First days in Hilo

Yes, we got our blizzards while waiting for the return bus back to the boat. And the great news is - they now offer a mini blizzard!!!! Even the small was always too much for me and now, for a dollar less, I can get the perfect size. It's enough to satisfy my craving without feeling stuffed. Yay! I had pecan pie flavor and John had Georgia mud fudge.

But first things first. I think I mentioned that John did a fantastic job of setting a bow anchor and backing straight to the wall behind us, in between Tango (catamaran) and M/V Kiska, the small Coast Guard boat stationed in Hilo. I slowly let out the bow anchor rode until he backed close enough to literally lasso one of the ship sized cleats on the edge of the wall. That was enough to get us set until we could launch the dinghy to properly tie both stern lines.

We started the arduous task of rearranging everything below back to its proper place, though not entirely since we'll be going back out to sea again soon. At 8:00 John picked Gary up from Sea Flyer to go check-in with the Harbor Master and Customs. Unbeknownst to me, John got a call back from our Hilo veterinarian, and made a 9:00 appointment. So in the middle of my cleaning and before John and Gary returned from Customs, I heard a call from Dr. Skip Pease on the dock. Since the dinghy was at the ladder where John left it I couldn't fetch the vet but, good sport that he is, Skip climbed down into the dinghy and did his best to row over to Nakia. He looked over an uncooperative Ziggy and completed the Health Certificate required by Animal Quarantine.

The next visit was from a veterinarian from the Department of Agriculture who asked that we meet her up at the picnic table by the bathrooms because she had her small daughter with her. So we harnessed Ziggy and loaded him in his crate, into the dinghy, and up the ladder. She scanned Ziggy's microchip, checked our ID, filled out the Airport Release Card and other paperwork, and gave an unhappy Ziggy another once over. By this time he was really stressed and by the time we released him back on the boat his nose and paws were very pink and he was breathing quickly, though not actually panting. Last year he'd had a day to get used to his new surroundings before going through all this and it didn't phase him. I'm so glad we didn't have to put him through a long trip to the HNL airport, which you have to do if you check in on Oahu.

We took the first afternoon bus to do some shopping at the mall, and get the aforementioned DQ blizzards, and caught the last bus of the day back to the boat. Picked up some not very good Chinese at the Oceanfront Kitchen and plopped down to see what's new on the TV. To our surprise we found there's an election coming up this Tuesday and the TV is full of negative ad campaigning and ads against negative ad campaigning. Welcome back to the good ol' USA...

Yesterday we made an early morning trip to the local laundromat and managed to get all of that done in one trip. I returned in the afternoon for a visit to the library and more groceries. Since we can only buy what we can carry on the bus, it's nice to pick up a few things each time we go into town.

Today we heard from Alobar, one of the three remaining Equator Hoppers, who reports that Kehaulani discovered broken wires on their rigging. The breaks are at the top of the mast where they can't make repairs in the current conditions. They've called the Coast Guard for help and are hoping to divert another sailboat in the area to get a younger person who would be able to climb the mast for them. Otherwise they would have to motor the rest of the way, and they don't have the fuel capacity to do that.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day - nice for the Holland America ship visiting from SoCal - and last night we got a good rain. This morning I wiped the boat down to get most of the remaining salt off, and just now we had another rain shower to complete the rinse cycle. Next I need to polish and wax the stainless which is looking very rough after more than three weeks of taking a pounding of salt spray. But first we are probably going to Kona on Monday to meet up with good friends, Ralph and Glenda. We're sorry we're going to miss Freedom's arrival in Hilo this week, but we've got to get moving on to Honolulu soon.

Linda

Aloha!

It's great being back in a first world country! There's so much to marvel over and the variety of foods and products to choose from is breathtaking. We've been taking the free local bus every day to places like the shopping mall, the downtown Hilo area, Wal-Mart, and Home Depot. The bus doesn't run on Sundays but a cruise ship came in this morning and we'll probably hop on their Roberts Hawaii shuttle bus to take closer looks at Wal-Mart, Ross, and Office Max.

John already mentioned that we had too much motor sailing during our passage. A lot of it was spent getting through the area surrounding the ITCZ which seemed to go on forever instead of just a couple of days like our past crossings of it. The wind dropped significantly for the final two days of the trip and it was like a lake motoring into Hilo. The last several nights at sea were in the chilly mid-70s (Brrrr, break out the fleece!) and I had to put a bedspread back on the bed when we got here. The overcast cooler weather makes for a nice change but we're not looking forward to snorkeling in 76 degree water temps.

We had an easy entry into the small boat basin at Radio Bay where a Matson security guard was ready to catch our stern line after we set our bow anchor and backed to the concrete wall. We are actually located in the Matson port area and Homeland Security is very strict about access. So we are restricted to the area of the wall immediately behind the boat up to the restroom building. To walk out to the front gate we call security and wait for a guard to escort us, and they bring us back to the boat when we return. We know we are an added burden to their already busy days, and we really appreciate having the harbor kept open for transient boats like us. There's a water faucet and a coin operated electricity outlet if we need it, and the restroom with shower is basic but clean.

After tying up on Thursday we launched the dinghy and climbed a big ladder up the wall to go ashore. We checked in first with the port office (our first sight of Christmas decorations!) and then walked to Customs just outside the gate to fill out the usual things-to-declare form. No one came to the boat, and we were only asked to keep our left-over onions on board. We caught the hourly bus and rode it past the downtown terminal out to the Prince Kuhio Plaza shopping mall. The bus is great except that the last one back to the Port from the terminal is at 4 PM, and there's a big gap without service from the terminal between 10:30 and 1 PM. There are several other island buses that we'll check out later for sightseeing.

Our primary reason for visiting the mall was to get a SIM chip for our cell phone in order to make local calls. After inquiring at all the mall phone shops we ended up at T-Mobile in the nearby Wal-Mart shopping complex where we got a $10 chip with 140 minutes on it to start out with. I was impressed with how service oriented everyone we spoke to was. When shops couldn't help us with what we wanted we were twice nicely directed to a different business that might have it. After buying the chip we returned to the mall where we had enough time before catching the bus to eat DQ Blizzards - our first Stateside food treat!

We had pre-arranged to have a local vet visit us first thing Friday morning to issue Ziggy with a Health Certificate for Animal Quarantine. We chose Skip Pease of All Pets Mobile Veterinary Clinic because he advertised house calls and was listed as an approved vet with Hawaii Agriculture in case Ziggy had to go into quarantine for some reason. This was the first time we'd spoken with a U.S. vet since adopting Ziggy in Mexico so we had lots of questions about diet, shots, and medications. Skip spent an hour and a half with us and we even got off topic to talk about his experiences flying his RV-4 kit plane. Once we had the Health Certificate in hand we called Animal Quarantine to have an officer come out. He looked Ziggy over, used a wand to read the microchip number, filled out a form, and Ziggy is now free to stay in Hawaii if he wants!

With all our entry formalities completed we took the bus to downtown Hilo and explored that area a bit. We quickly found the library where for $10/pp you can get a visitor's card good in the entire state for three months. Our first priority there was internet, but I also found that you can check-out DVDs for $1 each! It's a lovely facility with an open air, central courtyard. You know you're in Hawaii when you're standing at one of the card catalog computer terminals and a bright green little lizard goes strolling by in the courtyard! We also visited a couple of grocery stores where we were shocked at $5.50 wheat bread, 14 lbs of cat litter for $14 (in Panama it was 28 lb for $14; now we're glad we over stocked), and higher prices for cat food, just for starters. We'll wait to visit the Costco in Kona to see what's available there before we finish out our pre-passage shopping here in March.

Oh, and we have TV again! Granted we can only tune into the Weather Channel, the Church Channel, and CBS but hey, it was our first chance to see Katie Couric anchor the news; we now get our fill of Tiger-all-the-time; who couldn't love a local news show with a shaky camera trying to find the anchor (and surf reports!); and best of all - we get to watch Survivor and Amazing Race. Woo hoo!

At 3 PM most days you'll find us at the local bar, Margarita Village, across from the gate next to a small local corner market. Yes, they have an especially good beer ($3.50) on tap there, but they also let us use their really fast wifi (24 podcasts downloaded in 15 minutes!). I uploaded some new pictures to our Picasa web albums last night. There are a few new ones of Ziggy in his album and here's a direct link to the first batch of Marquesas pictures (or you can use the normal link on our blog page):

http://picasaweb.google.com/svnakia/Marquesas83To9509?feat=directlink

The blog will probably be quiet for the next few months unless we do any special sightseeing or boat projects. We're also both on Facebook now so you might catch us online for a chat at the bar!

Linda and John

Isla Otoque

We finally broke free of Panama City and are beginning a 2-3 week stay in the Las Perlas islands again. We have to hang around to finalize some business and then we'll be free to head up to the Western Islands of Panama which are closer to Panama's second largest city, David. In the meantime we'll hang out here and enjoy the sensation of not spending any money for awhile.

One of the things we're waiting on is our life raft. We sent our Givens raft to Colon for servicing because we last had that done in 2004 before we left San Francisco. The recommended outfit in Colon quoted us $150 for pickup and delivery, $75 for the certificate that says it's a real life raft, and $250 for the inspection, plus whatever it would cost to replace all the out of date items which are packed in the raft like flares, water, first-aid kit, etc. We expected it to be about $800-$1,000 total since that's what it cost us in the States. But when John called to check on how things were going he learned that our raft had to be condemned because of a damaged inflation valve. The guy sent us pictures and the damage was very small but irreparable. We might have been able to get a solution from the manufacturer but the Givens company is notorious for their non-existent customer service and we got no response from them. So John went shopping for a new life raft which is one of those items you spend a lot of money on hoping you never have to use it.

It turned out that there was a Winslow offshore raft for sale in Panama City. It's a 2003 model, never used, and we were able to get it for $400. But it had never been serviced so now John had the dilemma of figuring out how to get that done. Do we really want to send it back to the guy in Colon who isn't certified for this make of raft? John contacted Winslow customer service in Florida by email and got an immediate and thorough response. It wouldn't be cheap to ship it to the States and back, but if the raft checks out we know it will be repacked by professionals, plus they do a vacuum pack that makes it good for three years before another servicing is required. We packed up the Winslow and turned it over to a freight forwarding company to send to Florida. We hope this inspection goes better then the last.

Our last major chore was taking Ziggy to the vet for his rabies blood sample to be drawn and shipped to Kansas City for testing because there is no approved lab in Central America. We got another air-conditioned taxi to take us all the way across town to the only vet we know of who can process this. After getting all three of his booster shots and a micro-chip during his last visit Ziggy was not happy about the return visit. We had an 11:30 appointment but ended up waiting for another patient to finish. Then it seemed to take forever to get all the required forms filled out. When they finally started getting ready to draw the blood, I pointed out that they would need to muzzle our bad boy before they got started. The two male technicians returned with some lame dog muzzle that fell right off Ziggy's nose. They shrugged their shoulders and held him down to get started. I couldn't look and our view was obscured anyway, but when the vet walked in and saw what was going on she got out a tranquilizer shot to put him out for the duration of the procedure. A partially drugged cat is pitiful to watch but there's no way they could have held him still long enough to draw that amount of blood. After it was all over the vet put some ointment on his unblinking, fully dilated eyes and we paid the bill ($140 for the DHL refrigerated express shipping cost; $150 for the Kansas City lab processing related charges, including DHL return; and $50 to the local vet). We hope the test results paperwork can be returned in three weeks but if not, we will have the vet mail it to our address in the States where it can then be sent off to Hawaii for the required processing (for their five day or less quarantine program) in advance of our anticipated arrival there this winter. Oh, and that long wait at the vet? I realized the next day that we had arrived a day early for our appointment and the vet hadn't said a word to us about the mix-up!

We are sorry to report that Dale on Parrot Bay died while at anchor in Honduras. Dale was a generous host to us during our stay up river with Sailor's Run in San Lorenzo on the Pacific side. We reunited with him in Panama and last saw him in the Perlas islands before he sailed from there for his passage back to Honduras. He was looking forward to retiring in San Lorenzo and marrying his local sweetheart. It's reported that he drowned while returning to his boat in an inebriated state.

We mostly motored the 20 miles here from Panama City on Saturday in company with Sarana. Yesterday we tried to take a beach walk but there is only a very small sandy beach and we couldn't get past the rocks to the west on a rising tide. Sherrell took a spill on the slippery rocks but fortunately came out of it with only bumps and scrapes. Eric found a path through the tropical woods over the ridge but it was steep and slippery, and after John found a medium sized scorpion in the dry leaves on the "trail" we beat a hasty retreat back to the beach. The days are still nice and warm but the water is a chilly 71 degrees which keeps the night air temperatures down in the low 70's. Our first night here we were amazed by how dark and starry the night time sky can be which shows you how citified we'd become. It's nice to be back out cruising and we'll try to get back to regular posts again.

Linda and John

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm?08,35.744,N,79,36.192,W,Isla%20Otoque,

Update from Panama City

It's hard to know where to begin after such a long dry spell away from the blog. I'll try to cover a few of the highlights so that I don't have to write a book.

First on the list is to thank everyone who wrote John consoling him about missing Ziggy, and to let you all know that the big Z. is back - bigger and badder than ever! John and I talked about it while I was still up in the States and we decided that if the woman wasn't completely happy with Ziggy, John would offer to take him back. No surprise to us, it turned out that Ziggy had bitten just about everyone in her family, including her adult son who had to see a doctor for his (probably infected) wounds. We assume that the son most likely engaged Ziggy in some serious hand play which, as we tell everyone who visits Nakia, is a big no-no. John arranged to retrieve Ziggy the morning of my return, so I came back to an intact household.

During my absence John got a recommendation for a local vet who can arrange for the blood test required for entry to rabies-free places like French Polynesia and Hawaii. The day after my return we hired a taxi to take Ziggy to this vet for all three of his annual booster shots and installation of an ISO approved micro-chip valid for foreign countries. We learned that we would have to wait 30 days after his rabies shot to take the blood sample in order to ensure that the necessary markers would be present in his blood. This means that we will stay in or close to Panama City until that chore is done in mid-March. We obviously weighed all the pros and cons before considering Ziggy away in the first place, and we are totally thrilled to have him back in spite of the cons. He's a one of a kind cat (aren't they all) and our lives are much richer with him on board.

I, of course, had a wonderful visit stateside. The weather in both Seattle and Pendleton was lovely and dry 95 percent of the time, with a dusting of snow to wake up to one morning in Seattle. We are between renters so I was able to spend almost a week on Bainbridge Island camping out in our little condo right by the ferry terminal. Everything was beautiful and I enjoyed lots of shopping and eating foods I hadn't tasted in years (a reuben sandwich at the Three Girl's Bakery in Pike Place Market, Indian lunch buffet, sourdough bread, Mission style burritos, fabulous baked goods, P.F. Chang's, Il Fornaio, salmon, pizza, Greek salads, a terrific burger at Hamley's in Pendleton, and much more). It was the best vacation I've had in ages, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Of course the visit wouldn't be complete without returning with as much stuff as I could carry on the plane. I carefully packed, weighed, and repacked until I was able to get all the boat parts John had ordered, and other items I had bought, into my two checked bags and one carry-on. I ended up with 49 and 46.4 lbs in my two checked bags, and close to the allowable 40 lbs in my carry on. The latter included half a dozen new novels and almost a full year's worth of back issues of Vanity Fair magazine which I look forward to devouring on our upcoming ocean passages!

In other big news John and I transited the Panama Canal on 2/21 as line handlers for Frank and Gisela on S/V Shared Dreams. John had already made the trip on another boat while I was gone, but he agreed to go again with me. This was a once in a lifetime experience and I'm so happy we were able to do it with friends. To make it even more fun we were "nested" or center tied in each chamber with the catamaran Gloriamaris, captained by Tom and Lilianna, and crewed, among others, by friends Rob and Linda from Cat'n About and John from M/V Maestra. We completed the transit in one day (it often takes small boats two days to complete a transit), and only had one hiccup at the end when a weld failed on the engine exhaust elbow, spraying saltwater all over the engine compartment. Frank, John and Gisela worked quickly to get the problem under control and we never had to take the engine out of gear. We were only a few buoys from the "Flats" anchorage in Colon when it happened and had no trouble getting in and anchored. Our Canal advisor, Ricardo Alberto Gonzalez Fung, was an outstanding guy. He spoke very good English, was extremely helpful during the transit, and encouraged us along at every step of the way. We couldn't have asked for a more professional and courteous advisor.

In other news: John sold our 15 HP Evinrude and bought a new 9.8 Tohatsu. The Evinrude was still a trouper but John had concerns about taking an old outboard to remote places like the South Pacific. We visited the huge Metropolitan Park here in Panama City and didn't see monkeys or sloths - until we got back to the parking lot here at La Playita where I finally got to see the resident sloth. The water temperature in the area (including the Las Perlas islands) has dropped from a high of 82.6 F to a very cold 70.2 F. Needless to say we're showering on board now and John runs the generator just long enough to take the edge off the chill. We can even feel the difference in the breeze over the water as we ride in the dinghy. That Humboldt current is really something.

Linda and John