The One I Didn't Want to Write: a real-time update

There's a saying out among sailors that "the happiest day in a sailor's life is when you buy the boat and when you sell the boat". It was not true for us. We were happy when we bought Roundabout but very relieved (financially) and disheartened (we weren't ready to stop cruising) when we sold her.

Since returning to land life a little over a year ago, I find myself looking back more often on our sailing photos aboard Roundabout. Missing that life. Missing cruising and hanging with our boat buddies, sundowners, and potlucks in new places. Missing the exploring of new countries and getting lost as we wandered around. Missing the long passages at sea, especially night sailing (which I was super afraid of at first but grew to favor). Missing the feeling of a calm anchorage and the gentle sounds of water meeting the hulls, and sunrises with the mist off the water and the deck glistening in the light. Missing the sound of the sails and the feeling of joy at watching dolphins play at the bows as they sliced through the sea. Just. missing. that. life. I swear, it's like a piece of my heart is still out there and there's a hole where it used to be. Overdramatic? Perhaps, but it's the only words that seem to work. If that makes sense?

Life on land is so...fast, for lack of a better word, and fellow cruisers will know what I mean. Sailing is slow and when you are cruising, you don't usually have a schedule. Don't have to be at any place at a given time, unless you are trying to get to a chandlery before they close or hit up happy hour with fellow cruisers. I think back to the stressful times during life afloat (whenever something broke and we were searching for boat parts to fix it) and how I thought that land life was so easy. On land, there isn't a thought to your home moving during the night, fear of storms, hitting something, something hitting you, leaks, and whatnot. Getting parts to keep up maintenance on a house is super simple, just drive over to your local hardware store and get what you need. I remember wanting to be back on land where things were easier and then telling myself to savor each moment because I will miss them when I am eventually back on land. So true. There are so many wonderful aspects of cruising: bonding as a family, adventures, exploring, problem-solving, experiencing new cultures, meeting new people, growing as a person, and living a sustainable life. We made our own water, our own power, our own rules, and we loved it. Maybe it's the freedom we are missing?

We are not completely cut off from sailing. In fact, we still have Soggy Dollar, our Olsen 911 monohull berthed in a slip in Monterey, that Jared goes out racing on and we take out day sailing as a family. The kids are on the yacht club Opti sailing team. We are at the beach most days, as we can walk to it from our house. So why am I feeling like I am still mourning a loss? 

I think part of this relates to us not being able to finish our circumnavigation and explore the South Pacific islands that was our original goal. We see posts from our sailing friends who are there right now, photos that are so stunning, and tease us of a life we could have had if we had pointed Roundabout west instead of north. It's that whole unfinished business thing. We aren't done writing our story. 

Our start to cruising was definitely a chaotic Caribbean adventure. Hurricanes Irma and Maria tossed us in a different direction, which we recovered from and started over out of the Mediterranean. It was that experience that taught us we were stronger than we ever imagined. Our kids learned that when things get hard you don't give up. Persevere. The blessings from this, if there can be blessings from two category five hurricanes tearing your life apart, is that we created some of our best memories sailing in Europe and met other sailors who are now some of our dearest friends. 

Since selling Roundabout last year, we bought a house and started over. The kids transitioned into school and did a fantastic job of resuming their old life. I resumed teaching in my classroom and Jared's business boomed as his clients learned he was back on land. At first, I didn't even think about boats, boat life, or any of that. I was just happy to be transitioning and getting a full night's sleep without being on anchor watch. I slept through storms without a care in the world. I had a car and could grocery shop whenever and however much I wanted. It was all so easy! A year later and we are just about done with the remodel, adding onto the house and overall upgrading to make it a lovely home. 

However, as the months creep by, I find myself looking at old photos and starting to miss our cruising life. I put off updating the blog for way too long, mostly because it reminded me of what we had and I really wanted it back. Yep, even the boat jobs part and fixing stuff. The kids say that they would rather be out cruising than on land now. I think covid19 plays a part in this, as we have not traveled anywhere at all. We all have the travel itch. I am currently working on our blog posts from Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, and returning to California. Those are coming soon, I promise! I just felt like I needed to post this one first. Sort of ripping off the bandaid...

This sailing adventure was THE BEST THING we did as a family. Seriously.  According to our kids, we were the worst parents in the world for taking them away from family and friends to go cruising and then the worst parents in the world for stopping cruising. Jared and I talk about the future and if we can flip a few more houses, we just might be able to save up enough to go back out and continue our adventure. Most likely, that will be when all of our kids are off in college. For now, we will keep dreaming. He's already picked out the next boat, a larger catamaran with daggerboards, to sail faster and easily go into shallower waters. We will dream and plan as we did before, going Roundabout.

Panama Canal Transit (and haul-out) April 2017

Roundabout transiting the Panama Canal!

As a small vessel, compared to the behemoths that transit the canal, you just can't rock up and radio for a transit time. We were able to do so transiting the Greek Corinth Canal, but that does not fly with the Panama Canal Authority. Nope, you have to fill out some paperwork, call for someone to come measure the boat and then wait for your assigned transit date. We decided to use an agent, due to the fact we needed to haul out and wanted to spend the time working on the boat and not running to various offices completing paperwork.  Another tip is if you come in with a few other boats and use the same agent--you'll get a discount! Our total cost for the agent was $300 (we used Eric).

We met with Customs/Immigration and got scanned into the country. Their machine broke, so we had to complete this over the course of two days. Next was the Port Captain to complete the cruising permit forms. He is not there every day and not always at the same time. Be sure to ask when you arrive to get the current schedule. Both offices are located behind the Shelter Bay Marina office.
After meeting with the PC to fill out paperwork (all in Spanish, no English) for all of about 10 minutes, he delivered the permit back 2 days later. If you do it yourself in Colon, you can get the cruising permit the same day (that is the office where all the stamps are housed).

At the time we arrived, there was an 8 day waiting period. No problemo, we were hauling out anyway. We scheduled our transit date for April 17th, which would give us plenty of time for completing the haul out projects and re-splash.

Hauling out.

We hauled out on Friday, April 5th and spent the next 10 days doing boat projects. We stripped all the layers of bottom paint off all the way down to the gelcoat (this is one heck of a messy project--blue dust EVERYWHERE!). We covered what we could and took all the cushions inside. We also kept all the hatches closed. It still involved a major clean up job. After making sure everything was smooth, we applied two coats of Sea Hawk Tuff Stuff epoxy barrier primer and then 2 coats of Sigma Eco Fleet 530 antifouling (we couldn't get Sea Jet here, as we had in Greece). They had some other options, but we wanted the color blue to match the stripe on the boat.

Ten days later we splashed and it felt SO good! Face it, leaving any boatyard feels good!
We did a huge provisioning shop in Panama City. One fellow sailing mama rented a car, so she, myself, and another sailing mama hit the town! We filled that car up so full, we could barely peek out over the top of all the stuff! Part of the shopping included things we had to have on board for the agents. You must have cold bottled water (sealed), snacks, and feed them breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you don't provide hot meals, they can call and order food, which is billed to you at a minimum cost of $350!

Yes, we were THAT close! Our group had stopped to watch her cross the road and stopped traffic for her to safely cross.

We had some friends want to transit the canal with us, and since we needed a couple more line handlers anyway, we told them to come on down. Around 10pm on April 15th, they arrived. We spent the 16th prepping for the transit and exploring a little more of Panama. The jungle surrounds the marina and you wake up and go to sleep to the sound of howler monkeys, birds, and insects. We took walks through the old Fort Sherman, which is being slowly taken over by nature. Bats have taken up residence in the buildings. There is a leopard which hangs about. It would have been so cool to see it, but we never did. Another cruiser went for an early morning walk and came face to face with it! Another sailor warned us that the leopard will come into the marina and was caught on camera doing so. I couldn't help but think how cool it would be to see a leopard come onto our Leopard, but if it did, we never knew. We kept Sunny and her food bowl inside though, just to be safe.

Night before we left to transit the canal!

Splashed again and removing the kid netting.

This stuff works WONDERS!

Boat kids!

School in the cafe (and air conditioning!)

I taught a chemistry lab to the boat kids in the marina.

Our agent emailed us updates and confirmed our transit date. We would not know the exact time until one day before. Sure enough, about 24 hours before transit, we heard that we'd be going through in one day, with a 4:30am start time. We stocked an ice chest full of cold drinks and had a huge container of snacks ready to go. Our menu for the transit was breakfast burritos, spaghetti bolognese, salad, and fresh-baked bread for lunch, and Panamanian style tamales for dinner. The snacks ranged from a huge variety of pre-packaged trail-mix, granola bars, protein bars, candy bars, sliced fruit and veggies, and such.

3:45am we were hailed on the VHF and so by 4am on April 17th, we left the marina and went out into the anchorage area to wait for the advisor to board. Eduardo and David arrived around 4:45am and with a smooth transition over to Roundabout, we were then on our way to the first set of locks. We ended up with two advisors, as Eduardo was training David. Eduardo is pretty high up in the chain of command, so we felt fortunate to have him on board. He is also a tugboat captain on other days, assisting larger vessels through the canal. He spent the day telling us all sorts of fun facts about the Canal and life in Panama. I had offered coffee or tea with breakfast once they were on board, but Eduardo said to not worry and that we would get through the first set of locks and then have breakfast. He was so nice and chill, that it made me instantly relax. I had read so many stories that I was a bit nervous.

We reached the first set of three locks, the Gatun Locks, around 6am. We rafted up with a small monohull on our starboard side and moved together into the first lock. I had a huge container of snacks and passed them all around, even to our very appreciative neighbors! By 6:45am, we had lines up to the guys on the wall and our line handlers ready to adjust once the water began to change. What a true marvel the canal is! Such engineering involved! To think that they have operated for over 100 years without fail is astounding! The locks were (for a long time) the world's largest concrete structures. Each lock is 110 feet wide and 1000 feet long. The entire Gatun Locks system, including the approach walls is just over 1.08 nautical miles in length.

Things started off slowly, with only a bit of water churning and then suddenly, we felt the water bubble and shift around us. The force was very strong! We slowly adjusted the lines and pulled in the extra slack as we rose up towards the top of the lock.  Once the water level had reached the appropriate height, the doors opened and we moved forward into the next lock. The process was repeated again and we were raised up to about 80 feet above the Atlantic sea level! Before we knew it, we were un-rafting and motoring out into Gatun Lake! This man-made lake covers about 116.64 square nautical miles and was formed by erecting the Gatun Dam across the Chagres River. Towards the Pacific side, we passed through the Gaillard Cut. This cut is carved through rock and shale of the Continental Divide and the unusual history and geology has remained a point of interest from all around the world. It measures 7.4 nautical miles long and the colors are beautiful!

It took about 4 hours (a little over 20 nautical miles) to get across the lake to the next set of locks, the Pedro Miguel Locks and the Miraflores Locks. The first step is to go through the Pedro Miguel Locks. As we were lowered down about 30 feet, we slowly let out the lines. After crossing Miraflores Lake, we reached the final two steps down to the Pacific Ocean, the Miraflores Locks. Due to the Pacific's extreme tidal variations, the Miraflores lock gates are the tallest. The Miraflores Lock system is just about 1 nautical mile in length.

As the Pacific Ocean flowed past our bows, we celebrated all around! A pilot boat picked up our advisors and after a final wave they set off into the setting sun. Another crew came round to pick up the fenders and lines we had borrowed from our agent. We then set off to anchor near Playita and ended the evening with a nice meal and discussed the day. It was a magical experience to transit the canal in our own vessel!