On the Eve of the Panama Canal transit

We are counting down our last hours on the Atlantic side of the continent. Monday, we will do the two day transit of the Panama Canal and find ourselves, again, on the friendly shores of the Pacific Ocean. Amazing, how one of mans greatest projects, a canal across a continent, can take off 10,000 miles of sailing around the southern time of South America, the Cape Horn. We are joined today by Sandy and David, Michael and Hane for the passage. It will be a party!

In the transit, we will be rafted together to two other boats in each lock, trying not to bash into the lock walls and our companion freighter.

And, we make this trip with fresh bottom paint, shiny topsides, a refurbished propeller and a new cutless bearing. We are just back in the water after a one week haul out in a Colon yard, Shelter Bay Marina. Its a great place. We are enjoying the Panamanian people a lot, friendly, easy going and helpful

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Saint Vincent

Blog!
Well, haven’t we been pathetic keepers of the blog?

Its bloody January and not a sign of us. No pictures, no words, no videos, nothing, nada.
You’d think we either don’t care, or have had way too much Caribbean rum to function. Well, the truth is, the latter!!! But seriously - we do care, and we do say almost daily, “we must do a blog”, but in the moment, there is no internet connection, and when there is, there is no blog because we are ashore, we are engaged in happy hour or shopping for happy hour, or boat parts, or doing boat repairs, or sitting on the aft deck thinking we should do a blog entry.

It’s also true that our lives are not that remarkable to us. ‘Its just another working day in paradise.’ I don’t mean to brag here – its just human nature to adapt to what is, as natural, normal, not that significant sort of thing. Well, let me shake myself out of my lethargy, wake up to what is amazing and share a bit of it.

Firstly, the Caribbean, if you haven’t been here, is vast. Not so much in land area as in cultural, historical places and people. Each island has surprised us with how distinct each is. The origin of its locals, who comes to vacation, the shape and colours of the buildings that line the streets, the currencies, the weather, the shape of the bays and lagoons, the food, the rum, of course, and music, and on. The sense of history here is perhaps the most striking, and in that, how much slavery shaped the peoples. The colonial masters – English, French, Dutch and probably others – each left cultural legacies that live on in the accents, attitudes and all aspects of daily life.

Here is where we have been in our all too  brief survey of Caribbean stops, I recommend a moment on Wiki for each, for each has quite a story to tell:
- Antigua is where we landed after our 21 day crossing the Atlantic from the Canaries – The Nelson ship yards where we moored was flush with history, groceries unbelievably expensive
- Guadeloupe – The French ‘colonialness’ of Iles de Saintes, reminded us of French Polynesia
- Dominica – the poverty and resolute intention of the boat boys to make the most from visiting cruisers as they clamor to help us in the most inventive ways
- Martinique – Port de France sprawling bays and anchorages, busy, friendly downtown, blustery anchorages
- Saint Lucia – Rodney Bay, the centre of yachting in the Windward islands, boats finishing here from the trans-Atlantic rally (race), the majesty of the Petit Piton and Gros Piton, towering volcanic plugs
- Saint Vincent – Blue Lagoon anchorage -  a hair raising reef passage entrance without a depth sounder on deck.
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And in our micro world of s.v. Conversations, across these places, we had the pleasure of our friends, family and loved ones.  Our transatlantic crew – Lyle, Mitchell and Willy – left us in Antigua and Al and Leona and Breanna came on board for the island hoping south bound three weeks. What fun to cook, eat, and explore together.

As captain/engineer/boatboy I am acutely aware our we floating home and means of conveyance needs more time than I have had to give her to keep all her parts flying in better and closer formation. For Conversation’s state of repair, I am reminded of a nick name – or maybe it was her real name -  I encountered years ago for a boat I raced against – “Riotess Assembly”. Another name, “Bits and Pieces”, also comes to mind. Head repairs, instrument failures, plumbing leaks, electrical mysteries, outboard carburettor conundrums, leaking inflatables – it’s a daily list of repairs that I deal with on an urgency basis. Overall, the boat is hanging together very well for the miles, it’s the small stuff that is taking the time from leisure studies

As usual, Irena carries the can with our visitors below decks, provisioning, planning, directing meals and treats and booze. And all the rest of domestic stuff - making sure bedding, towels, and stuff are there for everyone’s comforts. Eating three meals a day on board, with all the different tastes, local foods, availability of propane, fresh water rations, etc. plus being the sailing mate is more complicated and demanding than you would guess.

I will be posting this blog, without pictures, because believe it or not, I don’t have time to sort them and put them up! And this is the most significant theme of our lives; incredibly, is we don’t have enough time. You would think not working at jobs, commuting etc. we would be living a life of sumptuous luxury. Yesterday, Al and Leona flew home (Breanna lefts us a week ago) and so we took the day in port to get organised – a rare day. Mustering each day to put to sea, is not a trivial task, and at the grand pace of 6 knots, we don’t cover a lot of the planet very quickly. And we have covered about 2/3 of the 15,000 miles we must sail to reach Vancouver this summer. Lots more to do yet.!

Adieu my friends, adieu. Photos will come. As soon as the shower ends, we sail!

Happy Christmas to all!

Hi there- well it certainly is a Happy Christmas for us! We arrived in Antigua on Dec 20th after 21 days at sea. Fairly good passage, but we struggled with having enough wind even though we were in the tradewind belt.

The 'jock crew' - (4 strapping guys plus Irena) was great - but we managed to make it through ALL of our provisions. We had challenges as well with a fresh water leak and a propane leak, so we were rationing pretty carefully near the end of the passage. We actually ran out of propane 3 days before we arrived in Antigua, but had managed to cook up all the food before hand and use the microwave to heat things up.

Very grateful that Cress held on the that old microwave, that I was ready to toss out before we left Turkey!!! That saved the day.

It is now Christmas Eve and we have a new crew - dear friends AL and Leona from Vancouver and Cress's daughter Breanna - so we are cooking a Polish Christmas Eve meal for tonight and have a turkey thawing for Christmas day. We will be at anchor in a beautiful bay in Antigua before shoving off for Guadeloupe on Boxing day.

Loving the Caribbean people, weather and turquoise water, lots of snorkeling and swimming to be done over the next few weeks as we make our way down the chain of islands to Grenada.

Hope to send photos soon - but internet continues to be a huge challenge.

Merry Christmas to all from the crew of Conversations.

Irena and Cress

Down Wind Sailing?

Well our bags are packed, we're ready to go....
Winds from the north, 20 to 15 knots..... could it be? Downwind sailing at last is here for us?
Been in the Canaries this last week preparing for our passage to the Caribbean. New crew onboard - Lyle, Mitchel and Willy. The five of us set sail this morning in a few hours. We expect to be less than 3 weeks on passage to Antigua. We will be better blog keepers we promise with Canary pictures and the story when we arrive there just before Christmas. Cress

Outta here!

 Gibraltar to Morocco!

Well my goodness- it took A LOT of upwind sailing - but we are finally out of the Med - through the Straights of Gibraltar and on the African continent - in Morocco at last! Once again though, we are waiting out some rainy weather and high contrary winds in Tangier (not exactly yacht friendly!!) before hopping down the coast.

We (the girls - now including my niece Anastasia) did manage to get off the boat for a road trip yesterday while Cress minded the boat - mainly because we are the 5th boat rafted up to a mangy dock behind an out of service ferry! Also, Cress had one of those nasty jobs to do yesterday fixing the head pump - guess that's the price for having the harem crew doting on him ;-).

In any case, we are ready to set sail as soon as possible - maybe tonight or early morning and make time down the coast.We opted to skip Casablanca when we heard the population is 4 million - after being in Tnagier a mere 1 million and being constantly accosted in the medina (not a pleasant experience at all) - but still would really like to see Marrakesh and the desert and the wild, wild, west coast of Morocco.

Otherwise, all well on board!

These photos are from the blue town we visited called Chefchaouen - on the mountains about 2 hours east of Tangier.

Safe in Gibraltar!

Update.

Fabulous sail today. Having beat our brains our short tacking the coast of Spain day and night,against 20 and 30 knot headwinds, (under power and sail), this morning we hit the far western end of the Med and caught a break with a long single tack beat down to the rock! Gibraltar! We did it Turkey to Gibraltar. We left Turkey, October 4th, arrived here November 8th. One heck of a lot of upwind sailing!

Tied to seagull-shit festooned dock for tonight, too tired to care or go ashore! 

Details to follow.

C

The Harem Crew rocks

Ahem…..

…….

…Ahhhemm! 

Which one is the squash? (hint - none of them, its a carved Halloween melon
Ask Barb)

.........

Testing…testing one, two, three….. four.

Hmmm, well it still seems to work….

……

Well, Hello!

Some of you may have been wondering where is Cress's voice in all of this on the blog. Where is the Captain!?

Indeed, maybe you haven't noticed, and that's okay, but I certainly have been wondering!

You see, I am the lone man on a boat load of four. All three of our crew are, shall we say, 'mature' women, each quite practiced in being in command all on their own. And taken together on a boat? Well, they practically don't even need a captain!

Ellen, Barb, Irena, left to right

They are impressive. They show up for watch at every ungodly hour and in every kind of weather, on time and in good spirits, dressed sensibly no less. Like a trio of Broncos they hang on and steer without complaint while the salt water runs down the back of their jackets and the boat bounces through the short Mediterranean chop. They take sailing orders without complaint or question, and learn quickly which of the endless ropes to cleat, release, pull, wrap, coil, etc… And -- this is what separates them from the more macho crew we have had the pleasure of - they also clean, tidy and organize below until the boat is in Bristol shape. And each meal from their galley is a feast fit for any time or place. They plan and shop up all the food, organize it in our fridge and freezer, and serve it up each meal with wine and we practically eat off white table cloths, almost.

And they get along. They stand watch together, cook together, clean together, do their toe nails together, talk, talk, talk, even sleep together (well not in that way of course, but you know how much more comfortable women are bunking in together). They flow. Doubtless you have pondered how seamlessly a school of fish cohere and move as a singularity, or the wondered at the way a flock of birds fly together, as if a single intelligence. And so we have it on Conversations. I suppose it helps that Irena and Barb are sisters, and that Ellen and Barb go way, way back, and that all three then share a common life history of Winnipeg winters and Whiteshell Lake cottage summers.  They practically finish one another's sentences! And, they are, perhaps, the best crew I have ever had!

Can one man manage?

Wuat's a guy to do?

So boys, a new standard has been set. Lyle, Mitch, Willie, the bar is high. The challenge formidable. When we go from an all-woman crew to an all-male crew to sail across the Atlantic in December from the Canaries

Irena will be there to witness our glory or our ignominy. Let’s show them how men!