. Outside I met Gontran who was looking for a tension wrap as his ankles were getting worse by the day. He had been walking for two months covering most of the distance by foot from Belgium. We agreed to meet for dinner and then I went off with David to have a beer and find a Internet cafe. I had planned to stay here for a couple of days and catch up on the blogging but there were an incredible amount of tourists and after getting burned on the price of a beer I figured I might just shove off in the morning. That was unusual for me as I generally thrive in inner city chaos but my being seemed to want the quietness of the trail so I surrendered to the itch and got ready to leave.

to be continued

August 18th continued

2009-09-21T04:33:00.001-07:00

It was incredibly hot well over 40 degrees and by late afternoon clouds had started to fill in the sky here and there creating a patchwork of blue and grey hues. There was a slight rainfall, a few drops plopping down, just enough to burnish the air with that steamy dry smell off the pavement's heat. Going for a stroll I went to find the path that would lead out to the camino. I walked past some ruined buildings which had been left in a pile where they had once stood, stone, timbers and clay roofing tiles all inwardly collapsed into a type of material salad. As I walked to towards the edge of the village music was pouring from a window. Someone was playing the saxaphone trying to accompany what I realized must of been Van Morrisions LA concert version. This was the same piece I had just discussed with the young Frenchman just a few days back and I immediately saw his point about it lacking. The music wasn't the same, instead it seemed forced like the saxaphone that was trying to accompany it.

As I walked I was thinking of the music and how the original had been a once in a lifetime spontaneous event impossible to recapture. It would have been like trying to recapture first love and hold it in a bottle and yet some people will continuely try, losing their way in endless realms of promiscuity to recapture the moment or the something that was lost.
The road out of town led past a woodlot of poplars which stood to one side of the road. On the other side was open fields running down to a thin line of forest that marked the small creek running through the fields. The wind came up and the poplars defined it with a rushing sound. Down by the creek some pilgrims were camping and I could hear a lady softly singing. Another pilgrim walking with his staff and leading a donkey matted with sweat came up the road as I approached the river. To the west some sowed belly clouds were operating in solo, watering a hillside while surrounded by an evening sky. The church bell started tolling in the village so I turned heading back for dinner, thinking of my wife who was probably preparing her own lunch, only six hours behind but thousands of miles away

to be continued

Instant message from any web browser! Try the new Yahoo! Canada Messenger for the Web BETA

August 18th

2009-09-18T05:00:00.001-07:00

I immediately got lost in Belarado after leaving the albergue in a dim light when I didn't see a marker partially obscured by a car. By the time I got turned around and on track again it started to look like rain, mostly in the hills to the north where it was accompanied with some rolling thunder. I don't mind rain or thunder but lightning always make me feel extremely vulnerable. On Seacycle in open water it definitely is one of the few things that can give me a "There be Dragons" moment". In the end the bark was worse than it´s bite and it cleared up as the morning unfolded. It was a pleasant pastoral walk to Villafranca Montes de Oca an old town with origins dating back to 700 BC and located at the bottom of the valley sheltered under the Monte de Oca. The Mercado(supermarket) was off the trail a few hundred metres and I had already started the 1200 foot climb by the time I realized that, but I hate going backwards in anything so I kept on upwards and was soon at the top with a great view of the valleys and mountains to the east. It was then a twelve kilometre walk along the ridge through a pine forest with the trail bordered with purple heather. It was still cool enough for lots of birdsong. By the time the heat comes up you usually only get insect buzz as even the birds seem to take a siesta. About half way along just before one those steep down and then up climbs there is a monument, the Monumento de los Caidos a memorial to victims of the civil war. There are few such monuments to the era, at least that I have seen and even this one is in a quiet area of solitude. The whole subject is rather touchy. Only a generation away and within memory it is an issue the Spanish are still coming to grips with. Regional autonomy issues are huge here with many local dialects and customs being proudly preserved and defended. As a Canadian it frames the whole French and English Canada issue into perspective.

As you come down from the ridge you enter the hamlet of San Juan de Ortega built by San Juan a follower of Santo Domingo. San Juan was a major player on this section of the pilgrim's road building churches, hospices and bridges for the camino. His life was dedicated to the pilgrimage trail. The hamlet here has its own legends about white bees which gave it a reputation for fertility and helped it gain patronage. I stopped at the small cafe and had lunch watching the other walkers come in including three on horseback. Deciding it was too early and again with a crowd starting to build I headed down the road towards two small villages, first, Ages and then Atapuerca. Atapuerca is now a designated UNESCO World Heritage site. Between the 1970's and 1990's excavations here uncovered human remains dating back 800,000 years putting it's discoveries into missing link territory. Most of the important finds are now in Burgos at a museum but there are organized tours to the site. I don't do organized if avoidable so that visit was a pass. I came into Ages and at the first albergue found a bed in a clean and very well organized setting. Bushido was already there giving me a smile while on a mat doing some sort of yoga like stretches. The dorm was above a cafe and I didn't quite suss to the implications of that but immediately did my routine of shower and laundry before heading down to the bar for a cold beer. While quietly sitting nursing my drink and soaking up the atmosphere there was a sudden slam at my table as a book came crashing down and standing there with a big grin and pleased at his ambush was Gontranh waiting to pick up our discussions from the night before.

to be continued

Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail

August 17th

2009-09-14T10:00:00.001-07:00

I was gone from Najera way before dawn finding the camino yellow arrows on the narrow streets and climbing the steep, short ascent out of town. At Azofra I unslung the pack and had breakfast which is pretty standard now, cafe solo (black espresso short) a croissant or toast (called toastadas) and hopefully, fresh squeezed orange juice. Every village no matter its size has a large espresso machine.

Today I was going to aim for Belarado some 37 kilometres away and with an early start and only a couple of small climbs I was hoping to be there by mid afternoon. Again the trail led through the vineyards occasionally broken up with hay pastures where I would come across shepard's managing their flocks with the sheep´s incessant bells ringing. As I came up to the small village of Cirinuela I met my first Canadians a young man and woman from Montreal. They had been out a few days longer than me and the girl dressed like Annie Hall, was limping a bit. The approach to the town was a bit of a shock after all the vineyards being bordered by a green golf course and then a housing development which was already looking a little frayed with empty units and burnt lawns. I couldn't´t think of a bigger waste of water after seeing all the effort the farmers go to here to irrigate their fields. Made me think of one of the better tee shirts I saw once at Foxeys in the Virgins which said "Help Save Nature, Shoot a Developer". Soon enough I was back in the fields and headed for Santa Domingo an old and larger centre. I entered the city by coming into the main streets passing a potato processing factory and then watched the police still pulling over cars and checking them out after the the long Fiesta weekend. At the hotel in Logrono the TV had been pumping anti drinking and driving ads by the hour and interestingly enough the theme song they were using was Nick Lowe´s "The Beast in Me".

This town has a fable regarding a miracle including a falsely accused pilgrim and a couple of chickens. The posters and tourist trinkets all are covered in allusions to it. As I left the town that got me thinking and trust me one thing you do get to do on the camino is think. Usually you are walking by yourself broken by short strolls with other people but everybody has their own gait and so sooner or later you will be on your own again with everybody coming together in the evenings at one of the albergues or restaurants. What had caught my imagination was the fable which had kick started thoughts about the nature of urban myths and how quick they spread as illustrated by books like Freaknomics or the Tipping Point. I started to wonder about the conversion of the pagan tribes negotiated by the church and replacing idols with saints which wasn´t breaking any commandments and a little more politically correct for the times. With no mass communication and an illiterate population the church was the main educator of the age and had certainly riffed on its own version of urban myth. I started to think about the nature of these myths and the roles they played in holding things together. From there I got into Joseph Campbell and his books and how little things have really changed except now its really the governments and political factions negotiating the myth making. An interesting tapestry of history with a lot of the evidence right in front of you on the camino.

There was bit of a walk alongside a highway and then a branching off on the way to Granon when I came on a little oasis of trees with a brook running through. There I met and got into an interesting conversation with a fella from Amsterdam who was having a little problem with his knees. After awhile I said goodbye and walked up to the town talking to two young Japanese girls who knew the suburb of Tokyo where my youngest son had been living the last two years. In Granon I got a cold pop and stood on the hill at the edge of town with its great view of the camino below. The trail here passes over the border into Castilla y Leon from La Rioja and I wondered if that meant the end of the grapes and cheap vino (three euros a bottle for good plonk). I had also seen some signs for a small hotel called Hostal El Chocalatero which seemed pretty inviting so I thought I might call it a day if the place panned out. Well an hour later and the place turned out to be a truck stop, smokey and busy and nothing like the photos or description and the last thing I wanted was to be kept up all night by the screech of air brakes and engine sounds. It was a little off the trail so retracing my steps I returned to the path, bought a cold Fanta and sat in the shade of the church square contemplating my next move. The next thing I hear was the click, click of two walking poles and around the corner comes a Japaneses dude asking where the albergure was. I told him the story of the truck stop and told him I was pushing on. He nodded, gave me one of those samurai grunts and was off. I immediately named him Bushido because he looked like he had just stepped out of a Kurosawa movie with his lean look with long wispy sideburns, head covered with a bandanna and two poles, very warrior like. By the time I got to the next village Viloria he was sitting and waiting to tell me that the Albergue was full. His English was very good certainly better than my Japanese. He said the next albergue was three kilometres away but as we came out of the village there was a great empty vista in front of us and looking at him I said "must be Spanish kilometres which elicited another grunt and off he went poles a chugging. Well it wasn't too far but the next albergue was off the road a bit and at a village square in San Luis de Francia a lady ice cream vendor offered me a room but there was a drive involved and she already had a couple waiting so I decided to stick to my original game plan and push the final five kilometres to Belarado where I came upon the first albergue of three at four in the afternoon, complete with swimming pool, camping grounds and clean new dorms. I booked in, did my routine (shower and laundry) and then met an interesting guy from Belgium, Gontranh, who was a surrealist writer of novels and plays. We had supper together along with a far reaching discussion and then he turned in planning to leave at four thirty am because he liked to walk in the cool. He had been walking for over two months most of the way from Belgium. I had another drink and then some expensive Internet time (everything here is coin operated 1 euro for 20 minutes) before calling it a day and retiring to bed. There was a group of French bicyclists outside partying so once again I gave in to the ipod and fell asleep listening to a mix of Sandy Denny and June Tabor.

to be continued

Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr!

August 16th

2009-09-13T12:22:00.001-07:00

Well I was up and at it a little later this morning leaving at seven because it was sunday. Immediately I found a Danish fella totally lost, camino walkers are really easy to spot. I told him I was on my way out of town having checked it out on my day off finding it was an extension of the same walkers and joggers path that brought me into the city. Yes, that is what you do on your time off, walk around checking out the town but without the tryanny of the backpack which I have come to put up there with the tiller and hand steering on a boat.Also no shoes you get to wear your sandals. I walked with him gossiping about other camino walkers we knew and talking books till Navarrete where I met the French Basque girls I knew from Cirauqui, who were picking pears off a trail tree and invited me to stop and share after which I walked into the town where the square resembled a war zone from the fiesta celebrations the night before. In fact gangs of youth were still prowling around with open liquor making a nusiance of themselves. Lucky for me the panderia was open and I managed to score a baugette and some fresh fruit as well as a expresso so things were good. Najera my next pitstop 30 klicks from Logrono with still seventeen to go. I found my way out of town and again the trail was fairly flat all through the vineyards. At the hamlet of Ventosa I stopped and had a cold beer grabbing a cold litre of water for the walk.

At noon I came to the outskirts of Najera entering first through the industrial suburb always a lonely place on a sunday and then through the newer brick tenement buildings which gave off a totally different vibe than the other towns and their stone buildings. I crossed the river Najerilla into the older section of town hung a left and ended up at the municipal Albergue which was still very empty managing to get a solo bunk at the end of a row. The cost was donative and the friendly hospitalero seemed to be in some kind of rapture with a lot of religous music playing. I will give him this though I later watched him doctor several people´s feet all of which were a mess and he didn´t blink once showing what I considered incredible fortitude and I am certain that all those who he attended couldn´t thank him enough.

There didn´t seem to be any type of pilgims dinner on offer in town so I hit a tapas bar had a couple of beers to wash them down with and hit the sack. Outside one of the hospitaleros was holding a hootenany with all the Italians most of who were finishing up their two week vacation stint. Each year they come and do a different section keeping their credencial till they finish and getting their compostela when finally geting to Santiago. In fact many European nationalities do some version of this. After about the sixth version of Micheal Row the Boat Ashore from outside which were getting louder with each version I surrendered to the Ipod and drifted off listening to Nick Drake.

to be continued

Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr!

August 14th

2009-09-12T11:48:00.001-07:00

I left Los Arcos really early before six but I had checked out the route the evening before and it was straight down into the vineyards. Even so as I started out I watched two groups head off in the wrong direction. I heeded my advice on offering gratuious advice plodding on. As the light began accompanied by a light breeze racing towards the rising sun I could see them cutting across the fields as their mistake came apparent. This was going to be a short day and I had made my mind up to stop and regroup in Logrono where there were internet cafes. I hadn´t had any luck in Pampalona and wanted to get in touch with Deb who had nothing from me except some quick emails. There were two villages early on Sansol and Rio del Torres, again both built on rises which gave them commanding views of their fields. I gave both a quick walk through deciding to stop at Viania for breakfast. Viania´s approach was a little rough at the edges but once inside the city walls the cobblestone streets narrowed with the older stone buildings leaving it with nothing to apoligize for. The city is famous for being the place where Cesare Borgia met his untimely demise after being exiled from Italy. He had ended up here working as a kind of mercenary errant knight for the local aristos. In one vain glorious charge he rode out to meet the enemy thinking the town was behind him while they basically sat and watched him ride to death. I stopped in front of the Iglesia de Santa Maria at the square which is lined with cafes and had my morning breakfast break.

The walk from here to Logrono was a little less interesting being some sort of local joggers path so I pulled out the Ipod and spent the morning listening to old Jethro Tull from Stand Up to Thick as a Brick as I walked. I hadn´t really used the Ipod much, mostly just at night to fall off asleep amongest the symphony of snorers. The ear plugs I had bought were basically useless and through the days walk I had my senses full so the Ipod wasn´t seeing much use. By one pm I was in the city centre where I found one of my guides hotels and got a room for two nights to force myself to rest up totally and get the internet thing caught up. The guide described Logrono as a unexciting working town but again my experience was different. Maybe it was because I spent two days there but I found the downtown stroll lined with cafes, upscale clothes stores, internet cafes run by afganis and while small it had it´s own charms which I think might have been because it seemed so natural and not touristy or superficial. Anyways the rest did me a world of wonder and I realized now that I had made a big mistake just getting off the plane and jumping into things. I probably would have been much better off staying in Paris for a couple of days and sightseeing while sleeping off the effects of the jet lag. In any case, I had stayed true to form only learning from experience,

to be continued

Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr!

August 13th

2009-09-12T03:16:00.001-07:00

I left Ciraqui at seven and less than a kilometre from the town I hit a piece of preserved Roman road. It really gave me a charge just thinking about it. What was left was in remarkable shape for it´s age and didn´t seem to be under any type of custodial care. An hour later I stopped in Lorca where there was already a crowd at the local cafe and I ordered my usual, a short espresso solo, had a orange juice and croissant and was off again, headed to Estella which has sat on the River Erga since the eleventh century engulfing the older Basque town of Lizarra. The town was famous for its Romanesque architecture and statues. The Basques lads from the night before had suggested that it was a great stop with lots of night life but I reached it by mid morning and I was also starting to feel on top of my game so stopping wasn´t in the plan. On the other hand I didn´t want any repeats of the previous day so I was constantly rehydrating. I also saw more evidence here of the Basque seperatists movement with graffitti slogans aimed at tourists sprayed on retaining walls. I made a quick calculation since there was a climb involved in the next stage but it was still cool and the map suggested that the climb was up through a forest so I decided to go for it. First though I would have to pass through the village of Ayegui where next to the monastery there are two fountains, one with cool agua and the other with free Navarre wine. In my youth I probably would have stuck around here for a few hours but the most I could muster up for was a single cup of the free vino straight from a tap and then I was off again past a mob that was already waiting for the local Albergue to open at noon. The climb was up through a pine forest similiar to home and topped off at a thousand feet. I seemed to have my mojo back and along with the shade from the woods I was at the top in no time but then encountered a few kilometres of open trail with no shade on the way to Villamayor de Monjardin. While walking along a plateau I spotted two large dogs and was wondering what that was going to lead to when their owner made an appearance much to my relief. At first he seemed to be practising some kind of irrigation delivered through prostrate science when I realized he was really gathering and feasting on wild blackberries. Well this proved to be a bounty and soon I was stopping and picking, filling my ever useful banadana and munching along the way. In Villa de Monjardin I came across the three Basque lads sprawled out in the shade on the cobblestone street along with an Italian girl from the albergue the night before. They pointed me towards the village fountain where I drank a quart and reloaded my flask. The guides suggested that the next run was merciless with no shade cover and twelve kilometres, but it was all downhill through the vineyards. This time though pacing myself I stopped three times and while the water grew as warm as tea I didn´t run out and by 4pm I was at the village of Los Arcos where there was suppose to be an ancient water fountain to greet the pilgrims from the hot walk. Instead some enterprising entrepenuer had opened an automat full of vending machines. I wasn´t complaining downing two bottles of ice cold gatorade. An Austrian girl I had passed hobbled in complaining about her foot but claimed she couldn´t see anything wrong. I took a quick look and saw nothing but black and blue bruising at the ankle. She told me that wasn´t what was hurting but I think the heat had affected her reasoning becuase the two had to be related. And as my father use to say just before he would clip me for some supposed misdemeaner "where theres smoke theres fire". The first albergue I tried was full and I just managed to get the last bed at the munciplal´just outside the town´s wall and over the river Odron. When I entered the dorm I wasn´t sure whether I hade entered the dorm or the casualtly ward. The air hung heavy with the smell of linament and there was the weirdest array of guaze bandages covering appendages from the shoulders to the knees headíng right down to the feet. Amazingly most of the walking wounded were young males. Most of the women seemed to be alright and there were a few older goats like myself who only seemed to be suffering the day´s fatigue. I wandered around the town then sat in the square after poking my head in the cathredral for a peek at the beautiful frescoes and then watched as the townsfolk mostly older women dressed in their best clothes filed into the church. I headed back to the dorm packed my sack for the morning and fell asleep listening to Shawn Phillips,

to be continued

Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail

Mark has posted more Camino Pictures!

2009-09-04T10:28:00.000-07:00

Made it to Santiago!! Got my Compostela from the Cathedral, having an early night and off tommorow headed for Finnisterre and the sea.

August 12th

2009-08-26T12:11:00.001-07:00

I left Pampalona thinking I would head for Puente la Reina. Right off the get go I had trouble finding the way out of Pampalona due to all the new sewer construction but soon found myself walking through the university grounds and out into Cirze de Maur where I could see the broad ridge of Alto de Perdon, lined with windmills. It was a climb of 1200 feet and while I experienced some difficulty again I realized when passing others that they were in most cases struggling even more than I, which put things into perspective. Three hours later I was at the ridge and standing under the tall metal pilgrim statues with a view looking back to Pampalona and onward towards Santiago. I'm sure the pictures don´t do it justice. The entire ridge is well marked by hundreds of windmills. It made me contemplate our one lonely wind generator in Toronto which we treat like some kind of national monument. I headed down towards Obanos and took a lunch break at Ortega where I had a great hot pork with red pepper bocadeo washed down with cold cervsea. All the food here is loaded with salt and with the heat and sweat I can understand why. Feeling totally refreshed and geared up I headed out again with only seven kilometres to go till Puente la Reina. Along the way I fell in step with two young Frenchies I knew from sight back on the first day and we soon had a lively conversation going about Spanish food, Neil Young, Sean Penn and finally coming around to Van Morrision. They wanted to know what I felt about his music and I told them I consider Astral Weeks one of the masterpieces of my generation and then we discussed how Van the Man had just walked into a studio with several jazz musicians totally unknown to him and cranked it out in a couple of sessions. One of the Frenchies said he had heard the new Los Angeles concert version from last year which I hadn´t and he said it suffered from his voice and technically. We finished off with them telling me they wanted to buy a van and drive off into the american frontier like Sean Penn in his movie Into the Wilderness which I hadn´t seen and I figured I would just leave it at that with out telling them Alaskan cold was only romantic in the movies or Jack London tales. I left them at a bar and wandered in Puente la Riena half an hour later where I found a crowd gathering to sign into the nice alberque which also has a hotel and pool. It was still early and not really my cup of tea so I decided to push on since I was feeling good. The town was very old with a long history and narrow making the cobblestone streets dark. it was also very quiet becasuse of siesta which these guys take very seriuosly. After passing through the 800 hundred year old gate and bridge I read a sign wrong and after another steep but short climb and a walk of a kilometer I realized I had zigged when I should have zagged. The prudent thing to do would have been go back to the alburgue and check in while the getting was good but vanity and hubris won the day and I decided to push on. Half an hour later I left the river Agra which I had been following since Roncevilles the second day and headed towards Maneru and then Cirauqui where I hoped to grab a bed. Just before Maneru I came up to a short steep climb and half way up in the 40 degree heat I hit the wall. Its was basically a twenty foot walk from tree to tree for shade and then to make things worse I ran out of water. In the end I made to the top and ten minutes later was sitting in the small town square in Maneru literally inhaling water out of the pump. An old pensioner was sitting there gabbing away at me in spanish. He could of been offering me the spanish crown I just smiled at him letting him ramble on and every couple of minutes kept saying no comprende espanol while inhaling the water. Finally telling myself to get up and move on I started the last couple of miles to Cirauqui. It was a beautiful approach through fields of vineyards with village citadel sitting high on a rise with a commanding view and very easy to figure out why the location had been chosen. I dragged myself to the edge of the walled town like a dying duck in a thunderstorm and contemplated the climb to the alburgue which of course was at the top. Several stops later I was greeted at the door by a smiling lady named Iona who led me to a bunk with a knowing look and let me know dinner was at seven thirty. This was defintely the nicest place hands down that I had stayed at since arriving. Beautiful ancient stonework with a laundry on a wide upper balcony and a dining room down in the basement in the bodega. I sat with three Basque lads who possessed passable english and we had a great dinner.Total cost for the bed and dinner came to 19 Euros. I was just named Canada after that and that seems to be my name now with most of the walkers I run into along the trail. I have not seen another Canadian yet but I have heard there are a couple of French Canadians a day or so ahead. I did another backpack think that night and ditched one change of clothes, an unfinished novel, calculator and ten dollars in Canadian cash. I finished the evening talking to two french basque ladies, hit the sack and woke up in the morning a new man ready to go but hopefully a little wiser about my limits in the hot sun with the climbs.

to be continued

Instant message from any web browser! Try the new Yahoo! Canada Messenger for the Web BETA

The Trail Ahead...

2009-08-26T05:33:00.001-07:00

August 11th

2009-08-23T04:07:00.000-07:00

By the time I woke and had my act together the dorm was three quarters empty and I stumbled out into an empty village square. Thinking everyone had already split I hit the trail at 630 am which still ran alongside the river Arga as I headed toward Pampalona 16 kilometres away. After an hour of walking I had passed two or three solitary walkers and I got the sense that no one was actually in front of me. Walking steady all morning grew frustrating as after several small steep climbs I would lose all my gains in the valleys. The last couple of days had brought the realization that my pack was way too heavy so I had to consider some serious cargo jettisoning. I felt like one of those captains in an old Hollywood movie ordering everything stripable be thrown out. I decided to have a good look at the situation when I got into Pampalona. At Trinidad de Arre I entered a modern incredibly clean urban area where I immediately got mislead by a yellow construction sign instead of the trail marker. I took a break and checked my blood sugar count, reorganized my load for the hundredth neurotic time in two days and retracing my steps asked a local who kindly pointed me towards Pampalona where an hour later I laboured up the citadel path and entered the city. This is Hemingway central with his picture and name everywhere. I hope his heirs have intellectual property on his image. Following the narrow streets I felt a wave of wonder wash over me as I followed the sun deprived streets arriving at the central square where I depacked, had an espresso and bocadillo while considering my next step. I had been told to expect my jet lag to last a day for each hour and I still wasn´t up to snuff. I decided to opt for an hotel room and sort myself out and found a great room in a neat little hostel very film noir with the elevator in a cage in the centre. I left my pack there till check in time and went off wandering to get the lay of the land. I found the streets where the bulls run ending at the El Toro ring. Here again there was a statue of Hemingway with a plaque and it was gratifying to see Toronto mentioned in the script. The writers first time here was when he actually wrote The Sun Also Rises during time as a correspondent for the Toronto Star in the twenties. Back at the hotel room I washed up, had a siesta and tried to keep hydrating. When the evening came I went out looking for an internet cafe with no luck so I hit a tapas bar had some food and cerveza ´soaked in the atmosphere and headed back to my room to take stock of the backpack situation. I finished my airport copy of the Economist, lost all my souvenirs, ticket stubs and other miscellaneous foodstuffs. I had a copy of Rawi Hages De NIros Game but I was only half way through it and I decided to suffer for literature and try carrying it for another day. I hit the sack watching Spanish TV and organized my thoughts for tomorrow. to be continued....

Day 2 the Camino August 10th

2009-08-23T03:43:00.001-07:00

I was awoken this morning by the same plastic bag rustlings as the day before when all the early starters got up and moving. The dorm was co-ed and located inside a beautiful old abbey. The dorm was on the main level with the kitchens, laundry and bathrooms down below. Pristine clean and very well organized. I went out into the early cool dawn and gave my myself a quick body checklist rundown. Surprisingly I felt in good shape even my feet were not complaining. I fell in with David, one of my compadres from the day before and it wasn´t long after leaving Roncevilles that we came into Burgette immortalized by Hemingway in The Also Rises . In the midst of the village we found an open cafe by a sign honouring old Ernst and calling this the start of the Ruta de Hemingway where we had a espresso and croissant and then set off following the trail markers through pastures climbing back into the hills. The next few hours were spent traversing through hillside fields fringed and bordered by pine forest. At Lintzoain we had another short ,steep climb where I found myself labouring again. Fortunately the climb was short but at the top I found myself confronted with a shrine to a sixty two year old Japanese pilgrim who had suffered a heart attack and died. This kind of alarmed me because the Japanese aren´t known for heart attacks and I realized I was out here all alone again just like at sea except no Deb to back me up with her watchful eye. Also all my medical ID was in my backpack since I refuse to wear jewellery of any type when travelling. By lunch we had pulled into Zubiri where after some poking around we found a restaurant where I had a great lentil soup with coarse bread. After lunch back down to the river by the ancient bridge where everybody was soaking their dogs. I left David there who was having a foot problem and decided to push on to Larronsona following the track as it ran by the river Arga. Less than two hours later I pulled into Larrasona and got a bed in the municipal albergue where I met Italian Daneillo who I had crossed the mountain with the day before. He and his group invited me along to dinner at the local restaurant and we had a great evening with David also making it in eventually. We managed the second sitting at 8 pm which is still early for the Basques but by ten we were all back in our bunks. The restaurant was very charming full of Basque farming and logging implements with shelves of hard bound books and beautiful framed Camino pictures filling the walls. Dinner was a standard pilgrim offering with white asparagus, steak and yogurt. I headed back to my bunk and crashed.

To be continued....

Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr!

Mark has posted Camino Pictures!

2009-08-19T18:31:00.000-07:00

Check These Out!

Mark has posted some pictures of the early days walking on the Camino.

Go to 'Seacycle Picasa Pics' on the sidebar.

First Day on the Trail.

2009-08-11T05:35:00.000-07:00

The rustlings started early around 4am as people started to wake and lay in their bunks waiting for a decent hour to get up and leave. By five there were enough people getting up and so I got ready, had a breakfast of bread, jam and coffee provided by the albergue and set off. It was dark on St. Jean´s empty cobblestone streets unlike the tourist crowds from the day before and only a few well spaced walkers were headed out of the stone gate towards the trail´s beginning. As soon as you leave the town you are given a choice, the high 4200 foot mountain route known as the Rue de Napololeon (since he invaded Spain this way probably wanting to out do Hannibal ) or the lower easier route through to Roncevilles. Wanting all the badges I of course opted for the mountain route. Right away you head up and I started to labour with the short steep climb and weight of my pack. Soon though I was passing small groups and starting to feel good about things also thinking I was already higher than I was. Coming around a bend I was suddenly confronted with a very steep ascent to Honto. About 1000 feet, short and steep. I watched a small truck labour its way up and was thinking to myself here we go. Half way up as I tried to managed the climb I kept turning around thinking I had someone thumping up behind me. I soon realized it was the sound of my heart beating in my ears. Soaked and breathing hard I made the first stop at Honto and was rewarded with a magnificent view of St. Jean in the background. Seeing all the people I had just confidently breezed by catching up I lit off again up what by now was a goat or cow trail lateraling its way up the mountain. Now all of a sudden a mist started to close off the view and was giving me a bit of a chill against my sweat drenched body. I had to keep stopping and was literally gulping air. My head was shouting out orders to every part of my body telling the feet to stop acting like the lead weights they felt like, my lungs to stop being so greedy and my back to straighten up. Finally my stomach told my head if its heave you want then heave, I can give you so I stopped and had a breather while digging out a fleece. By now all of the people I had passed were well passed me and one older German couple when whisking by me asked if I was ok. I thanked them, said yes but was wondering how they lost the war. It was then the final indignity presented itself in the form of a camino granny in rough sack cloth skirt and army boots went resolutely marching by me, beautiful smile saying "Bueno Camino". I finished my breather, sucked it up and headed the short distance into Orrision half way up the days march but the steepest part behind me.

When I arrived in Orrision the whole mob was there taking a breather, having coffee and some doing yoga stretches. Incredibly many were smoking. Cat Stevens music was pouring out of the cafe and the mist gave everything a surreal atmosphere. I couldn´t help but wonder what would have happened if any of the girls had come along. I am sure mutiny would have set in and I had visions of Deb, Eileen and Lori gleefully clubbing me to death and disposing of the body over a cliff. Old Newfoundlander,Peter Rowe, who I had unsuccessfully tried to talk into coming would certainly have demanded burial with a bottle of Screech while cursing me to eternity.

Taking a short break I started up again. Just past the restaurant was a sign with all the elevations and distances and a young fella there studying it. I took a look and set off with the young guy on the opposite side of the road matching my step for step. The road at this point is all of ten feet wide. We walked like this about a kilometre in silence when I looked over and said, Espanol? He looked back at me and said in perfect english yes, but Texan. This was only my second encounter with fluent english since arriving so it was very welcome as it was with him. The fog kept rolling in and somehow we totally missed the Virgin Mary statue which supposedly dominates the landscape but we knew we were in herds of goats or sheep because all we could hear was their bells tinkling.

We arrived at the spot where the trail leaves the road and found a young Italian there, guide book in hand and looking as worried as we felt. The mist at this point was so thick we could only see thirty feet in front and we had to leave the comfort of the road for the trail which ran cliff side now through the mountain pass. I put on my raincoat because it was cold and my finger tips were numbing up and all of this in the middle of August.

Lucky for us the trail is well worn, marked and the published guides are very explicit so we manged from marker to marker and slowly the mist began to lift so that by the time we came to the Spanish frontier the sun was teasing us with broken views of the mountains.

About an hour later we made the final ridge Leopder at 1250 metres and we could see the Abbey below at Roncevilles. The trip down was anticlimactic but hard on the calves and toes. We pulled into the small hamlet around 3pm and found all who had passed relaxing in the shade or bars waiting for the dorms to open at 4. It had been an eight hour hike. They claim this is the hardest day but I think I want that in writing. We were signed in and after a shower and a short nap I headed over to the restaurant for a hearty supper of soup, pasta and trout. Sleep was never more welcome and I drifted off with the sandman wondering what kind of shape I would be in the next morning.

to be continued......

St. Jean de Pied de Port

2009-08-07T04:13:00.000-07:00

I was up early and ready to go hoping to avoid the previous days experience. I walked across the bridge in Bayonne which is a seaport of historical importance. I found coffee and fresh fruit and headed back to the station to wait for the train. It was a hour and a half´s ride all up and the train ran along side a river most of the way as we pushed our way up into Basque country. The sky was overcast but not threatening and at 12:30 we arrived in St.Jean. There were about twenty pilgims disembarking with a couple of them being cyclists. I followed the crew and soon found myself in the small central citadel area where another crowd were all waiting for the credictial office to open at 1pm. The credictial is a pilgrims passport which must be provided by the church or an afffliated group. Cost is nominal and as you walk the church or Alberque where you stay stamps it each night proving you are doing the pilgrimage. You only need the last hundred miles to get accredtted.

This was also going to be my first dilemma since I had been told that they asked what your intentions for the walk were. It seems at Santiago one certifacte is issued for religous purposes and one for secular. Well as my friends can attest my face is an open book just chocker block full of tells. Poker is not my game unless its strip. But I wanted the authentic certificate, only seemed just after hiking 800 clicks. Just to back up a bit when I was a child my family immigrated to Canada from England. My father as a young man with little money did what most newbies did, he walked, Everywhere! This was how he explored his new home and to provide my mother a bit of relief he literally dragged my along, everywhere! I think this is where my love of walking comes from if not some older primordal thing. Trying to keep touchstones with the old country my parents soaked in anything British and one of my parents favorite shows was the Saint with Roger Moore. At the start of one of the eposides he has just come back from a 600-800 jaunt through the spanish mountains (the camino perhaps). Well this was cool and always stuck in my head and floated back from memory as my plans for the trek progressed. As I sat down to get my credicenta my story was ready as the questions came and they filled out the form. Walking yes, purpose? Religous, I answered "the Saint is responsible". Form stamped I was wished the best and assigned a bed for the night on the municipal albergue where I immedaitely went to and stored my gear. I spent the next few hours exploring the town and making sure of the trail out and after a early supper of baguette cheese and ham I hit the sack to be well rested for the next morning.

to be continued.....

Yahoo! Canada Toolbar : Search from anywhere on the web and bookmark your favourite sites. Download it now!

First Days

2009-08-05T03:35:00.000-07:00

I flew out of Toronto on Wednesday evening putting me in Paris for dawn and a quick connect to Toulouse where I caught a bus to the city centre where I had a room booked at the Hotel de Orsay across from the train station.I was early so I just walked around town till noon soaking in the old architecture and markets. My plan was to get a good nights sleep and then the train to Bayonne early Friday and hopefully connect up to St. Jean de Pied de Port the same afternoon and start my hike on Saturday. I managed to buy a ticket for the 10am train the next morning so I went back to my room and crashed.

For the last three decades I have always prided myself on not needing an alarm clock, waking at 5:30am every day and then getting on with it. Well I did wake up at my usual time the next morning but North American time not French. It was 10:45 and I had missed my train by 15 minutes never mind the resulting panic from having to repack my backpack which was spread out all over the room and get out of my room by 11 am. I cleared out and headed to the train station where I was told my ticket was good all day but there was no way I would connect to St. Jean with arriving there after nine pm so I would have to find a room in Bayonne. The train ride was very pleasant in a compartment and the countryside was mostly farmland with each towns arrival being signalled by the increasing graffitti tags on appraoch. I hunted around Bayonne and found a small room on a fourth floor walk up for 30 euros and found a Kebob joint for dinner, finishing the evening with a little town exploring, This time when I went to bed I set my alarm to avoid a repeat of this mornings events.

to be continued.....

Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr!

The Decision

2009-08-01T03:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, well this little expedition started on one of those island hikes when little Kathleen from Gladys brought up this Camino de Santiago trek from southern France to Santiago de Compostala in north west Spain. The trek crosses the Pyrenees and is 840 kilometres of up and down hiking. It is a thousand year old trail and a kind of Haj for Christians but I was just going for the ramble. I was vaguely aquainted with it from the history books where the Celts considered it the road to the end of the world, but when Kathleen brought up Shirley McLaines book I just dissed it as another new age thing. But after a couple of more discussions a few people expressed an interest especially the girls as they figured they could just stroll along at their own pace and if too much take a bus every once in a while. I agreed to go along as the male presence. Well the enivitable happened and after I had researched the trip and found myself truly engaged everybody else confronted with the reality pushed themselves away from the table. Deb realizing she would be alone without female companionship had a truly pyschocamtic moment injuring her foot in the Aves and when arriving back in Canada had a bone scan reveal two fractures requiring a day cast for 6-8 weeks so she was excused. By the end of June I couldn´t see myself hanging around home anymore with the glass teat and its daily barrage of food porno and womens afternoon glee clubs so I pulled the plug, bought a backpack, airline tickets and prepared to go.

to be continued.....

Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr!

2009-05-05T04:43:00.000-07:00

April and May 2009

Left Bahia Redonda at 6 am motoring out into the bay and an hour later clearing Isla Borrachas headed north west for the Los Roques archipelago. We were scheduled to arrive early the next morning. We cleared the harbour west of Isla Borrachas around 8am but the seas were greasy and there was not enough wind to power through the roll causing the boom to fill and slack stressing the rig. The wind picked up but it was a sloppy ride and at 10 we decided to drop the main and the boom into the gallows and go with just the jib and mizzen leaving us with a much smoother ride. So many times we hear from the so called dockside experts how the traditional yawl rig is outdated but I’m sure in the circumstances they would gladly have changed places this morning. There had been some festering debate about the weather window amongst those who were heading out in all directions. Even though our route was all downwind our concern was about some chance of line squalls adding to the 20knots and 8ft seas already forecast. There was also a northern swell remnant
working its way through the eastern Caribbean and this can cause some uncomfortable sailing. Since a big part of the passage was overnight with little moon this didn’t seem like a good choice In the end the squalls looked like they were diminishing and the wind and seas looked like they were going to pickup later in the week so while not ideal the idea of waiting another week or two was not appealing. We decided to go.

By mid morning under a full jib and mizzen only we were moving along at 6.5 knots and around 1:00 pm the island of Tortuga came into view. This not the fabled buccaneer island of Tortuga made famous by Sabatini’s novel Captain Blood and Hollywood. That island lies twenty miles to the north of Haiti. We had no intention of stopping there but wanted to get as close to its southwest shore before altering course slightly to head towards the Roques. As we fell behind the island’s lee the wind died and shifted a bit so we raised the main and dropped the mizzen. It was
around this time that we discovered the solar regulator wasn’t working and we were not getting any electrical input. This is one of the problems with sitting in a marina comfortably tied to shore power for so long. We had checked the system before leaving and all seemed well but now there was a glitch, in fact the regulator seemed dead. I unhooked the solar from the regulator and rerouted the wiring around. Power gain was minimal compared to what we usually generated with the STTP technology of our regulator so we decided we would run the motor every few hours for power to keep the auto pilot and night lights from emptying the battery bank. Just before sunset we brought the boat into the wind, dropped the main, and raised the mizzen for our night time sail plan. Nautilus hailed us on the VHF and reported that their electronics including depth sounder, radar and chart plotter had crashed. We agreed to stay in sight at close quarters for the night.

As we left Tortuga and the protection of its lee the wave train changed and we started to experience confused seas. Normally we could have sped up a bit and this might have increased our comfort level but as it was we were going to arrive at the Roques too early for entering through the reefs. The rules are to have the sun as high as possible and preferably behind you to see into the water. This is where polarized glasses come in handy for seeing into the depths. It was a wet, rolly night and we got the worst of it several times as waves washed over the starboard transom and into the cockpit soaking everything. There was some freighter traffic but usually well south from us and all heading east. Around three am we spotted to the north a light flashing from the off limits military island of Orchilla. By the time dawn came the seas were in the ten foot range, whitecaps being blown into spindrift with the winds in the steady mid twenties, the odd seabird running in our slipstream.. We were cold, wet and tired but in good spirits especially as what we thought was a freighter turned out to be the lighthouse at the Roques southern entrance. At 8am we were off the entrance with Nautilus right behind
us and so we inched forward dropped sails and motored through the narrow entrance as it showed itself into the calm waters behind the reefs. After sorting out the proper channels we picked our way between the reefs and half an hour later we anchored behind the outer reef and began tidying the boat up. This was a beautiful anchorage, the water colours and visibility the best we had seen since the Bahamas and deserted except for a few large Venezuelan Sport Fishers transiting by. The next day two other boats we knew showed from Tortuga reporting the same sloppy passage. After seven days of exploring the cays and just hanging out we headed up to the main island to report in. Cruisers are divided on this because most are legally departed from Venezuelan waters. So one camp just ignores it and stays out on the fringes with the others going in to report. Stories doing the rounds had them telling you to push on after only a night. We figured we would check in and see as we didn’t want any legal problems and at least if a problem arose I would have my one good
righteous leg to stand on. Well they have a great system, for them, first they check you in to the park collect the fee (in our case 65US) and then tell you to leave within 24 hours. We pointed out we had paid for the 15 day permit but they said didn’t matter, leave. After some pleading and general chit chat invoking the world baseball series back in Toronto and the hospitality their countrymen were receiving there (Venezuelans had done well at the Skydome) they relented and said 7 days. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth I said adios and vamoosed. The small town is very colourful, a regular beach colony just opening up to a small influx of tourists flown in on small planes from the mainland to their tiny

airstrip. Part of the deal was to turn our park forms into the coast guard before leaving the main island which was for us the next day. Well we had to go through the whole official process again with the same result. In the end we left the main island and never saw another official till leaving the Aves at the last Venezuelan territory. We ended up spending the next several days at anchorages around the group. It was Easter weekend and there were a lot of boats crowding the more popular anchorages. We spent our last few days at Aqua and Elbert Cay and from there we left
one morning jibing from broad reach to broad reach running down to the Aves. These are two large reef systems separated by twenty miles and each with a few small Cays. They are known for their reefs, wrecks and thousands of sea birds which use the island for a rookery. The reefs face to the east each in a large horseshoe and have collected a number of wrecks stretching back to the sixteenth century making them
well known widow makers. In 1678 a few crafty Dutch fisherman being pursed by a French fleet of seven warships, used their knowledge of the reefs to lure the fleet to its destruction saving the island of Curacao from invasion. The fleet is known to have had an auxiliary force of hired pirate ships that also ran onto the reefs. In 1998 some of the cannon were finally discovered by an American group lead by one of the Kennedy children. They were located when the stone ballast outlines of the ships were discovered by the expedition. Stone was used as ballast on out going voyages and replaced by cargo traded or pillaged for. The birds also provided quite the industry in Guano which was collected for its concentration of nitrates first by the Dutch and then the Spanish for export to the European market. The anchorages were deserted with only a couple of motor trawlers both of whom we knew from Medregal months earlier. They left the next day and Nautilus who was pressed for time because of airline flights tagged along. We had the anchorage to ourselves and then met Queimarla an Australian cat on their way home through the canal. We shared the anchorage and a couple of sun downer sessions till they left on a weather window for
a straight shot to Panama and then another set of boats passed through including Quest whom we knew from Christmas two seasons ago in Grenada. They too only spent a night before heading off to Bonaire. Finally around three and half weeks out and much of it by ourselves we figured we only had enough water left for a week so we moved over to the next island group of Aves where we went on to the coast guard and were politely greeted and given the same 48 hour notice again. By this time we didn’t care because that was our intention anyways and we finished up with two great days exploring the reefs and beach combing. Finally we pulled the hook and sailed off to Bonaire a thirty mile downwind romp saying good bye to Venezuela.

After an eight hour sail we came into sight of Bonaire sighting the north end first and then seeing the south end marked by wind mills and brightly painted salt towers built in the 18th century to guide the salt ships in. We rounded the southern end of the island and then worked our way up the lee side looking for the anchorage at Kralendjik where everyone must tie to a mooring ball with no anchoring allowed. Bonaire is one of the few places to get this right and have turned all of
their waters into a protected and regulated park to protect their environment. We stayed a week renting a car and driving around the arid island checking out the salt flats, flamingos and some ancient Arawak rock drawings before heading off to Curacao where we headed into Spanse Waters, a very protected if windy anchorage, and made the arrangements to haul Seacycle and fly back to Canada.

To be continued....

Venezuela

2009-04-02T05:43:00.000-07:00

<
Feb and March 2009

Venezuela -We have become marina johns. Seacycle has been seduced into being ensconced in a slip safe behind a large breakwater built of huge boulders from the seas on one side and security guards patrolling the perimeter between us and the large barrio to the east. The rest is bordering on a large lagoon fringed with
luxurious houses. So on one side you have the poor and on the other side the rich. This seems to exemplify the problem here. There doesn’t seem to be a middle class of any size. We are residences of Bahia Redonda a beautiful, inexpensive marina (12 dollars a day) located in Puerto la Cruz a suburb of Barcelona one of Venezuela’s larger cities about two hours to the east of Caracas. It is known as a holiday spot and beach town. The landscape here is dry and almost desert like with scrub like vegetation just like back at Medregal.

We have had two elections since we have been here. Well one election and one referendum to correct the unfavourable results of the first election. If that sounds confusing, well welcome to Venezuela home of unpredictable Hugo Chavez. Last week I got up on Monday morning to go downtown shopping to find that Hugo in some sort of Sunday evening magnimity had decided to call a national holiday for the next morning. Something to do with everybody having worked so hard lately and oh by the way there is a referendum on extending his term next week. And that of course would have nothing to do with the truck loads of free food being given away at tents setup around the neighbourhoods or civic workers posting vote Si signs (VOTE YES) up on everything in sight. Father Hugo can be seen every day incanting for the masses for hours every day on the state channels spreading the revolution. I have never seen a real live demagogue in action but he is the real deal. After centuries of another form of oppression, is it unexpected that those living down the economic scale are eating it up despite all the evidence around them. The recent market meltdown has
thrown a wrench in the revolution’s gears as the price of oil has crashed. The government’s ambitious social programs were based on oil in the 85 dollar range and now it is below forty leaving a serious 30 billion US dollars shortfall. This has driven the Bolivar down and foreigners with dollars live well. There were only a few tankers in the harbour when we first came here. The other day on a walk I counted fifty riding high at waterline empty waiting for the prices to rise. Oil production is also rumoured to be three quarters of the publicly stated number as most foreign managers and technicians have been forced out or just left with the nationalization of the oil industry. The opposition which is splintered refused to run in the last general election as a protest but it has backfired and given Chavez a free hand to rubberstamp his revolution and intimidate dissent. The country so rich in natural resources now imports seventy percent of its foodstuff. People here blame the situation on the DEVILS BLOOD their name for oil saying it has robbed the nation of its drive.

Despite the political situation our time here has been pleasant and our experiences positive. We have managed to get a new stainless steel bimini frame made with dedicated solar panel rails. Deb has sewn a new sunbrella top. We also got a great price and job done by Michael the marina upholsterer on all new interior cushions and upholstery. Everybody complained he was expensive, but we figured it was half of what we had been quoted at home.

I have managed to get some exercise here when I was invited to walk early mornings with Ana a French cruiser and Cathy off of Chill three times a week out to
El Morro the large peninsula that forms the west side of the well protected bay and was home to the Spanish fort. The heat here is incredible when walking and hydration is constantly necessary. Deb tried one walk, over did it and then got ill for a week. The other girls were well acclimatized. To get to the safe walking ground we have to walk a mile along the edge of the barrio to what I call desperation alley a dirt track between two boatyards walls studded with broken glass and other sharp cutting pieces. The end of the alley has a twenty foot wooden boat with a canopy over it which shuttles you across the canal to the condo and beach area. This area is a lot safer with everything being relative and it is here we walk.
There are two large policia stations with all their motorcycles out front and they are constantly patrolling the boardwalk and surrounding roads. The suburb is called Lecheria and on the weekends the beaches and boardwalks are full. We walk out to the headland known as El Morro which has the old fort that overlooked the entrance to the bay. Round trip was a good ten miles, one pit stop for a café lecha and then home for an afternoon siesta. Having spent my work life in the cold confines of Canada working a lot of winters outside you dream about warmer climates. But forget working in it, the heat from mid morning to late afternoon is brutal. Shopping here was good in modern supermarkets but the shortages were noticeable especially with items like coffee and toilet paper. It was much hit and miss with the see it, buy it rule in full effect.

The marina is empty compared to when we were here visiting Neriea in November. After Cathy’s husband was killed in the shooting along with another cruiser being wounded Steve off of ILEAN all the Americans have left. I think there are only seven yank boats here. Interestingly enough in this country the new flame of socialism, all were republicans. The marina’s staff are worried about what will happen to the usual seasonal influx of boaters escaping from hurricane season. This place is well below hurricane belt and known for inexpensive living. But between the shootings and the economic crash the future is unclear. Also the North Americans are known to spend more than the European cruisers as a rule.

You have to consider everything every time you leave the safety of the marina. I am now well past the jewellery wearing stage finally even taking the wedding ring off. Debs stuff has been in the safety deposit box for the last couple of years. I have a new Canon Rebel camera but hardly use it, too much of a thieve magnet.
I don’t have to dress down since I like most cruisers are a ragamuffin lot to start with. After eight weeks the projects came to an end and wanting to be back in Canada for a friend’s wedding in June we decided to find a weather window out. We decided to bypass Tortuga and head straight to Los Roques where there were safer cruising grounds. From there we would take our time and sail through the Aves over to Bonaire and then Curacao where we had arranged to store Sea Cycle for hurricane season. The islands sit just below the insurance line for hurricane season.
To be continued….

2009-02-02T15:35:00.000-08:00

Log 28 January 2009 – We got caught by the Christmas holiday period. For three weeks everybody would be off including all the yard crew. We had a chance to make the cut off date for splashing the boat, but we felt rushing would just cause some kind of screw up.
It had also become evident that we weren’t going to have enough of the West System epoxy to get the hull faired the way we wanted.
Unexpected problems with the cockpit bulkheads and the backstay chain plates had used up a large portion of our supply. The fairing (smoothing and finishing) was a concern especially with Seacycle's darker reflective blue paint where the finish is a lot less forgiving than a non reflecting white hull. Acting like a mirror the deeper colours telegraph any imperfections and we were worried about what was going to show through the paint job after all the effort. When finished we were pleasantly surprised with the result.
One other issue came up when we discovered that our throttle linkage had frozen up with rust. No amount of WD or gun lube seemed to free it and of course it is in an almost unreachable spot without dismantling all kinds of gear so we had to get creative. In the end we managed to get to three quarters cruising speed and the issue was put into the good enough for now category.

Jean Mark is the proprietor of Medregal and during the holidays got to satisfy his culinary urges holding two great dinners, one at Christmas and a bigger one at New Years.
All the Swedes, some who have built houses here, ended up quite merry and blowing of some cabin fever and exhibiting some kind of repressed Viking id started a game of pool toss.
Nobody was safe! By the time the shenanigans had started we had turned in and we were safely ensconced in never never land. Eventually the yard crew returned and on January 12th we splashed the boat. Because of all the recent rain the grounds were soft and moving Seacycle was a slow morning long process as the crew took their time slowly working their way down the yard by laying boards and filling spots with gravel till we were at the launch ramp. There I put the last of the anti-fouling paint on the spots where the jack stands had been for the last six months and finally Seacycle after seven months was floating.

What a relief to finally be back in the water. Medregal sits on the north inside shore of the long arid Araya peninsula which separates the Caribbean from the Golfo. The Golfo, nutrient rich and teeming with fish is only eight miles at its widest and about twenty miles long. Its southern shore rises up quickly into what are the north eastern Andes. Mornings here are very calm till the land starts to heat up. By ten in the morning the land has heated up enough to really get the wind moving. By late afternoon you can get rains as the accumulated moisture hits the mountains and start to dump, accompanied by thunder and lightning. The sailing here is good. Strong dependable daily winds with little fetch leaving a relatively smooth surface. By evening everything is calm, very still and then in the morning the whole process starts up again. At night with the stillness and shore side lights twinkling on the water Medregal can be a very pretty sight.

Expecting a quiet and relaxing night we watched a DVD and turned in. Around midnight we were brought out from our sleep by a lot of argy bargy in what sounded like some kind of attack. Apprehension fuelled by a bit of terror in my stomach and thinking battle stations I did my groundhog varmint thing by sticking my head up out of the hatch to reconnoitre. Outside the boat yelling and some sort of drumming were happening. At first I thought it was some kind of bandito dinghy rustling gone bad like had happened a few months earlier but I was greeted by the sight of a couple of small local boats with flaming, smoking torches who were beating on the side of the boats trying to round up and scare the fish of which there is a multitude into nets they had set up in the bay. Of course the route proceeded through all the anchored gringo boats to let us know they were working. Calming our nerves we headed back down to sleep.
We had planned to take the por puesto(minibus) into Carriaco for one last load of provisions, but then bandits started to rob the road basically hijacking it for three days even robbing our driver Jorge’s por puesto full of locals who were relieved of their shirts, socks and shoes. Jorge got slapped around a bit when he resisted but wasn’t any worse for wear. More ominously they asked where all the gringos are. We figured we would take that as a sign and since we would be in Puerto la Cruz soon enough we would just give this a pass. The policia eventually rounded all the bandits up.

We took Seacycle out for a sea trial sailing across the Golfo to San Antonio working all the sails and looking for problems. On the first run across after shutting the engine down I went forward checking the rig and while looking out past the jib I was gifted with a look at a whale shark swimming and feeding up an eddy that was filtering its way into the Golfo. Quietly, almost too quietly while feeding. I called out to Deb at the helm and she quickly bore off while we watched the whale disappear into the current in the stream. We were almost certain of what we had seen because of other local sightings but back at the internet we definitely identified it by the small dorsal fin. Until we researched them we had no idea they are common in Venezuelan waters.

Finally after three months we were ready to go. We lifted the hook at 4am on January 24th and set off down the Golfo in the dark keeping a good lookout for fishing boats that don’t normally use lights here. By dawn we were close to the entrance at Cumana where a fleet of small fishing boats crossed the entrance working the tide change. By lunch we were off Mochima and decided to go into the bay for a look see but after 20 minutes in we figured we were wasting time on the bigger picture and headed back out. Weaving our way through the small islands just offshore we finally came into sight of Puerto La Cruz and heard our phone ringing. The caller turned out to be Arnaldo who had driven us to Medregal two months earlier and was waiting at the marina where we had rented a slip off him for 12 dollars a day. We came slowly into the marina and after an easy docking we went off for a meal with Arnaldo at the chicken shacks just outside of the marina gates.
To be continued...

2008-12-12T13:26:00.000-08:00

Log 27. December 2008 Linguistic Lugini at Kokobongos

Well after my adventure at the hospital, I was told in no uncertain terms, by she who must be obeyed, no work for a few days and limited hours after that. Any hope of joining the other boats for their departure date had flown the coop so I just settled back, had three days off and then went back to work on the original schedule of a few hours each morning. We discovered that the plywood bulkhead in the starboard lazerette that held a pulley for the wheel steering had separated from the fibreglass tabbing on the starboard side. This would have to be fixed before we started any of the other work which was cosmetic for the most part. By the second week we had started grinding, first with the bulkheads, and then working our way around the hull. We discovered another issue with one of the rear backstays which presented itself as a dark spot when ground down. I took a drill and drilled a small hole and wasn’t too surprised when water came dribbling out. As far as I am concerned it was surprising we hadn’t noticed it before. Being an older classic design, we sit low to the water with little freeboard and when sailing we heel with the decks awash most of the time. The backstay chain plates on the deck have hard to get at water traps, where no amount of caulking seems to stop the water. The solution is to raise the fibreglass in a cap around the chain plate deck entry spot. The anti-slip on the deck is worn smooth and this is another project we are planning to include in this round along with the installation of some new ports but with the heat we decided maybe we were being overly optimistic. The central job was to grind down the hull areas where the shrouds came to the chain plates. The hull under five of the six plates had pulled in causing an unsightly deflection. This sight was accented by the dark blue colour we had previously painted the hull. We had rigged the boat including a new mast from Klackos in Oakville before leaving and for awhile we thought that this along with some mast pumping had caused the problem or at the least aggravated it. But over the years we have come to realize that wasn’t the case. It was more or less the result of age, kind of a shoulder stoop. Seacycle was built in 1972 and is approaching her 40th birthday. She has done two cruises of the Caribbean with two separate owners and owes nobody anything. During the last insurance inspection the surveyor had looked at it and said that it was a common problem amongst older boats and in our case was a settled condition presenting no danger. In the Trinidad yards there were several Alberg sister ships and upon close examination all had the same issue in varying degrees. One owner in denial got quite upset with us when we pointed it out. All the hulls were white and being lighter the problem wasn’t s as noticeable as our case where the problem was accented by the darker colour. We thought that this was a design problem but have come to realize it was a builder’s issue. The Alberg 37s were built in the Whitby Boatworks Yard in Canada. Another of the yard’s boats is the larger well known cruiser the Whitby 42. There were three Whitby 42s in the Trinidad yard and lo and behold all showing the same deflection. Somewhere the production team seems to have sacrificed design strength for manufacturing process. We had rectified this the previous season in Trinidad by lowering the inside knees to double or more in length. The one place in our boat with no deflection was the one chain plate attached to the hanging locker which ran right down deep into the bilge spreading the load. The grinding is the dirtiest job imaginable. No amount or manner of clothing can save you from the inevitable scratch and itch. Even after the heavy grinding was done there would be little respite as each layer of fibreglass still needs to have its rough edges finessed down to prepare it for the next layer. We got through the heavy stuff and starting with the fibre glassing, trying to accomplish as much as we could in the mornings since we still seemed to be getting late afternoon rain which is a no go when glassing or painting. Locals said this was unusual but at one point in mid December we couldn’t do any hull work for nine frustrating days because of rain, so everything slowed right down as we concentrated on other jobs and settled into life in Medregal. With Jean Marc throwing a good bash at both Xmas and New Year’s we thought we would just enjoy that and complete the work at a leisurely pace. Everything was closed down for three weeks and our next destination was Puerto La Cruz. There we were going to regalvanize our chain and hopefully reupholster the boat. It also was closed for three weeks so Medregal was as good as anywhere. The only complaint was the bugs which where merciless. We had no problem getting basic food supplies, and the trip to the local market in Carriaco was always an adventure, and a welcome respite from the yard. Twice a week we would go to Svens and Evas now called Kokobongos for pizza. Our dry spell of having no other English tongue speakers to converse with had ended with the arrival of Susie and Oscar on Nautilus so we just got laid back and decided when we are done we are done.
You really find out how chauvinistic the view of your tribe’s outlook on the planet is when you are isolated by language. Here we had a collection of French, Swedes, Austrians, Germans (never call an Austrian a German) and of course the Spanish. Everybody had a much better grasp of our language than we did of theirs, resulting in a lot of sign language on our part. This could lead to all kinds of miscommunications .Once thinking we had succeeded in breaking down another linguistic barrier, Gert a German buddy, showed up one morning with DVDs instead of the sanding disks I thought I had played charades for the evening before. Anyways to some of my friends the danger of letting me loose to represent the English language is unimaginable and abhorrent to some, since the consensus is that I have graduated from the Slip Mahoney School of linguistics having never found a word I couldn’t warp, a vowel inflection I couldn’t defect or a definition I couldn’t distort. Never mind the tendency to make the whole thing exponential as I will never use one word when ten will do. My friend Oscar has stated on occasion Mark only talks once a day but he starts at first light. I give you exhibit A to consider.
One evening we were all at pizza which usually turns into an evening at Margaritaville. One of our good neighbours is Pio a rather randy seventy something Swede. Pio has explained to us how his mojo got tweaked after the divorce of his long-term marriage and how the internet had revolutionized the workings of courtship with the softer sex, which now extend all over the planet. Presently single he was in a little bit of a funk since he was having trouble communicating his passion, since his email wasn’t working. He told us how once seeking adventure he had even travelled to Rwanda to rescue a damsel since it was ok for a Swede to get a visa for Rwanda but not for a Rwandan to get a visa for Sweden. Yes hardy Swedes indeed, love in a genocidal war zone, no simple Philippine mail-order for our Pio. The only complication was in watching the teamwork of the Seacycle crew Pio had developed a certain hankering for the captain’s mate. Didn’t hesitate to tell me so to my face. In sizing up his quarry he claimed she was perfect. Just young enough to be the right age for him, cheerful and hardworking, not like some of these other gold diggers. Well Deb was a little unsure of all this but I found it hilarious until he asked Deb if she had me insured, forcing me to go on red alert on any strolls after dark. Anyways back at the pizza the evenings topics would veer all over the philosophical map. Being the straw that likes to stir and looking for the evening’s entertainment I was always debating the doctrines of the sisterhood with the ladies or riling up Jean Marc and the French with questions of like why should Iran get the bomb. A virtual garden of chains, waiting to be yanked. Talking boat shop this particular evening Susie and I had engaged in one of our tet to tets with the issue revolving around pronunciation of the word Amel the name of an expensive French sailboat. I just said it the way I saw it AMEAL. Susie seeking to put me in my place said no it’s pronounced AMAL, it’s French. The fact that her sister had sailed on one for 15 years gave her argument certain gravity. Well just as the issue was dying, in walks one of our resident frenchies Thomas. Figuring to seize the day I put it to him. “Thomas how do you say this Ameal or Amal” After looking at us as we were all sitting there eating our pizza, he replied “But of course it is AMEAL no. “Giving Susie my best Na Na Na Na Na, she still wouldn’t lay down on the issue and kept challenging Thomas. Finally Thomas said “well some of you Americans have very strange accents so maybe that’s why”. Seemingly a dead issue everybody went back to contemplatively chewing their pizza. Finally a few seconds later somebody said something to break the silence, “in any case they are a very nice boat”. Thomas then had a very quizzical look on his face and said “oh you mean the boat, no of course it’s pronounced an Amal”.” I thought you were talking about the pizza and meant a meal”. Of course this brought eruptions of I told you so’s and vindication to poor Suzie who I am sure was suffering a crisis of confidence. While everybody was laughing that one up Pio sitting quietly in the corner was trying in vain to follow the conversation looked at us all and said “what you guys are having trouble with your EMAILs too,
To be continued....

2008-11-30T13:58:00.000-08:00

Log 26. November 2008 Dehydrated to the Bone
I opened my eyes and glanced up at the ambulances attendant,whose sombre Indian features hovered over my face back lit by a reflective shiny metal ceiling as he stuck oxygen tubes up my nose, and then raising my arm wrapped the pressure pad to take my blood pressure. In the back corner Deb sat asking how I felt and telling me to lie still as we bounced down the rough road to Carriaco. Slowly the evening started to come back to me as I tried to sort through the information overload figuring out what was happening and how I had come to this.
The first week at Medregal we had sorted through the boat reacquainting ourselves with what was on board and what had to be done. By the start of the second week we had started to get into the serious job of grinding down the fibreglass in all the problem areas. This is probably the worst boat job and one that most boat owners would avoid by using hired labour. But having been compromised with the first few contractors on our boat we have since done the majority of work ourselves. You really don’t have much choice once you leave the cornucopia of boat services in North America or the comfortable cash flow of permanent employment. Add to the mix, that sooner or later you will find yourself in some sort of dire strait where the only way out is through your own resourcefulness. So practice makes perfect. All of that plus the simplest of truths, I like to work on my boat. Here the challenges you are confronted with include brutal heat by 8am and bugs, mostly small no see um types that bite without being noticed until you are scratching yourself raw. So added into the mix is some sort of toxic bug spray lathered on in generous amounts. By 9 am with a quick break for breakfast (everything here is late, a la French) the wind starts up and moves the bugs but the heat is on you. I was wearing coveralls to protect myself from the grinding dust which is insidious getting into everything, and trying work in short bursts. There was a sense of urgency since we were still hoping to make our friends intended departure date. By the third day I was feeling kind of lean and my body was starting to send all kind of signals. But we were making good time and since denial seems to be one of my strong points, we pushed on.
Friday night’s menu was a beef ragout. Evenings here are a study of culture clash. Even with most of the hotel business being the yachties either at anchor or in the yard Jean Marc sticks to the French regime of later dinners and that isn’t yachtie culture where most boaters are sun up to sundown types. It’s unusual to see any form of life on a boat after 8pm with most retired for the night to their bunks to read. The golden rule of preserving precious battery amperage may have been the chief evolutionary factor in creating this lifestyle. The stereotype of sailors ashore engaging in epic bouts of drinking and carousing couldn’t be further from the truth. We had agreed to try and work between 6 and 11 am but soon found ourselves reaching longer into the day with lots of stops for showers and air-condition breaks. You are constantly soaked. Looking back I can now see the role of the air conditioner played in this. By taking so many breaks and by running the unit flat out we weren’t helping the body’s cause because while cooling I was being desiccated. Usually around 6:30pm people would head to the bar for a pre dinner drink and wait for supper. I had forgotten to take my medication that morning so totally unthinking I took my Lipitor, Ramipril, lose dose aspirin and my shot of insulin and hi ho hi ho off to supper we go. I usually spread my meds out from morning to night and being an insulin dependent diabetic generally have a good sense of the dos and don’ts. Well supper was late that night not making an appearance till after 8pm. Total time lapse between meds and dinner was an hour and a half. Not being a drinker and seeing dinner was late I had a couple of rums thinking that would keep my sugar up. Body had a different idea though. My best guess was between the coveralls, dehydrating air conditioner, not drinking enough water and a stupid choice on meds and insulin combined with a sudden hot meal was nothing but a prescription for la la land. Being hungry and impatient I vacumned the meal and almost immediately I told Deb something was not right and I was headed for the room. I made it to the stand up and first step stage and instantly was down for the count. In a space of thirty feet I managed to pass out three times. With a ten minute rest between attempts evidently telling everybody I was good to go, I would stand up and collapse again. I was told I was out for around twenty seconds each time. Coming to I felt like I was following Georges voice(Avalon 5)coming out of a deep sleep into some kind of déjà vu where I could see Georges face above me saying ” buddy come on talk to me”. He later told me he was just about to start cracking ribs during second pass out. By the third pass out the performance was getting tired and Deb and Mary ((Avalon) finally took over, ignoring me and telling Jean Marc to call the ambulance. Three of them carried me to a waiting jeep where I was just coming to when I heard Jean Marc telling the drivers,” amigos, no gringo, Canadian”. That in itself explains the mood and situation here. Half way to Carriaco the jeep having driven through the washout section of road deposited me with Deb into the waiting ambulance. At the hospital I was taken off and wheeled through a crowded waiting room and put into a surgery beside a moaning youth who was evidently suffering from kidney stones a very common complaint here. The doctor who attended was young and I suspect Cuban, came into to diagnose me in between delivering two separate births. Lucky for us Yolieda, Jean Marcs better half was waiting to help translate. She was stuck in town visiting her mother unable to get home either because the road was washed out. The hospital was very clean and small, lots of ceramic, with soft institutional green paint and vinyl covered mattresses. The doctor did the usual tests and evidently my blood pressure and sugar count had dropped off the map. He at first thought it was my diabetes kicking into hypogylecima but since I had upchucked my ragout on the second pass out I explained to him that this wasn’t likely since it happened first and I explained the cocktail of heat, the meds and the working with the scratch and itch . They kept an eye on me for an hour checking my pressure which was slowly rising again back to towards normal and moved me down the hallway to an empty dorm. Yolieda was kind and brought us blankets from her moms and Deb took the bed next to me and that was all for the night. In the morning we got up waited for Yolieda and then tried to pay the bill but no one would take any money. Yoleida told us on the trip back I was the third person that year to succumb to dehydration with the other two being older and spending a much longer time in because of complications with hearts and whatever. We then started the haul back to Medregal. At the yard Jean Marc came out to greet us and the first thing I told him was his ragout was dangerous!
To be continued....

2008-11-25T11:28:00.000-08:00

Log 25 Medregal November 2008

Discord in the Marital Bed

We got to Medregal with no incidents arriving at noon and only getting lost twice. The yard is easily accessible from the water but an hour from the nearest village at Carriaco at the head of the Golfo and down a road that some days would turn into not much more than a trail at times flooded and impassable. We were surprised by the number of boats both in the anchorage and in the yard. When we had left there were ten or so boats, but now there were thirty in the yard and a dozen out on the anchorage. Medregal had only started to haul out boats the year before after operating as a hotel for a decade. The attraction is a combination of price and weather. The cost is sixty percent of most Caribbean yards and the yard lies totally out of the hurricane belt. The downside is you might as well be on the dark side of the moon it is so remote. If you enjoy a busy social life this is definitely not the place. If you are a monk or the uni-bomber and like solitude, you are home. Most of the boats both in the anchorage and on the hard were staging to head north to beat the beginning of the winter trade winds. We decided with a big job in front of us to take a room which was 100 Bs a day with breakfast. This worked about to about 18 dollars a day for a small air-conditioned room with a double bed and its own private washroom with shower.

Of course news of the shootings had reached here and after settling in we were told of other incidences that had occurred during our absence. Cruisers Peter and Betty on Raven’s Eye a Hans Christian that we had met at the yard had left by sea for Trinidad shortly after us. The couple were experienced with a circumnavigation under their belt. They also had a large boxer bull type dog that always had a muzzle on when walking the grounds. After leaving Medregal they aimed for Trinidad and had been sailing along the Paria coast. This was the same coast that Moon Godess had been boarded on last spring and is a hot zone for piracy. Somewhere off the coast they were attacked by a pirogue with six men one of whom was wearing a uniform. At one point they tried to ram the smaller boat but this just aggravated the pirates who then boarded shooting the dog and beating Peter. At one point they cut Betty’s hand bad trying to remove her wedding ring and at one point threatened to cut her finger off. The dog survived and the boat made it to Trinidad. The skipper of the Dutch boat we had anchored with in Cubagua and Laguna Grande had also been killed in Porlamar when he and his wife had been run over by a teenager in a fishing pirogue racing around the harbour. We were also told of a French cruiser who had been killed off Caracas in the fall when he didn’t move his boat into the safety of the marina basin for the night. This was told to us by Petrona who were there and had themselves been boarded anchoring out at Coche. Finally right at Medregal a group of bandits from Cumana had come one night on a dinghy raid and had awaken one Swede who had tied a thin line to an alarm in his sleeping berth. He evidently had gone on deck armed with his flare gun. The boat had a few dinghies from the anchorage and was leading them off in a gaggle when he warned them to stop. Not heeding him he fired the flare directly at the fishing pirogue where it ignited the fuel. All the men abandoned the boat which burned and the dinghies were recovered. The bandits in the mean time had swum to shore, one of them with an injured arm. They later showed up at a local village seeking medical attention but the locals who also had been suffering from thefts practised a little local retribution beating the bandits and then turned them over to the authorities such as they are. It turned out that the thieves were from Cumana twenty miles away. All of this was alarming but not surprising. The situation seemed to be deteriorating and had us rethinking our plans. There were several boats that were planning on leaving mid December to head west including our friends Neriea, Sojourn and Zydeco. We had to decide whether we could manage the work in a month and then prep the boat for the next few months in such a short time as well as miss travelling inland. The crime is not directed against cruisers in particular but at anything that looks like an opportunity. Without getting into the politics all of which seemed to be based on a philosophy of us verse them along with a dash of divide and conquer. Hugo Chavez the nation's leader has actually told his people and supporters if they need something they should take it off the rich. Land redistribution and natonalization of not only foreigner’s assets but well heeled Venezuelan businesses is a daily occurrence. You can imagine the actions Chavez’s blessing has generated.

We had planned to fair our hull and repaint it. We were also hoping to redo the decks and install four more stainless ports. We had all of our supplies on board having been warned nothing would be available in Venezuela. Looking at the situation we decided to make a list and see what we could accomplish by the time the other boats were leaving. We spent the first week getting use to the climate and while organizing the boat discovered the cockpit lazerette had separated from its tabbing. Now we weren’t sure if we would have enough epoxy to repair both it and also fair the hull. We use West System and not wanting a variable in the mix if something went wrong we were loath to use Venezuelan epoxy on the hull.

Our room came with breakfast and Jean Marc cooked five nights a week at the hotels resturant. Two Swedes Eva and Sven had sold their boat and retired to shore buying an old earthquake wrecked building which they had started to rebuild including a pizza oven in his yard and twice a week they served. No one was charging more than 25 Bs (1 dollar =5 Bs) for a meal. After a day in the heat only broken up with a siesta from the mid day sun nobody was in the mood for cooking and with the boat ripped apart that wasn’t likely anyways, so other than lunch we pretty well ate out for the whole two months. Our room was small and clean and ice cold. In hindsight this turned out to be not such a good thing.

A large assortment of zoological species came with the room at no extra charge. Every night when we would return to the room Deb would perform a role call as we tried to figure out where our small ménage of geckos and frogs were bunking for the night. Some nights this was a game of tag especially with our frogs that had an amazing room width defying jumps aided by their suction cups enabling them to reach out, grab and land on all kind of surfaces. The little frogs would appear anywhere disguised as bedside table ornaments, hanging on the drapes, blending in as ceiling art and sometimes as a chest mole. Some nights you wouldn’t find them and figuring you had the night off just go to the head for whatever and swinging the door shut would find buddy clinging to the back of the door looking at you with his bugged out eyes. Couldn’t count the times I had a leaping lizard go flying by my nose as I turned on the shower head. Never mind the coup de grace of surprises I got in the toilet bowl. Of course this led at least in Debs case, to a slightly nervous decent into never land. It was in this room with our little zoo that I finally crossed another of life’s Rubicons. Now from a male’s point of view, certain rites of passage should be crossed gently, even unnoticed works. I mean who needs young women calling you sir, because, is there anything worse or more signalling of being past it, than that of young attractive comely woman calling you sir and meaning it with a dose of sincerity. An ego crusher at the best of times. But, you never expect the enemy to surface within the matrimonial bed, as one of the convents of a strong marriage is built on some sort of blinded eye or turned head theory. Sometime one night just on the shoulder of the darkest hour and dawn I was violently raised out of one of my Technicolor dreams by a frantic Deb jumping up and down on the bed screaming get off me. Now usually in the marital bed when the word off is heard it is in certain contexts, well in my world it’s usually prefixed by bug, shove, get, bugger or well use your imagination. And like any male permanantly installed in the HIP program (Husband In Progress), that’s my cue to turn over and go to sleep. But in this case the trampoline motion of the bed (the mattress is on a concrete pedestal) was signalling a little something different bringing me to my senses. Hyperventilating and gyrating like a go go dancer on speed, between bounces the message was somehow conveyed that something was biting her under her pyjama top. After a good shake I still couldn’t see a damn thing and told her so and then made the big mistake of telling her to calm down. The rebuttal came in the form of a ‘what kind of knight in shiny armour are you “. Oh such a cruel blow, standing there on the centre of bed in the dimly lit room, middle aged paunch hanging out over my briefs, no glasses and squinting like the cartoon character (you know the near sited possum crying Deputy Dawg Deputy Dawg) well I had to admit she had a point and I suddenly felt defeated by my age. The truth inspiring culprit had been a little scorpion trapped between Deb’s blouse and skin. We never saw it and the fact it was a scorpion wasn’t confirmed till the next morning by the locals. The sting lasts about 15 seconds with a hot burn that turns to a hard spot. It was one of the local small ones that roll up like a tiny potato bug a la armadillo wrapping its stinger up and curling for protection. Needless to say I was placed on watch for the duration of the night in a fully lit room sitting up against the backboard trying not to nod off while seriously armed with a rolled up copy of the Economist. The next morning the room was sprayed and the bed was carefully checked and from then on shaken out every night.
To be continued....

2008-11-08T03:33:00.000-08:00

Log 24 June to November 2008 Tragedy at Puerto La Cruz

We had a great time back home in Toronto. We stayed the first two weeks with Eileen and spent time visiting the kids and their various projects. We had finally been given interim possession of our condo in December after buying it back in Oct. 2004 and had just left it empty till we got home to have a look and decide whether to rent it out or not. The condo was a pleasant surprise with an outstanding view looking over the western harbour and Humber Bay. We had bought it off plans so we weren’t sure how it was going to turn out. We spent most of our time working with two of our children on their property project. It’s a pleasant walk up Spadina Avenue going through Chinatown cutting over through Kensington market and up through the lower annex to the house on Bathurst St. Nathan had spent most of the winter renovating the upper floor apartment and we helped him gut the basement and get his place liveable. The Rustic Cosmo Cafe had its 14th anniversary this year hard to believe seems like a lifetime ago especially with all the changes down on Queen Street West.
Deb helped Nicole relieve staff for summer holidays. Nick is still off teaching ESL in Japan. We delayed our return to Seacycle as towards the end of our stay we had two family members dealing with illnesses. Our best wishes and thoughts go out to our nephew Oliver. Sorry to all the friends we didn’t get a chance to see.

After getting way to comfortable in the new condo we flew out from Toronto November 7th at 6pm to Caracas getting there at 12:30 am with a connecting flight out to Barcelona at 6 am there didn’t seem any choice but to wait in the airport. All the hustlers were at the gates trying to shill you into taxis or ludicrous money exchanges so we just headed up the the cafeteria and waited it out, Caracas being no place to wander around at night. Landing into Barcelona early the next morning we couldn’t help but notice six Russian built Sukhoi fighter jets ominously lining along the landing strip. Another one of Chavez’s purchases with the Russians, a total of 24 jets and 50 helicopters, with the sellers getting the maintenence contract, somewhat similar to the communications satellite he just launched but with the Chinese running the show. It is very hard to believe that a country suffering with a crumbling infrastructure and so delinquent in adequate services would spend valuable resources on jet fighter planes and satellites. Andres the taxi driver picked us up and deposited us at Bahia Redonda where we were staying with Neriea for a few days and getting ourselves organised with groceries and a car for the five hour drive back to the Seacycle at Medregal.

At the marina we were greeted by Neriea and Gladys. A couple of hours later Sojourn, a sister ship Alberg pulled in. It was agreed to all go for pizza at six. At six Tom and Rose off Sojourn came to the boat to get us and meet Dan and Jamie. Earlier in the afternoon we had watched two boats leave for the eight mile sail to Isla Boracha staging for an early departure to Tortuga. This is a common procedure for cruising boats in crowded anchorages or marinas. Rather than deal with close quarter manuvoring in the dark and disturbing other vessels you just go anchor out if a suitable spot is available. We had a passing aquaintence with both boats, Chill a Beneteau crewed by Ken and Cathy, from the time they were active as volunteers in Wardrick Wells in the Bahamas and I’Lean, Steve and Gloria, from a time as neighbours in Tyrell Bay haul out for a few days two seasons ago. Just as we were leaving to go a frantic Mayday came across the radio from one of the two boats. Gloria from I’Lean was beseeching anyone with her mayday that Ken had been shot and they needed assistance. As you can imagine everybody listening was shocked and confused. Jaime quickly assumed the role of radio coordinator translating between the boats and the marina staff. At this point we all left the boat so Jamie could concentrate on translating and to look from the huge seawall at Bahia Redonda over towards Isla Boracha. By now the news had spread throughout the marinas, Dan went to the guard house and tried to make sure the bases were being covered from that end. There was nothing to do but wait.

After an hour Jaime came out and asked Dan to organise a dinghy to help bring in the boats. Dan got Tony from Hoof Beats another large Beneteau similar to Chill and then along with Geoff and myself we motored to the harbour mouth and waited. The women were on the one boat with a guard and Steve was bringing in I’Lean with Ken and one guard, heading directly back to the coast guard station while Chill headed back to the marina. The two boats made the channel mouth to the lagoon a few hours after the first call. With the dinghy on the back in davits obscuring the view
the people in the cockpit didn’t see us approach and were startled as we all clambered on board and assumed deck positions to help at the dock. In hindsight none was needed, Cathy probably running on instinct insisted on doing all her own fenders and lines handing off to us only when she was satisfied they were right. Gloria stayed in the cockpit with the guard while Cathy then brought the vessel to the side dock and the waiting crowd. Once the boat was tied Jamie and Cathy were taken in a local sailor’s dinghy back to the coast guard station. After handing off my bow line I left the boat and walked through the crowd and went back to Neriea. Jaime never returned to Neriea during the night, staying with Cathy who stayed up all night writing down every detail she could remember. Ken had been killed instantly. The gist of the story was that three men approached the boat, their second attempt at one that night after they had earlier spooked a Venezuelan powerboat which had left its anchorage dragging its anchor and picking up the owners niece who was swimming. Everybody had been on I’Lean going over the sail plan when the men came to the stern asking for water, Cathy on the scoop had been holding the dinghy off after giving them the water when one of them unexpectedly pulled a gun firing two shots at Ken and continued to fire until emptying his shots. Steve caught one shot in the rear while turning to yell for Gloria to get his gun. The three men having no more shots panicked realizing Steve was getting a gun and jumped out of their boat and swam away. Steve fired back into the dark and then drove his dinghy around making sure the bandits didn’t return to either boat. The coast guard showed up soon after.

Needless to say the whole boating community was in shock and nobody was sure how to act or what was appropriate. Rumours took over with everything changing hourly. I’Lean was tied up at the La Guardia dock since it was the crime scene while Steve was taken to the hospital for attention. By Tuesday we had seen little of Jaime who was doing everything he could to aid both boats with translations with the authorities while Bahia Redonda stepped in and provided an attorney.

As it turned out it took weeks for everything to start to be cleared up in the tragedy. On the Monday we loaded up on supplies and made a deal with Arnaldo to drive us to Madregal five hours away. We set off at 7am on the Tuesday; our only concern was to get to Sea Cycle tucked away at the remote Medregal Village on the north side of the Golfo. We weren’t sure if the roads were open since we had been told that the Chavistas had been blocking the road to the Araya just past Carriaco protesting for the upcoming state elections.

To be continued.....

2008-06-28T05:04:00.000-07:00

Log 23 June 2008

We left the anchorage on Cubagua at daylight sailing to the south west corner and then turning south, sailing on a beam towards Point De Araya, the tip of the mainland South America. Crossing the channel we came across fleets of small fishing boats. At first we thought they were working together using a net but we realized they were drift fishing using lines and throwing their rebar anchors out of the bow to hang to the wind moving with the current. Occasionally high speed ferries and freight barges would pass us running the route between Cumana to Margarita. By the time we made the point of the Araya peninsula we were working every ounce of sail as the sea breeze had dissipated. At the point we made a 90 degree turn to port with us now running down behind the coastline of the Araya towards the mainland.
All the wind was now coming from shore and being energised by blowing across the long heated coastal plain. About a quarter mile along we got hit by a blast with way too much canvass so we headed the boat up into the wind rolling in the jib and while luffing dropped the mizzen and threw a reef in the main then bore off letting out half of the jib and were quickly rolling along at 7 knots under reduced sail. This was about as fast as Seacycle will move unless surfing downwind. While we were doing this Vagabond blew right by us and had put some distance between us while Gladys not dropping any canvass was right on our stern. Trouble was we could see Geoff’s chest puffed out and a big beatific grin holding on at the helm obviously delighted that he was going to blow right by us. Gladys was a new boat for Geoff and Kathleen and they had been a bit cautious in the earlier part of the season but now with a few months under their belts and some time spent learning how to power up the cutter rig boat it was damn the torpedoes time. Trouble was in taking us on our windward side we were being forced down too close for our comfort on a small fishing fleet that also seemed to sense the danger and were giving us a group stare. In the end we turned right down into a run and ran off on an angle to clear them until Gladys was safely by. All this happened right off the old remains of the fort which had been built by the Spanish to ward off Dutch raids on the massive salt flats that are on the lowlands of the peninsula. In the end nature took care of the issue by destroying the flats with a hurricane. Today a crumbling mud adobe fort is all that remains and there are security warnings not to stop in this area as there have been armed boardings.
The shoreline here consists of a flat wide coastal plain that stretches up into a creased folded coppered coloured hillscape that separates the Caribbean from the Golfo. The hills are very dry looking with only scrub, basically desert terrain. It is the end of the dry season so we are not sure how green it gets in wet season but it can’t be much looking at the landscape. Just south of the fort the land starts to rise up into the hills choking of the wind and bringing us to a sudden stop. We rolled in the jib and fired up the engine. An hour later the city of Cumana came into view with our first view of the Andes high up behind it. At Cumana there is a channel of a couple of miles width that leads into the Golfo. Vagabond being bigger and faster went right up to the southern shore and skirted along the city’s edge while we and Gladys hugged the centre of the channel.
The wind now had picked up funnelling down through the hills into a steady breeze. Our destination was Laguana Grande but the waypoint lay dead on the nose as far as the wind direction. It was around noon and with less than 10 miles to go we decided to spend the afternoon sailing so we shut the engine down and rolled out the jib. There was no fetch so we had great wind but no seas to speak of and we spent the next four hours tacking back and forth across the eight mile wide Golfo chasing the wind. We soon were accompanied by schools of smallish dolphins. The word must have got out because soon we could see dozens of them coming from a mile off.
Other than once off St.Vincent we have never been surrounded by this many dolphins before. Around four we found we were still far off the entrance to Laguna Grande with a lot of wind dead on the nose still between us and the entrance to the lagoon. We rolled up the jib again and turned on the engine for the last couple of miles into the anchorage around five finding Gladys and Vagabond riding at anchorage.
We tidied up the boat stowing the sails and coiling the lines as the sun went down trying to take in the stark beauty of the place. The next three days we spent relaxing. While still concerned about security the consensus was that it was a lot safer here rather than anywhere else between here and Margarita. Never the less we clear the decks and lock everything away at night including ourselves. We also had a mystery when everynight we could hear splashing on the shore and going up on the deck to check could see nothing. All three boats reported the same thing but nobody could figure out what was making the noise. A little discerning when you have one ear cocked listening for trouble.
Geoff and I decided to hike up into the hills and explore. We had noticed boat loads of people being dropped at the head of the bay but only the drivers returning. Also we had seen men doing something at the beach drop off but couldn’t make out exactly what they were doing other than carrying bags back to their boat. I was curious about where the people were going and what was in the bags, thinking salt maybe? We knew of one machete attack on a catamaran here the season we came down seeing the captain with a face full of scars in St. Marten. I decided to bring a flare gun and a couple of shots with us as a precaution not wanting to carry a machete and thinking we wouldn’t stand much of a chance against some Yoda of the sword who probably had used one from the cradle for everything from gardening to shaving. The climb was short but intense and we walked along a ridge for three hours looking out north over the Caribbean to Margarita, Coche and Cubagua and south to the mountains and Cumana. We spotted a trail following some electric lines the people must have used from the beach drop off spot to walk to the other side of the ridge hopefully to a road. There are no roads in this area of the Golfo with all traffic being by boat. By the way gas here is three cents a litre. Yes shake your head. That’s 12 cents a gallon so travel is cheap. The bags turned out to be sand. We found screens that they had built to sift out the stones. The pictures tell the story. One afternoon we were approached by some young boys looking for gear so gave them our older snorkel gear. We were rewarded the next day when they returned with their grandmother bringing us fish as a gift.
We had received a message in Grenada from both Neriea and Audrey Paige who were both in Puerto La Cruz telling us they might be in the area cruising but after three days there was no sign. We got together with Gladys along with Otto and Lily on Vagabond to say our goodbyes over dinner. We had travelled together for three months but now they were headed to Bahia Redonda and we were headed for
Medregal where we were going to leave the boat for the next five months. Sometimes this is the hardest part of cruising. We left at eight the next morning and found Medregal around noon going in to introduce ourselves to Jean Marc who was expecting us. We booked the following Tuesday for haul out. This gave us five days to get ready to haul. On Thursday around 11 am while searching on the internet for plane tickets home we found an email from the day before and discovered that the two boats had pulled into the lagoon later the day we had left. We sent an email telling them we were coming knowing they would pick it up on the sat phones sooner or later, technology we don’t have. We got there around 4pm and had two great days with another big hike into the hills. We had not seen the boys in a year and Audrey Page since Trinidad after the Orinoco River months earlier. While here we solved the mystery of the nightly splashing. Sitting on the bow late one night Deb and I were having a nightcap and soaking up the cool air. We noticed the water was phosphorescent and we could see the green throbbing light under the water when the fish moved kind of like an ET call home moment. Well out of nowhere a pelican dove straight into the water totally spooking us. Evidently they use the nightly markings for hunting. Fish don’t stand a chance if they are moving.
Finally we left on Sunday morning wanting to be at the haul out a day before scheduled. The others said they would drop in before heading back to Puerto la Cruz. They wanted to explore more of the Golfo. The lift at Medregal is different from the standard it is more of a combination of a lift and railway driving into the water and pickup the boat.
The yard is big and well organized with work huts with benches. Well both Neriea and Audrey Page showed up a day later as the anchorages on the south side of the Golfo were not inviting. We had managed to purchase tickets for the 16ht of June so we just had two weeks to get the boat out and ready and then find our way to Caracas’s. The idea was to take a fishing boat across the golf and take one of the big air conditioned bus overnight to Caracas arriving at 6am. Our flight wasn’t till 11:30 pm so we would have to kill the entire day in Caracas. Jaime didn’t like the idea of us wandering around Caracas and insisted we come back with them to PLC and then fly out late in the afternoon arriving in time to catch the flight. It was agreed to get our boat ready by Saturday and then head back to PLC which we did over nighting at Islas Caracas and Cieneguita on Chima Grande on the way. We ended up spending 11 days in PLC and got the lay of the land for when we hoped to return later on the trip. We got on the Air Canada flight at midnight and touched down in Toronto at 6am. While getting off the plane I chuckled to myself about the Venezuelans all dressed up looking like the Michelin men for the cold. We were still dressed like a couple of beach bums, after all its June right, cusp of summer. We were staying with Eileen on the Danforth and she was the only one who knew we were coming since we hadn’t told the kids hoping to surprise them. We grabbed our knapsacks and hit the TTC bus to the subway arriving during the worst of rush hour. Froze the whole way home and ended up sick for the next week.
To be continued....

2008-06-25T07:12:00.000-07:00

June 2008 log 22
We had crossed from Grenada with three other boats. Two of the boats Vagabond and Gladys were headed to Puerto la Cruz to sit out the hurricane season. Joint Venture and Seacycle were both headed to Medregal to haul out and store on the hard with both crews returning home to Canada, us for the summer and Joint Venture for year. Joint Venture had left the year before us from Pickering and had sailed down the St. Lawrence over to the Azores and Portugal and then down to the Canaries before hanging a left and turning towards the Caribbean. We met them in Bequia and mentioned we were heading for Medregal which was also their end stop so they were one of the boats we agreed to meet in Grenada to do the crossing with. Hopefully they will get their logs up to date and posted since they have quite the story to tell about especially some real trials with mechanical and rigging failures they had to deal with at sea. In Portugal the first boat they ran into was another Alberg yawl, Inia, with the Williams from Guelph who were dealing with motor issues. After a week in Porlamar, we figured we had about seen all we were going to with the time we had. The anchorage could be uncomfortable at times being swept by the swell that made its way around the southeast corner of the island rolling the boats beam to beam. Throw into the mix a lot of careless traffic with the fishing boats with their high curved bows obscuring their line of sight zooming out from the beach and coming very close to the anchored cruising boats. A couple of times after dark we were approached by fishing pirogue and keeping our flare gun loaded and we would let approach just to find out they were selling diesel which is against the local law. The vendor had just been released from prison for trading in daylight so now he was doing it under the cover of darkness trying to avoid the authorities. Never the less being approached by a strange boat with a couple of guys in it is unnerving especially since there had been boarding’s and beatings in this harbour during the previous winter months.

Well Ken being a tad iconoclastic in his way of thinking acted as the catalyst of some rather unusual cockpit discussions with a breadth of subjects ranging from the twin tower conspiracy theory, the imminent collapse of the financial system due to the lack of the gold standard combined with the senseless escalation of printing American paper money, the climate debate (human driven or natural occurrence) and in general, American hegemony through corporate domination. All were fair game. This can be a great way to waste away an afternoon, but discussions like this have a tendency to raise the temperature. After one of these lively afternoon discussions amongst the male components of the various boats crews Ken decided he had reached his best before date and was going to leave the next morning. Well that was great but short notice since Deb and I had been a little lax in provisioning thinking we still had a few days so we had to tell him we couldn’t leave with them but would be along in a few days. We had planned to stop as buddy boats on the way first at island of Coche and then Laguna Grande breaking the trip into manageable hops. He decided that he would do the whole trip in one hop and avoid any concerns about anchoring out alone. Well we said we would see him at Madregal
and I went to bed. The next morning I heard voices in the cockpit and went out to discover Ken hanging on to our rail and explaining how when starting his engine to leave at 5am the prop shaft had exploded at the coupling. I ended up going over to help and diving on the hull I pushed the shaft back into place. I then tied two lines one on either side and passed them up to him and he ran them through a block and back to his winches tightening the shaft into place. The boat was now ready to sail. Ken and Anita then took off and went to check out a boat yard at Chacachcare on the southwest end of the island for a haul out and Deb and I went to get the provisions so we could all leave together in the morning and we would accompany him to the yard. We would then go on from there. The other two boats were headed for Puerto la Cruz, a one day passage but both of them but had a hankering to see Laguna Grande. They said they would come with us to see Joint Venture safely into the haul out and then we would all head over to Cubagua for a night and then down to the Golfo and Laguna Grande for a few days. From there they had a short hop
to Puerto la Cruz and we had a few hours to Medregal. We lifted the anchors at six the next morning and had a pleasant sail passing between Coche and the southern shore of Margarita arriving at Charcacarre around noon. There they lowered the dinghy and tied it to the side at amidships with Anita in the dinghy using the outboard to propel them and Ken steering the big boat from the wheel. They put into the haul out slip and we waved good bye and set off towards Cubagua arriving around 300pm. The moment we dropped the anchor we were approached by a boat load of six men who through sign language and broken Spanish motioned us to go to shore to the Guardia office. I figured it was just another money grab and told them that my papers were in order and I was just overniting before going to Cumana. Thing was the other two boats had checked out of Porlamar at the Guardia since that was what both the agent and Guardia had told them. I figured it was another money grab and hadn’t bothered now I wondered if I was going to get nailed for some local arcane charge. Another boat flying the Dutch flag called Orion came in and we talked to him. He said he had been here many times and this was a first anybody had asked him to come to shore to sign in so I ignored the whole thing. A couple hours later the coast guard did come out and did insist. Again I begged off saying manana and that seemed to appease them. The next morning I pulled the hook and we left at sunrise. Cubagua
is barren piece of real-estate not much to look at from the water but it has an important place in history. For a few years the Spanish were pulling money out of here that rivalled any of their other new world colonies. The treasure was pearls and in getting them out they decimated first the local indigenous Indians and then they started using captured Arawaks from up the island chain. The divers were forced to hold rocks weighing up to seventy pounds as weights to reach the beds. Most died after a couple of months. Eventually they depleted the beds and then nature finished things with an earthquake finishing the operation. Now a few lonely fishing huts occupy the island along with a research station. We suspect in hindsight that the research station might have something to do with restarting the pearl beds and maybe that was why they wanted us to come ashore just for the record. In any case we left at first light and sailed to the western end of the island and headed down to the Araya Peninsula.
To be continued....