March 2002

Hello everyone,

I don't know if it's been the result of clever tactics, or just sheer luck, but Panama's rainy season has ended just the morning after I went back on board Banana Split, after spending too many weeks away from her, working hard in the big town ; two days later, the trade winds have picked up for a couple of months : blue skies, constant cooling wind, safe and peaceful anchorages ; it's the season cruising sailors choose to visit the San Blas archipelago before they cross the Panama Canal (which I'm planning to do at the end of February), or before they sail north towards Providencia, Belize and Honduras.

Banana Split had quietly waited for me , but you know how boats are, leave them alone for a few weeks or a few months, and you'll find quite a few breakdowns to be taken care of : on board a boat as in a human body, everything keeps in much better shape if you use it a little every day ; so I have lots of tasks ahead : winches, windlass, electric circuit, batteries, pumps, alternators, all those little thinks that are so simple, so effective. when they work !

It doesn't prevent me from enjoying the peacefulness of my favorite anchoring spots, and a few meetings with the gentle Kuna Indians, that sail by on their stunning sailing dugouts ; very few have outboards, now ; my knowledge of the Kuna language must still be a little lacking, for the other day, I've met three women I know, from the very traditional village of Maquina, on a small deserted island on the offshore coral reef; they've asked me whether I could give them a funnel (obtained by cutting in two a clear plastic bottle) ; They seemed to say they needed it badly to transfer some gasoline into their outboard motor; so I went back to my boat to fetch a bottle, I cut it in two under their eyes, but when I started giving them the upper part to use as a funnel, they made big gestures, showing they wanted the lower part of the bottle.
and they opened a plastic jerry can, poured into my half bottle some chicha, the local ritual alcoholic drink obtained by fermenting pressed sugarcane. and they drunk big mouthfuls of it to my health before sailing back towards their village, leaving a slightly zigzagging wake.
There must be in all about thirty or forty cruising sailboats these days in the archipelago, and as there are dozens of good anchoring spots, you often end up, as I like to, alone in an anchorage, or in the company of one other boat whose company you've come to appreciate. Yesterday, with Michel, from Tintamarre, an aluminium centreboarder, we have resolved a few of the recharging problems that have puzzled me for a long time on board Banana Split; then his wife Françoise has treated us to a wonderful paella full of King crab, and we have spend a good part of the evening browsing through their extraordinary log book, full of photographs and maps, living again with them their 14 years of cruising, through all of Europe across seas, rivers and canals, from Turkey to Norway or Portugal ; then on to Greenland, Quebec, the eastern board of the USA, the whole of the Caribbean arc. In a few weeks, Tintamarre will set sail and head north towards Honduras.

That's all for today, I wish to thank all those among you who leave messages for me on our website www.antoineweb.com; pardon me if I sometimes take some time to answer, my Internet connexion via satellite phone is very slow, and I have to wait until I find a cyber café to answer.. and there's (yet) no cyber café in the San Blas !

Cheers !