Speaking of Sandwiches [#35]

In a nutshell, we’ve seen more action in the past two months than we have in quite some time.

Everything we hoped this journey would be is finally getting a chance to actually be.

Predictably, stopping to write about it has, until now, been the last thing I’ve been motivated to do. (Likely a glaring indication that my current role as a volunteer/amateur/sort-of blogger might be slightly entirely outside my skillset.)

If we've learned one thing together, it's that we must never under-estimate the willingness of Lazy to raise the lazy bar. 

Eight weeks between posts is not a record I'm proud of, but it is what it is so I'm owning ignoring it and moving on. 

Here are pictures of Wyatt and Hudson with a baby sloth and a sewing machine to help distract you from my inadequacies.

Did it work?

We all know sailors’ plans don’t always shake out. Between boat problems and weather problems alone, it’s a Christmas Miracle anyone ever leaves sight of the shore.

But boat folks are a special breed of optimists — happily resigned to an ever-damp existence of do-overs and try-again-tomorrows.

We accept Salt Life and Perpetual Disappointment as the committed bedfellows they are, because we know that once in a blue moon the spawn of that odd couple is straight up Sailboat Magic. That possibility alone is enough to keep most of us in the game.

When we need more than a promise, we keep our spirits lifted with tales of others’ small victories:

• She found the spare part
• He got the WiFi to work
• They made it back before they completely ran out of drinking water
• That boat still had one working engine so it wasn’t that bad

We’re super-fans of the phrase, “It could’ve been worse.”

It’s a tried and true coping mechanism that pretty much all sailors we know use liberally when describing their own tales of misery. A few recent accounts from fellow sailors:

We lost our wind crossing the Indian Ocean and literally went backwards for five days. But then, we caught a great breeze on day six and ended up making it across. So, you know, it definitely could've been worse.

We got struck by lightening about 200 miles out but luckily our engine still worked. Plus, we had a hand-held compass so we were totally fine. It could've been way worse.

We battled back-to-back attempts at piracy off the Gorda Bank but between our evasive maneuvers and the rough sea state, the pirates gave up. I mean, some boats have actually been boarded, so things could've been much worse.

Uh huh. Uh huh. Totally.

Maintaining perspective is key to sustaining a (reasonably) happy Boat Life.

Well, perspective and a beverage.

Actually, mostly beverages.

(Party hats are optional, but they certainly don't hurt.)

And then, there’s the necessary (and often fruitless) evil that is Planning. At the end of the day, even though we all know in our salty souls that making plans will likely be an exercise in futility, we drink our drinks and we plan and we plan and we refill our drinks and we plan some more.

Because someday the weather will cooperate. 

Someday our boat will be "good enough to get there."

And someday, both of those events will occur simultaneously.

When they do, we’ll be damned if we miss the chance to weigh anchor and ride the breeze along the rhumb line toward The Dream.

A few months ago, we gathered in Ruby Vi’s salon with our soon-to-be buddy boat, Atticus, and mapped out our Great Escape.

For this particular round of planning, our final destination was Shelter Bay Marina in Colón, where we’d tackle final projects in preparation for our joint Canal transit and Pacific crossing. Knowing we had places to see along the way, a direct Bocas-to-Colón route wouldn’t cut it.

Plan. Plan. Beverage. Plan. Repeat.

Our goals were lofty, to say the least. We reserved the better part of October to be off the grid — sailing together to four separate anchorages on our collective Caribbean-side-of-Panama bucket list. Atticus even extended a wishful-thinking invitation to our Bocas tribe to join us midway through the month at an island anchorage we’d all been drooling over.

It really shouldn't have all come together. 

Getting one boat out of an anchorage is a feat on its own. But two? At the same time? And then six more for a midway-meetup?

That’s more than a sandwich short of a picnic.

But soggy sandwiches sitting in the sun are silly.

Our crowd will happily call half a bag of stale pretzels and four coconuts a party, so a sandwich-less picnic is absolutely an event we can get behind — with marked enthusiasm.

By early-October, Ruby Vi had gone from wussy to wizard — from dirty dock ornament to the exploration-mobile she was born to be.

Step off, sandwiches — our alt-food picnic is on.

We spent the month largely off the grid, slowly working our way from Bocas to Colón — hitting as many of the coastline’s must-see spots as we could along the way.

Five nights anchored in Bluefields, brought us to the southeastern edge of the Bocas Archipelago — an area populated exclusively by families of the indigenous Ngöbe comarca.

Not what one might call a cruising hotspot, our arrival was met instantly with intense and sustained interest from locals ashore.

Throughout each day and into most evenings, kids and a few adults would paddle their cayucos just astern of or alongside Ruby Vi and Atticus.

Some would announce their arrival with the soon comically-predictable greeting: “Tienes ropas?” Others, would linger quietly, sometimes only a foot or two away, staring at us — perhaps wondering what kind of weirdos live on boats and only wear swimsuits.

We learned quickly that “tienes ropas?” was a request for clothing.

The epiphany that followed? Adidas-anything would buy us whatever jungle fruits our hearts desired.

As such, we traded Hudson’s entire wardrobe of outgrown Adidas-wear with local kids and teenagers.

• How ’bout two pairs of shorts for a bunch of plantanos (bananas, sort-of)
• Perhaps a warm-up jacket for a pipa (coconut)
• Maybe swim trunks and a rash guard for two taronjas (grapefruit)

You got sugarcane? We got T-shirts.

(One boy even showed Hudson how to efficiently machete away the cane bark to get to the good stuff quickly -- invariably Hudson's most popular new skill.)

Early on, we forged a special connection with a young boy named David whose family owned the closest property to our anchorage. He guided us through a hiking tour of his family’s jungle property and took us under his wing throughout our stay.

(Our über-talented friends, Desiree and Jordan of Sailing Project Atticus, created a pretty incredible YouTube episode about our shared time in Bluefields and, in particular, the significance of their own relationship with David. 

To check it out and see Bluefields in live action, CLICK HERE!) 

Our next notable highlight after Bluefields was the enchanting island of Escudo de Veraguas — roughly thirty miles to the southeast.

Our excitement about arriving at this patch of paradise was punctuated no doubt by the four-foot, 60-pound king mackerel John managed to reel in while underway.

Sparsely populated by only a handful of Ngöbe families, the island hosts pymgy sloths, pristine reefs, abundant spearfishing, Disney-esque islets and inlets, and the kind of turquoise water, tall swoopy palms, and soft sandy beaches that look more like a movie set than a place you can just sidle up to on your sailboat.

As further proof of concept for the viability of the no-sandwich picnic, a host of boats from our Bocas tribe actually made it to the meetup.

We snorkeled and spearfished and explored and bonfired. And, channeling our inner Bubba Gump, for all the days we ate king mackerel in all the ways:

barbecued mackerel, steamed mackerel, curried mackerel, mackerel with eggs, mackerel with rice, mackerel steaks, garlic mackerel, leftover mackerel... 

Then, when the weather turned gnarly, the gang rode out three days and nights of squally weather in our suddenly wild and roll-y anchorage.

Only one boat dragged anchor, but it caught again pretty quickly. So, you know, it definitely could've been worse.

Solidarity. Perspective. Beverages.

On the evening of day five in Veraguas, we waved a teary farewell to our anchorage of Bocas friends — knowing it was just a matter of time and luck and Sailboat Magic before our paths would cross again.

Our overnight sail brought us another 93 miles southeast to the mouth of the Rio Chagres.

Though our passage from Veraguas was entirely uneventful, there was still something surreal about sailing directly from the Caribbean Sea into the flat-calm fresh waters of this impressive river.

Like a boss, the Rio Chagres owned the Panamanian Jungle Checklist we didn’t know we had:

1. Anchor in a jungle river — check
2. Float a jungle river in the Relaxation Station — check
3. Explore a 500-year-old fort — check
4. See an anteater while hiking through a jungle — check
5. Do not get eaten by a crocodile while bathing in a jungle river — check

After three perfectly placid river nights, we rode the high from our near-month of boat wins right through the Panama Canal breakwater and into our slip at the marina.

So now here we are, at the end of our second week in Colón. We’re soaking up some nearly-forgotten luxuries like warm, fresh water showers in air-conditioned bathrooms and group workouts under a palapa in the morning breeze. Bear hunts monkeys and trash pandas on our daily walks through the jungle and periodically we ride the marina’s free shuttle to and from town…

It’s downright civilized.

Also, there are teenagers here -- glorious teenagers -- who have renewed Wyatt and Hudson's joie de vivre and given them a reason to actually finish their schoolwork in a timely manner so as not to miss out on afternoon shenanigans. 

And then, because sometimes Sailboat Magic is the gift that keeps on giving — or perhaps because October literally boasted a blue moon — on Halloween, we crewed as line-handlers for a friend’s overnight Canal transit on his 40-foot power-yacht.

So — that was awesome.

If, by any chance, you’ve managed to make it through all of these words, best case scenario is that I’ve adequately explained away my two-month blog hiatus (or at least bored you to the point of continuing to not care at all how often these posts go live).

As they say with a shrug in Utah, "It's sixes." 

But I’m not lying when I say I hope you’ll serve pretzels and coconuts at your next party.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit that I’m just a little bit curious to know if you’re now wondering, as I am, why we don’t all go to more picnics.

In my part-time/subpar/kinda-blogger dreams, I can already see us sprinting toward the next picnic purveyor who rolls through with open-invitations. We’re shouting, “Oh hell yes!” while tripping spastically over mismatched flip-flops and scrambling to find our sunglasses.

Mercifully, we’re too full from all the pretzels to give a rat’s ass about the imminent lack of sandwiches.