Cat Tails

BOREDOM (or goofy things you do at sea)

We departed the Gulf of Nicoya for a quick little trip to Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador. Ok… so “quick” is a word that really shouldn’t be used in conjunction with cruising boats. It’s roughly 800 miles from Puntarenas, Costa Rica to the Bahia. We had been watching the weather on this route for about two months and had never seen wind in double digits. Our plan was to sail down the 085 west longitude line until we reached latitude 2 North, at which point we would point our bow toward the Bahia located at about 35 miles south of the Equator. After two days we had made about 80 miles towards our destination, the wind was either non existent or about five knots. We carry enough fuel to motor for about 400 miles so we knew we would have to sail at least half the trip. When the boat dropped below one knot we would turn on the motor and idle along at two knots. We hoped this would extend our range. We had not seen another boat for several days and Linda was becoming bored with the flat windless ocean. So in the middle of the night when she came on watch she was quite speechless when she saw a freighter crossing our bow 300 yards in front. Well ok… not quite speechless, it might have been “why the !@** is he so close?” I quickly told her that I had talked with the Captain and everything was ok. As we bounced thru the stern wake she made a comment about being too close. I quickly retreated to bed for a few hours shut eye. We had been at sea for six days now averaging about 60 miles a day. Now we like to stay in shape when we’re underway so for the last six days we had been doing sail aerobics, this is where any chance you get you hop up and make a sail change. We have twin forestays so we can fly twin headsails for downwind work. We also have four different head sails, throw a whisker pole into the mix and you can be hopping up and down every time the wind goes up down or changes direction! Now this was our first trip to Ecuador and friends told us “make sure that you stay at least 60 miles off of Isla Malpelo because of possible problems with some very unsavory characters!” I’m not sure what that means but it reminds me of the scene in Capt. Ron where they discuss the difference between Guerillas and Gorillas, I don’t want to be standing face to face with either one. Our imagination is now starting to get the better of us and we come up with a game plan of what to do should we have an incident with an unsavory character. Linda would stay inside the boat with the flare gun and the spear gun (these are the only weapons we carry) however, when I say the “secret word” she would come out with flare gun behind her back with the mention of the second “secret word” she would discharge the flare gun… hopefully hitting someone other than me. This would of course scare the unsavory characters into leaving. Now Linda actually has a little practice at this as many years ago she was a Deputy Sheriff in WA. She very astutely said “hey, I need to be able to reload quickly in case there’s more than one”. So we strapped a couple of straps across her chest with extra flares on them (Pancho Villa) style, now she was ready for action! Fortunately, although very slowly, we passed Isla Malpelo without incident! We were now in the ITCZ and could see squalls on the horizon, finally to break the boredom we had some wind, Linda said “Rob don’t you think we should get the main down?” After six days of ghosting along I was ecstatic, we suddenly were doing seven knots! However, I quickly became aware that we were seriously over canvassed, not something you want to do on a small cat 300 miles from land. Rain was now coming down like it had come out of a shotgun. I was pulling for all I was worth to get the main down and wishing we were just bored again ghosting along... 20 minutes later the sea was flat and the motor was running.

We finally approached the Equator and as this was our first time across we thought about a lot of different ceremonies for Neptune. A friend who was in the Navy told me they made him crawl thru garbage and spanked him. I thought this sounded a little messy and a little kinky…little did I know. When we we’re in Mexico Linda bought some gold lamme fabric just for this occasion, I was supposed to wear this like a toga and pronounce our crossing a success. Now we all know Neptune likes his rum, so I had a bottle of Flor de Cana, which I happen to think is some of the world’s best. As we got close to the Equator I donned my gold lamme toga, poured myself a healthy shot of rum with a little extra for Neptune. Now I think Neptune is usually seen with a crown of seaweed on his head, so out of respect I also wore a crown of cabbage leaves held in place by my head lamp. (Hey, ya gotta be creative at sea). I yelled down for Linda as we were getting close, she needed to hurry, it would be bad luck not to give the right respect as we were both polliwogs. She stepped into the cockpit much to my surprise in black high heels, stockings, garter belt, and a bustier. She said “Neptune’s a man, I know how to get his attention!” We crossed the Equator giving Neptune his rum and the rest I will leave to your imagination.

Now we were starting to run low on fuel, we still had 300 miles to go and we hadn’t seen wind in days. I thought we would be okay until the equatorial current starting dragging us out to the west at an alarming rate. It was decision time… we had no wind, the current was running at 2-2.5 knots, we didn’t have enough fuel to motor against that current for the 300 miles we had left. So, a weekend at the Galapagos seemed like the perfect thing.

For the first time in a week we were moving towards our destination at a reasonable speed. With a two knot current pushing us even in idle we could make five knots. Two days later we anchored at the Galapagos Islands. After a good nights rest we refilled our jerry jugs plus a couple extras we purchased for the trip back to the mainland. We bumped into friends we had said goodbye to in Panama, thinking we wouldn’t see them again for a while. They were quite surprised and fed us a wonderful dinner. After three days we departed for the mainland, once again… no wind and flat seas. Again, listening to the motor for almost 600 miles. However we did discover a new game, a Boobie would land on our spreader, the first time he deposited his dinner on the deck and bimini we wanted him gone. So I unhooked the running back and would swat him on the butt with it, he would turn and try and bite the running back. It would usually take three good swats to get him off the spreader. He would then fly around the boat four or five times and land back on the spreader, where we would start the game all over again…oh, what fun!

We arrived at the Bahia where the pilot guided us over the bar. Now, Linda’s idea of surfing is on the net not through breaking waves with our boat. But hey, it really cured the boredom of a very long passage. What was supposed to be about 800 miles turned into 1400 and twice as long as we thought.

Rob & Linda

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