We told Brian what we had discovered, to his immense relief. We pulled anchor. Not wanting to risk an encounter with the ravenous jaws of any more reefs we pointed the bow out to sea. And so we would not set foot on the paradisical shores. Instead we would continue the trek to Panama, five hundred miles to the south and east.
Days 57 – 59: The Great Southern Trek
Lying south of Cayo Vivarillo are the vast reaches of the southern Caribbean. The waters here might be friendly but the coasts are to be avoided. This is the region Tim warned us about ("They'll come at ya at dusk, running their pangas out 45 miles….so ya stay off at least 50…"). Five hundred miles of politically dangerous shoreline, the Moskito Channel and Coast. We rounded Cabo Gracias A Dios at noon on Friday and made the turn south. We placed our compass heading at 150 degrees – where it would stay all the way to Colon, Panama, if our Faith could carry us that far….
The winds were agreeable. We were no longer having to tack into a headwind, but were pressed onward now by breezes on our beam. Almost no other vessels hove into sight – a freighter here and there, always miles distant. Here's where we had a What the F--- Moment of the Week: in the middle of the Moskito Channel, at latitude 14 degrees 55 minutes 576 seconds and longitude 83 degrees exactly, we passed by an obstruction. Eric, at the helm, noticed it. There, low in the water, was an object sticking up, revealed in the trough of each passing wave. We came within a few feet of it, making it out to be a stationary steel rod obviously attached to the bottom. This is in 25 meters of water – approximately 85 feet. A metal spike, just sitting at water level. You've got to be kidding! Something like that could puncture the hull of a boat like ours! We've since looked into it but no one seems to know what it is or what it might be doing there. If you're sailing the channel, though, keep a sharp eye and steer clear of the above coordinates!!
Back to the voyage: at first it was pleasant sailing, by and large. The seas were running three and four feet, the weather was calm – a storm cell here and there but we missed them all. Our only lament was that the humidity wouldn't let anything dry out that happened to get wet. A little splash over the bow and your clothes would be sodden for days. This became problematic by Sunday, when we did actually get rolled over by several small thunderheads. Rain drenched us. Gladly, though, we accepted the deluge. Agua dulche, fresh, sweet water washing the salt from the boat and ourselves! The balming effect of the rain, however, came at some price. The waves built up, causing every third or fourth to come hurtling over the bows or beams. This would soak the tiller and watch personnel, which is normal, but the water also had a tendency to migrate through the main hatch. This has always been a problem but previously you only had to deal with being wet for a day or two before you were at shore and could dry out. In this case, however, we didn't have a shore leave option. Brian suffered the worst of it. He finally snapped when a wayward wave breached the hatch and dumped about a gallon of water right on his chest while he was sleeping in his bunk. I don't think he came up on deck yelling until it happened the third time…
It was certainly time to do something. For the temporary fix we stuffed rags into the offending space, then used calk to fill the smaller gaps. Finally, I used some expanding foam and a garbage bag to make a more permanent watertight seal. I placed the bag between hatch and cabin roof, then sprayed the foam into the bag. No mess and a pretty tight seal once dry. Brian has been very grateful.
It was fortuitous that we made the seal. Sunday the seas built up higher still – some waves reaching almost to the masttop while we skated through the trough. It rained more of the day than not. These factors began to exacerbate a problem we'd become all too familiar with. Sitting on deck for 16 hours a day in the salty damp we'd developed pimple-like sores all over our legs and butts; basically the equivalent of diaper rash. Yes, yes, I know, Haha. But when it hurts to sit and you're spending the bulk of your time above board doing so, you start to question the validity of your sanity. We've come to two conclusions regarding this problem: 1) Talcum powder went to the top of the grocery list, and 2) No More Seven Hundred Mile Sails. Hopefully these things will reduce the encumbrance visited on our behinds.