Happy Memorial Day

and thank you to all of those that have served in our armed forces.

Simrad - quick and efficient

I recently sent my Simrad NSE-8 navigation unit back to Simrad for warranty work. The rotary control knob was sticking a bit. In less than 10 days they returned the unit back to me with paperwork stating the part had been replaced. That was really quick, I'm impressed. I'll even be more impressed when I get it back in the boat, installed and checked out. Except that could be a while. Something came up and I'll be off the boat until December so I'll take it back with me then. My expectation of course is that it'll work just fine.

Friday night party

Last night up at the cantina there was a really good going away part for Ansa. Ansa is one of the yacht club owners and she's headed back to South Africa where she's from. She has another venture starting there, an eco lodge of sorts. The cantina was packed and there was a ton of food. Ansa is a super sweet lady and we'll surely miss her, but we do wish her well on her new venture. I think Ansa said she'll be back to the yacht club at the end of the year or early next year.

Because there was so much food there happened to be a lot of left overs. So David brought back a lot of salad, rice and chicken gravy. Not having to cook for a couple days is a treat that David really deserves.

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More grocery stores in Bocas

When we first came to Bocas four years ago there were only a few grocery stores including one specialty store. When we returned this time last year there were at least three times as many grocery stores (and three times as many hardware stores) and a one or two more specialty grocery stores catering to the ever growing expat population here. Today David went into town with Iris (s/v Breast Fed) and found two more. These to grocery stores were located way outside of town past the hospital and cemetery. They ended up bringing a taxi back. I haven't yet heard if these are the same as what's in town or if they have anything different.

There's also a new small retail store that everyone calls wal-mart. It has everything that you can't find at the other stores in town including a lot of stuff you just can't imagine ever existed. Clothes, household, hardware, just a little bit of everything. And it's always busy.

The streets in Bocas have been fairly void of human traffic for about a month now. It's low season and many businesses have closed for the next two or three months. For some there isn't enough business to stay running and for others it's a great time to take off for a vacation of their own.

In the next month the marina and anchorage should start filling up, it will be that time of year when boats start coming from the north to escape hurricane season.

Sushi

We went into Bocas town tonight with Chuck and Ann (s/v Mirage) and Jay and Dannica (s/v Alkihest) to a restaurant called Raw. It's a sushi place, dinner was expensive but the food really was good. Especially the ceviche. The weather has really been nice this past week with very little rain, lots of sunshine and a nice gentle breeze. Late last week we hired Carlos to wash and wax the boat. She sure looks good right now.

Back on the boat

So........ I guess you can say I've been slacking this year on updating this blog. Many of you have written asking what the heck is going on with us and we sincerely apologize for the lack of updates. In years past by this time of year I've had over a hundred posts yet this post is only our second for 2012. So what's been going on?

We put in at the Bocas Yacht Club last September and since then David and I have been off the boat at various times, we've been making trips back to the states to see family and taking care of those things that have to be done as we get older, like physicals and the such. There's also been a little bit of land travel too. Nothing really to write about, nothing exciting at all.

David had a great visit with my mother and then with his family for a couple of months. David helped his brother in law with the room addition to their house, and he bonded really well his nephews and niece. I was jealous about David and Mason's 'guys night out' to the frozen yogurt place. Nothing like that here in Bocas del Toro.

Ashley turned 19 years old (92 in cat years). And she's really not showing her age. She's still very active.

Now David and I back on the boat with a list of things that we need to do. Mostly it's catching up on boat maintenance. The rest of the year is unplanned at the moment. While there really isn't anything too exciting to write about while we're in the marina I'll try my best to at least come up with something more frequently. Thanks for all the kind emails and reminders,

the crew

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays and Merry Chritmas to all.

David is still on Bruadair in Bocas del Toro, he'll be attending the Christmas pot luck at the marina's restaurant and I'll be spending the day with a few relatives. It's been raining a lot in Panama but then it is that season. Hopefully it'll dry up for a day so the potluck is more comfortable.

A log awaited update

So I guess it's been a while since our last update. To be honest there hasn't been much to write about. I haven't been on the boat for a couple months but David is still on Bruadair which is still in the Bocas Yacht Club in Bocas del Toro, Panama. It is the rainy season so it's been raining some. David has become good friends with Charlie who is on a boat across the dock from Bruadair. David's been busy collecting and sorting his extensive book collection on his Kindle. I recently spent a few weeks with my mother and fell in love with her Ipad. I can't justify needing an Ipad or tablet on my boat, but I've never needed to justify any of my electronic toys in the past so who knows, maybe I'll get a new toy. Actually, if I do, it won't be an Ipad but a tablet that supports sim cards and 3g so I can get internet on it. But David and I have been discussing replacing all the standing rigging on our boat, that's all the wires that hold up the mast. Standing rigging usually needs to be replaced every 10 years, we're do. It's expensive though so we might put it off another year, we've spent enough money this year and last years to putting a few things off for a year to recuperate might be necessary.

A couple of months ago I sent in our autopilot for warranty replacement, the new one is being shipped out soon with a new software update that won't be released until early next year. I have no idea what the update does but I hope to find out.

Currently our plan is to leave the yacht club on March 3rd. We'll go out to the anchorage for a couple of weeks and hire a local boy to wash and wax the boat while we test all the systems to make sure everything is in good order. Then we'll either sail north to Isla Providencia or east to the San Blas Islands.

Ashley has been doing really good. She's getting old though at 18.5 years old, so she's sleeping a lot lately. I'm sure I would do the same if I was pretty old too (not quite there yet).

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More painting

It's been raining a lot in Bocas recently but it hasn't been too bad. Our friends Richard and Pam on Tisha Baby left Bocas and just arrived in Colon, they're getting ready to transit the Panama Canal and will be in the Pacific soon. Mike and Barbara on Astarte will be heading to Colon soon too, for the same reason. Seems like a lot of our friends are headed that way. Not us though, still hanging in Bocas.

The headliner (ceiling) in Bruadair is wood and was painted white when she was built but after 26 years it's fair to say that it's in need of repainting. David's been working hard doing all the painting but it's not going as easily as he would have hoped. We both thought one coat would work but it appears that it's needing three. David has a lot done and now we're thinking that we should have gone with a semi-gloss or glossy paint to facilitate easier cleaning, looks like David might be starting over.

We have no plans what we're going to do next year. Going through the canal with our friends is tempting but we're not ready, or rather Bruadair isn't ready. We need to re-rig the boat, buy a life raft and get a light air sail. And then there's the fact that we really like this side of Panama and Colombia. So right now it's hard to say what we'll do next year. We'll figure it out then and in the mean time we'll enjoy Bocas.

Seven Years

It was seven years ago today that we left Kemah on this wonderful adventure. No regrets and we're looking forward to many more years of adventures.

View of the Bocas anchorage

Here's a panoramic photo I took a in September of the primary anchorage in Bocas del Toro, it's right off of the Bocas Yacht Club which is where I took the photo using my Nokia cell phone. Not a great picture but not bad for a cell phone.

October fest in Bocas del Toro

David sent me an email yesterday telling me about his day. He took a water taxi from Bocas town down to the Dark Lands where there's a property known as Rona Azul. Here's what he had to say;


whew!

4 pm and just got back to the boat. been gone since 11 and am beat! today was Oktoberfest at Rona azule in the dark lands. i have been getting hounded to go, so finally decided why not.

jampam (the water taxi) left and we got there in maybe 30 minutes. met Dillon and Darrinand saw, Astarte, Salida, Liberty, Diva, Tisha a baby, Sapphire, Taima, Blue Print, If Not Why Not, and a bunch of others. there was probably 150 - 200 people there!

appetizer was a slice of pizza, lunch was a choice of roasted lamb or pork. (I had lamb), there was baked potato, and potato salad, Cole slaw, then dessert was either cheese cake or an apple crisp cake and ice cream. there was a band there and a dance floor. it was pretty nice. but for not doing anything but sitting around eating, drinking and talking,
i am beat!

It's for Sale !!!

No, not the boat!
We're not that crazy.

Since I'm not using my Pentax K200D weather resistant digital camera I've decided to sell it. It takes great photos and is lightly used but for what we're doing it is more camera than I need. The Pentax K200D has a sealed weather resistant body. I'm selling it with
Pentax K200D weather resistant DSLR camera
Pentax DA 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 ED AL IF Lens
***note that the zoom lens above is the more expensive & coveted Pentax brand, NOT Sigma or Tamron
Kenko 1.5x Teleplus multiplying lens (taking zoom to 325mm))
Raynox DCR-150 macro lens kit
Raynox DCR-250 lens kit (both high quality Japanese made)
B+W MRC circular polarizing filter 62mm
lens hood
remote shutter trigger
Tamrac Velocity 7x shoulder camera bag for it all to fit in

As you can see in the above list all of the accessories are high quality brand names and not cheap knock offs. I'm only asking $575 for the camera, for $25 more I'll ship and insure it. The accessories above cost much more than that. Be sure to check the prices on Amazon. The camera will require an SD card and 4 AA batteries. It is in excellent working condition If interested please email me at wdb9788 at sailmail dot com. There are a lot of photo samples in the gallery by clicking on the gallery link on the left hand side of the screen.
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The long awaited update

Wow, has it really been a month since our last update? I guess we should tell you what's been happening. David is on Bruadair in Bocas del Toro at the Bocas Yacht Club. He's been enjoying lots of time with friends and doing a few boat things here and there. I on the other hand flew to Washington for my grandmother's 90th birthday party and had a chance to catch up with some relatives that I hadn't seen in decades. Some highlights of my trip so far includes working with my cousin Raymond on his barge transporting hay and tractors up and down the Snake River, exploring old barns and buildings at my cousin Shawn's in Idaho and hanging out with my grandmother in Washington.

There really isn't much more to report right now and for the next several months I'll do my best to keep this site updated. When we depart the yacht club and resume our adventures there will be a lot more updates here but won't be for a few months. Thanks for being patient.

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Update from the marina

I can't remember if I posted it or not but we're now in a marina, the first time in two years. Our plans at Red Frog Marina changed and we're now at Bocas Yacht Club. This past week has been full of tasks and now its winding down. I'm getting ready to fly back to the states in a week so I can go to my grandmother's 90th birthday party and to visit some of the relatives. I'm even hoping I can squeeze in a few days in Austin to see David's sister and her family as well as David's parents. I still need to work that into the budget. We spent some time with Dave and Bretta from s/v Adam Cara, very nice couple on a Tayana 37. Their refrigeration quite not too long ago and the replacement control board arrived today, it was the wrong part, Dave and Bretta were not happy at all. Living without refrigeration can be done but it's not fun.

Fortunately I had a spare control board on my boat that we've been carrying as a spare for 8 years. Good thing we never needed it, it was the wrong one for our refrigerator but what Dave and Bretta needed. The one they just got is what works for our refrigerator so we did a swap, a perfect solution for all of us. I helped Dave install his new control board and in no time their refrigerator was back up and running. They were ecstatic.

I pulled out my travel bags today. I have some boat parts that I'm taking back to the states with me, old boat parts that I sold and stuff I need to return. Right now my bag weighs 50 pounds and I haven't yet packed on piece of clothing. I guess I'll be traveling with two bags this trip.

Wicked Storm!!

From out of no where a really nasty storm blew in bringing winds up to 35 knots and rain so dense that we could hardly see the bow of the boat. The seas picked up causing us to bounce in our favorite anchorage. It quickly became apparent that we needed to find a safer place to be so we got the anchor up and moved half a mile into the mangroves, the same little spot we came to the last time a storm blew through.

We're now safe and comfortable while it is still pretty rough out in the bay. Hopefully it calms down some time soon as we have plans to go into a marina in the next day or two.

Good Morning

Anchored in seven feet of water, drinking coffee in the cockpit and watching a crab walk around the sand below us. The dolphins are playing in the distance and a huge eagle ray jumped out of the water on our port side. Great way to start the day.

On the move

It's Sunday morning and we're on the move. After we finish our morning coffee we'll raise anchor and go through the Short Cut and over to Twin Creek. The Short Cut (aka The Gap) is really a beautiful cut between Isla Solarte and Isla Bastimentos which will take us from Hospital Bight to Bahia Almirante. With the dense jungle like foliage on the islands I keep thinking we'll hear the roar of the howler monkeys but as these are island all we hear are the parrots. No monkeys here. It will take us about an hour or so to get to Twin Creek where we'll set anchor and dingy over to see Barbara on Astarte. She just returned from a month long trip to the states and her propane tanks are empty. We'll pick them up from Barbara and return to Bruadair, raise anchor and continue across Bahia Almirante into Dolphin Bay and through another narrow and winding cut into Buena Vista (aka the Dark Lands) where we hope to fill our propane tanks on Monday.

That's the plan anyway, what actually happens will be another story. I'm motivated to troll a fishing line behind us on this trip, the huge cobia that was hanging around our boat for several days got me to thinking how little fresh fish we've had this year. We need to change that.

Playing with the camera

Last week when I was in the water cleaning our prop and inspecting the bottom I took a few minutes and played with my Canon camera taking a few pictures here and there. Here are two. One is of our propeller before I cleaned it, covered in oysters and barnacles. The other was just a photo of Bruadair from under the bowsprit.

We were going to raise anchor today and move but have decided for now to stick around for tomorrow's swap meet at the marina. The more I look around on the boat the more I'm finding to get rid of. The anchorage off of Red Frog Marina is really nice, and fairly big. Most of the boats anchor next to the marina but we're anchored all by ourselves about a quarter mile away from every one else. Until now that is. We like anchoring away from the crowd but just a few minutes ago a sailboat pulled into the anchorage, went up the where everyone else is, then came and anchored right next to us. There's a ton of space all around us and he had to settle down not a hundred feet away. Imagine the parking lot of Walmart or Target. You drive up and everyone is parked as close as they can to the store front. You decide that you'll park way out at the other end of the lot with hundreds and hundreds of empty parking spot all around you, the nearest parked car a five minute walk away. Then imagine that another car pulls up and parks in the spot right next to you despite all of the wide open space. Just makes no sense.

Our new plan which is always subject to change, is to head on over to the Dark Lands on Sunday and fill up with propane early Monday morning, then back towards this way as we'll be going into the marina on Thursday. It'll be interesting being at a dock again after two year. It will also be the first time in two years that our air conditioner will be turned on, hope it works.

Panama offers tourists free medical insurance

Not too long ago Panama announced that tourists visiting Panama would receive a complimentary 30 day emergency medical and dental insurance card. We recently met some boaters that flew back into Panama after a visit back to the states and they shared what they learned about the program with us. The card is currently available only at the Tucomen International Airport in Panama City. After clearing customs and immigration one should head to the tourist's information desk to get the card. The instructions are pretty simple. If you have a medical or dental emergency then you just need to present the insurance card and your passport to any medical facility and you'll be well taken care of, compliments of Panama. How cool is that?

A future dinner guest

David left early this morning and is in Costa Rica now. He went with two other couples as everyone was close to the end of their six month immigration stamp. Puerto Viejo is a small coastal tourist town just across the border from Panama and is a popular place for cruisers to go when they need to renew their immigration stamp. After three days out of Panama he'll return with a new stamp good for another six month.

I was just sitting in the cockpit enjoying the sunset and saw a large 3 or 4 foot fish. It's a really nice large and fat Cobia. One of the best fish ever!! They're known for their fierce fighting and have to be worn down or killed before bringing aboard because even the little ones can thrash on deck so hard that they can bend stainless steel stanchions (tubing), break wood and just cause general destruction. But they are worth the work! Wouldn't you know it though that my gaffer and fish cleaner is on vacation. So I have to figure out how to keep my future dinner guest around until Thursday when David is due back. I'm sure David will really like to come home from vacation just to help land and clean a fish. I'll convince him though!

Its been really really hot here the last two days, cool at night though.

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Simrad's 3.0 Software update for NSE

A couple days ago I installed the 3.0 software update on our NSE-8 multifunction. I'm ecstatic to report that included in the new software is a course over ground (COG) vessel extension line making navigating much easier especially when in areas of strong currents where heading and course may be vastly different. The vessel extension line can be set to heading (HDG) or COG or both. Pretty nice to have. I was surprised as this was not mentioned in the software's release sheet.

Another feature that was added with the 3.0 software update as shown in the photos above is the  Time Plot page, and there is actually two pages. Each time plot graph can be customized from a long list of available data but the maximum recording time is only 60 minutes. After 60 minutes the data is discarded. This is unfortunate in regards to wind speed as neither the NSE nor the IS20 instruments record maximum wind speed, something us sailors always like to see. Even when sitting at anchor or the time that we got hit by a waterspout four years ago there may be a need to see what the maximum wind speed was. We can't just keep an eye on the wind indicator as waterspout is going right over us.

3.0 adds dual radar support to the NSE units allowing the unit to operate and control two radar antenna's at the same time, and both can be viewed on the NSE display side by side (as I have only one radar antenna both radar pages side by side are identical). A great feature for boats that need both close up and distant range simultaneously. Also added as shown in the photo above is two very large windows on the radar scope which can be highlighted and selected using the rotary control knob or the multi-directional pad. When the radar is in transmit one can put the radar into standby either by pressing the power/light button quickly or by pressing the Menu button and then following the prompts.


The OP40 wired remote is now supported with 3.0, convenient if the NSE is mounted out of arm's reach. The OP40 is easily connected via a Simnet cable to any junction in the Simnet system and one remote can control up to four NSE units.


The US version of the NSE will continue to come with InsightHD Cartography for the entire United States but new with 3.0 is that the Europe and Rest of the World units will include Navionics Coastal Cartography, basically coastal charts for the rest of the world.

New for the echosounder in 3.0 is the ability to select the digit size of the depth from small, medium and large (small and large shown above). What I didn't like about this feature was finding where to make the adjustment. Intuition would have one go to the Echosounder's menu of which there are two. But instead one has to navigate to the system menu, select System, Advanced, Echosounder and then select digit size. It's just not where I would have thought to look for it and nor did I find any documentation stating where it was. But then again this probably is a setting that will be set once rather than numerous times.

Another new feature added to the Echosounder the ability to customize upper and lower range limits. The first photo above shows a normal 0 to 40' range as I am currently in 37 feet of water. But if I want to take a closer look at what is happening in a specific range I can set that and in the second photo I have my range set to look more closely at the bottom (28 to 40'), though it could be set to anywhere.

And if one does not have a BSM-1 or BSM-2 echo sounder installed then the NSE will take depth information a NMEA2000 or NMEA0813 depth transducer and display that information as a depth contour, basically recording and displaying depth history similar to an echosounder.
 


There is still one thing missing that I am waiting to see in a software update and that is the ability to view weather GRIB files from a memory stick or card. Navico has added this feature to the B&G Zeus which is the sailor's version of the NSE so it would be nice to see this added to the NSE as well. I'm sure sailors aren't the only one interested in weather information.


Overall the NSE continues to perform well and it meets all our needs (except for the GRIB file support). As we wind down our summer we plan on getting our one year review completed not only on the NSE but the rest of the Simrad system as well.

Doing some exploring

Judy is a very dear friend who has a boat in Red Frog Marina she sent us an email last night asking for us to take care of an issue on her boat (she's in the states right now) so we raised anchor this morning and moved closer to the marina where it would be convenient for me to dingy in help with Judy's request.

We had fun coming over. Decided that since it was a nice day to do some exploring so we went in and around all the mangroves exploring new routes and finding neat places to list as possible anchoring spots for the future. A couple of times we got into water that was about 7 feet so we had to turn around and try other routes. We spent an hour and a half exploring through the mangroves on the south side of Cayo Nancy, then after going through the small cut to the north side of the island we explored another hour before setting anchor. It was fun. We have a reputation of being adventurous and exploring off the beaten path and today we definitely lived up to that reputation.

After setting at anchor for a while Gary from Sea Feather dinghied over to say hi. He was telling us about the three four foot nurse sharks hanging around his boat. Nurse sharks don't do that but Cobia's sure do, and they look a lot like nurse sharks. Cobia is one of the best eating fish around and also a fierce fighter so fun to catch. After hearing that Gary took off to see if he could catch dinner. I made sure he knew that we would be happy to take what he couldn't fit in the freezer. If we're lucky we'll have fresh fish for dinner tonight, something we've rarely had at all this year.

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Twin Creek, again

We've been moving around a little here and there and yesterday we returned to Twin Creek which is just a few miles SE of Bocas town. Instead of anchoring on our usual shoal we found another, we're still in only seven feet of water.

David surprised me this morning with bagels and cream cheese. What a treat! He's good at finding surprises in town when he's grocery shopping. If the sunshine continues I'll be in the water this afternoon. I need to clean the few barnacles off our propeller and I need to change our sacrificial zinc anodes. They're used to prevent our prop, prop shaft and other underwater metals from deteriorating (electrolysis). One of our 10 pound propane bottles just went dry a few days ago so we need to go and get it filled. If we drop it off at the marina they charge $25 for a single 10 pound bottle, the hardware store charges $15 and if we do it ourselves (gravity feed) then it's only $4.50. Will probably get that done next week.

Curious about where we're at?

Bocas del Toro and the surrounding area has a lot to offer not only to boaters but to surfers, tourists and to those looking for a place to retire and call home. If you would like to see more about the area we're in you should go to www.youtube.com and do a search for Bocas del Toro. You'll find an abundance of videos both long and short to keep you busy for a while.

Not much new is happening right now, still anchored and hanging out.

Lobster and Mac & Cheese

Yesterday for lunch we had some fresh lobster tails served with cocktail sauce for an appetizer followed by a bowl of macaroni and cheese. It was all pretty good. We're hoping that another fisherman comes by soon with more lobster to sell. The weather has been relatively cool here for a while. It's really comfortable and at night rather cool. Not much else is happening.

Hospital Bight

We're now anchored in Hospital Bight, moved here yesterday. It was raining in the morning but around noon it stopped so we decided to move. Just as the anchor was up it started raining again, it was a light rain so we decided to just go. Two hours later we were anchored in Hospital bight. A young man and his wife came up alongside in their dugout and offered us two nice lobsters. After a quick negotiation he put the very lively guys in our bucket. Last night we David made Chicken Vindaloo over rice, excellent! Tonight we're having lobster, not sure how though. I leave that up to the cook to decide.

Chicken Curry

David made the best chicken curry last night. He's a great cook but last night was over the top. Needless to say I'm excited about leftovers tonight. It rained this morning but cleared up this afternoon. A young man paddled up not too long ago selling fresh bread. We bought two pieces to have with dinner tonight, should be good for soaking up the curry sauce!

Pic of our new batteries

 

Here is a picture of our new Rolls batteries. Rolls has the reputation for making the best batteries so we have high expectations. They come with a two year replacement and additional five year prorated warranty. We have six of these six volt batteries giving us a total of 660 amp hours. The serial number of the battery is stamped into the case but someone decided not only to write it on the side in big numbers but they did the same on the top as well. Not sure of the reasoning behind that. The above battery is the only one that came where we could see the label from Rolls. The label shows important specification information as well as the purchase date label. 

 

Marine Warehouse, who we bought the batteries from, placed green name tags on the other five batteries right over the Rolls label and the purchase date code. With so many other sides available to put the name tag why would they cover up the important data? Makes no sense. Above the purchase date code can barely be accessed.

Permanent labels won't come off. At least we have one battery where we can see specs.

The batteries are working great. We had to charge them up and as per Rolls recommendations we did a two hour equalization. Today we're adding some distilled water to top them off as the batteries were delivered to us with very low levels of electrolyte. Now that we're set with new batteries and a new charging system we plan on leaving Bocas town today or tomorrow and will go do some gunk holing.

Lattitude

A huge boat, Lattitude, pulled into Bocas and anchored not too far from us. He's actually too big for the anchorage so he's anchored further out in 70' of water. He has two big power boats on deck, the one further aft is larger than Bruadair.