Trinidad to Panama

Trinidad to Panama is about 1,100 nautical miles.  Conveniently, there are a few islands en route like Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao (known as “The ABC’s) that are about halfway across and make for a convenient stopping place.  Inconveniently Venezuela and it’s territorial waters stick up rather in the way.

Venezuela has had some security concerns and cruisers are very wary about traveling there these days.  For a boat like us traveling alone that meant we really didn’t want to venture into Venezuelan waters so we needed to sail over 100 miles North before pointing at the ABC’s.  Splitting the trip up into two parts, with the first leg from Trinidad to Aruba just over 500 nautical miles, we sailed NNW away from Venezuela with brisk breezes and a fast reaching sail.

The trip across to Aruba was fast, with winds in excess of 20 knots behind us we made good speed.  Our first night out just before sunset we saw our first dolphins, something which would repeat every day of the trip.  It was fast and uneventful until the evening of Monday, November 12th, when just before midnight when we received a Mayday call.

Things get interesting…

We were about 20 miles Northeast of Bonaire, the wind was blowing 22-28 knots and we were screaming along at 8-10 knots with reefed sails when we heard the call.  I called back…no response.  Eventually we raised a scratchy signal and a frantic burst of Spanish.  My Spanish is nonexistent, but eventually cobbled together enough information to determine that they were on a boat we could see in the distance and had no fuel, water, or food.  So we turned the boat around and sailed back upwind into the chop until we reached them.

We suspected they were Venezuelan fishermen when we saw the 20-ish foot center console boat.  It did enter in our minds that this COULD be a problem, there have been some incidents off the Venezuelan coast.  But given the relatively rough conditions boarding would be something only someone pretty desperate would try.  We fetched the machete we bought for opening coconuts up and left it in the cockpit…

Conversation came to it that we couldn’t easily get him fuel, as we only had six gallons of gas on board in our dinghy and no good way to get any of it to him, if we could even pour or siphon some out without spilling it.  Given that they had what looked large twin outboards, the two gallons or so we might be able to get to them wouldn’t get them all that far even if we could figure a way to pour it, store it, and get it to them uncontaminated.  It was rough enough that there was no way the vessels were coming together intentionally, someone was going to get damaged if we got within six to eight feet of them.

So they asked us to “Give us food, give us water.”  Their vessel was sound and not sinking and clearly just out of fuel and they did not ask to abandon it or get rescued.   We scrounged up some fresh water and what food we could find that was in cans with pull tabs (there was no way we were going to be able to have a coherent discussion about can openers!) or in packages that might survive a dunking and put it in a water proof container.  We tied this whole mess to an orange PFD and an inflated white trash bag (for visibility and more floatation).  We then dropped it in the water upwind of them, at which point we very quickly figured out that their boat was drifting a heck of a lot faster than a little package of food and water…oops.  So we circled around a few times and fished it out then tried again from down wind which worked much better since they drifted down on it quickly.

At this point we felt there was little we could do beyond relay their position to someone else who might be able to get them.  They didn’t want off their boat, and no one else had heard their call in the area.  If we stayed all we could do was circle them and try to call someone with our higher VHF or SSB.  So we talked to them and they asked us to relay their position to someone, and we headed back to our regular course.  I spent the next two hours trying to raise some help on the VHF, SSB and via e-mail.  Eventually we reached a passing commercial vessel that was able to reach the Curaçao coast guard and set up a plan to recover these fellows.

On the whole it was an eye-opening, adrenalin pumping event which highlighted a few things we needed to work out.  Such as why our VHF couldn’t reach more than eight miles, and maybe we should consider a satellite phone for emergencies since the SSB raised no help.  Our adrenaline was up for the rest of the night after this though!

A Rest Stop on the NJ Turnpike

The following afternoon we pulled into Aruba.  I know I will take some grief for this, but our stay in Aruba reminded me of stopping at a rest stop on the turnpike.  From what I can see Aruba is a lovely place to fly to, stay in a resort, and have a great vacation.

As a place to sail to on your own boat it is distinctly lacking.  The facilities for clearing in to the country are inconvenient and force you to bring your boat to a scary concrete dock with old tires and rusty bits of metal all over it…twice!  The concept of a dinghy dock is non-existent.  Marine services and supplies are so far out of town as to be practically unreachable…in theory there are buses but we never saw one.  Anchoring is tightly controlled and the only spot you can anchor is  conveniently close to the airport…you hear every plane quite well.

Don’t get me wrong, the town was nice and we had a great dinner at one of the water front restaurants and it was very pretty.  But it’s not someplace to visit by boat.

On to Panama

One of the reasons cruisers stop in the ABC’s en route to Panama is that the stretch of water off the coast of Columbia can be some of the nastiest in the world with the wrong weather.  Contrary currents, a continental shelf, and breeze from the wrong direction can create conditions with huge, steep waves.  We got lucky, the weather was predicted to settle down shortly after we arrived in Aruba.  Those 20-28 knot winds we flew in on were going to make a mess of the waters west of Aruba but they were slated to calm down.

After a couple of days of rest in Aruba with some shopping and a bit of R&R we set off for the slightly longer leg to Panama.  We expected the wind was going to completely die on us before we got in, and we were not wrong.

I’ve already posted a bit about this leg in another entry.  It was fast…until the wind died.  But we had our most spectacular encounter with dolphins while sailing yet.  I leave you with about two minutes of the more than an hour two pods of dolphins spent playing with us.