29 April 2007 | Panama City
We are sorry to have been out of touch for so long! We have a lot to report, although we have not moved far since our last log entry.

We are currently STILL moored off the Balboa Yacht Club on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal. We’ve been in Panama now for two months, and it feels a little bit like home at this point. Being stuck here this long has been frustrating, but has had some positive repercussions.

To view our lastest photos, go to http://www.bahati.net/photos2 and click on “Panama”

After setting out for the Galapagos a month ago, we got within 3 degrees of the equator and discovered more problems with our charging system (alternator/regulator/batteries). In one night we nearly melted-down our electronic navigation system. This combined with some bilge pump issues and the unrelenting seasickness of one of our crew, convinced us that the best thing to do was to turn back and sort things out properly. A tough decision, as we were nearly thru the infamous ITCZ (”doldrums”) and turning around meant passing thru them again… not once but twice!

Here’s are Josh’s words from that passage:

“Its with a sad heart that I write this morning. After three long days battling the doldrums between Panama and Mapela Island (Colombia), on route to the Galapagos, we are being forced to turn back to Panama with mechanical problems (after reaching 3 degrees latitude!). We have been sailing for three days from Panama, and expect another 2-3 days back. What’s a week at sea between friends?! So what if we’ll have sailed a week straight without getting an inch?! Ha! (actually, there’s not much laughter aboard right now).

We’ve continued to have major charging issues, and have completely fried our bank of navigation batteries and are at risk of losing our electronics all together. That along with the fact that Kule (the resident engineer) is really sick — and when we’re on a hard port tack we’ve been taking water in through two of the through-hulls, which we have to shutdown every time we’re on that tack… and problems with our wind-generator… it just means that the boat is far from ship-shape, and the captain feels that we need to go back and make the repairs before we head across the pacific. We could continue on without any of our electronics, but people want to get this all sorted out before we venture off into the unknown. Its really sad. This will be Betsy and Kule’s last passage for now, as they’ll both end up going home from Panama. This was the plan for Betsy all along, the leg out to the Galapagos was an added treat.

The past few days of fighting the doldrums have been hard… whenever we get wind its right on our nose… squalls everywhere… its been raining and raining for days, and the only time we get closer to the Galapagos is when we’re under the motor (which we’re very limited by because of fuel reserves)… ug.

It has been beautiful out here though… the only problem is that before you find the trade-winds you’re just roaming and roaming searching for wind. We’ve been going south, as the weather says there are favorable (or at least MORE favorable) winds there. As soon as you find the trades, you’re set. Easy. Fun. Beautiful. But the doldrums suck. Now, instead of going through them once and getting them over with, now we get to go through them three times going in and out of Panama!

We came across another sailboat (R Dreams) out here in the middle of nowhere and have been sailing in tandem with them for the last two days. Its been nice. We’ve been talking on the radio with them a lot. Nice folks… too bad we won’t get to meet them until the Marquesas. He brews beer on the boat and is going to share ‘em with us when we see each other.

Last night in the middle of a squall a big tanker came up behind us and we radioed them to ask they watch out for us. He radioed back in broken English (Eastern European I think) and said he was altering course… then after he passed, I talked to him on the radio again and he thanked us and said super slow in a real thick accent, “Have a good watch, and have a good voyage”. It was real sweet.

We also got flown over by a US coast guard plane very closely who had been out supporting another sailboat closer to the Galapagos who lost their mast, took on lots of water, and had to abandon ship before it sunk (damn…). The plane came flying real low out of a squall, circled us a couple times, and chatted on the radio with us. They said they would love to drop ice cream down to us, but all they had were snickers bars and power bars if we wanted any…. then told us to get back to them if we needed anything. It was really surreal.

We’re used to having flying fish land on deck during the night, but in the squalls last night we got a deck full of squid. So its calamari for breakfast (just kidding…). I’m going to try to use them as bait. We’ve had no fish this passage, but we have had the joy of sharing visits with dolphins, pilot whales, tiger sharks, and manta rays (welcome to the Pacific!)…”

Ultimately, the decision proved to be the right one. With the help of Mike Smith from Portland Yacht Services, who joined us for a couple of days in his old Balboa haunts, we fully analyzed and finally simplified the charging system removing several bugs and leaving us with a complete and user-friendly wiring schematic… at last!! Huge thanks to Phin and Johanna Sprague’s generosity and to the great help of Tom Whitehead, our inestimable project manager and watchful Bahati protector, for helping make this all happen!

Of the many lessons learned here perhaps the most important is:
KISS… “Keep It Simple Stupid!”

The problem with the regulator blowing fuses and doing a questionable job of managing the alternator amperage input, that has plagued us since our Bermuda crossing back in November, seems to have been disappeared! We are keeping our fingers crossed and knocking lots of wood as we watch the system carefully while making our next foray south and west later this week.

Our hope is to head back into the doldrums Saturday, once Michael Callahan’s French Polynesian visa has been approved. We are thrilled that Mikey is back on board. He left us just before our Canal transit to go home and spend time with his Dad who has been fighting cancer, and now he is back aboard through Fiji! We are sending both Michael’s father and Nat’s mom, Molly, lots of good Bahati energy and love as they both work on their healing journeys. These are not easy battles, and ones that make our batteries and the doldrums pale by contrast.

Molly ended-up back in the Maine Medical Center earlier this spring with a recurrence of the parathyroid cancer she’s been fighting for the past couple of years. She is doing well after major surgery in May and will be getting intensive radiation treatment every day for the next 6 weeks to help keep those cancer cells at bay.

Our extended stay in Panama also gave Nat the chance to travel back to Maine for a week when Betsy left the boat just before Memorial Day. It was wonderful for him to have a few sweet days in Maine, to be unexpectedly present for the annual Yarmouth Island opening ceremonies, to take gentle walks around the block with Molly smelling the budding lilacs and catch the first lobsters of the season with John…..mmmmmmmm! There is no beauty like that found on the Maine Coast in spring and it was hard to leave it behind and head back into the heat and humidity of Panama.

We look forward to welcoming Molly and John back aboard Bahati somewhere on the other side of the Pacific as they celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary this summer! They have been such role models and supporters for us during this trip and it was wonderful to be able to share a bit of on-board time with them in St Maarten and on the island of Saba (which reminded us all of Matinicus and other Maine offshore islands!) back in the winter months. Heal well, Molly! Your new bunk patiently awaits you!!

For the next passages it will be Mikey, Josh, and Nat on board. Betsy hopes to join us again in Fiji along with our good friend Hillary Gerardi, from Vermont, who has just completed a Middlebury semester in Thailand and is itching to get back to the East. We’re also excited to report that Jerry Knecht hopes to make the passage from Fiji to New Zealand with us in the early fall. (You read it here Jerry…now you can’t turn back!)

Our longer stay in Panama has given us the chance to get to know Jerry and Michal Gould better, as well as the family of Sarah Spalding, who we met at Shelter Bay and who made the Panama Canal transit with us. Sarah also sailed with us to Las Perlas for a number of days as we began our first trip south, and was planning on joining us across the Pacific, but sadly plans have changed, and she will no longer be crossing with us.

Our idyllic days in Las Perlas where we visited Contadora Island and Isla Bayonette were some of the sweetest and most remote we’ve seen. Bayonette had beaches covered with brilliantly colored small scallop shells that looked like flowers strewn across the sands from a distance. Frangipani was in bloom everywhere and the air was sweet with its essence! For the two days and nights we spent at anchor in a small completely sheltered cove on Bayonette (which reminded us of the inner reaches of Winter Harbor on Vinalhaven) we did not see a single human light or another boat. We were visited by hundreds of pelicans diving and fighting for their fair share of the local fish populace…spectacular wild life abounded…including manta ray, one of which Josh caught on his finger….ouch! (See photos!) Pilot whales and dolphins sailed with us thru these isolated islands and we caught some fine wahoo, and speared some snapper, to supplement our diets….ahhhh, fish risotto a la Sarah, and wonderful cerviche care of Josh.

We were also blessed to have our old friend, Kule Jackman, aboard during this foray to Las Perlas and our 6 day “voyage to nowhere” (or as Kule likes to say “Now-Here”), down and back to Malpela. Kule’s expertise as an electrical engineer, inventor and handyman, more than paid-off as he helped us swap out yet another alternator and solve some tricky wind generator issues among other challenging maintenance tasks. We only wish we could have rewarded his great work with an actual landfall in the Galapagos as planned….AND we trust he’ll be back aboard again as we continue the adventure! Thank You Kule!

Finally, we were thrilled to be able to reconnect with SPEEDWELL, and our old friends, John and Gudrun, and their faithful barge dog, Fifi, as they passed thru the Canal shortly after our return to Panama. John helped us analyze and strategize what was what with our charging system and we are grateful for his good advice…all of which we were able to put in place with Mike Smith’s help. Gudrun flew home to Sweden from here and John headed north to Vancouver with a new crew of 3…plus Mlle Fifi! We are sad to report that Fifi, who has not been well for months, was buried at sea with full honors about a week after SPEEDWELL left us. Fifi will be sorely missed by all she touched! A better anchor watcher and more faithful friend there will never be!

Before he came aboard, our able mate, Kule, sent an e-mail reminding me of a wonderful poem we have shared years before. I offer it here as it has been an inspiration in many ways over the last weeks and months and speaks to how I am feeling in this moment:

OCEANS

I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.

And nothing happens!

Nothing…….Silence……..Waves……

Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?

Juan Ramon Jimenez
translated by Robert Bly

With these poetic musings we’ll be signing-off for now! We are missing Betsy dearly and celebrating her time at home in her garden and in her new home in South Freeport enjoying the glories of a Maine summer. She has been at the heart and core of Bahati’s crew since we left Maine last October and we look forward to bringing her back on board on the other side of the Pacific! And she deserves a break! Thank you for EVERYTHING dear Betsy! Fortunately, as we stock-up on food and essentials for the next passages we have her carefully organized notes with us to help keep us alive and well! Her presence and spirit are everywhere in the boat and we are in touch by e-mail daily….a damn good thing!!

We have also been treated numerous times while in Panama to Jerry Gould’s amazing cooking and we look forward to one last meal together before we leave! Jerry is a true culinary artist. We have so much enjoyed getting to know both Jerry and Michal (and Michal’s wonderful painting!) over the last months…and were thrilled they could transit the Canal as starboard aft line handlers with us. (Jerry says he is contemplating a new career on the water!) And new friends, Michal and Betsy, will be hooking-up as they both enjoy the summer months in Maine. Without Jerry and Michal’s amazing hospitality our prolonged stay here in Panama would have been much less palatable!!

Enough for now! We’ll be in touch again soon as we find our way toward the Galapagos and Marquesas over the next weeks.

Thanks for all your support from afar! Please continue to send your good messages via SailMail: wdd4252@sailmail.com but NO ATTACHMENTS please….Sailmail deletes them. Also, be sure not to just hit “Reply” or include parts of old messages with the new…just start fresh each time!

Much love and cheers from all BAHATIans!

Nat, Josh, and Michael