Phong Nha, Vietnam

Phong Nha


There's a spot near Phong Nha called 'The Pub With Cold Beer'.  The Aussie owner of the guesthouse in the area, a true pioneer of tourism, discovered it a few years back.  To this day only 2% of people who come to visit the caves of the national park here are foreigners and nearly all who spend the night stay with him.  He was riding his bike on a scorching hot day when he came upon the place and was stunned to find a cold beer on the table.  For reasons  unknown, in this part of the world drinks are not refrigerated.  Even if people have fridges, beers are seldom given a space.  So midway through a lazy Sunday kayak trip we stopped in for a few beers and some freshly fire roasted peanuts.

The reason for the owner stocking cold beer is to serve to loggers coming down from the park.  Logging has been illegal here for sometime now, it's a national park and a UNESCO protected area but logging has been going on for generations and today it continues in via cat and mouse game with the unarmed rangers versus the armed loggers.  Most recently the rangers stationed a man in a hammock along a back trail used by the loggers so the next move is up to them.

Many  years ago when famine gripped the area, the brother of the pub's owner was fifteen and went into the forest with a group of loggers in order to make money to feed the family.  While they were chopping up a tree to be transported down to the river a tiger began to stalk them.  For nights on end they went without sleep while the tiger prowled the edge of their camp.  It would appear creeping around the edges of light provided by the fire, silently circling and vanishing.  Finally the tiger, as big as a cow, trotted into their midst turned its' head to the side, clamped down on the torso of a young man and disappeared into the dark neither to ever be seen again.

Burmese kid see an iPhone

So I was gonna take the train from Hsipaw to Mandalay, a train ride that some tourists take for part of the way cause it goes over a bridge that will fall thousands of feet down into a rocky abyss any day now and then they can say that they went over it.  As a result there is a nice tourist coach with padded seats but I was all like fuck those soft seats I'm gonna go full Christopher Columbus mode here and kick it old school with the locals on the hard seats cause I'm hardcore like that.  And forget getting off after the famous bridge and then taking a taxi to Mandalay making the whole thing a simple seven hour affair, I'm seeing this twelve hour journey through to the end.

I get on my car and it's clear I'm the only person with an assigned seat, which the conductor insists I take even though doing so means temporarily displacing a large family. They quickly re-congregated around me and bombarded me with strange fruits and gel like substances made from red peanuts for the next hour.

The family got off and I was stuffed, ready for a little nap action when this kid starts batting the back of my head from the bench behind me. This happens on and off for a few hours with the kid ducking down behind the seat whenever I turn around and smile.  At some point either he gets up the courage or his parents fell asleep, so he comes over and plops down next to me.

Now one thing you should know about the Burmese railways is that it literally cuts through the jungle. I mean why would you cut away the bushes on either side of the track when the train does a fine job of it an you can just sweep it at the end of the line?  So frequently, 75% of the time all the time, branches smack against the open windows and leaves, sticks, the occasional berry and a small bug or two come flying in.  So here this kid is siting between me and the window getting pelted by shit without a care in the world.  His brother comes over and tries to pull him to the backwards facing bench opposite of me which was recently vacated and offers protection from all the debris.  But no way was this kid not gonna sit by the foreigner so he wedges himself behind my arm and shoulder and latches his arms around mine.

That's when I thought it would be a good idea to bust out the phone and really blow his mind.  An hour or so later he got bored of holding on to my arm and went back to sleep with his family, around that time I lost feeling in my butt.  The train stopped, the tourists got off and the conductor came on without explanation and brought me to first class.  The rest of the ride was comfortable.  Comfortably boring. Nobody ever talks about the crazy ride they had sitting up in first other than to say that it was 'Nice'.

Slow Boat to Bagan

You hop on the back of motorbike before any light is in the sky and ride through the streets of Mandalay, the headlight illuminating a pre-dawn market spread out in the middle of the street.  Reaching the dock, you sit down at the ticket table, passport in hand and pay with perfectly crisp American dollars.  On the boat there are plastic chairs for you and the other foreigners while families spread out on the floor around you.    

The sun rises pale over the Irrawaddy and the night chill lingers. To warm up you head to the back to eat.  Rice with a fried egg, thinly shaven crispy garlic and on the side a jar of pickled shallots with a little chili.  The bench is low and too close to the bar to be comfortable. You are the only one not squatting on it.  On the bar is the ever present thermos of green tea and nearby small teacups in a bowl of water.  The sun, food and tea do their parts to warm you and you're ready for the next thirteen hours.

Later you met a couple from New Zealand, Malaysian by birth.  Probably your parents age but still loving to rough it with the backpackers yet they are a far cuter couple than you'll ever see backpacking.  Perfectly comfortable in the moment.  You don't know it then but you'll end up running into them several times in the coming weeks.

You talk on the steps between the decks, avoiding the sun for sometime.  She goes to ask the captain something about the voyage but comes back without an answer.  He was napping with his head on his wife's lap getting his stubble plucked.  A kid very actively steers the boat with his foot while sitting on a  ledge behind the helm.

The three of you go sit up in front of him to watch the river go by and the loading of massive baskets of bananas carried on the shoulders of spindly legged men.  It takes three to hoist the baskets on to one back and then the carrier scampers to the boat up a narrow board, sarong tucked up to the crotch and a long towel draped over his head and shoulders to keep the dirt off.  The only other upfront is a Burmese man  wearing a button up shirt and a navy blue sarong.  He is a spitting image of Robert Mitchum and just a talkative.

The day drifts along and at major stops women and girls come aboard balancing stainless steel trays of fried snacks, quail eggs, corn and watermelon.  One carries chicken and you are tempted to get some until you observe an old lady meticulously handle every piece before buying none.   You go back up top to grab something to drink, leaving your bag unattended on the bow.  No one steals in Burma, the government doesn't like competition a comedian told you the night before. To avoid another prison term he can only perform in English.

Sitting on the bench is an American girl.  You can't remember the last time you talked to an American.  She is playing with the little girl whose parents do the food and drinks.  She has given her a quail egg and the child  is trying to tear the shell off.  The child refuses help and eventually throws it hard into a basket.  She'll be a handful some day, the girl says.

While this unfolds the boat has stopped and is off loading a surprising amount of cargo and people onto a two story tall river bank in the middle of nowhere.  Carts drawn by horses are loaded down with drab colored sacks of goods. On top of one is perched a bright orange  inflated animal. Probably a goat.  Little kids sit and bounce around on these. The girl laughs and tells you of how she once saw a little kid bouncing insistently on one and when he stopped and got off, his grandmother stood up and gave it a proper kick in the opposite direction.

Later the two of you sit up front, the bag hasn't moved an inch and neither has Robert Mitchum.  A coconut with an orchid growing out of it hangs from the second story on one side of the bow.  The steering boy deftly guides the boat with his foot, taking advice from the captain and flashing a smile of betel nut stained red teeth.  You have a conversation that has nothing to do with traveling and it feels good.  The crew drinks from a clay pot hung near the side and women fill bottles of water from it.  The girl comments that she is thirsty and is tempted to fill hers.

The rest of the boat is sweltering beneath its tin roof but the bow remains cool on the bottom.  More stops are made and the New Zealand couple discreetly takes a few pictures with the maturity of those who have seen enough respect less tourists to know how it should be done.

Something floats by off to the port side, you think it's a log.  Is that a pig she asks?  It is indeed the bloated carcass of a young pig. Must have fallen off of the crumbling banks.  Soon a man goes for water and finds it lacking.  He sticks his hand in, swirls it around and then dumps the contents over the side.  Producing a bucket tethered with rope he drops it into the silty brown water and refills the clay pot.  Turning to her you ask - still want that drink?

Inle Lake, Myanmar

To get off the beaten path in Inle, Barbara, Heather and I rented bikes and headed east.  The roads are good, |(until they aren't good and then they're violent, but I'll get to that soon) unmarked and save for the occasional truck or motorbike, populated by young kids enjoying the end of the Buddhist Lent.  We raced with them and traded shouts of  HELLO  and sometimes GOODBYE when one of us pulled away.  Around one turn, three boys stood in the middle of the road and waved, after Barbara and Heather road past they kept their hands still in the air so I high-fived the three.  Pretty sure it's a global gesture.

After a bit we turned off the main way and headed up a rocky, rutted road to a monastery that over looks the lake.  This was still a fairly well travelled tourist path and we met some middle aged ladies from the northeast huffing and puffing their way down.  The ideal time to climb up this hill would be in the morning but Barb and I had been up before the sun the previous two days and not even the four AM chanting monks and singing nuns were gonna get either of us out of bed.  Our Irish friend Erica calls it morning karaoke and I can not think of a more fitting description.

Ditching the bikes about halfway up at a mom and pop shop, we continued on foot through a monastery too a gold clad pagoda with a loud speaker perched on it's side and one monk inside chanting while another slept.  We napped, staring up at the gold pagoda silhouetted against the bright blue sky with clouds mingling overhead and the monk lulling us to sleep.

Eventually we made our way down and continued south along the eastern side of the lake. The day before we had tried some great cigars that are only made here and Barb was determined to get some and I was down for the adventure.  After a bit, the good, paved road ended and the violent one took over.  Hard packed earth with sharp rocks sticking out for several inches.  There were narrow motorbike paths from time to time on either side but they proved hard to navigate.  The handle bars on the bike were very narrow, amplifying every movement.  Heather wisely turned back but the two stubborn people pressed on.  I was not about to give up and the cigars really are very good.  About the size of a cigarette, rolled with tobacco and aniseed, very sweet to the tongue and mild on the throat.

So the smart one turned back and we two idiots pressed on.  Seemingly none of the road was flat.  Leg burning climbs and bone jarring down hills that turned one into a human jack hammer pounding away at ungiving stones.  Finally, after a hill that nearly threw me from the bike, I hit a rock at the wrong angel and my tire popped.  Completely deflated, inner tube blown.  In most of this part of the world it would not have been a huge deal.  Motorbike shops would be frequent and the fix would cost next to nothing.  But this is Inle lake, a place where life is lived on the water.  Houses are built on stilts and the main transportation is via boat. Canals are carved out of the weeds between towns and navigated by people who can perfectly balance on the bow with one foot, while the other leg is wrapped around a paddle propelling the skiff forwards.   Naked kids jump off front porches into the shallow waters too cool off and the shore town people rarely leave the area except to deliver sugarcane to market.

The first village we came across could offer nothing but fingers pointing on to the next, so Barb rode ahead while I haphazardly dragged the bike onwards.  By the time I reached the next village a small crowd had gathered and Barbara was doing her best to mime the recent turn of events.  A pump was brought out and an attempt was made to re-inflate the tire but air just blew out of the busted rubber.  Now we were at an impasse.  Using hand gestures and a few words gleaned from the back of the lonely planet we tried to communicate that maybe someone with a motorbike could drive me back while I held on to the bicycle along side it.  I had my doubts about this plan as I wasn't sure how I would manage to hold on to the motorcycle myself over that terrain.

Sometime later, two heavily bearded men came along on a bike and the driver spoke enough English to explain that the town we were looking for was about a a thirty minute walk away.  We were about to head off  when the villagers erupted into to conversation led by  a loud, large woman who believed that we should take a different route, go directly to the lake and then take a boat from there.  This route would only take fifteen minuets and so with day light disappearing, we choose this way and headed off the main road down a narrow, sometimes muddy track with the occasional rut that could have swallowed a large dog.

Passing between fields of sugar cane that stretched over our heads we rounded one corner to come face to face  with two pairs of huge water buffalo pulling carts.  Gargantuan would be a better word for them.  Most that you see are rather thin and the size of your average cow.  These beasts each had the build of two Clydesdale's strapped together and pulled carts with the floor space of  Hummers.  They stared at us idly as we scooted around them.  At the village we found the men in the middle of a card game and they did not seem to want to be bothered so they  brought out a young girl who spoke a little English.  She was advising us to go back the way we had come when a man from the previous village showed up along with the loud lady and their child.  They had a boat not far from here and were going to take us onwards.

We made our way down to the boat, clambered in with the bikes and a reed mat was laid on the floor.  The engine wasn't working and so with the wife working the paddle on the bow and the husband with a bamboo pole on the stern  we set off down the waterway lined with bushes.  I reckon the boat was about three feet wide and thirty feet long and steering was haphazard.  Several times we passed and were passed by small, single handed fishing boats that were making their way home for the evening.  The nearly full moon  rose behind us and the sunset was fading into the waterway.  Barb tucked an orchid behind her ear and I commented that this was like the Louis Vuitton print add with Angelina Jolie floating down the river in Laos.

By night the boat had entered the lanes of the village.  Music blasted from several houses and the young boy, standing near the bow against the night sang on full heartily.  Once at the house we were ushered into a large room where a pot of tea was waiting and bundles of cigars rested against one wall.  Off to one side a grandmother nursed a cigar  and a cat lurked.   Tea was poured and it became apparent that these were not the cigars we were looking for.  They asked us to wait and so we did.  In time a young girl showed up.  She was in high school and spoke good English so our situation was made clear and plans were made to take us to the cigar shop and then across the lake back to our guesthouse.

Then we sat and waited for a very long time.  The young boy rough housed with the cat, snacks were brought out and the grandmother took puffs of her cigar.  At first the story was that they had gone to get diesel but then there was the sound of wood being sawed and the lady started bellowing at someone across the lake.  we asked the girl what she was saying.  She was yelling at her husband to hurry up, it's getting late and he can't be out all night.  After twenty minuets of an engine starting and then failing to catch it roared to life and we were off.

We swung by the cigar shop which was reopened for us and were rewarded with handfuls of free cigars in addition to the ones we purchased.  Mission accomplished we set out across the lake, navigating by the light of the moon which was now high in the sky with the lights of the distant stilt towns on our horizons.  Giving wide berths to the solitary fishermen that we came across, in an hour we were back in the canal for the main town and pulling into a rickety, four plank wood dock.

Thursday Night, Rajadamnern Stadium, Bangkok

Dub's wanted a story and this is it:

One of the coolest things I've done so far was going to see the big Muai Thai boxing night in Bangkok on Thursday.   It turns out that Thursday night boxing at the Rajadamnern Stadium is roughly the equivalent of Monday  Night Football.  It's the biggest pro fight of the week with a full ticket leading up to it, which this week included to past champions one forty years old and one fifty but not looking a day over thirty.  I ended up ringside sitting next to a guy acting as a tour guide for some trainers from out of town and he was able to explain to me most of what was going on.  The stadium is broken up into three sections - ringside, lower and upper levels.  There's no sitting on the lower or upper levels, its just concrete steps with a floor to ceiling chain link fence separating the two.  The third level is dark and there was a section clearing brawl around the time of the second fight. That's about all I can tell you about it.  In the lower section there is mad betting for the first three to four out of five rounds.  It is coordinated through stock exchange like hand gestures, with an out stretched thumb meaning the guy with the red shorts and a pinky finger indicating blue with the rest of fingers denoting the odds.  These guys are good - they memorize all their bets and money is paid out before the judges have given the official result.

The matches themselves are highly ritualized  and start off with some kneeling and praying and dancing and doing things such as facing the crowd, standing on one leg and flapping your arms like a bird - actually if you've ever done the gargoyle on a keg its a lot like that.  The first couple rounds are for feeling each other out and then the fourth round is when most of the bets are made and the match is decided.  If there is a clear winner, the fifth round is largely half-assed or someone may spend the start going for a knockout and then just kill time for a few minutes at the end.  In Muai Thai you can only score points with your legs but can use fists and elbows to go for a knockout, knockdown, ect.  At times it reminds me of cage fighting, but it's not just two human beings unceremoniously destroying each other.

When each round starts, so does the music.  A rhythmic upbeat, higher pitched temply music that picks up pace intensely as the round goes on.  So in the beginning the fighters are slowly bobbing their gloves up and down in time with it and by the end its at a furious pace and so is the action which is further complimented by a special shout going up from the crowd with every point scored. (the best phonetic spelling for it that I can find is 'ohaaay') In the highly contested and highly wagered rounds of the best matches it's a chant that builds along with the music and the sweat flying off the contestants into a feverish tension that peaks and explodes uproariously with the sounding bell.  By far one of the coolest sporting events I've ever seen.

Tale of Two Hostels

The hostel booking website I use listed two hostels for the town of Wanganui.  One was affiliated with a large hostle association and with respectable ratings and an unremarkable description.  For the hell of it I chose the other.  The unreviewed, unrated hostel whose pictures showed an old Edwardian house (their term, not mine - it's big and old.) on the banks of the river.  You meet all types in these strange hostels.  The German couple on vacation in the New Zealand winter in this shit of a town, who some how today ended up in charge of the front desk.   The Canadian kid on a working holiday who drove down from the ski place he was employed at for a second job in town (Not much snow and they'd over hired for his spot).  The rugby player who didn't feel like driving home.  The journeyman worker, arms covered in tattoos and with a vicious goatee who bitches endlessly about the state of New Zealand TV then settles down happily upon finding a British travel/cooking show.  The retired pensioner who says that he just wanted to stop and spend some time in his home town.  No family here though, no friends to stay with, nothing really to do. Really just nothing including a reason to stop talking to anyone he comes in contact with. Well informed on seemingly all issues, able to relate to people from all walks of life.  Occasionally by dropping the title of a brother or aunt when appropriate, but never mentioning a wife or a kid. Seemingly happy and obviously alone, talkative and with everything to say. Lacking only an audience.   A nightmare of how life can turn out, sleeping ten feet away.

Not that all hostels leave you with that downtrodden feeling.  Maybe it was the crappy weather, although my Seattle roots if anything have made me immune to it, or maybe it was the warning in the guide book I borrowed the night before that made Wanganui so depressing.  'While it has a reputation for gangs and crime, the visitor has nothing to worry about as long as they turn a blind eye to what may be a drug deal on the corner.'  I saw no such things but while walking the path along the river to the sea and then back again through a more inland root I saw nothing up lifting.  Big, loud dogs, factories for processing lamb and making cat food, every lawn unkempt and every store looking for its better days.  The seaside town of Napier was a very different story.  After having been a very decadent place in it's heyday and then suffering a disastrous earthquake in the 30's, it immediately rebuilt its entire art deco city center. The result is very neat.  Whereas other throw back towns seem artificial and manufactured, this one is real.  The paint is a little peeling and a little faded on the odd building because, well they've been there for eighty years.  The posters in the hostel for past art deco festivals proclaim it as the 'not to serious art deco festival'.  And so it is because nothing is forced.  Beneath facades of that past are all the modern shops you expect to see in any town center and the teenagers on the weekend are no more reverent then they need be and neither is the ben harper/jack johnson cover band playing the corner cafe on Saturday.

This hostel had it's own crew of characters of equally fitting nature.  The slightly built geology student from Austin whose brain I was able to pick on the geological aspects of new zealand geography (as he explained it, the tectonic plates are sliding both under and across each other. Although he confessed that as he is only entering his sophomore year this fall, he has no idea why exactly that motion creates so much activity.) and later swap book preferences.  The Italian from Milan who spoke the brokenest of English and talked of doing some trekking down south.  The Korean couple studying English in their spare time and in practicing, discussing john Lennon, Yoko and the Beatles. The intonations of these exchanges between this familiar couple in the foreign language were great.  Wonder, awe, questioning and consensus conveyed in a textbook manner but sounding as strangers conversing while their body language told the truer.  This hostel too had it's older occupier.  The woman had returned from teaching English in Madrid for a wedding of her son to be held in several weeks.  In previous lives she had raised a family in Napier as well as been a teacher and ran this particular establishment at one time or another.  She confessed that it was a cheap place to stay and far more peaceful than her families dwellings.  Quick to converse and adept at recognizing when a conversation had run it's course, she would sit every afternoon with a cup of tea and packet of biscuits - holding court for whomever wandered her way.

New Zealand

Somethings are best left to a little time and reflection before really putting in writing fully, and my second experience crossing the pacific is one such event.  I wrote about a quarter of what I wanted  to before the captain and I parted ways, the parting in itself something that will take a while to digest, and rereading what I had wrote made even that seem foreign.

So here I find myself in the middle of August, in the middle of winter, in New Zealand.  A beautiful land, full of nice people but with prices that make you wonder why they don't just charge you twenty a day to breath their rarefied atmosphere and than make everything a reasonable amount.  It is nice here though.  For the third time in my life I find myself emerging from an extended stay in the tropics into a temperate climate with cool air and welcoming hot water and it doesn't get old.  I spent my first day in Auckland walking around in shorts and flip flops, ecstatic to feel the chill in the air and a light, comforting mist.

As a city Auckland seemed only to be that - a city.  Rather undistinguished, it's architectural mainstay from what I understand is this spire like building which has much in common with it's Berlin cousin and both reflect their cities as much as the space needle does Seattle.  Overall it is quite unremarkable and while the people are as nice as advertised, there wasn't much character to the place.  One interesting characteristic of the city, and more or less of new zealand is the abundance of sushi places.  In Auckland they were as frequent as sandwich shops and burger joints in the U.S., mostly serving pre-made boxes but also a fair number of fresh joints.  I've been nursing an intestinal bug from French Poly have held off so far testing the waters of pre-made sushi.

There was just a commercial on for making spag bog with baked beans.  soften chopped onion, brown mince, add 'Watties' tomato sauce and then stir in 'Watties' baked beans "For that famous flavor." And that's pretty much all you need to know about New Zealand cuisine.  Also there's a lot of lamb.

The First Leg

The Galapagos
Wreck Bay, San Cristobal Island
July 2-3, 2012

Got into Wreck Bay on the second for a little diesel and some food.  As much as I would love to stick around and dive, the cost would be about a thousand dollars each after paying all the fees and the various agents and the guides so sadly it's not going to happen.  The islands themselves are pretty barren and desolate looking.  Rocky with low scrub-brush and very irregular topography.

The town itself is simple, yet larger than we thought it would be.  I stopped a man getting on a motorcycle outside a laundry mat and was able to get directions to the supermarket and the fruit/veggie market place.  Both what I'd come to expect from traveling around central america, but things didn't seem quite so crowded and packed together as they often are in that part of the world.

All over the bay are seals lounging in the sun.  On deserted boats, the benches along the docks, dingys tied behind boats and really anywhere flat.  Around nine last night we heard some huffing and puffing around the back of the boat and one big fat guy had plopped himself on our stern.  I snapped a picture and apparently he didn't like the flash for he let out a cry somewhere between that of a dog and a goat as he lumbered in a humping motion off the boat.  They are the local equivalent of squirrels.  As best I can tell, not bothered by humans and very content to lay all over the places all afternoon like heaping masses of fat and bone and fur.  Really they are quite unattractive and awkward looking on land, moaning and burping and shitting all over the place.

In the evening on our neighbors with a nearly identical boat to ours came over for a chat.  He was thirtyish aussie with a wicked accent that Andrew later could best describe as redneck and hickish.  He'd gone to the British Virgin Islands 11 months ago with the intention do the same thing, buy a boat there and then sail it back home over the course of a few months and sell it when he arrived.  But that was 11 months ago and he now has little desire to get home much less sell the boat. He picked up a few backpackers last month and so far their only plans were to stay here for a month or so and then head on to the Marquesas's.  He figures the soonest he'll get home is a year and a half from now.




The End of June

The wind is finally with us an the days have begun to blend together as they tend to do out here.  The boat is in a constant state of heeling and so life is being lived on a slant for the time being.  I want to say about 15 degrees to Starboard, but it varies from time to time as the wind changes and the sails are adjusted accordingly.   One of the first things you learn out here is that one hand belongs to the boat.  Two feet are not enough to stabilize you and so one hand must also be devoted to the task.  This is annoyingly true at this angle.   Two feet, one hand and as many fingers as can be spared from the other plus the occasional shoulder must work together to sustain any movement around the boat.

After leaving Malpelo we went through several days of intense rain storms and were able to fill our water tanks completely, which is a nice change from the last crossing when we were constantly worried about having enough water.  The downside is that we have to worry about a front sneaking up on us in the night.  I was only able to avoid a gnarly one the other night by turning the boat 15 degrees north, bringing us fully broadside to the wind  which heeled us over to a dangerous angle and sent us shooting off above it, taking the full force that the wind had to offer.  We were pumping over waves and and generally causing a ruckus before turning back into the wind, leveling out the boat a bit a watching the front skirt by just south of us.

Other notable events include the catching of fat tuna that yielded two heaping meals of the best sushi I've ever tasted.  You could cut straight through it with a fork in one motion and the flavor was of course perfect.  Unfortunately, the end of June also came with the loss of two lures to a sail fish and a marlin.  Both could be seen surging out of the water before easily snapping our lines.  Finally, last night I had the pleasure of sharing part of the night watch with a pod of dolphins who were racing and dancing across our bow.  At first I thought I was seeing things but after a few minutes it was clear that a pod had come to say hello and mess around with the front of the boat that was occasionally crashing down off the waves with tremendous force.




Day 5
6/27/12
Malpelo Island, Columbia

Woke up bobbing off shore of Malpelo Island.  It's a huge rock that rises 800 feet out of the water and has this one type of bird sitting on every flat surface.  I wanna say that they're frigates but I really don't know shit about birds.  They have roughly the same color scheme as a seagull but the body is long, thin and angular.  The wings are also longer and thinner.  I'd reckon that in a fight to the death one of these things would quickly dispatch any seagull.

We turned into where the map indicated there was a cove and found a mooring buoy but elected to make a loop of the island to see what else was around.  Tied to another buoy in the next cove was a live aboard dive ship getting ready to send out people and further along we found an isolated research station on a piece of flat land about half way up.  There was an elevated metal walk way with ropes hanging down to pull supplies off of a boat, however we could make out no way for the supplies to get to the outpost several hundred feet higher.  Around the top of the island we motored past a group of darkly colored dolphins of the same variety that we had seen earlier and these ones were equally unsociable.  Andrew remarked that having the dolphins here was a good thing as they don't mix well with sharks.

Returning to the first cove, we tied up to the buoy.  Four hard plastic balls about the size of soccer balls attached to a to an absolutely massive rope that descended into perfectly blue water.  We jumped in expecting it to be cold, but it was nice so we dawned snorkeling gear and struck out towards the cliff and the waves slapping against it.  At first it was nothing but pure, deep blue and then all of a sudden the rock wall and hundreds of fish came into view.  We moved along effortlessly carried by the current, about ten meters out from the wall and the foam.  Out front, partially obscured by the schools of fish I spotted a hammerhead sitting about 50 feet down near where the rock of the island met the sandy bottom.  I turned to show Andrew and found him fixated at something below us.  Half a dozen several meter long hammerheads were gliding through the water not 30 feet below us.  Shadowy grey, outlined against the deep blue water of the bay. they paid no attention to the wall teaming with fish and slid out of view shortly after.  Later, not ten feet from me, the gawping mouth of an eagle spotted sting ray emerged from the foam of the surf and I moved away as calmly as I could while it's spotted undulating body and needle-ish stinger moved past.  Andrew spotted the ugly head of a Moray eel come out of the rocks and down the rock wall but all we talked about back on the boat was school of hammerheads that had frozen us on our tracks earlier.

The decision making process for going to Malpelo, which took place shortly after leaving Panama City is a good example of why the trip is going good so far and why we're getting along so well:

So Spencer, there's an island on the map here that's more or less on the way to the Galapagos and I reckon it might be  worth a look.

Oh yea?

The GPS says it's a bird sanctuary and there's a spot to anchor. So I don't know, you ever heard anything about it?

No, you?

Nope.

Yea, I've never heard of anyone stopping there but why not? Let's do it.

Good enough for me.

...And that's how we ended up snorkeling with hammerheads.




Day 4
6/26/12

Sailed a bit in the morning, tacked around an overturned table and caught an unknown fish which we threw back.  After about 9:30 , things were about as calm as I'd ever seen it and we motored along lazily.  It was an incredibly boring day and at 5 we decided that a real happy hour was in order.  No shitty Pamamanian beer - strong rum and cokes. After the first one we caught a great blue fin tuna and the whole day seemed a bit better.  We each had a heap of raw tuna and some salad for dinner and it was fantastic.

Late in the night we came on to our destination, the island bird reserve of Malpelo, technically part of Columbia.  I had been told by various people that some of the maps used by the GPS were still using data from the 1880's and thought it was bullshit until Malpelo ended being off by 2 kilometers.  In the day light not a big deal, but a bit nerve racking when it's pitch black at 2 am.  We drifted off shore until morning, unable to make out the inlet indicated by the charts.

Day 3

6/25/12

Boredom.

Motored all day more or less.  Andrew says that in the morning a blackhawk helicopter came and checked us out.  Happened as we were leaving Panamanian waters.

Thought we had caught a blue fin tuna, turned out to be shitty tasting blood red flesh.  When we looked closely the back had stripes.  We tossed him back in.  Around 4ish a group of Dolphins came jumping over to us and then dove under the bow not to be seen again.  They looked like the fins we saw chasing fish on the surface the day before.

Night watch.  Lighting storms all around, one black cloud sat off the port side flirting with us all night - occasionally spitting rain.  Around 1, while standing at the helm I was hit in the back of  by a flying fish.  The bench that wraps around the cockpit is open behind the wheel so you can pop it open and access the stern.  Probably attracted by the running light he sailed right through it and into me.  Six inches of flopping, flapping slime bouncing all over.  I pulled out the bucket with the fish filleting board, opened the bench and flipped him out.  Glancing down I noticed a three inch squid, attracted by the light had attempted the same and landed in the drainage grove.  Scooted him out as well and swilled the cockpit.

Day 2

6/24/12

Writing is hard on the first day, still getting use to the rocking and rolling so writing this on day 3.

Snorkeled around the bay early in the morning saw tons of fish, a sting ray.

Set sail and the inverter promptly broke.  Andrew is an engineer dealing with this kinda stuff so he took it apart but was unable to figure out what is wrong with it.  Currently trying to communicate to someone who can get us a new one in either the Galapagos or Marquesas.

Brief rain shower in the later morning and we nearly caught a wahoo.  Got him right up to the boat before he spit the lure out but not before taking a good chunk of it.  At around 1:30 we pulled in a nice Mahi-Mahi.  Dinner for that night and the next.

Manta Rays jumping all over the place, all day.

After getting the fish the winds picked up enough for us to put the sail up.  No sooner had we then we got caught in a triangle of three storms and all hell broke loose on a small scale for an hour or so.  Waves not terrible but we got a gust of 43 knots, max for sailing in this vessel is about 25.  Rain stinging everything, wind howling and no time to cover up. Things got intense for a bit, kept us on our toes in what would have otherwise been a dreadfully boring afternoon.

Later in the afternoon got some good wind and were able to power down the motor to practically idle.  Ate part of the Mahi-Mahi for dinner and it was awesome.  Took my first night watch of this trip and it was fun learning how to use all the controls to keep the boat with the wind as there was only just enough to keep us going at sometimes.  Around 10:30 had to wake Andrew as the radar was showing a tanker about thirty mins off on a course headed for us. "I didn't want to wake you but I wasn't sure what the protocol is for being run down by a tanker." Ended up passing with half a mile to spare.  An hour later the wind died down and we took in the sails and motored through the rest of the night and into the next day.

Day 1

6/23/12

19:50

8'16.239N  79'4.18W

Left Panama City today after the expected amount of shenanigans and miscommunication at the fuel dock.  We were able to motor sail for most of the way here after getting past the large ships waiting to transit the canal and tried to fish for most of the day.  The new lure was snapped off and another took a bite to the wire between the lure and line but we were unable to catch anything.  At one point a pair of Pelicans flew past and one hit the line but not badly.  He looked confused and landed briefly before taking off again. The most interesting thing was a blunt nosed fish, several hundred yards away and very large that launched itself out of the water in a parallel fashion multiple time in a row before disappearing.  We reckon he was a couple of meters in length and were unable to identify the type.  For all we know it could have been a flying/swimming 2x4.   The other excitement for the day was sailing through a small debris field containing several logs/trees capable of doing some serious harm.  We changed direction twice and it served as a nice way to stay awake in the afternoon lull.

About an hour before sunset we pulled into a great cove in the Perlas Islands. There is a small farm, mostly hidden off to one end with goats grazing on the hill side.  In the middle a small waterfall and more towards the left end a blow hole.  It's about as idyllic as it get.  After setting the anchor we jumped in and dove the anchor.  Andrew was able to find the anchor and it set well enough for the time being.

Crossing the Big Blue: A Young Man's Quest to Escape Boredom by Sailing the Same Ocean for Thirty Days

Today in a chart shop we came across a series of books written by the same author, about the same guy, and all had some of the best subtitles I've ever read:

The Emperor's Coloured Coat: In Which Otto Prohaska, Hero of the Habsburg Empire, Has an Interesting Time While Not Quite Managing to Avert the First World War

The Two-Headed Eagle: In Which Otto Prohaska Takes a Break as the Habsburg Empire's Leading U-boat Ace and Does Something Even More Thanklessly Dangerous

 Tomorrow the World: In which Cadet Otto Prohaska Carries the Habsburg Empire's Civilizing Mission to the Entirely Unreceptive Peoples of Africa and Oceania

...And on that note it's on to the Marquesas.

. . .

Off Again, Finally

Last Friday, I received an email from the boat I'd been speaking with for the last several months saying that that the trip had been cancelled due to technical difficulties.  Luckily they ran into a guy who had suddenly found himself in need of crew to sail to Australia.  So shit sorted itself out and the trip is a go, albeit in shortened form.  Looks as though we will be skipping French Poly and arrive down under by August/September.

We head out through the canal on June 20th, 2012 and plan to sail for the Cook Islands shortly after.  Once there is something more interesting to write than an uncensored rant about Panamanian customs and immigration it will be posted below.

The official blog, kept by Andrew can be found at http://www.getjealous.com/bakappoi

(It has pictures!)