September 2000

Hello everyone,

Only fools never change their minds ! A few weeks ago, I was sailing towards Polynesia, the Marquesas or the Gambier archipelago, and the crossing looked perfect : the trade winds had welcomed me the moment I had left the small harbor of Villamil, on Isabela island, in the Galapagos, and looked like it was going to push me softly, all the way to Polynesia; but a succession of small technical gremlins, plus a few small health problems, nothing important , but threatening to spoil the great pleasure I expected to derive from this crossing, convinced me to sail back to the Galapagos.

I extended my stay there, and as I found out I could not fix there my technical problems, I simply elected to sail back to Panama, and to spend a few more months visiting this country I had left too soon : in fact it deserves a longer stay, in the small islands of its pacific shore, Perlas, Parida, on the rivers on this same shore, or in that paradise on earth known as the San Blas archipelago : locals call it "Kuna Yala", and I have elected to go back there for several months, as my stay in these islands at the beginning of the year had seemed ridiculously short to me.
And that's why I send you this letter from the pleasant anchorage of Pedro Miguel Boat Club, nested on the shore of the Panama Canal, upstream from Miraflores Locks, just a few yards away from the path of freighters that continuously climb up the locks to reach Gatun Lake, before going down again to the Caribbean sea or to the Pacific.

To transit the locks, the Canal authority demands that you have 5 persons on board to handle the mooring lines; usually, crew from other yachts waiting for their turn to transit come and give a hand to those who sail with a limited crew or, as I do, those who singlehand their boat?

this time, I've had the pleasant surprise to see six young girls, almost all of them blond and all of them pretty and smiling, most of them backpackers crisscrossing central America, and wishing to experiment transiting the Canal; for a few hours, I had a powerful European crew, that attracted the attention of all the personnel of the Canal at the locks. The pilot provided by the Canal, a Panamanian of Jamaican origin, was left breathless, and swore he had never seen such a good looking crew !

The charming backpackers have taken to their wandering again; I have gathered my strength for the planned repairs and maintenance? who was it who said that caring for a boat is like taking care of two houses, two cars and two women ? By the way, do not forget to give me news of yourself, leaving a message, telling us about your travels -or travel plans- or asking for advice you might need, on the Forum on this web site.


Bye for now