Crash, Bang, Boom!

Twas the 9th night of December at around 11:00 at night. The wind was blowing steady; there was not a boat in sight. And so starts the story of our worst experience to date at sea.
“This has to be our best sail ever,” stated Marc earlier in the evening. We were cruising over the bottom at 9.5 knots, with a 1.5 knot favorable current. With the light of full moon and partly cloudy skies, the whitecaps of the breaking waves sparkled.
With an uncomfortable boat motion, the kids had chosen to sleep in the cockpit. The autopilot was handling the wind, 15-20 knots from forward of the beam. The predicted SE wind had not appeared yet. Having checked the radar, sail trim, and scanned the horizon, I stepped inside to make a log entry.
I was only inside a few minutes when the cascading series of huge crashes sent me outside. I instantly knew my worst fears had come true, the mast had come down. I asked the kids to put on their life jackets and get inside the boat. The boat motion settled to a gentle rocking in the sea as the huge white sails lay in the water like a blanket. Marc was up quickly and I said much more calmly than I felt, “the mast came down”, and I handed him a harness.
The kids were running in and outside, asking what to do and if we were going to be O.K. “I want to quit sailing! I don’t want to cross to Europe! Are we going to die?!” they screamed. We did what we could to assure them that we were going to be O.K. Give them a job I thought, so I asked them to plot our position in the log. I turned on the SSB and asked them to try to hail a station on 14300 and VHF channel 16 to report our position. That did not keep them busy for very long as no-one answered. So panic ensued again. I said, “Stay inside, stop panicking… and pray!” The NW Caribbean net had not asked if I wanted an evening check in and our buddy boat, Mima, was way ahead and had anchored in the lee of Cozumel for the night. It would be great to be able to give someone, anyone a position. We were totally and completely alone.
Marc stood motionless on the bow in the moonlight and pondering what to do. I was surprised as he is usually so quick to act. Having been brusquely awakened he was clearing his head and evaluating our options.
Marc asked me, “Do you want to try to save anything?” “The salty sailors that sell books tell tales of how they bring the mast along side the boat and somehow secure it. Then they drift to some uninhabited island, jury rig the stick back up with vines and tree roots and sail on to civilization.” He tries to budge the massive cat rig and deems this completely unrealistic and a further threat to the safety of Side-by-Side and its crew. It is night, the kids are panicking and the noise is deafening. The entire rig makes a rocking and grating motion on the toe rail and lifelines in the ocean swells.
“I don’t care about the money!” I scream. I can’t believe I said that.
He asked for the bolt cutters and a rigging knife. Of course, under stress I could not remember where the bolt cutters were. In a closet somewhere, but I picked the wrong closet. Marc produced them, cool as a cucumber. He was dismayed that his OMG rigging knife was not in its compartment under the chart table nor was there one in the bin at the helm! So where are they when you need them? Marc initially had to use a kitchen knife to cut away lines. Finally, Sabrina and I found a sailing knife which had worked its way to the back of the chart table.
We then strategized how to best jettison the rig into the ocean. It saddened us to waste a perfectly good mast, sails and rigging lying there because we had no ability to recover them. I began to strip the lines out of the clutches and blocks at the helm. I opened the tensioned main sheet clutch and the rig made a violent shift toward the abyss. The boom slid off the hardtop and was caught in the lifelines. Meanwhile, Marc was on the bow undoing the jib’s tack, cutting lines, and separating what was to go overboard. I then remembered to take the boat off autopilot. Waves rock us and the boom grates against our newly polished deck. Each horrendous noise brings a new round of panic from the kids. Bang, bang, grind, grate goes the mast which is looking like a huge sea-saw on our boat with the lifelines as the fulcrum. The waves would raise the mast up and down onto our deck like a menacing uninvited monster looming over our heads as we worked feverishly to rid ourselves of it.
At last, we had just the forestay, the port side-stay and a sail tensioned boom hung up in our lifelines. I got under the boom thinking I could steady it while Marc started to cut away the sail. It came down on my extended leg and ankle, pinning me to the deck.
“Get out of there!” Marc yelled. As the boom rose up with the next wave, I freed my leg. Deal with the pain later and address the issue, I thought. We now had a boom slowly rising up as the mast continued its desire to reach for the bottom. With concentration and clenched teeth I started the engines and began to slowly back the stern up into the wind. With the boat pressing up against the sails and rig in the water, it did not feel like we were going anywhere. Warily, Marc went forward, clipped the forestay and returned to the cockpit.
“Keep backing up to windward or this boom is going to come reaching into the cockpit and crush you, the helm and the hardtop.” With an eye on the boom rearing up alongside my head I accomplished the task at hand. Marc carefully guided it up and over the mangled lifelines to keep it from doing further damage to the vessel. Over the side it went with only a port stay between us and freedom. I slowed the engines.
Scrape under the water and clunk went the port prop. Neutral and starboard engine only! The mast was emitting a light hiss at was pulling its way deeper into the dark ocean. Marc inched his way along the port side, quietly knelt down and severed the last stay. He stood up with bolt cutters in hand mournfully watching as our beloved rig wafted away in search of the bottom of the great abyss.
All was quiet again as the moonlight danced across the rolling seas. Relief and grief overcame me. The family embraced said silent prayers of thanks. The kids were very loving and happy to be safe. In the face of life threatening adversity, we did what needed to be done and despite some bruises to our bodies and spirits we were going to be ok.

Shaken, thank-full to be ok and still with 120 miles to go, we motored on into the darkness.

Leaving Panama

After 3 months, we left Panama feeling as through we had seen the whole country. Our experiences with indigenous people left us a little less depressed while going over American History with Parker and Sabrina. At least some Indians survived the Europeans. In Panama, there are large sections of the country, the islands of the San Blas and the Mountains of the North East that are governed by indigenous tribes. Are they poor? Are they happy?, hard to say. They are friendly, curious and healthy looking. The Kuna seem to be the best organized with a strong sense of community with the Salis in charge. Cruisers we met were building a house in the Bocas del Toro area. Gringos are buying up land from indigenous folks for the climate, low cost of living and love of no-see-ums. I met the groundskeeper, his wife and 3 kids ages 4, 3, and 1 at a cruiser potluck at the cruiser home. Later I learned that the wife was 18, meaning that she had her first child at 14. As a mother, it was hard to imagine my daughter capable of marriage and kids in 5 more years. Without educational opportunities, that is the course their life takes.

Key West of Yesteryear

If ever there were another place like the Key West of yesteryear, it would have to be Bocas Del Toro (the mouth of the bull). One can’t help but smile in the laid back bohemian pedestrian based outpost of the Caribbean. Bocas got its start with the upstanding corporate citizens and land stewards, the United Fruit Company. Clearing huge tracks of rain forest, filling in the mangroves to build the town and employing workers at near slave labor wages and working conditions to bring you bananas. After abandoning the turn of the century outpost it fell into a state of despair and disrepair. Former cruisers and now marina operators stated that just 15 years ago they were the only boat to sail into this area. Since that time, this island outpost among hundreds of mangrove atolls, islands and mainland mountains has been “discovered”.

Today, Bocas is a backpacker’s destination via planes, buses, and or water taxis from the mainland. Activities are surfing, beaching, snorkeling, ethnic dining, tours, hiking, hippy culture, Rasta culture, art culture, bohemian culture, counter culture, indigenous culture, etc etc. By reading some of the tourism and real estate propaganda, you’d think the place has been overrun by Gringos. By the numbers there are only a few hundred residing in a region of over 10,000. But Gringos tend to leave a big footprint compared to the single room organic homes inhabited by the Indians. Many homes are large Panamanian style while others are Mc Mansions.

Today the Gringos more or less coexist with the locals. Through the centuries, the Indians have continued to lead sustainable lives fishing, hunting, planting and making babies. Everyday Indians paddling there hand carved log canoes to their fincas or settlement over the water coexist with Gringos that have restored and gentrified the once derelict colonial town. Just a few minutes by boat and you are transported deep into a maze of mangrove islands which you could meander through for days. And in that time you may come across an Indian fishing or a water taxi in the far off distance. The area is lush lush lush.

Escubo Veracus the Island that has it all

After goodbyes we left with another boat for a small indigenous island called Escubo Veracus. After the chief collected a $10 “voluntary” contribution, we explored the island and surrounding reefs. The kids enjoyed running the dingy up the breaking surf while I prayed the boat would not flip. The atoll formations were incredible with sheer faced races rising up out of the ocean. Next onto Bocas del Toro to meet back up with Mimi. Bocas del Toro is an area of several mangrove islands near the border of Costa Rica. The main town is a surfer hang-out with youth hostels, bars, street vendors, bikes and a bohemian feel. The main marina has no road access and everyone uses the lanchas or water taxis to get to the mainland and other islands. We enjoyed Bocas, esp Hotel Angela for good food and company. The kids loved the $5.00 breakfast buffet reminiscent of the Golden Coral. After a few days, we parked the boat and toured inland Panama. We will save those stories for another time.

Wakeboarding with the cros

What can we say about the Rio Charges, a beautiful natural reserve adjacent to the Canal fronted by Fort San Lorenzo. The Rio is historically significant as the start of Henry Morgan’s attack on Panama and destroying of Panama City. The fort fell to Henry with all souls lost, then ships proceeded up the Rio Charges to Panama City. With all the glorification of pirates in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series, during our frequent fort visits (there is one on every island and in every country) we have learned that pirates were nasty, murdering, stealing folks. In Portobello, the story goes, that they used the priests and nuns as human shields. Of course, the Spanish were “stealing” the gold from the lands they had conquered. Now the Rio is a peaceful river that we found hard to leave. Mornings spent listening to howlers jumping from the trees and tropical birds singing. Afternoons of wake boarding or swimming (in the middle of the river). Hike were capuchin monkeys, not in a zoo or movie, entertained us for several minutes. Parker and I even found time to do some watercolor painting. Our last night, our friend Michele helped us spot some crocs with their red eyes along the banks. The highlight, Marc persuaded the kids to hike down a gully and we hung out below 20 or so howler monkeys for close to an hour.

"Sprawling Slum" of Colon

Next we were onto Colon, the armpit of the Caribbean. The Lonely Planet calls it, “a sprawling slum of decaying colonial grandeur and desperate human existence”. (Why can’t I write like that?) The highlight, our friends on Crystal and Mima were there and we missed them terribly. We had one night with Crystal before they moved to a marina across the canal. Nice marina, but not convenient to the shopping or bus transportation in Colon. Most days, cars have to wait up to an hour for ship to pass before crossing the bridge to Colon. The only other marina choice was the Panama Yacht Club. A place where “Yacht Club” is loosely defined. After waiting 45 minutes for the slowest office worked in history to tell him that they had no place for us, Marc came back to our anchorage. Our friends on Mima orchestrated a squeeze play with the boats around them and we got a spot in the marina. Unlike anything we had ever seen, we had to estimate where to drop our anchor and back into a “spot” while not getting tangled on several moorings underwater. The first attempt, the anchor chain ran out and we were 10 feet short of the end dock. We had to go it again with our friends taking lines while standing on other boats. Literally, we had 12 inches on either side of our boat of space. Marc then received a huge shock trying to plug into the power (see picture). Off to Panama City to see Grace. The weekend was great with trips to the mall, haircuts, dinner and salsa lessons and Pricemart for $600 worth of familiar products. Back to Colon on the night bus (after needing taxis and porters to help with all the stuff) with the a/c so cold we were all huddled together for warmth. At least this time no violent movies were showing for the kids to stare at. After securing a pickup truck taxi and watching him drive around to try to hack up the fare, we were back at our “marina”. Off to the Rio Charges, only 20 NM south but a world away from Colon. Sabrina proudly exited Colon and officially sailed the boat out of the Panama Canal, passed 20 some boats waiting to transit.

Line Handlers for a Day-Only in our Mind

After the San Blas, we ventured to Isla Linton and Portobello along the coast of Panama, before Colon. Our South African friends on Grace, a 56ft foot catamaran, had said we could line handle in the Canal with them and they went on to make arrangements for their transit. Marc and I were really excited.. .a chance to see the canal on someone else’s boat. It is an overnight adventure so Stewart on Grace was wonderful to allow us to go, as he would be housing 4 of us. Everyone had said not to spend time in Colon, which was dirty, polluted and dangerous. Our hearts sank when, due to a pilot strike, Grace’s transit date was over 30 days away. Side-by-Side did not plan to be in Panama for that long. The next email, however was that they secured a last minute opening and went through. Being South African they have a flair for “persuading” officials. We were crestfallen but chose to travel to Panama City and see them before they left. The family on Grace, Stewart, Debra and their three kids were some of the most special, generous and loving people we had met. We hope to visit them someday in South Africa.