Night Watch

250 nautical miles means two night watches.

Two nights of sleepless travel,

Motorsailing through dark water.

Hoping for calm seas.

Hoping for a cloudless moonlit night.

Hoping for dolphins to come by for some  company to break the monotony

Of staring at instruments.

11398 feet of deep, black water.

Depth gauge blinking 32.8- unable to register the profundity.

Wind 11.4 knots at 30 degrees on our port side.  It, too is blinking. Is it working?

Heading 335 degrees on the compass, 341 degrees M on the GPS.

Speed 6.4 knots through the water; 5.5 knots on the GPS.

More instrument readings, nothing else to do.

Local time 3:47:52 a.m. Counting the seconds until my shift is over.

Sea temp 82.4 degrees. Air temp 81.7 degrees. Humidity 92%.

Sadly, moon setting behind the clouds.

2400 RPMs, ½ tank of fuel, engine water 180 degrees.

Oil pressure normal, batteries fully charged (more than I can say for myself).

Absolutely nothing on the radar and nothing on the chart plotter.

No sign of land, no sign of boats, no sign of life.

Zoom out, zoom out, still nothing.

At the 300 nautical mile level, finally something: our destination, Providencia, a tiny island close to nothing.

And, our last port: the northern tip of the isthmus of Panama.

The Canal a series of x’s marking our waypoints.

Port sky: a few stars.

Starboard sky: darkness. Unable to distinguish sea from sky, black from black.

Music on stereo.

Me, flitting from sudoku to crossword to cookies to journal.

Anything to keep me from falling asleep.

My trusty red flashlight letting me see my pages without ruining my night vision.

Tip of moon barely visible behind clouds on horizon.

The glow of instruments predominant in cockpit.

3:57:47 a.m. – still counting the seconds.

Engine humming, waves sloshing off the hull.

The Island Life

One facet of the Caribbean which makes it quintessentially Caribbean, and distinguishes this leg of our trip from the Pacific leg is the incredibly turquoise water.  It is amazing to me that you go through a skinny 45-mile canal and suddenly the water is completely different.

We had the occasional turquoise water on the Pacific, but here it seems like the water is more often turquoise than any other color.  It adds a more 'vacation' flavor to everything. 

After Portobelo and a few more days in Colon, we headed north to the tiny little island of Providencia, Colombia. 

The remoteness of this island caused in me a bit of claustrophobia.  Providencia lies about 50 miles away from its nearest neighbor (San Andres), 140 miles away from the coast of Nicaragua, and 480 miles away from its 'mainland' of Colombia.

Two cargo ships arrive each week.  As far as I could tell, one ship carries mail, Old Milwaukee beer, and motor scooters, and the other carries fresh produce, which is bought up quickly.  During the two weeks that we were there, I was a little obsessed with the thought of fresh produce.  We'd almost always had access to fresh produce, but here we were on this remote island with a population of 6000 people, and I felt unprepared.  Even to go to the grocery stores on 'fresh produce days,'  it all looked picked over and not quite so fresh.  We were fine, of course, but I worried most of the time we were there that my family was not getting the vitamins we needed. 

To give you an idea of how small the island is, it takes about one hour to drive around the entire island on a motor scooter.  Just about every family has a motor scooter, and usually a family of four fits comfortably on one.  I didn't get a picture, but it usually goes like this:  the toddler standing on the foot rest in front of the dad who is driving, followed by the mom holding the infant on her lap.

We rented two motor scooters one day- extravagant for a family of just three.  To further distinguish ourselves, Robert wore his old bike helmet.  I don't think the islanders have seen a helmet of any kind before.  We drove from our starting point in 'downtown'  all the way to the other side of the island, the Southwest side, where the beaches were quiet and the water turquoise (of course) and the waves were gentle.

At the southwest side, we stopped at Miss Mary's for a long lunch before continuing our circle of the island.  When we got back to downtown, we still had a few hours before needing to return our scooters to the grocery store, so we circled the island again, this time in the opposite direction.

We stayed in Providencia for two weeks waiting for the wind and wave conditions to improve.  We were safe and secure in our anchorage here, but outside the wind was blowing over 30 knots, and the seas were over 12 feet.  Mark and our new friend Peter, from Sea U Manana, checked the weather religiously every day, hoping and praying for better conditions.  As we have watched the weather over the last few weeks, we have noticed that Providencia rarely has good sea conditions.

We finally got a weather forecast that looked like it was as good as it would get this time of year.  Winds were 15 to 30 knots and seas 7 to 8 feet. 

I thought Providencia was small until I saw where we would stop along the way, at Vivarillo Key, before arriving in Roatan.  I would describe as being a patch of sand with five palm trees, located in the middle of nowhere.  (see photo above)  Tiny as it is, we were all glad to have a place to stop and spend the night after our 30 hour, 210 mile journey from Providencia.  The following day we departed for the remaining 180 miles (27 hours)  of our journey to Roatan.