Pulled into to Bocas del Toro a few days ago after a slow and fairly tedious mostly motor sail over from Portobelo thanks to light conditions and a counter-current for much of the way. About an hour into the trip the mainsail gave out, tearing (again) from luff to leach. Fortunately the damage was below the second reef point so I could reef the sail and get some use out of it.
Probably not much point in repairing the sail – putting another patch atop the patches already there – it’s 25 years old and is the original sail for the boat. Time to get a few quotes, pick a loft, and have a new sail made. No rush, though, as I don’t expect to be going anywhere for a while.
The trip over from Cartagena generally went well. I left from Bahía Cholón, a lovely, tranquil bay three hours or so south of Cartagena, and after eight hours of getting out of the Rosario archipelago and away from the mainland I picked up strong tradewinds, 15-20 knots on the beam. Thanks to those and 2-meter seas on the starboard quarter, I had the fastest sailing I’ve ever done for the next 20 hours or so: at times more than 9 knots, many hours at more than 8 knots, and many more hours at more than 7 knots. That’s not fast for a big boat, but for a boat the size of Cynosure it’s very fast. I made 30 miles more than I had planned and ended up in a favorite anchorage in the East Holandes cays, in the San Blas islands of Panama.
And there I waited for the next week or so for wind and sea conditions to calm down a bit before making the next jump, from the San Blas over to Portobelo, which in the early days of Spanish occupation was the most important harbor in Panama. Conditions mellowed somewhat; I got to Portobelo with no problems, and after a day’s layover came on over to Bocas.
The big deal for me is that very soon I will start pitching in on whatever projects the Floating Doctors (see www.floatingdoctors.com) have going. This is something I’ve been looking forward to doing for quite a while, partly because being of service somehow is something that Margarita and I had planned to do, partly because I think that contributing somehow, however I can, will help fill the emptiness I still feel inside, and partly because I really like the approach the Floating Doctors take. They’re really focused on their mission, which is that of bringing medical care to people who typically don’t have access to it or to enough of it, and they’re all about making a difference – now. Not filing papers, waiting around for official approvals, playing politics, but being active, getting hands on, making things happen, taking care of people and solving problems without delay.
Sky LaBrot, one of the group’s leaders, said that projects at hand right now include building some shelves and secure storage for medical supplies in a small warehouse in town and spending time at the local senior citizens’ home. Sky and Dr. Ben, her brother, are in grant-writing and fundraising mode for the next few weeks both here and in the US, and come March the group will again make forays to outlying communities in the Bocas area, to address whatever medical and public-health issues it finds.
The 2012 project list includes other things as well; that will become clearer by and by. For now I’ll be helping out however I can, starting slowly no doubt, and ideally finding a groove that works best for everyone. Stay tuned.