Log book
- Port of departure/arrival: Round trip from Isla Gamez to Islas Bolaños and back again
- Travel date: Thursday, March 13, 2014
- Total travel time: Left before lunch, got home before dinner.
- Miles traveled: 10 nm
- Engine hours: 1217 begin 1218.5 end 1.5 hours
- Fuel consumption: 32.6 begin – 32.0 end – 0.6 gallons used
- Fuel economy: 16.7 mpg
- Navigation notes: There are all sorts of poorly charted, partially submerged rocks around the islands. Be cautious and careful when navigating in the Golfo de Chiriqui.
- Maintenance notes: New two blade prop installed! Clean bottom! Re-gooped the toe rail with 5200.
- Tides and currents: Ummmm… it went in and it went out.
- Weather: Beautiful day, no forecast.
Good news! The prop is INSTALLED (one blade becomes two)! But before we declared victory, we needed to take the new prop out for a spin (get it?) We were originally planning to just head back into Boca Chica, but upon discovering that our friends on SV Brio were only 20-25 miles away, inbound for Gamez, we decided to stick around for one more night. In the meantime we had an afternoon wide open and a gleaming new prop just begging for some action, so we decided to take a little day trip over to Islas Bolaños, a mere 4 miles east. The engine got warmed up while Jeff hauled anchor. Once we were hot and free, I kicked the engine into gear and we moved forward, which is always a good sign.
Jeff and I were both a bit hesitant to really juice the engine and bump up the RPMs. Jeff harbored a fear that the prop would just fly off once we got past 1500 RPMS. We inched up to 1800 RPMs, then 2000, then 2200, 2400, 2600. We’ve grown accustomed to running our engine at 1800 RPMs, which seemed to be the sweet spot for our folding prop. With the fixed two blade prop, 2000 is the new sweet spot and we can push it up to 2600 with minimal(ish) vibration. Too soon to declare success?
I couldn’t tell you if the wind was blowing or what direction it might have been blowing from. All I can tell you is that for the first time in a month and a half we were making our own damn wind. We were moving at 4.4 knots with only 4 miles to go, which is less than one hour in transit. (Note: We may have gone faster if we weren’t dragging 30 pounds of garbage behind us that we’d collected from the shores of Gamez and stored in our dinghy). The best thing is that we arrived at the time we expected to arrive – that rarely if ever happens under sail (though the perpetual “we’re almost there” mode of travel has its own sort of charm).
We anchored on the east side of Islas Bolaños in 18 feet and, just as the guidebooks warned, it was a bit rolly. After our old standby for lunch (deluxe tuna sandwich for Jeff and deluxe top ramen for me) we donned our snorkel gear to go scope out the nearby rocks and float with the inhabitants, all the usual suspects, on the outgoing tide.
Back aboard the good ship Serenity we had a nice S breeze. We volleyed between motoring or sailing out of the anchorage. There’s certainly enough wind to sail by but the sails are all packed up and put away. We can just motor out of here now, no need to even touch the sails. But sailing is more fun. How much have the lessons of this engine-less period rubbed off on us? The decision was ultimately pretty easy because the wind was blowing steadily from a favorable angle; we sailed out of the anchorage, skating through the waves on a broad reach at 4.5 knots, bypassing Gamez in favor of the anchorage in front of a nearby cantina on Isla Parida where we purchased some cold beer to properly celebrate.
Given that our dinghy was full to the brim with beach trash, we decided it was a good idea to swim ashore that was until Jeff got attacked by a particularly aggressive gang of jelly fish. Jeff offered to be the decoy for all the jellies while I finished the swim to shore, bought a cold six-er and somehow lucked out enough to get a ride back to the boat from the family that manages the place (nicest people ever).
When I climbed back on the boat it looked like Jeffs body had been the backdrop for an epic fireworks show. Red dots emanated in every direction, wrapping around his torso from front to back. Jeff described his experience like this: “It was like getting stung by red hot barbed wire dipped in hot sauce…(moment of reflection) and I realize that I said hot twice, but they’re different kinds of hot. Does that make sense?” His preferred treatment method these days is vinegar, followed by raw onion, followed by neem oil, followed by cold beer. He swears by it.