escapade sailing

March 14, 2017

Going Nowhere

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This is turning into a very lazy, low mileage winter.

We sailed in to the Guna Yala 4th January and we’re still here. Since then we’ve probably sailed about 300 miles in short hops between islands. Last winter we sailed 4,000 miles, this year we might do 1,000.

Weeks go by with the anchor buried in white sand, there’s weed growing on the props!

What are we doing with all that time? Well here’s the notes from the last few weeks..

Learning the Guna language:

Since we have been in the San Blas area, we have visited islands with the following names:

Acuadup

Banedup

Uchutupu Dummat

Uchutupu Pipigua

Nargana Yandup

Gusebgandup

Nuinudup

Niadup

Misdup

Nasargandup

Kagandup

Naguarchirdup

Kalugirdup

Kuarsurdup

Ogopukibdup

Iskardup

Sugardup

Salardup

Yansaladup

Waisaladup

Eggsaladup

Greeksaladup

Thisendup

Ok I made up the last three, just to see if you were paying attention, but the others are all what the Guna consider sensible names for islands.

Not only are the names tricky to read in the small print of the pilot book, or pronounce, on the VHF radio for example, but at some point they ran out of special Guna names for islands so they started re-using them. There are three Banedups, two Tiadups, two Waisaladups all miles apart from each other in separate archipelagos, which only adds to the navigational challenges.

Then some islands also have an unhelpful Spanish name, like Coco Alto. Great, there are 400 islands here and they all have high coconut trees.

We are picking up a few words of the Guna language, ‘Dup’ as you have probably gathered, means island. A baby is a ‘mimi’ and a butterfly is a ‘chuchu’. As you can see, we are practically fluent.

Then there is the salutation to the whole hut just before you drink your chicha: “Ito malando!” Which was translated for me as ‘Let’s feel this!”. (Very appropriate, see previous post.)

The most useful Guna word is ‘Nuedi’ (Noo-weh-dee) which means Good Morning, Hello, Goodbye and Thank you. A one-stop phrasebook, “Nuedi!”.

Heart rate research:

You may recall that we did a free diving course in Bonaire last year. (See blog post: Feb 2016) Since then we have been practising the art of diving on a single breath and now I regularly enjoy relaxed descents to 15m (50ft) staying at depth for a minute or so quite comfortably. It doesn’t sound long but it’s a special time down there, partly because I still can’t really believe I can do it. Two years ago I could not have made that dive any more than I could have levitated above the water.

The interesting thing is that it’s much easier to hold your breath at 15m than at 5m. I referred before to the ‘Mammalian dive reflex’ which is a series of physiological responses to deep diving shared by dolphins, whales, sea lions and humans.

Blood flow is directed from extremities to the heart, lungs and brain, and heart rate is reduced to conserve oxygen and allow for longer dives. I’m fascinated by this.

My new dive watch displays my heart rate, transmitted from a chest belt. I have started checking my heart rate, much to Dawn’s amusement, at different times of the day as I potter about the boat. When I first wake up in the morning, it’s usually about 55, normal walking around about 75, swinging in the hammock 60ish, snorkelling along on the surface maybe 85. Winding up the dinghy winch, 95.

On a good dive, I am hanging motionless in the blue world, 15m down, watching the fish go by. The surface looks to be an awfully long way up, I’m in an alien environment. The pressure down here is 2.5x that at the surface. My lungs have been compressed and are now less than half the volume they would be at the surface. My buoyancy is neutral, or negative, I can free fall. This should be a threatening, stressful experience, but I am calm and comfortable, my movements are sloooow, I am smiling.

My heart rate is at 45, that’s less than when I’m sleeping.

Windsurf daydream

We are anchored in your average pristine San Blas lagoon, the view is a variation on the usual composition of white sand island and swaying coconut palms. Water in shades of blue and green indicating depths like contour lines on a chart. The occasional dugout ‘ulu’ is paddled over by smiling Gunas to sell us their catch. All the splendour we have come to expect from a San Blas anchorage. But this place also has a nice righthand wave peeling down a reef about 200m from where we sit. I watch it all day, sometimes glassy, sometimes with 15kts blowing down the steep wave faces. Sometimes with a few surfers on it from our neighbouring boats, their dinghies anchored at the shoulder.

When it’s time to windsurf I rig on the trampoline, throw board and sail over the side and swim it the 30m to the wind line. Then it’s a 2 minute sail to the reef. Colourful corals beneath the board, a bit shallow in places but all do-able, and the bigger the wave the deeper it breaks.

This is a windswell wave. We’re at the western end of an 1,100 mile fetch of Caribbean, and upwind of that, 3,000 miles of Atlantic. That whole area of water is blown by NE trades all winter, so there are plenty of waves, no waiting around for a groundswell. That windswell pounds the reef upwind of us, a constant ambient noise day and night, but as the waves reach our island, they bend around 90 degress and start to form up into walls and troughs as they approach the reef. Perfect wind angle.

The waves are slow moving, with a short period, and never huge, but there are sets every few minutes which are easy to spot and significantly larger than the rest. After a few sessions here it’s easy to be in the right place. Some times it’s too easy, my lap is perfectly in sync: sail out, see a set, tack into the second trough, sail it back in to the reef, drop in and ride down to the shoulder, gybe back out to the zone, oh here’s the next set! Repeat until next mealtime.

The best rides start on the first peak, or just upwind of it, the choppy hump moves over the coral shelf and becomes smooth and hollow, steep drop, that peak can throw it’s lip. Time that turn right and you may get two or three more good hits as the wall stands up to meet you. The ride ends back in the colourful coral shallows, I look back and see Escapade so nearby, I described this place to Dawn as my windsurfing daydreams come true.

Fishing at anchor

We generally troll a lure while underway, as long as the sea’s not too rough or we’re sailing too fast to deal with a fish fight. But what about all this time we’re sitting at anchor watching fish jumping out of the water?

Recently I’ve been trying to catch fish from a windsurfer. I troll a lure at slow speed from a big inflatable board with a small sail. The lure is on the end of a 30m line wound on to a plastic yoyo. If a fish takes the lure, the yoyo will jump off the back of the board and drag in the water, towed by a loop of elastic shock-cord, which is clipped to the tail of the board. I also carry a glove and lump of wood to deal with the catch, and a bag to bring it home in. Great system, but I haven’t caught anything yet. I have tried different lures at different speeds, plus strips of fish bait. I have towed that baited hook right through the fishiest patch of water you could hope for, with fish jumping around the board! Nothing.

A Guna sold us a brace of octopus which we killed, gutted, tenderised and stewed in their own juices. Delicious. I had a few scraps which seemed perfect for bait. The first scrap was dangling over the side at sunset last night when it produced a nice size snapper. This morning I tried again with another scrap. Soon the clicker was calling and the line was running off the reel. We jumped up to see what was for dinner. Not a pan-size snapper, but a 5′ shark.

The commercial awakening of the Guna

I said in a previous post that we were so surprised to see the traditional Guna lifestyle was still intact in the Eastern villages near the Colombian border.

The Guna Indians have chosen to live in a very simple economy, little changed in generations. The Guna diet of fish, seafood, coconuts, plantains and fruits are all supplied as they always have been, with no exchange of money. The women paddle a canoe to their fruit trees on the mainland each morning, the men hunt for fish and lobster.

Now a Colombian trading boat chugs in to the village every so often carrying things like toothpaste, cans of salchichas and beans. They trade with crafts, crops and seafood. Until recently the coconut was a sort of currency, now replaced by the Dollar.

Guna women sew elaborate molas to sell or exchange.

Here in the Western San Blas change is coming fast. So if you’re happy to sell a mola for $10, there may be a hundred of hours of work, you’re working for $0.10 an hour?

A couple of good divers in a dugout can easily collect 10 lobsters in an hour, they sell them to the happy yachties at $5 each and paddle home with $50 for a morning’s work.

But it’s not just dropouts in their sailboats that want to be here. One aerial photo of these islands will sell a thousand excursion tickets in Panama City. Day trips to paradise!

So a few enterprising Gunas have got some fibreglass fishing pangas, adapted them for passenger trips and started their own tour operations.

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But now these little desert islands need facilities for the tourists, concrete toilet blocks, some kind of a bar (beer cooler with a solar panel) The latest thing is ‘hotels’, now you can stay a night or two on a remote island, sleep in a hammock in a thatched hut with a solar lamp. Last year $50 per night, now $100.

A society that managed to live in the modern world without money for so long, has discovered capitalism, we’ve seen the ‘before and after’ here and it feels like a loss of innocence, but who can blame them? The new generation want Yamaha outboards, fibreglass boats, cellphones and solar power to charge them. Tourist dollars will buy that.

Yachties who have spent a lot of time here say it is already unrecognisable from two years ago. What will have developed 5 years from now?

It’s the old story: When’s the best time to go to the San Blas Islands?

Ten years ago.

Award Winning Blog!

We started writing this blog to avoid sending long, repetitive emails to family and friends. We don’t have a huge audience but the blog has followers around the world and we are grateful for all the comments and feedback.

Many thanks to the Royal Channel Island Yacht Club in Guernsey who have awarded us their prize for ‘Cruising Blog of the Year 2016’.

Guernsey yachtsmen have an amazing cruising ground of their own. The glorious Channel Islands and the French coast so near, but sadly they also suffer from a long cold winter, or so we have heard.

Anyway great to know someone’s reading this back home!

Some more moments from the last few weeks:

Preparing an ulu for the annual sailing races. Crew seems to be one strong man steering with a big paddle as a handheld rudder, one man forward with main and jib sheets, one boy amidships bailing furiously.

Traditional lifestyle plus iPad phone calls.

The cellphone store.

An alternative Guna view of the sunlit coral gardens around their islands.

The man who lived here was a specialist hunter. He used to go into the jungle to stalk tapirs, returning with meat for the village.

He died recently and now there are no more tapir feasts on the island, but these are still hanging outside his hut.

Dawn goes Guna.

It’s not all beer and skittles on Escapade you know, the daily grind of chores is never over..

Laundry day

The weekly food shopping

Fishmongering

Keeping in touch with the world

Scoping the next anchorage

Etc..

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February 26, 2017

Chicha

21st February 2017

Chicha Ceremony

I’m staring into the bottom of the upturned calabash bowl again. This is my third or maybe fourth bowl of chicha. Each one contains about half a pint of opaque brown liquid, tasting earthy, boozy, slightly sweet and with a hint of burnt coffee. The three men drinking with me drain their bowls and spit some sludge on to the dirt floor. We’re getting near the bottom of the barrel. A young man smiles as he takes the bowl from me to be refilled. Everyone is smiling now. We have all drunk a few bowls. Over on the women’s side of the hut they have started dancing. Two old guys are playing a rhythmic breathy tune on bamboo pipes. Soon I am shoved into a dance with four women who push me in to each step and turn, laughing as I try to keep up. I thank the old chief, the smiling one-eyed ‘Saila’ and the swaying village elders, for allowing us to be here to witness this sacred ritual, then I stagger out into the hot sun.

No, we’re not at the Hayling Island Real Ale Fest, we’re still deep in Guna Yala.

Chicha is hooch, moonshine. An ancient Guna tradition, it’s use is always ceremonial, never recreational, although this afternoon that line seems to be blurred, in fact everything is a bit blurred. The purpose of this chicha ceremony is to celebrate the onset of puberty for a 12 year old girl in the village, but the result of this ritual drinking is that the whole village is sloshed.

When the Sailas decide that the girl’s time has arrived, a date is set which will be a holiday for this island village of 250 people. Dugouts are despatched to the forested mainland shore to collect wild sugar cane. The cane is crushed in their coconut palm presses (as demonstrated by Dawn in a previous post). The sugar cane juice is fermented for one week, so it is a sort of low grade rum, or more of a sugar-cane wine. To this brew is added some ‘special ingredients’ and some ground coffee, to keep the party going.

Every Guna village has two large communal huts, built from cane and palm thatch. One is the Congresso, where all of the village business is presided over by the Sailas, the other hut is the Chicha Hut, large enough to host everyone on the island, but empty all year, except for the few days of chicha ceremonies.

Today was the day for this little girl, we watched as she had all her hair cut off with a pair of scissors, all of it, she’s almost bald. The women with the scissors were laughing and enjoying the day. From now on the girl will wear molas and beads on her arms and legs. Her hair (when it grows back) will be covered by a scarf, like all the women in the village. The women look fantastic, many with chunks of gold between their nostrils, some with black lines tattooed down their noses. Today they have had chicha, they are laughing and swaying, smoking tobacco in stylish clay pipes.

(By the way the costumes you see here are not for the ceremony, this is just what the women wear, every day)

The ceremony began at 1pm with the all the village assembled in the chicha hut, strictly segregated into the male and female areas. Incense smoke filled the hut, its flames tended by the spiritual leader of the village and his young apprentice. We were seated on low coconut palm benches just off the floor, I’m told this is good, not far to fall.

Village elders performed a dance with some hooting before the first bowls of chicha appeared. We still had no idea what to expect or whether we would be expected to drink. It was a great privilege to be invited and made so welcome.

As we mentioned before the Gunas are camera-shy, but Dawn managed to take these photos very discreetly, shooting from the hip with respect for the occasion.

Three hours later we were all chicha’d out. After my performance on the dance floor we were invited to stay in a spare hammock in the village, but Dawn wisely decided we should return to the boat before nightfall. After the chicha ran out, the bowls were being filled with shots of Panamanian Seco, another type of low-grade rum, but commercially produced. At one point two girls circulated with baskets, one full of sugary sweets and the other filled with loose menthol cigarettes which everyone happily started smoking. We were told that the drinking and smoking all stops at 10pm sharp and the next day village life returns to normal, most of the Gunas don’t drink or smoke at all, outside of the chicha ritual.

Did that really happen?

The next morning we were on our foredeck at 6am watching day break, heads buzzing from alcohol and caffeine and very thankful we weren’t waking up in that hammock.

January 31, 2017

January Blues

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07.01.17

Over the hills..

Two years ago we crossed the Atlantic and dropped anchor in Falmouth Harbour, Antigua. Now we are 1,100 nautical miles further west, across the wide Caribbean.

Behind me are the misty, jungly Darien mountains of Panama and behind those, the Pacific Ocean, now just 30 miles away from where we are anchored.

08.01.17

Western San Blas

I mentioned in the last post that we had sailed off the edge of our chart into an unsurveyed area. Now we are in the Western San Blas and the depths have reappeared on the chart plotter, although some of the islands are still in the wrong place.

It is also very much more popular than the eastern islands. There it was just us and the Gunas. Here it looks more like Grenada, anchorages with a dozen yachts bobbing about together, radio nets, barbecues, Some boats stay here for months, or years. But you can see why. It is a beautiful area with hundreds of perfect sandy islands covered in coconut palms, surrounded by coral and lagoons.

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There is surf, fishing, reefs to explore with dinghy and snorkels. The weather is beautiful and we seem to be having a week off from those strong trades. The solar panels are powering the water maker, we still have fresh vegetables and cold beer. We even have a phone signal in most places. Guna families come paddling by in dugouts selling fresh bread, speared fish, lobsters for a few dollars. Days go by. We could be here for a while.

11.01.17

But first we needed to visit the mainland for a few days. Linton Bay, Puerto Lindo, Portobello, Savanitas. We handled all the formalities, got our passports stamped (Escapade’s 30th country) did all the laundry and provisioning, then sailed back to the islands.

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Wildlife update:

Sightings on the mainland:

16.01.17

Monkeys

I like a monkey.

In the forest around Linton Bay we saw lots of them playing in the trees above us. Leaping from tree to tree and hanging by their tails.

On Isla Linton a family of spider monkeys came to take bananas from our hands and put on a show swinging through the trees around us.

11.01.17

The Lazy Bear

In Panama a three-toed sloth is called ‘oso perezoso’. A lazy bear.

Have you ever seen a three toed sloth? I just encountered my first one, he was sitting very still and looking just like a little long haired bear.

About the size of a big football, long shaggy blond fur, big brown blinking eyes and what looks like a big smile. We didn’t have a camera with us!

But he was the friendliest looking creature, I’m surprised the world isn’t full of cuddly soft toy versions.

I’m told that they have a big meal of leaves and then have to sit quietly for 12 hours because they have a slow digestive cycle.

Nice lunch and a 12 hour siesta, very sensible animal.

Jaguars?

I’ve just been told that three-toed sloths can swim between islands (not after a meal), as can the big cats which live in the jungle here, including jaguars. I’m keeping a pretty good lookout while snorkelling these days.

Back in the San Blas:

23.01.17

Dolphin visit

They appear before breakfast one morning, blowing close to Escapade.

I grab a snorkel and slip in to the water, immediately I can hear the clicks and whistles, they are close but I can’t see them yet. Dawn directs me from the deck, I slowly fin at a tangent to their direction, they know exactly where I am and I think they will come to me if they’re interested. I glance up to see a fin and then a tail above the surface in front of me. The dolphin dives a few feet away and then approaches me head on, just under the surface, he sends me a complex sequence of clicks, I reply ‘Hello!’. Then he dives and swims on his side just below me, showing his white belly while taking a really close look at me through his upturned eye, then turns for a second pass on the other side. Now I want to dive, show him I can do that too. I descend to about 7 metres and feel another blast of clicks but I can’t see him. I think he was calling the other two over to check out the performing human. The other two appear, an adult and a youngster, now the three come to see and do another side-up pass.

Then we all come up for a breath.

29.01.17

Special Guests

All the way from Maui, Sam and Scotty arrived for a slice of boat life in San Blas.

Maui-Honolulu-Houston-Panama City, jungle road over the mountains and a fast Guna launch direct to our anchorage.

We soon have the new crew whipped in to shape, Sam specialising in line handling, dinghy launching and catching fish, meanwhile ‘Scotty The Yachtie’ is a natural with main halyard, winch grinding and very busy in the galley.

Dawn was in charge of ukulele while I was shaking maracas.

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That week flew by, a procession of lovely islands. We anchored alone in a vast shallow lagoon studded with starfish and conch.

We sailed, spearfished, swam, we even found some waves for Scotty to surf while Sam and I windsurfed.

The galley was turning out lobster, conch, all kinds of pescado, and the wine cellar was woefully depleted.

We lay stargazing on the trampoline. All over too fast, thanks for coming guys, let’s do it all again somewhere.

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Stingray

Scotty’s first kill

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Scotty’s hold-down training

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Brain coral at Yansaladup

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The squadron of squid that lived under Escapade for a week

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Sam vs Lobster

Another Outremer skipper with great taste in anchorages

New crew earning their passage..

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January 13, 2017

Colombia to Panama

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This all seems a bit out of date now, we’ve been offline for a couple of weeks , but here’s the blog notes..

29.12.16

Leaving Cartagena

30.12.16

Islas Rosario

I wake to silence. No wind, the sun is just rising. A boy paddles past in a dugout. the water is glassy and I can see fish swimming around the coral beneath us.

Yesterday we left the spectacular city skyline of Cartagena in our wake and today we’re in another world. Back to island life.

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As we sailed in here yesterday, an enterprising fisherman paddled over and closed the deal on our lunchtime lobster before we even had the hook down. He told us there are 800 people living on his island and everyone knows each other’s name. Bit like Guernsey.

Sailing to the San Bernardos

Since we rounded the last headland we are out of those roaring trade winds and our route now to the SW seems to be in lighter airs in the lee of the coast. We left with full main and gennaker, our maximum total sail area of 180sqm, ghosting along at 3kts in 5kts of wind. The breeze fills in at noon. Sharp. Still only about 10kts but we are broad-reaching, daggerboards up and gliding silently along at 8 and 9kts, dining on a freshly landed bonito.

We won’t get spooled again..

We have been trying to fine tune our trolling gear to catch sensible sized fish whilst underway. Last season’s cedar plug was attracting big game and we hate to get ‘spooled’ (huge fish on the hook and no way to fight it, watch as the line disappears in a cloud of smoke). So now we have acquired some much smaller cedar plugs which we hope will appeal to a more reasonably sized fish. Ideally dinner for two rather than protein for a month. We have also invested in a serious new Shimano reel, acquired in the best fishing shop I have ever visited. If you’re ever in Maui and feel that you really want to kill some marine life, I recommend a visit to Brian Yoshikawa’s fishing and spearfishing emporium in Wailuku: ‘Maui Sporting Goods’. Actually not very sporting I’d say, at least from the fish’s point of view. Racks of beautiful handmade wooden spearguns, an impressive collection of Hawaiian weapons built to slay big fish. Brian has been free-diving since before it had a name, he also supplied me with a free-diving watch that will not only tell me my depth but also my heart rate as I descend. Now I’ll be able to see exactly how those relaxation techniques are working.

Anyway, I explained my ‘spooled’ problems to Brian, who immediately prescribed a gigantic golden Shimano reel the size and weight of a gallon tin of antifoul. Far too heavy for my boat, rod, or arms, I explained. Eventually we settled on a lightweight model (most of the massive metal replaced by graphite) with two gear speeds and a heavy duty drag lever, to control the rate at which the poor doomed beast can attempt to flee.

It has since occurred to me that for the money I gave Brian for the reel, I could have given up fishing, installed a chest freezer on Escapade and eaten fillet steak and fois gras all the way across the Pacific, but where’s the fun in that?

So this thing has been on board for a month now but we’ve been sailing too fast for fishing, today was the first time we tried and the result was this very sensibly sized lunch for two.

31.12.16

Islas San Bernardo

Today’s anchorage sees us just 25 miles further SW off Isla Tintipan in the San Bernardos. The archipelago consists of 10 islands and lots of coral, a few local dive operations and some beach houses owned by wealthy Colombians.

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Classic Colombian Lunch

But almost all the local people (1200) choose to live on top of each other on one tiny islet: Santa Cruz El Islote. It’s packed. The highest population density per square metre in Colombia.

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We went in the dinghy to visit, strolled through the tiny village, friendly people, a couple of ‘general’ stores. I had a conversation with the ice-cream man who spoke very rapid spanish. I thought he was trying to sell me some local children, he showed me several, told me their ages and a price. Seemed very reasonable. In fact I was buying them all an ice cream. Everyone was very happy with the deal. Feliz Ano.

The Great Helados Heist

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01.01.17

Insects

With the exception of Western Australia, Colombia has more flying insects than anywhere I know. In WA they are just flies, millions of them but all the same, whereas here it is a full and varied menagerie.

We are island-hopping close to the coast which is I think is covered with a well-stocked rain forest. I usually have a ‘zero tolerance’ to flies on board and I’m a dab hand with the fly swat, but here I’m just overwhelmed. Such a variety of elaborate insects seem to swarm around the boat. Beautiful dragonflies with unlikely colour combinations, some so big it’s amazing they are airborne. All kinds of beetles, moths the size of bats and butterflies that appear even miles off shore. grasshoppers, crickets and/or locusts all hitch a ride with us. Then there are these whacking great hornet type things with long dangly legs. If one of those comes at you you will shout swear words, and probably run away. Today we were ghosting along escorted by the usual cloud of assorted insects, all of the above and more. I have decided to live and let live, unless something actually tries to bite me.

03.01.17

The Isthmus of Panama

Isthmus. Now there’s a word to conjure with. An unbroken stretch of four consonants between two continents.

(sorry)

Yes we have finally reached Panama. We sailed through the night from Isla Fuerte off Colombia to Puerto Obaldia on the mainland Panama coast. It was one of those balmy evenings on the empty sea. Sailing down the glittery path to the setting moon. Dolphins, shooting stars, coconut water with lime juice and rum. Trying to slow the boat down so we could arrive in daylight. We had hoped to land at Obaldia to clear customs, but there was a big swell running, surf breaking round the anchorage and no way to safely anchor. We sailed on to Puerto Perme and our first Guna settlement.

04.01.17

The Guna Yala

This region of Panama is the territory of the indigenous Guna indian tribes who run it almost as an independent country, the Guna Yala.

The Guna have somehow managed to preserve their lands, language and culture through the course of history.

It is now said to be the most intact tribal system in the Americas and their pristine world contains mountains covered with virgin rainforest where no human has ever been.

Today we were welcomed in to the Guna settlement of Achocucho. This is a remote fishing community which also grows coconuts, bananas, plantains and children.

We wandered down the sandy paths between the traditional Guna huts. Packed dirt floors, woven walls and palm thatch roofs. The women are in tribal dress, elaborate woven garments and sort of beaded leg-warmers from ankle to knee. Some have gold rings through their noses.

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Children running everywhere, excited to see us, peering round a hut, waving, then running off squealing. Many of the women and girls seem to be busy sewing, otherwise people are mainly lounging in hammocks in the shade, chatting, laughing and having a lovely time.

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Girls invite us to look at the ‘Molas’ they are creating, multi-layered applique work that is cut and sewn in tiny detail. This traditional Guna craft forms part of their attire. They want to sell them to us for a few US dollars.

Apart from a few recently installed solar powered lights, and of course a few mobile phones, there is little sign of the modern world. The dugout or ‘ulu’ is the primary personal vessel for fishing and commuting from mainland to islands, almost identical to the ones I was paddling in Haiti. Here they are usually propelled with a hand made paddle, often carrying a whole family and sometimes sailed with a short-masted sprit rig.

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We have seen a few different cultures and lifestyles on this tour of the Caribbean but this is really something else. I’d love to show more of it here but the Guna really don’t like to be photographed, especially the women in their finery, but we found some Guna kids who loved posing for our camera.

The Guna Yala also contains 378 islands, mostly uninhabited, more commonly known as the San Blas Islands. Our next destination.

06.01.17

Uncharted waters

So we have sailed off the edge of one chart system and on to a new one, (on our chart plotter screen) but the new one doesn’t have any detail. The inshore areas are just covered in xxxs, no depths marked, islands reduced to nameless beige blobs, and some of those in the wrong place. We check our back up programs and they are all the same. This part of the eastern San Blas has no detail. Happily we have a brilliant pilot book by Eric Bauhaus which contains his own charts and hundreds of waypoints which we are now completely dependent on. The sea between these islands bristles with reefs, rocks, shoals and shifting sandbanks, do not enter these waters without Eric’s book on your boat. We quite enjoy the old-school pilotage, slaloming between the reefs under sail with Dawn standing on the roof and good light overhead. We haven’t seen another yacht for a week.

07.01.17

Crocodiles

I was sitting at anchor one evening off a Guna village, perusing Eric’s excellent book when I saw this under the heading ‘Natural Dangers’.

And I quote: “Crocodiles and caimans are abundant throughout Panama and particularly in Gatun Lake. Crocodiles in San Blas frequent saltwater marshes and sometimes open water between the islands.”

OK so there could be crocs swimming in the sea where we are anchoring? Eric continues:

“Although they can reach 5 meters (15 feet) most are quite small, in the 1-2 meter (3-6 foot) range.”

Right.

Now we’re not phased by having the odd shark hanging around the boat, (see blog post ‘Bahamian Rhapsody’ last year) and I can still knock out a pretty decent front-crawl sprint pace, particularly with fins, but now I’m wondering, how fast does a 15ft ocean-going crocodile swim? Or even a “quite small” 6ft one!

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Dawn demonstrating Guna sugarcane press

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The sun sets on 2016..

December 29, 2016

City Life

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The extraordinary customs process was still rumbling on but the port capitan gave us permission to sail the boat 50 miles or so round to Cartagena, so we left the brown waves of Puerto Velero and motored out in a calm, back in to the blue.

Cartagena makes quite a spectacular landfall. Arriving by sea, you first see the skyscraper skyline of Boca Grande, the ‘Miami Beach’ of Colombia, then as you close the coast, the old walled city appears in the foreground. About 5 miles out you first hear the music!

The approach winds around the high-rise beach hotels, across the busy shipping lanes, past the Colombian Navy base lined with battleships through the anchorage for sailing boats, and finally to the inner harbour area lined with ancient battlements.

Here it feels a bit like an old Mediterranean port, stately old palms, tree lined parks, the domes and spires of churches in the old town. But you’re still in South America, the noisy smelly water taxis buzz across the harbour, and of course every motor boat in town is fitted with a prodigious sound system. Then look the other way and the view is more like Hong Kong harbour, behind the sailing boats are the soaring new glass towers.

We spent Christmas tied up in the very swanky Club de Pesca, snoozing through the heat of the days and exploring the old city by night.

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Cartagena can sometimes feel a bit over-run with tourists. Cruise ships call here, then the street hawkers step up a gear, selling anything from boxes of fake Cuban cigars to fruit, cigarettes and chewing gum, or little shots of ‘tinto’ (sweet coffee) but mainly panama hats.

I estimate there are 500 blokes trying to sell me a panama hat in this town on any given day. (What will it be like when we get to Panama?) They are drawn to my uncovered hair and will cross streets to explain to me how badly I need one from the hundred or so stacked on their head. One guy stopped me on my morning run at 7am, I was jogging along the old battlements like a mobile puddle of perspiration but he thought that might be just the time for me to do a bit of hat shopping. ‘No gracias’. Another guy fell in to step beside us as we were walking purposely through a plaza, he pointed out my lack of a panama hat and how fortunate I was to have run in to him. (He happened to be wearing a stack of 50 hats). ‘No gracias’ . But he had already sized my head by eye, selected one from his stock and placed it on my moving head, I’m still walking, ‘No gracias’. He explains how powerful the sun is and how handsome I look in the hat, ‘No Gracias’. Now he somehow produces a large mirror from his pocket and, still walking backwards in front of me, shows me how great I look in his hat. A superb mobile retail pitch, I take my hat off to him.

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But there is still lots of real life going on. I’m fascinated by people’s faces here. The indigenous indian tribes, blended over time with Spanish and African arrivals, a new world of faces. This is a great place to watch the world go by. At night we wander the narrow backstreets of Getsemani where it’s always happy hour and music pours out of every building.

In 1741 the British sent an enormous expeditionary force to take Cartagena from the Spanish. 186 ships and 30,000 men! After a long siege and huge losses on both sides, the Brits were seen off by the much smaller Spanish defending forces commanded by the defiant Don Blas de Lezo, or what was left of him. Previous battles had relieved him of his left leg, right eye and right arm. Minor flesh wounds for Don, who is now remembered as a hero of the city. If he had lost that battle, this whole northern end of South America would be English-speaking today, imagine that.

We took a provisioning trip to El Mercado Bazurto which is a huge bazaar selling everything. An overwhelming world of commerce on the poverty line, everyone working very hard in the heat of the day for a few pesos. We loaded up with all the fruit and veg we could carry and retreated.

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We are provisioning for the next leg now, a few weeks in the more remote San Blas islands where there will be no supermarkets. It’s amazing how much stuff we can carry on our 2 folding bikes. An fully loaded supermarket trolley is somehow swallowed by 2 front bags, one rear bag and a backpack. Or if you prefer, 72 cans of beer, 12 bottles of wine and a watermelon. Like I said, a few weeks. Anyway, it is so much easier to ride the groceries a mile back to the boat, with all the weight on the bike, than to walk it. Actually a mile on a Brompton bike is usually a pleasure, with some air moving around you. A mile on foot in these temperatures is a long hot walk, particularly with 72 beers on your back.

We will probably be offline for a bit once we leave here, so signing off for now and a Happy New Year.

December 25, 2016

Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas xx

December 21, 2016

Me Gusta Colombia

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13.12.16

Pablo’s hippos

Eventually we had a signed document from the Port Capitan and were free to leave Santa Marta. The next passage was a quick 60 mile hop across the bay and in to Puerto Velero. Our route would take us past the mouth of the mighty Magdalena River. It flows north through Colombia for 1000 miles, passing mountains, rain forests and flood plains before pouring in to the sea here, discolouring a huge area of water. The pilot books warn of strong currents, floating vegetation, trees and dead animals swept downstream in wet season. Talking of animals, there are caymans in this river and hippos! Four African hippopotamuses were illegally imported many years ago to the riverside hacienda of one Pablo Escobar. They thrived, swam off down the Rio Magdalena and did very well, they are now a successful invasive species. By the time we had covered the 40 miles from Santa Marta to the river mouth, we were double-reefed and steering down 4 metre breaking waves (did I mention that it is WINDY down this end of the Caribbean?) The water colour went from blue to green to brown and smelt muddy, we were going a bit too fast to want to hit a log, or a dead cow. Or a hippo. Dodging rafts of floating weed and foliage, we rounded the corner and sailed the last stretch in to Puerto Velero, with the sea trying to become blue again.

Silt flowing out from the Rio Magdalena

Aduana? Mañana!

Puerto Velero is a quiet bay but I could see some windsurfing potential on the satellite images. We had chosen this place to spend a few days while we dealt with customs formalities, well if we’re hanging around for official documents I may as well do a bit of windsurfing.

Clearing customs is part of life as you move between countries in a sailing boat and the experience can vary widely between countries and cultures.

Sometimes I wonder what we’re all trying to achieve here. The basic premise is that you are a foreign ship entering national waters and each country wants control of it’s borders. Some enlightened states have modernised and simplified the process so that a sailing yacht can enter and leave with a minimum of time wasted by officials or crew. They acknowledge that they are really only going ‘through the motions’ in the same way that you would stroll through a green channel at an airport.

The process has evolved from the days of sailing ships arriving with one cargo and perhaps leaving with another. My favourite clearance document was a beautifully un-modernised piece of maritime bureaucracy from Portsmouth Dominica, worded like something from a Patrick O’Brien novel.

So anyway, the amount of form filling and faffing about can vary, but Colombia really takes the biscuit. Here each visiting yacht (if staying for more than 3 days) has to be officially temporarily imported in to Colombia, the whole process can take weeks!

So far I have signed several dozen forms, been fingerprinted on two separate occasions, had to visit a ‘Notaria’ in Cartagena to authenticate my fingerprinted identity document, photos of the boat, engines and registration plate have been submitted, and we still have no idea how long the rest of the process will take. Happily we are in no rush, and the delights of Colombia are well worth enduring the ludicrous bureaucracy.

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Windsurfing at Gravy Point

Puerto Velero is cartographically interesting in that it doesn’t exist on most charts. The Bay is now enclosed by a new two mile spit of land which has been created by the silty outflow of Rio Magdalena in the last decade. If I look on my plotter, the chart shows we are in open sea! The new finger of land is sandy mud and now encloses a protected anchorage and a little marina.

On the western shore the wind-swell waves break in a mushy mess on the muddy beach. On the lagoon side there is flat water, a few kiters and steady trade wind breeze. But right down at the tip, the new land is curling inwards and transforming the sea state. The big wind swells are refracted round as they approach the sand bar, becoming smooth and glassy now as the wind direction has become cross-off. The current is loaded with silt and weed, the first time I tried to windsurf round the point there was so much floating vegetation my quad fins were just clogging up, un-sailable. Today it was windier and I could slalom through the weed rafts. Perfect brown waves were barrelling down the point. As you sail in on one it becomes smooth as it feels the bar and then walls up and peels all the way to the deep water off the end of the spit. Some of the smoothest, brownest waves I have ever ridden! I’m calling it The Gravy Wave. It was a bit spooky because you can’t see the bottom at all, water is too muddy. Also I was alone, and a good mile downwind from the boat. But what a great set up, new land grooming the never ending wind swell into something rideable. If you’re ok with the brown thing, and the risk of hitting a hippo carcass, you could have quality waves to yourself pretty much every day of the winter, here in the middle of Colombian nowhere.

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16.12.16

Cartagena de Indias

It is Dawn’s birthday so we have decided to leave Escapade for a few days and travel overland to the city of Cartagena to celebrate.

Here we are ashore on the old Spanish Main with a quarter of a million pesos in my pocket! (about $100 US)

Our adventure on public transport included an exhilarating ride on the back of a motorbike and a boring ride in a bus, the high point of which was a roadside snack stop for a deep fried something from the ubiquitous food carts.

Cartagena is amazing. An ancient walled city with architecture surviving from Spanish colonial and early republican days. Some of it is well preserved and some crumbling away, or held together with clouds of bougainvillaea.

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We spent a couple of days exploring, following narrow alleys in to garden squares and bustling plazas. There is an energy here, the streets throng with Cartagenans, tourists, street vendors, backpackers, great bars and restaurants, an art scene, a young crowd in the hip Getsemani quarter and of course there’s music. Loud. Traffic stops for b-boy dance routines in the street, salsa bands with full horn sections play in bars, but also in clothing stores and churches, local kids freestyle rapping on the street, then there’s the ancient Cafe Havana where the band plays and the crowd drinks rum and dances salsa all night as they have for generations.

It was a good birthday party.

Bamboo Saxophone

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The locals are friendly, everywhere I go I am approached by smiling Cartagenan chaps who speak a bit of English and I’m always happy to stop for a chat. Topics vary from the best bar in the neighbourhood to how am I enjoying their city, but within a few minutes I generally find I am being offered an opportunity to acquire the very best drugs in Colombia.

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Merry Christmas!

December 17, 2016

Curaçao to Colombia

02.12.16

So we left Willemstad and sailed up the West coast of Curacao, checking all systems were working ok.

Great to be sailing again, having been away from the boat for a few months we tend to forget just how fast and powerful she is. Escapade was romping along, out in the blue again with the flying fish.

We sailed 10 miles up the west coast and anchored for the night in a quiet bay.

Next day at first light we set sail for Aruba, because it happened to be in our way. A fast 60 miles downwind in 25kt trades, broad reaching down the swells and surfing at 15kts, occasionally 20kts!

Aruba

Finally, the ‘A’ in our ABC islands tour.

Aruba is just not really our cup of tea, but each to their own. If you enjoy the convenience of 24hr casinos and all major US fast food brands within a short waddle from your cruise ship, then Aruba certainly has plenty to recommend it.

We spent a few days waiting for a weather window, and it was fun to catch up with local windsurf champion Sarah Quita Offringa, fresh from her Aloha Classic win. Sarah recommended some cool spots where the locals go so we rented a car and had a quick spin around. Actually we would have liked to see a bit more, but then our weather window suddenly opened and it was time to leave.

Tranquil Aruba anchorage

07.12.16

Punta Gallinas

Aruba sits just 15 miles off the coast of Venezuela, and only about 60 miles from the nearest bit of Colombia, which may explain why clearing in and out of customs there is rather inflexible. We had to bend the rules slightly to be able to depart at 6am.

There are about 300 miles to sail to Santa Marta in Colombia, around Punta Gallinas which is a fair sized cabo protruding northwards into an area of strong trade winds and currents. The pilot books say that this area produces the most dangerous sailing conditions in the Caribbean. Approach with caution! The strong wind and uninterrupted fetch runs into an area of relatively shallow water just west of Aruba, just to add to the fun. Our weather forecast promised 36 hours of 20kt wind, before piping back up to the usual 25-30kts for the next week or more.

We set off with the jib and a reef in the main, the breeze gradually built during the morning and Escapade started to stretch her legs. Average speed was soon into double figures and stayed that way for about 20 hours until the wind deserted us a bit at 2am.

Surfing

An Outremer 51 looks very different from most production catamarans. She has long thin hulls, high bows and high bridge deck. When she starts charging down wave faces at 15 knots you realise why. She is also about half the weight of most cats her size. Escapade has a carbon rotating mast and we try to keep her light.

So we can comfortably sail at 12 or 14 kts on flat water, but when going downwind out at sea, it can get much more interesting, sailing downhill.

She needs a bit of swell, normally 20+ knots of wind on open water generates enough wave height to start surfing. As the waves get bigger we go faster. Once the troughs are long enough for her to slot in to, she can surf for longer.

Most waves will lift our stern as they roll under us, travelling faster than we are. That’s when you get a view of the bows pointing down hill, but like a surfer paddling a board, if your’e not going fast enough at that moment, you can’t catch the wave and it slides beneath you.

On this trip we needed about 10kts boat speed and sails fully powered as the wave arrives on our quarter. If it happens to be steep enough at that moment, the bows point down in to the trough and we start to sail downhill. At this point we usually exchange a glance and then both stop what we’re doing and watch the speed dial. The acceleration is rapid, the speed climbs from 10 to 12, 14kts in a second, the rig starts to hum, 15, 16kts, now there is a vibration through the hulls and spray is firing up through the trampoline on to the windscreen like a firehose. It gets noisy, if we hit a piece of chop at this speed it sounds like a collision with a solid object. If we are still riding the swell, we keep accelerating to18, occasionally 20kts+.

Now the boat is planing and the sound is a loud hum which resonates through the whole boat and rig. As the bows finally connect with the back of the wave in front they throw clouds of fine, atomised spray, the ride is over and we return to sailing speed, but if there is enough residual speed as the next crest passes, she will often link straight in to the next ride and off we go again.

It’s an unusual experience on a cruising boat, feels more like a giant windsurfer. We still have a few heart-stopping moments, especially at night, alone at the helm as she tilts on the crest and then down we go, accelerating in to the dark trough.

08.12.16

Colombia!

The sun rose and soon we could see high green mountains sloping down in to the Caribbean. We sailed around the final punta and in to the town of Santa Marta. Here we had one of those ‘magic carpet’ moments, the boat had transported us from the decidedly North American flavoured Aruba to an authentic South American town. A bit of culture shock as we found our way around the busy narrow streets crowded with stalls and hawkers, the peoples faces, the street food, the chaotic traffic, noise and music.

La Musica!

Colombians are pretty keen on music. From our berth in Santa Marta we can hear it all night long, it pauses briefly around daybreak and then by about 8am it’s turned back up to 11.

If you are passing through here you should seek out a backstreet bar called El Rego. As well as being a very cool little place to eat and drink, it seems to be the hangout for every musician in the area. A continuous and ever evolving jam session with players and instruments coming and going all night and everyone else dancing. There was a lot of talent in that room.

Medicine

Here’s the local Colombian remedy for headaches and sore muscles. Not sure if you’re supposed to snort it, smoke it, eat it or wear it.

December 4, 2016

Boat repairs in exotic places.

November 17

Some famous old salt once said that sailing around the world is just a lot of ‘boat repairs in exotic places’.

This boatyard in Curacao isn’t very exotic, but it seems a reasonable price to pay, a week or so of maintenance at either end of a 6 month winter cruise.

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Mission Critical

I can’t think when I started using this phrase, or where it comes from, (NASA maybe?) but it seems to be useful for keeping Escapade’s running-repairs in perspective. Some examples:

“We must get that light fixed in the sail locker”

“Yes, but it’s not Mission Critical”

“We really ought to fix those gelcoat chips on the deck”

“Yes we will, but they definitely are not Mission Critical”

“Wouldn’t it be nice to fit dimmer switches in the saloon..”

You get the idea. I’m not particularity technically minded and while boat maintenance is all part of the fun for some sailors, I’m inclined to put off anything that means I have to leave my lovely life in a remote anchorage and go in to a sweaty harbour to get stuff fixed.

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So what is Mission Critical? Well the rig needs to keep the mast up, the hulls need to stay watertight, steering is fairly crucial. Engines? Not really, as long as we can hoist a sail (plus catamarans tend to have a spare engine).

I take the view that everything on a boat will fail eventually, and we should have a plan to manage when that happens. We have kept Escapade as simple as possible; no generator, no air-con, less maintenance, fewer things to repair in exotic places. I put my faith in the magic of solar power (no moving parts to maintain!) and amazing machines like our water maker and auto-pilot which are fearsomely complex, beautifully built and almost maintenance free. It would be highly inconvenient if either failed in a some remote spot because I fear I am not qualified to dismantle them. They are both Mission Critical, so I talk nicely to them and fervently hope they will continue to be so wonderful. On a monohull you would of course have the back-up of large fresh water tanks and wind-vane steering, neither of which work on a light, fast multihull.

There have been a couple of technical problems that required immediate attention. Like when a fridge compressor conked out in the Turks. We can happily sail without engines but warm beer? That had me scurrying in to a marina for a repair pretty quick. But apart from that, as long as the anchor holds and the windsurf kit is all serviceable, I tend to put all the little maintenance jobs on ‘the list’ for some later date.

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November 28

That later date seems to be now. Escapade is only two years old but as with every boat, there is always stuff to fix, repairs and maintenance. Most of the damage tends to be pilot error (Here we go again, ‘Mission Critical’, ‘Pilot Error’, what am I? A general in the US military? What next ‘collateral damage’? ‘Shock and Awe’?) Anyway I take full responsibility for the bent stanchion, damaged bowsprit, chain dings in the hulls caused by my anchoring technique, nothing serious but now all fixed. We have just spent two sweaty weeks in the boatyard in Curacao, with a very satisfying number of jobs ticked off the ‘Shit to do list’. I actually quite enjoy these minor problem-solving tasks, once I apply myself, and take great pride in my little DIY victories when I fix something without needing to call in the professionals. A boat seems to teach you a little bit about a lot of things: rigging, plumbing, electrics, splices, anodes, pumps, engines, winches, lashings, lash-ups, fridge compressors, WC solenoids etc!

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But I know my limits, and here in Curacao we have also been able to find the professional help we needed. Thanks Pedro for lovely carpentry on our cockpit table re-build, Gijs for help with the rig, Andreas for gearbox work, Ismael for fixing the outboard, Rocky and the team at Curacao Marine for looking after Escapade all summer.

So we got it all done, all the running rigging back on, winches serviced, new anchor chain and bridle fitted, even patched up some scrapes in our grey vinyl wrap.

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Time Out

Well we need a day off occasionally.

We have discovered some great places to eat in Curacao, provisioned the ship and even found time for a bit of free-diving to cool off after all that boat work. This is another happy holiday island for the Dutch. We are often the only non-Netherlanders in convivial groups in restaurants and bars. Is it me or are the Dutch getting taller? They are such a long-legged lot, at one Dutch bar in Willemstad I had to stand on tip-toes to reach the urinal.

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November 29

SPLASH!

We’re afloat again! I still love that moment when you first feel the boat move under your feet, coming back to life after 5 months ashore.

November 30

Officially the last day of the Northern Hemisphere Hurricane Season. We just hope someone told the hurricanes that. Anyway as far as our insurance company is concerned, it is now safe to go sailing again.

December 1

All ship shape and ready to go. Our plan is a quick shakedown sail to Aruba, then on to Colombia. Just looking for a weather window..

Leaving Willemstad. Will we fit under the bridge?

November 23, 2016

Maui

Here Today, Gone to Maui

It was a glorious summer, but now autumn has arrived in Guernsey, I’m in a thick wetsuit with the first numb hands of winter.

Escapade is waiting for us in a Curacao boatyard, but it’s still hurricane season in the Caribbean. Not quite time to go sailing yet, we could squeeze in a windsurf trip..

15th October

Tradewind

Tradewind was the title of a very early windsurfing film starring Mike Waltze and friends, pioneers of the waves on Maui.

In those days I was sailing longboards on cold gravel pits in the suburbs of London, Tradewinds was a rented VHS tape. It was powerful stuff, the newly evolved short board scene on Maui, wave riding in technicolor.

In an opening sequence of the film Mike Waltze rigs his sail on a lawn under a coconut tree, the camera follows him through a garden gate, across a strip of white sand, he jumps on and sails off to the glorious Hawaiian waves outside his backyard.

Mike Waltze circa 1983

That vision of a ‘windsurfer’s paradise’ stayed with me. My first pilgrimage to Maui was in my twenties, camping in a ridge tent in an upcountry field and sailing a dinged up old custom board from the swap-meet.

Now I’m back, and this time we’re living in the North Shore house with the lawn on the beach. If Mike Waltze didn’t rig in this garden, it must have been one of our neighbours along this strip. A few beach houses looking out to the reefs of Upper Kanaha and Camp One. Thirty odd years since that film flickered out of a tv set and blew my mind. Now here we are, those trade winds are blowing side-shore every day, I smile every time I rig a sail on the lawn!

18th October

Ho’okipa

Difficult, crowded, dangerous. Why would I sail here?

Ho’okipa Beach Park is kind of a big deal in windsurfing. It has always been the elite wave-sailing spot. Training ground for the pro sailors, legendary surf conditions, easily the most photographed wave in the windsurfing world. For the visiting sailor it can be intimidating. It’s a pretty technical place to sail, the launch can be tricky with strong currents and the surf is fast and powerful. There are ‘the rocks’ which lurk just inside where the waves are ridden, a nasty rinse-cycle of white water and currents. Every day sailors emerge from ‘the rocks’ with broken gear, bleeding knees and bruised egos. Oh, and a surfer was bitten by a reef shark here last week.

Robby Naish

Kauli Seadi

Kauli’s rig

Being rescued

Kai Lenny

Then there’s the crowd. The standard of sailing here is ridiculously high. The locals are so dialled in to the conditions and there are regularly 30 or more sailors, all hungry for waves and nothing goes unridden. Would I even get a wave?

My first few sessions were all about the crowd. I am used to sailing alone, or with a few of the Guernsey crew, so the hectic scramble for waves was hard to adjust to. But after a few days at Ho’okipa, I just started to really enjoy it. Yes it’s busy, but there are plenty of great waves and I am sailing with the best windsurfers in the world. I might learn something!

Camille Juban, Antoine Martin & Kauli Seadi

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31st October

The Aloha Classic

This is really why we’re here.

All our friends from the windsurf contests in Baja were going to be in Hawaii for the final event of the American Windsurf Tour: The Aloha Classic.

I was persuaded to compete in the AWT amateurs and Masters divisions again, but I think what they really wanted was Dawn’s organisational skills to help run the event.

This is also the last contest on the PWA pro tour, so the whole wave-sailing world is here to compete.

Dawn’s office

The main attraction for me to enter the contest was that you are likely to sail 20 minute, 4-man heats. Uncrowded Ho’okipa!

My friend Brice arrived from California and we decided to enter the ‘Pro-Trials’ (a chance for amateurs to qualify for the Pro bracket). Neither of us expected to go through the first heat, but we thought it would be a good warm-up.

Brice and I have windsurfed together all over the world and this was his first time on Maui, so it was pretty special when we were drawn to sail against each other in the same heat in the Aloha Classic.

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Brice rose to the occasion, throwing his trademark one-handed aerials and took first place!. The energy continued from the beach all the way to the Halloween party..

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3rd November

Big Thursday

The swell has been building for a couple of days but Ho’okipa looks like a different place this morning.

Yesterday was impressive, the Pro men and women sailed heats all day in firing conditions, but today is huge.

My daughter Jemima just arrived! She has been sailing on various yachts around the Pacific and was able to make a quick diversion from Vanuatu to fly in and spend a few days with us in Maui. Now we are sitting together at Ho’okipa watching the best sailors in the world pushing their limits in giant waves. All the stars are here, every heat list looks like a final, the crowds on the hill are cheering the moves and gasping at the wipeouts like Romans at the amphitheatre. We sit and watch the performance in full wide-screen reality.

To get an idea of the conditions click here an edit of the day’s action by Kevin Pritchard and Joey Sanchez.

4th November

West Side

Yes it’s great to watch the pros but we also want some waves!

Brice had heard of a spot on the west coast, so while the pro event continued at Hookipa, we loaded up the truck and snuck off in the other direction.

The waves we sailed that day were unforgettable, for a couple of reasons.

1. They were about a mile long.

2. We were alone! There were a couple of very stoked kiters out at first, but then we had the place to ourselves.

Brice (actually this is Hookipa)

10th November

Pe’ahi Swim Club

We motored out of Kahului harbour in the dark, the 20′ motorboat rising over the swell. A few miles along the North shore we came close in under the cliffs and saw our first wave breaking at ‘Jaws’. The sun rose and we sat and watched the swell lines roll in from deep water, then rise up into a dark wall, reflect a flash of pink sunrise and then throw a huge pitching lip. The sound of the wave breaking was a deep and powerful “whuump” that you could feel as well as hear.

This was a bit of a bucket-list trip for us. A few friends who wanted to see the wave up close, from the water.

Jemima, Sam and Dawn

Jaws is another Maui wave that has been so well described and photographed that it’s hard not to write in clichés. So here we go: The wave is generated when swells arrive from distant storms in the Aleutians. The swell travels through very deep water approaching Maui and only starts to form a breaking wave as it travels over a deep ledge, so deep that only a huge swell will actually stand up and break.

Sam’s sunrise wave

Our skipper was a veteran tow-surfer and Jaws regular. He was happy to bring his boat right up to the wave. He was also happy for us to jump off the boat and swim around the waves! Sam led the way, leapt off the boat and swam towards a wave breaking a few feet away. Everyone had big grins on their faces, being so close to this power. I really hadn’t expected to be swimming on this trip, which is how I came to be duck-diving under the white water of a set wave at Jaws in my underpants.

JP takes a breath

Soon we were all in the water. We had Pe’ahi to ourselves that morning, beautiful waves and misty cliffs, it was glassy, no-one surfed it, there was not another boat or a single ski. Just 5 idiots swimming, shouting, laughing, taking photos of each other and feeding from the energy of the wave. Mindsurfing.

Sam

Russ

KMac

Smile for the camera..

Same wave, as seen from the boat!

We were only playing on the shoulder, close to the boat, then the skipper called out for us to swim, now. We looked up to see the boat speeding away from an incoming wall that was wrapping wider than the rest, it looked as though we were now in the wrong place. We all swam for the shoulder, all got hit by the white water.

Diving under it you can hear the ocean tingling with the sound of a billion bubbles popping, our bodies getting tugged by the power of the moving water column as it passed. We looked up to see the next wave, even bigger, keep swimming. I think there were 5 in the set. Our skipper reminded us that this was ‘Baby Jaws’, any smaller and it wouldn’t even break. It gets much bigger. But these were still pretty impressive waves, and really not a suitable spot for a morning dip.

15th November

Mahalo Maui

So that was our month in the Maui bubble. I windsurfed almost every day. The contest eventually ran through all divisions, the Pros completing an epic double-elimination which delivered all the drama and action a sports event could hope for. Meanwhile down in the mortals’ divisions, I sailed six heats, got knocked out of the Masters in the second round and made it to the semi-finals in the Amateurs.

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Dawn was busy helping the AWT and PWA with the event and worked full days at the beach, keeping it all running smoothly and making sure everyone showed up for their heats. The Aloha Classic was a huge success sailed in firing conditions. Great job by all those involved and especially the pros who had to compete in those massive waves.

Weeks went by, we reconnected with windsurfers we had met all over the world, had some quality beach time with Brice and family, spent a precious 10 days with the elusive Jemima, we watched the sun set from the volcano crater, we survived Jaws, Halloween, the Aloha Classic and a US Election!

Time to move on.

We have a few jobs to do in that boatyard..

Thanks to all our friends in Maui for looking after us. We’ll be back,

Many thanks also to photographers Si Crowther, Jimmy Hepp, Joey Sanchez, Kevin Pritchard, Fish Bowl Diaries, Dawn and Jemima.

Also thanks to pritchardwindsurfing.com for organising everything.