Week 74: Vista Mar to Taboga (43nm)

We filled Serenity to the gills with provisions for the Pacific (certainly testing out the height of the waterline…) and finished our last pre-passage projects, including another go at waterproofing the infamous deck saloon window. We then headed off to Taboga island for a bit of relaxation.

First Mate’s Log

26 Jan: Today was day one of the window project – dropping the window out of the frame and cleaning out every trace of the old sealant. I believe this is now attempt number 4 or 5 (I stopped counting quite some time ago) to make the big window in the centre of the saloon stop leaking once and for all… Can we do it? Will this be our time? We have given ourselves every possible helping hand that we can think of today by prepping the surfaces of the window and frame to the limit of possibility. Every solvent we own has come out, alongside every grade of sandpaper. If it doesn’t stick now, well, it never will!

27 Jan: Cam and I took the morning to do another set of provisioning runs (my strategy has us visiting every supermarket between here and Panama City at least once, though probably twice. But I swear there is method to my madness!!) before it was time for Window, Day 2: The Final Showdown. I like to think even pros would have been proud of us. We did a final, light sand to ensure we were sealing to a bright aluminium surface, then Camille came round with a last acetone wipe, while Alec followed with the rubbing alcohol. Dan positioned the window strategically while Alec and I applied beads of sealant to both the window and frame. Alec and Dan then lifted the window while Cam and I positioned it in the frame and got the first screws into place. Cam and Alec finished off the screws while Dan and I tidied up the sealant squeezed out the top side. Boom. Looks by far the best of all our goes at this – I am feeling optimistic about the watertightness!! Fingers and toes crossed that we finally have a leak-free window!

28 Jan: Main item on the agenda for Camille and I today was a second run to Pricesmart to get our beer and wine provisions, and anything else we’d missed before. Managed to fill an entire cart with just beer – calling that a win! The car was definitely riding low, but fit everything in more easily than round 1! As we had car space, decided to visit the neighbouring Rey supermarket to grab gin, which they don’t sell at Pricemart, and a few other odds and sods. Now the car was really full!! While we were out, Daniel and Alec braved the hot sun to start the long and hard process of polishing and waxing the boat – an important thing to do ahead of an ocean crossing as it helps protect the hull from the harsh elements, but a really backbreaking task.

29 Jan: Camille, Daniel and Alec tackled the rest of the hull polishing in the morning while I went into Coronado for a last couple of items from the grocery and hardware stores, and to return the car. I arrived back by lunchtime, just as the rest of the team finished their buffing work. Provisioning is finally DONE! Well, for now at least… will need to do a top up of fresh food of course before we set off, but at least for the next couple of weeks I don’t need to see the inside of another supermarket!! YAY!!

30 Jan: After talking to another boat, Taonga, about their hull to deck joint resealing project, we decided Serenity’s definitely needed doing too. Today seemed as good a day as any, especially as we had a spare tube of the right sealant kicking around. We initially thought it might be a quick job, and much of the old sealant was crumbling out on its own, but a few tricky spots meant it was nearly lunchtime before we’d finished cleaning out the joint. It was a brutally hot day so we decided to park the rest of the job for the following morning.

31 Jan: Happy that today is our last day in the marina, as the jerky motion of the boat in the swell that works it’s way into this marina has well worn out it’s welcome. Alec and I tackled resealing the hull to deck joint, and were lucky to be in a port of fellow cruisers when we ran out of sealant with half the starboard side still to go. Luckily Mark, our friendly neighbour on Wind Dragon, had a spare half tube lying around that he was kind enough to donate to our cause, and now Serenity looks very good indeed! Hadn’t realised quite how much the crumbling old sealant had affected how she looked!! Celebrated with a couple of happy hour beers (okay, and some papas fritas…) at the bar on the breakwater, toasting to a full on but very successful week of projects and provisioning!

1 Feb: Up early for a prompt departure to give us as much time as possible to complete the 35nm trip upwind to Taboga. We needed to first make some major miles upwind to allow us space to later travel back downwind to try out the twin headsails rig (without having to leave the bay of Panama and face a very long, unpleasant slog back). We were a bit nervous because we had two sails on the front and weren’t quite sure how the boat would handle. But she did great! However, just after lunch, as we were speeding along, we suddenly we picked up a distress alert through the AIS. Turned out to be a group of guys on a tiny fishing boat just out for a Saturday on the water – they blew us off completely and we were not impressed. Still made it to Taboga before 17:00 and grabbed a free mooring. Alec knocked up a delicious frittata and we passed out early from a very full day.

Story of the Week: How much food can we actually carry?

One of the key jobs this week was finishing up buying all of the shelf stable food we wanted to take with us on the Pacific. We weren’t due to leave for a few weeks yet, but we wanted to get a sense of how much we could carry and how it would impact life on board, so we could plan accordingly and get used to it.

As Alec mentioned in his last post, we’d moved into the starboard aft cabin since the forepeak can be very uncomfortable on passage. This meant the forepeak becomes the larder, at least until we get to the Marquesas. In addition to the forepeak, all of the bilges were fair game for long term food storage (on top of our usual spaces in the kitchen and saloon). Assessing all the space, we decided to aim to stock three months worth of nonperishable food, as this would mean we could last until Tahiti only needing to buy fresh foods – very helpful because that is the first place we’ll hit with big supermarkets.

In order to figure out what we’d need for our 3 months, I decided to get really specific about every meal we’d eat and exactly what types of snacks people would need/want. I decided that we should commit to 12 dinner recipes (each of which would serve eight and therefore provide two nights of food) that we’d be happy to repeat each month for the three months. We all contributed ideas and whittled it down to a good list; I’m impressed by the variety we’ve managed to achieve – everything from quinoa bowls to thai curry to bolognese. Once we get to the islands, we’ll probably eat out a few days a month, and then, for the remaining days, I added stocks of easy foods like pasta and sauce, instant noodles, packet soups, etc.

We all listed out what breakfasts we’d like to eat over the time period, and then I had everyone literally calculate how much they’d need per portion and add it up to get to a total amount. It is crazy to realise how much is needed to feed four for three months. For example we’ve got 12 kilograms of granola, 6kg of oatmeal plus 20 big bags of cereal and 24 cartons of varieties of milk. And that’s not even all of breakfast!

We followed the same logic for lunches (12kg of dry beans needed plus 25 packs of burrito wraps per month!), drinks, and even for snacks. We all listed out what types of snacks we like and how many of each we might eat per day and then multiplied it out – like I said, I got very granular! The positive of being so detailed about it is that I know for 100% sure that we are going to have enough food and that we are all going to have food we like. So, no matter what, we’ll eat well and I think that is very important for morale!

With meals and snacks detailed out, we totted up all the nonperishable items required and were now armed with a shopping list! That led to the next challenge – actually purchasing all this food. We are lucky to be in Panama, because there are a wealth of large supermarkets here, and even a Costco / Sam’s Club equivalent – Pricesmart. Pricesmart was especially valuable because they sell bulk volumes of staples at very keen prices, so we could get our 40 cans of chopped tomatoes, 75 packets of burritos, vast quantities of nuts and trail mixes, and all sorts of other goodies for a very reasonable price. Anything more specialised or that we didn’t want in huge volumes we got from the regular grocery stores. On our reconnaisance trip around the various stores, I found that each has its strengths; Super 99 has great prices on canned goods, Rey has lots of the more niche items plus is the only stockist of cheap gin, and the El M has excellent produce and cheese selection (not as relevant for this round of shopping, but will be key when we do our perishables shop!). So, this meant we visited all three stores several times over for purchasing (that’s on top of our two trips to Pricesmart).

The shopping part was actually pretty overwhelming. I normally love shopping and love supermarkets, but working out what to buy where was hard and there were SO many decisions to make in the moment (do I buy tomato paste in packets, which are a touch more expensive but easier to store, or cans? Which shampoo / body wash will suit everyone? Will people eat the mayo flavoured chips that come in the cheap variety pack, or do I need to spring for a more expensive one? etc. etc.). Then, storing everything in the boat was equally tough. We needed to balance accessibility, weight distribution, warm vs. cool spots and, well, generally getting everything to fit at all. It was much harder than I anticipated.

But, we figured it out in the end. We managed to fit all the canned food and most of the beer in the bilges, found low down spots for the other drinks and Alec came up with some good ways of organising the rest into big plastic bins and bags in the forepeak. One particularly successful strategy was dividing the snacks up. We allocated one big tote bag for each 2-week period of the three months of our provisioning (so six bags total), and divided all of the snacks evenly between them. That means we’ll be sure not to overeat on any one type of snack and will make restocking each period MUCH easier.

Serenity is riding a little bit low in the water with so much stuff on board, but, we’ve fit it all in and its not cumbersome to find anything. So, I feel pretty good about our provisioning success!

Parting Thoughts: Marina vs. Hook Life

When we started sailing, I MUCH preferred when we were in a marina or on a town quay. I felt safer in that environment and really liked the easy access to shore. But, the more time has gone on, the more I prefer life on the hook. It’s interesting to look back and realise that! Now, life at anchor is so much better. For one thing, it means we’re much more likely to be in a spot where we can swim and the water is nice. Its also much more private, and because its free, it means there is no pressure to move or do anything in particular. If we have a lazy day, its not “wasted,” where in a marina I feel like we have to eek every tiny ounce of use out of it to make it worth being in there. That gets old quickly! The marina we’ve been in while doing our provisioning and projects has further been a bit frustrating of a spot because its location and design mean that maybe 50% of the time swell is coming in and the boats are bouncing around all over the place. Its not ideal to say the least!! So, at the end of this week when we set out for Taboga, I couldn’t have been more excited to get back to life on the hook!!