Tuesday, May 13, 2003 0730
40 miles south of Providencia Island 12.38/86.02

Well, we got through the night but that’s about the best we can say. The seas are a bit rougher, say 12-15’ swells, more whitecaps, and the wind appears to be somewhere around 20 knots. Can’t tell wind speed, as the anemometer hasn’t worked for a month. Utter chaos aboard, but nothing smashed so far. Can’t get wx on SSB for some reason but only 40 miles to go so it doesn’t matter anyway. Not sure at this point what we have for charts of this island, so I hope we have an old placemat or comic book or something that we can use. Scott is still under the wx. He has one ear full of fluid, which must surely compound a natural tendency toward seasickness in these seas. I am not so bad at the moment. Mary Ann is nervous and annoyed that anyone would be out in this wx in the first place so I presume that she voted ‘no’ when we left Colon. Lynn is having the time of her life and claims that she had hoped that we would have some heavy weather during her time aboard. Lynn has a strange idea of entertainment, as we see. But I am sure glad they are here. The idea of making this run with just Mary Ann and Isabel would not be so good at all, and, too, it’s always better to have another experienced Captain aboard to share plans and consult. Maybe I can blame Scott for our being here. Probably not as he called his son, John, yesterday and got a NOAA wx report that called for 10-12’ seas and 25 knot winds. By the time we got it we were twenty miles out of Colon though, so we decided to slug it out. And that’s what we are doing … slugging.

Tuesday, May 13, 2003 2012
At anchor off Providencia Island
Some bad words from Captain Mary Ann

I thought this trip was supposed to be fun. “Slugging” is not fun. For the past 26 hours we have been tacking all over the ocean trying not to take the really really big waves broadside, where they are the most painful. Instead, we opted either to get kicked in the butt, our stern in this case, or take it on the jaw, which would be our starboard bow. It has been a wild trip. I would not have chosen to take it. I would have preferred to wait out the weather at our Flats anchorage in Colon. But when John read in his Cruising Ports book that “teams of knife-wielding robbers have been known to attack boats”, we were out of there. Instead of risking a bad guy attack we battled falling furniture and bounced off the walls all day and night like we were drunk out of our minds. I never took a steady step in the entire 26 hours. It was big weather out there.

But we are safe in a lovely protected anchorage, Catalina Harbor, off the Caribbean island of Providencia. The island of Providencia belongs to Columbia so when we arrived it meant clearing customs at still another country. Clearing customs is always such a big deal hassle and, for that reason, we always hire an agent. However, in this case, it was duck soup. The Captain of the Port must have seen us limping into harbor from where ever his quarters are located. He made contact with us before we had a chance to try and contact him. He asked us what our intentions were and we requested permission to dock or anchor. Then John began whining about our failed pump and the filled up black water tank asking if perhaps there was a pump out station available.

The captain had no idea what John was talking about. I mean this is not The Port of Seattle that we are dealing with. You could bicycle around this entire island in perhaps two hours. In fact you might have to bicycle unless you prefer walking. I have seen no cars. The island has a population of only 4,500. Pump Out Station? The Port Captain put an interpreter on the radio. No Comprendo. Then a woman speaking English came on the radio. When a fourth person attempted to decipher John’s question and failed, John said, “Never mind. We can talk about this later.”

We were anchored in about six feet of water and not feeling very good about it when the Port Captain made his official visit. He came across the bay in this dilapidated wooden boat. The boat had a sort of small box built on top of it. All of the wood was warped and little of its original paint was left. It was listing so heavily to one side that I feared it would sink before it reached us. A tall strongly built man was standing on the bow waving his arms and yelling again and again, “Hello! Hello! I am the Captain of the Port! Welcome to our island!.” When I helped him secure his boat to our stern I immediately understood why it appeared to be listing. Five more big men came out of the little box. Once again we were about to be invaded by customs agents and these from Columbia, which is a very scary country.

I should have learned by now not to be alarmed by numbers. Captain Bush, as the big cheese is named, and his staff of underlings were totally unscary. They were warm and polite. They all took off their shoes before entering the main salon with the exception of one man who was wearing camouflage fatigues and combat boots. But then I excused the guerrilla because I could see that he was pretty tightly laced into his stompers.

Once inside of the salon there was a lot of glad-handing and hearty laughter as Captain Bush introduced himself and each of his men to all of us. I don’t know what the duties of the five extra men were. But they looked very official sitting around our dining room tables so I assume they were of some importance. All of the immigration business was very quickly concluded. Captain Bush asked only to see our passports and the notarized letter that says that John is authorized to operate his own boat. We were then given a signed Zarpe that said we were legal in the country for six weeks and could be granted an extension should we desire to stay longer. The serious business then was taken up: the matter of our non-functioning sewage disposal system.

As it turned out, language was not a problem. This island originally having been settled by the Puritans is primarily English speaking. Once John stood face to face with him, he easily made the captain aware of our sanitary problem. Captain Bush was bold and confident in his assurances to John that he knew just the man who would not only help us, he could cure our problem for once and all. He told John that he would track down his man and ferry him over to our boat tomorrow morning. If he makes good on his promise Shawn’s dog will have a new name. It will be changed from Gumercindo to Captain Bush.

We have moved our boat into deeper water around the corner from where it was. It is still very calm and has the advantage of being very private. There is a cliff above us heavily forested with coconut trees and other jungle like vegetation. At the top of the cliff I can see two cannons jutting out over the rocks. At the base of the cliff there is a small sand beach and stone steps leading from the beach up through the jungle and possibly to those two cannons. Tomorrow I am going to take the dinghy ashore and do some exploring. It is too romantic to pass up.

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Wednesday, May 14, 2003 1408
Isla Providencia anchorage 13.22/81.22

This place is heaven after the ordeal of getting here. This morning Captain Bush came back over bringing the pump man with his helper, who jumped down into the bilge and performed a wondrous trick; he removed the black water pump without unleashing a flood of tank contents as I had chosen to do when I took the pump out. This clever fellow partially dismantled the pump in place and lifted out just the pump itself, leaving the diaphragm in place to contain the outflow. Never entered my mind to do that, even if I knew how to do it, which I do not. So now the pump is ashore being repaired, I hope, and I am guardedly optimistic that we may be able to dispense with the buckets soon. In an hour or so I am going to move to the municipal dock to take fuel from a truck so, since the air conditioner has decided to run again for some reason, things are looking up. The wx reports are not good and Mr. Pump Man says that it will keep getting worse now through the summer and fall as hurricane season approaches. I will probably skip or abbreviate planned stops at Roatan and Cozumel and head directly to Florida in a couple of days if the wx predictions do not improve. I’m not looking forward to more of those crashing seas though.

Wednesday, May 14, 2003 Continued—1935

The black-water pump is fixed! Thank you, God. Thank you Captain Bush. Thank you plumber men, Bing and son Barnaby Amore. Our lives can continue. We have already removed our temporary toilet system—buckets in our showers—and began to enjoy some big time flushing. You know, you never really appreciate what you have until you are suddenly without it. But the repair of the toilet system has put all of us in a quandary: Should we rename Shawn’s dog   Captain Bush or should we go with the plumbers and name the dog Bing or Barnaby? Does Bingaby sound like a dog name? Problems, nothing but problems.

The repair of the black-water pump was completed at Isla Providencia’s municipal pier, the center of the boating activity on this tropical island. It was also an opportunity to fuel up. It was another truck fueling so the diesel was ordered yesterday. John, Scott, and Lynn took the big boat in and Isabel and I followed in the Rendova dinghy. Our appearance at what could be referred to as the town center caused quite a stir. Suddenly the dock was filled with people, mostly men and young boys. More and more people began arriving “to see the big boat”. The boys were more interested in the dinghy so I was very proud to have been the driver. When Lynn and I finally left the dock to take the dinghy back to our anchorage I threw the throttle wide oven and made a few swooping turns to impress them with my skill as a small boat handler. John wasn’t so impressed. He ruined my show by yelling out, “Stay in the channel, stupid.”

The tropical growth surrounding the town is so beautiful. From a distance the town itself looks quaint, a remote jewel on the sea. As you see from the pictures, the quaintness disappears on closer inspection. Of course, it is probably not fair to judge the town by its dock because the dock is a working area. Nevertheless, it is the first thing one sees when they arrive and the garbage strewn everywhere does not make for a very good impression. One local said to Scott as he waved his arms pointing out piles and piles of cast off junk, “ Could you talk to the mayor about all of this garbage? This is very bad for our town. We would like to attract more tourists like yourselves”. I think they would because, like the port captain, they all seem to be friendly and outgoing people. They made a gift to us, a Columbian flag which they helped Scott rig to the antenna. We didn’t have a Columbian flag because we had not intended to go into Columbia. I am very glad that we came into this place, which is unique in being the only country that didn’t hit us with a big fee when we entered.

I had an opportunity to explore the cliff where the cannons were located. I snorkeled over to the little beach carrying my Tivas in my hands for walking. Then I climbed the stairs up to the cliff. A number of Iguanas were sunning themselves on the stone steps and they scurried off with my approach. At the top my effort was rewarded with a special surprise. There was a bigger than life sized plaster Virgin Mary holding her arms out over the town. She is the real protection for the inhabitants of the town. The cannons must have rusted out centuries ago. They were in use when Henry Morgan used Providencia as a base from which to raid passing Spanish treasure ships.

We will remain at our anchorage here for the next few days as we wait for a break in the weather. It is an interesting place to be.

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Thursday May 15, 2003 1800
Isla Providencia anchorage 13.22/81.22

The name of the town at the end of the harbor is St. Isabel. Today we took the shore boat back to the municipal dock, tied it off, and set off on foot to do some exploring. The freight boat from San Andres that had been offloading supplies was gone. So was much of the trash even though Scott has yet to speak to the mayor. Once off the docks, St Isabel became the town we had originally surmised it to be: quaint, colorful, and unpolluted by tourists such as ourselves.

Our first stop was the office of Captain Bush. He was there by himself watching a game of baseball on T.V. The office was large and inviting in its comfortable and casual Caribbean décor. There were wooden rocking chairs side by side, separated by a Victorian pedestal table. Bush had a huge desk and in back of it was a wall of area maps and books. On all of the office walls hung family portraits: his wife as a girl, himself receiving a diploma, both of them together at their wedding, and a very nice picture of one of their parents. Of course, the children of Captain Bush were very prominently featured: twins about two years old when the picture was taken and my favorite photo, a little boy of about nine years old all dressed up in an immaculate white suit and holding something . . . maybe a confirmation certificate. That child is now attending school in Cartagena, Columbia. What a drastic change: St. Isabel to Cartagena. I wonder, “Will Captain Bush ever get his boy back to this island paradise or as the boy matures will he succumb to the opportunities and sometimes evils found in a large developed metropolitan area?”

Captain Bush had some good news for us. We were there to make payment on the truckload of diesel that he ordered and had delivered to us yesterday on the docks. He informed us that the diesel would be $1.37/Gal. And that if were to pay for it in large bills ($100) America currency he would further discount it. We paid in hundred dollar bills for one of the cheapest fills that we have taken to date. Other good news from Captain Bush was that he had been able to contact pump men Barnaby and Bing and request that they take a look at our air-conditioner, which has been pretty temperamental of late and prefers to work only when the boat is not moving. That man has been such a help to us. A really good person!

St. Isabel has two Internet cafes. The first café that we visited had two computers but neither one of them was working. The proprietor said that there hadn’t been much business lately so they hadn’t been in much of a rush to do any repairing. However, they were still serving refreshments and if we cared to come back at six o’clock in the evening he could possibly have one of the machines operating. We went on to the next Internet café. It had four computers and fortunately one of them was working. John went to work posting photos to our website but the posting was so slow—two minutes per photo—that he soon became bored. It was a One Beer Posting. Most of his postings are Two Beer Postings. He decided to finish up tomorrow. We concluded our business in town with the purchase of some camera batteries and returned to the big boat.

In the evening we went out for dinner. We took the shore boat to the municipal dock where we were planning on securing it with a heavy length of cable and a strong combination lock. Our guide and driver, Mr. Francisco was waiting for us and helped us with our task by testing the strength of the partially rotted out boards, which held the mooring rings. He jumped up and down on three or four sections of board and then confidently selected the ring he thought most safe and appropriate for our use, thus validating his knowledge of the area and the wise choice we had made in choosing him as a guide. Unfortunately, the mooring ring fell out and we ended up not using any ring at all. It didn’t matter. Mr. Francisco had already demonstrated that he was a quality guide. When we took the big boat into town for fueling and sewage disposal repair he drove his “Cab”, a Lincoln town car, out on the docks to greet us and to offer his services. He explained that he had only recently purchased it in Miami and though it was second hand it was the finest car on the island. We knew that this was no doubt the case as we had already surveyed the road around the island with field glasses and seen that the cars were few and far between. None of them that I remembered seeing could compare in quality and elegance to the car sitting on the dock next to our boat. Mr. Francisco was hired on the spot.

We had requested that our guide take us to a place that featured “Island Style cuisine. I am sure that had the restaurant that he had chosen for us, Miss Mary’s, been open we would have made a very impressive entrance when we arrived in his fine Lincoln town car at seven thirty in the evening. However, the restaurant was dark and closed. Not to be deterred, Mr. Francisco helped us out of the car and led us to a narrow pathway where we groped and stumbled our way to the back door of the premises. He pounded on the door. Eventually this woman wearing a kerchief on her head and what appeared to be a nightdress opened it.

I could not see her very well in the darkness but from the tone of her voice I surmised that she wasn’t too pleased at the arrival of unexpected customers. She exchanged some hurried whispers with Mr. Francisco interspersed with impatient sighs. One final long sigh from the woman in the kerchief was a signal that our guide had won. The door opened wider, the light went on, and we were ushered inside to a dining room with the tables already neatly set. For whom we did not know nor care because now it was for us. The lady in the kerchief, not Miss Mary as we later found out, threw some menus on the table and excused herself. She said that she was going to find another cook to help prepare the meal.

By the time our hostess returned, minus kerchief and nightdress, we had decided upon our menu. We all ordered the same thing: Combination Sea Food, which turned out to be a very dark colored substance looking somewhat like a very heavy turkey dressing but definitely more pasty in texture. My understanding was that this unusual looking mixture was composed of crab, lobster, bottom fish, and any sea life native to the area that had the misfortune of getting caught as it swam by the restaurant. I could identify nothing. But the “Combination” did indeed taste fishy. So did the Sticky Rice that was served along with it and the French Fries too. Only the salad, which was served on a separate plate, escaped what I would call the Cod Liver Oil taste.

We were in the middle of our meal when John suddenly yelled at me, “Jump up, Mary Ann! Jump up quickly!” It was such a startling request that I was a bit slow to respond but hearing John in his gasping state prompted my movement. Lynn and Scott stared in amazement as he began waving and batting at me. A cockroach, which he succeeded in brushing off of my blouse, fell to the ground where it was stomped to death beneath John’s Tivas.

The hostess rushed into the room demanding to know what the trouble was. “There is no trouble, we are just playing with the animals’” John responded. We both sat down quietly. Indeed, there was no trouble. On an island like this where insecticides are not in broad use to kill off unattractive pests, there is bound to be a cockroach or two hanging about. I’m comfortable with that. I only hope that none of us transferred any of them back to the boat. I shall leave that up to my son-in-law, Craig.

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Saturday, May 17, 2003 1400
Isla Providencia anchorage 13.22/8.22

We continue our weather watch and wait at this anchorage, exchanging information with the few battered sailboats that have managed to limp their way into harbor. Scott talked to the Captain of a 42 foot steel hulled sailboat who came into the bay yesterday morning. On board with him was his wife and nine year old girl child. They have been sailing for a year and a half and are now on their way back to through the canal and to their home in Victoria, B.C. The Captain told Scott that their last run had been miserable, that the wind and rain had buffed the energy right out of them. It is strange, sitting here at anchorage where the water is so calm, knowing that not very many turns of the prop would put us right back into the middle of big water and probably another good pounding.

John Hannah, Scot and Lynn’s son, has been e-mailing weather reports. John Underwood has been receiving SSB wx reports, which seem to agree with the information sent by John H. It looks like we will make a run for it tomorrow morning about 5:00 a.m. The conditions will be slightly better than those that we struggled through a few days ago. Our winds will still be 20 to 25 knots but the wave heights are predicted to be only 8 to 10 feet. We really can’t afford to wait it out here much longer as the weather will continue to grow worse. The hurricane season is almost upon us.

I am so disappointed that we will be unable to have our grandson, Austin, join us. Unfortunately, he is in school and has a travel window of only five days, which begins on the 22nd of the month. Neither the weather nor the charts are in cooperation with his plans. Geography and the weather always have to direct our route and best-laid plans often go awry. Next year, Austin, when you have more time.

Bing, the pump man, made one last visit to the boat today. This time he brought with him all four of his sons who are in training to do electrical and mechanical work. They have a good teacher. The air-conditioner was beyond the ability of Bing to repair but it can be repaired in Florida. In the meantime we can depend on it to function when we are not moving and that is good enough. We can always sleep outside when we are underway. Bing had better luck with the bar refrigerator which is now making ice again.

Today is Scott’s 50th birthday. . .again. He is looking younger every day. We will celebrate tonight with a very special dinner and a fallen cake that Lynn has baked for him.

As John prepares to take this log off to the Internet Café for a final posting, we are in receipt of especially good news. A new wx report has just come in that is predicting 6 to 9 foot waves and winds of 14 to 19 knot, the outlook for the next four days. What a break! We depart tomorrow for Grand Cayman. Until next time, which will be more than a few bumps away, I am again … Captain Mary Ann

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Sunday, May 18, 2003 0830
At Sea 13.34/81.25

We’re on our way to Cayman and we are now 270 miles off the Honduran coast, pitching and pounding along in 6-8’ seas but having no difficulty. We’re battened down pretty well this time, having been forewarned from the other day. Wx reports show improving sea conditions both day by day and as we move northerly. Isabel has a big pot of bean soup gurgling about in a crock pot housed in the galley sink and we have a new supply of peanut butter and soda crackers for our dining pleasure when things get rough. The air conditioning is running, the toilets are flushing, and the starboard engine coolant alarm is still alarming. This thirty six hour run should be a piece of cake, but when you think about it we are one heck of a long way from Seattle and completely on our own out here.

As we left Providencia I concluded that our anchorage there was one of the most idyllic we have ever had, with graceful palm trees on the shore of our little beach, while on the hilltop immediately above us were emplaced ancient cannon guarding us against the return of the feared pirate, Captain Morgan, and a statue of the Virgin with arms outstretched to receive us in the event that the cannon were not sufficient. The water was warm and clear, the wx balmy, and it was altogether exactly the sort of spot that you might imagine yourself visiting should you undertake a voyage of this nature.

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Tuesday, May 20, 2003 0900
Grand Cayman, Georgetown anchorage, 19.17/81.23

Our long drive across the ocean north from Providencia turned into just that, a long drive across the ocean. Wx was, for the most part, relatively calm with maximum 6-8’ seas and mostly 3-4’ declining as we moved north. Winds were negligible. The boat tracked the 350 mile run with only the slightest adjustments needed to maintain our course, a characteristic of which I am quite pleased. The air conditioning, we have finally learned, cannot function when the engines are running as the engines take too much of the cooling water from the sea chests, leaving an insufficient amount for the AC system cooling.

A relatively simple matter to fix when we reach Florida, but the lack of AC here in this warm and humid climate is still annoying and something about which I will speak to Sovereign. The Naval Architect, Jack Sarin, said that when we got in this area we would be running the generators all of the time to facilitate AC, but I figured he was just a weenie so installed a big inverter to provide minimum AC for appliances and refrigeration. Wrong! This has definitely been a generator trip. We never run or are even at dock without one.

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Tuesday, May 20 ,2003 1630
Grand Cayman, Cayman Island Yacht Club

There may be little reason to add to John’s report. Associated Press has probably already picked up on the activities of the crew aboard the Mary Ann,. That is if failure to fly the yellow quarantine flag until customs have been cleared creates an international incident. It created enough of an incident for the immigration officials to slap us with a $600.00 fine and to threaten us with far more serious penalties. I guess I’d have to say, as the immigration officials did, that we are very lucky not to be sitting in the slammer at this very moment. Ironic. Captain John Rains who, with his wife Pat co-authored the book Cruising Ports, wrote that in his experience “Grand Cayman is the easiest, least expensive and friendliest place in the Caribbean to clear official papers. The officials board your boat at the pier, and you fill out a few simple forms and present passports.” That was not the case with us but then we “broke international law when the ship did not display the yellow flag.”

Here is what happened. Having just completed a thirty-six hour run, we came into the bay at Georgetown. The customs building had been closed for three hours and officials had not been responding on channel 16 to calls made by incoming boats. We threw our anchor out in front of the Port Authority Building on the pier in an area designated for both commercial and pleasure boats waiting to clear customs. We went to bed.

In the morning all hell broke loose. At seven o’clock in the morning we were awakened by the waves created from two official crafts circling our boat and by the repeated blasting from their air horns. Isabel was the first on deck, not Captain John, so she first to wither under the angry barrage of reprimands and accusations coming from the immigration authorities. John hurried out closely behind her, shirt hanging open and still buttoning his pants. The questions were, “Who did we think we were to anchor anywhere we pleased? Why was our radio not on? Why were we not monitoring channel 16? “ The demands were that we haul anchor immediately, that we turn our radio to channel 14, that we listen and await further instructions.

“Yes, Sir!” We did just that. We were given the coordinates of another area about a mile away and we went there immediately. We were then instructed to come back to the area described as,”In front of the Customs House by the yellow buoy and the blue and white submarine.” We all thought that was the location we had just been ordered out of but we circled back and were in the process of dropping anchor there again when we were told to come into the pier and prepare to be boarded.

The Pier, we found, is just a terrible place to dock pleasure yachts. It was designed for commercial ships, there is a severe surge, and the cleats are not appropriately placed for ease in safely securing smaller boats. Also it gave us pause when we observed that a great chunk of the pier had been damaged and fallen away. Nevertheless, anyone entering the Grand Cayman Island and expecting to clear customs must dock at the Georgetown Pier. It is the rule. We threw out every fender we had and crossed our fingers. Good Captain John managed to bring us in without knocking any chunks out of the boat and that is the only good thing that has happened to us since we came into these islands.

Once tied up at the dock three customs officials immediately boarded us. They didn’t ask to come aboard, they did not introduce themselves, they didn’t smile, they didn’t take off their shoes, and they didn’t like us. It was at that boarding moment, all five of us later agreed, that we came to the realization that this was a very serious situation. We were in trouble with the Queen’s Men. We were told that we had violated international regulations and that we could all be arrested. We were told that we could be fined Five Hundred Thousand Dollars and that the Mary Ann could be confiscated

It is after the fact now. The guns we declared have been taken off the boat. We have been informed that we may reclaim them when we depart the islands. All of the alcohol aboard the boat has been removed to special cabinets which have their taped shut with the notification, Container Sealed By Cayman Island Customs To Be Opened By Authorized Personal Only and John’s pocketbook is $600.00 lighter. We are moored at the Cayman Island Yacht Club having just filled our tanks with gas priced at $2.89/Gal. The only thing more I have to say is, “Don’t ever come to this island and forget to hang out your yellow flag”. Better yet, “Don’t come.”

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Wednesday, May 21, 2003 2021
Grand Cayman Yacht Club 19.81/81.2

I should mention that I have destroyed nearly half of my mooring lines between Balboa at Flamenco Marina and here. At Flamenco the rough concrete dock edge six feet above the level of the water rubbed right through the carpet chaffing gear that was installed, while yesterday here at Cayman YC I managed to back over one of my few remaining one inch lines and sever it cleanly, leaving the remaining 30 feet or so wrapped around the shaft. When I left Seattle I had a lot of lines, some ¾” and some 1”. Now I have lines with knots in them and lines that look like the rats got after them. The moral to this story is that everybody should carry substantial chaffing gear as when you need it you may find that a piece of left over carpet is not good enough. Of course, it also helps if you bring your lines aboard before you back up.

We are finding that Cayman is the most expensive place on our entire trip by a wide margin. Diesel is US$2.89 per gallon, Chinese take out for 3 was US$80.00 as I was advised by a Tennessee couple today, a Whopper is something over US$5.00, Cayman currency exchanges at US$1.25 for $1.00 Cayman, a taxi ride of two miles is US$14.00, a latte today was US$6.00, and the local folks seem disposed to rip the tourists every way but diagonally. The boat washer guy wouldn’t quote a price to wash the boat, or even estimate his time other than to tell me that it would be US$26.00 per hour per man. Dinner last night was very good, but it was also a stinging US$300.00. On top of that it isn’t a particularly appealing place anyway so we won’t be coming back.

Of course, based on our official reception, I doubt that the government is looking forward to another visit by the Mary Ann any time soon in any event, unless their budgetary deficits get out of hand and they need to raise some more easy money in fines. In due course I may send the Cayman government and a few cruising and boating magazines my thoughts on dealing with Cayman Customs and our reception here, but prudence dictates that I wait a reasonable period of time to cool down.

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Thursday, May 22, 2003 2318
At Sea South of Isla de Pinos, Cuba 20.12/82.46

We departed Cayman a day earlier than planned and were pleased and relieved to do so, even if our departure was at the invitation of the manager of the marina in which we were moored. He and I had a few words concerning his failure to advise me to call Customs before fueling up, which oversight cost me an additional $1,281 for diesel fuel. Personally, I don’t recall ever visiting a place where so many people were so seriously dedicated to cheating their guests. I’m wondering what I did wrong to arouse so much greed and avarice in so many of the natives, but I doubt that I got any special treatment.

Oh, well. We don’t have to come back here … and we won’t. We discussed stopping in Havana to see the sights, but with Senor Castro in such a bad and murderous frame of mind, and the way my luck as a Caribbean tourist is running, we decided to let the US Navy make any courtesy calls that might appear necessary or convenient. We’re heading for Key West, USA, and thank you very much. I hope they like us better than the Caymanians. Let me hasten to add that the Cayman Yacht Club is not a yacht club, just a marina with a pretentious name.

Getting away was not so easy as the Cayman Yacht Club is located in a lagoon inlet well inside of a large and very shallow area enclosed by a reef. We were advised to maintain a heading of 060 degrees to exit the large enclosed and shallow area, but it got down to 4.9’ before we cleared the hole in the reef and hit the deep water. I was mentally reviewing the wisdom of following the advice given me at the marina as Scott and I were agreeing that we don’t like this shallow water cruising very much. I could just feel the fingers of coral reaching up to grab us and force us to stay in Cayman to make repairs. An inchoate nightmare if ever there was one. But we’re well away now in calm seas with a warm, gentle breeze pushing us along on a beautiful, dark night with electrical storms providing brilliant punctuation to the flood of stars overhead. Cayman and its’ problems are a fast fading memory. You would have to be dead not to find something in this night to enjoy.

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Sunday, May 25, 2003 1915
Key West Conch Harbor Marina , USA 23.33/81.47

It wasn’t a half bad run up from Cayman even though it was about 540 miles and we ran non stop. The wx was benign and the days and nights ran together seamlessly as we ran one person two hour shifts in the daylight and three hour two person shifts in the dark. We gave Cuba a reasonably wide berth and encountered a lot of commercial shopping as we neared and rounded its’ western tip. We noted that the commercial shipping was all well inside of us vis a vis Cuba so obviously no one else was concerned about Castro’ minions coming out to entertain them. We horsed it up to 1500 RPM, 15/23 of full power, as we rounded the Cuban tip and when we hit the Gulf Stream we were smoking along at 13.7 knots at one or several moments. Life should always provide a following current. The result of our comparatively supersonic speed was our arrival at the Key West ship channel entry marker several hours ahead of Scott’s schedule, which confused Mary Ann and me inasmuch as we have not been doing much scheduling recently.

Key West is a very busy place with what appear to be thousands of small power boats batting here and there and hundreds of small sailboats at anchor out in the harbor. It’s pretty shallow by northwest standards at 20 feet, but pretty deep based on Central American harbor depths. We intended to anchor out ourselves and found a spot between a bunch of sailboats, but the anchor winch decided that it wanted to burn up at just that moment effectively ending that plan. W then decided to go in to a fuel dock intending to whine and cry when we got there that we could not anchor and would have to stay at the fuel dock until we cleared US Customs and fixed the winch.

Seemed like a reasonable plan and in fact by the time we got to the fuel dock the attendants had gone home so we called Customs and Immigration, cleared right there, and spent the night. The US Customs guys were friendly and we had no difficulty gaining re-admittance to our own country. They wanted to know all about how much cash we had aboard, probably because of our Colombia (Providencia) stamp in the passports. We’re all kind of relieved to be back in the US and the truth is that we were glad to see the inspectors. I don’t know if I’ll ever leave Kansas again.

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Monday, May 26, 2003 1430
Key West Conch Harbor Marina 23.33/81.47

Last night four of us, Lynn, Scott, John, and myself went out to dinner. Isabel stayed home to work on her journal. John had been dialoging about how relieved and comfortable he was feeling. After all of these months in foreign ports, we had at last returned home. I cannot say that it was the same for me. On the streets of Key West I was feeling much like Dorothy felt when the tornado dropped her into Emerald City. She said to her dog, “This sure doesn’t seem like Kansas, Toto”. I said to my companions, “This sure doesn’t seem like Seattle or Medina or Bellevue”, those provincial cities the four of us call home in the good old U.S.A.

The streets everywhere were thronged with celebrating people. Music was pouring out of every building—I have never seen so many bars in such a compact area—and when the buildings were too full, the people spilled out of them to dance in the parking areas or to gyrate their way through the streets. I was a bit dismayed to observe that we were surely the oldest people in town by a large margin. “ Where were all of the Early Bird dining restaurants?” I asked myself. Then I became uncomfortably aware of the fact that we were so inappropriately over dressed. Our men were wearing shirts that had sleeves and even collars. Lynn and I were comfortable in long cotton skirts until we realized how dowdy we must appear . . . almost Victorian in this very young city so comfortable with undress.

We had dinner at a very good white tablecloth Italian restaurant. Once inside of the restaurant, I think that we began to believe we were no longer in the Land of Oz but right back in the U.S.A. where the boat had landed. Then the tornado struck again. We were in The Bull bar. Above the Bull was another bar. On the third level was “The Garden of Eden”. It seemed like a regular kind of place except that we noticed the female bartender, wearing bib overalls, had forgotten to put on her shirt.

We soon learned that anyone could become gardenlike in the Garden of Eden. For $35.00 a tattoo artist behind some canvas curtains could quickly transfer the whole top of one’s body into a jungle of ferns and flowers. The tattoos washed off so having one’s body done up wasn’t really a serious commitment. The idea of doing the tattoo didn’t much interest Lynn but I thought of it for a moment or two, seeing it as a new experience. Then John said he would divorce me if I went behind those canvas curtains. He didn’t care that clothes would cover the art and that any showing would be only for him. I guess that he doesn’t much like ferns and flowers.

Our stay in The Garden of Eden was short. Everything was going along pretty normal like until Scott drew our attention to a fairly fat gentleman, appearing to be in his early forties, who was sitting at the bar. Only moments before he had been fully dressed and now there he was, totally naked. Within minutes we were witnessing people casting off their clothes like they were butterflies emerging from their cocoons. Most of them would have been better to have remained caterpillars as they were far better looking in that form. Disenchanted, we left the Garden of Eden. We left behind the Emerald City, which, I am sure, will once again become Key West after Memorial Day holiday has passed and the tornado has dissipated. Like John said, “It is great to be home!”

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Wednesday, May 27, 2003 1345
Pier 66 Marina, Fort Lauderdale 26.06/80.07

An OK run up the coast from ‘Fun City’, a/k/a Key West, with a helping Gulf Stream current pushing along. This was the final leg of our journey and also our final overnight run. I have not gotten to where I like the overnight runs, but at least there is no junk in the water so they are reasonably safe with two radars operating. Let’s just say that I won’t miss getting up at 0200 to go on watch. I was happy to see the entry channel markers to Fort Lauderdale/Port Everglades and we sailed right through and under the new 65’ high bridge between the Marriott and the Hyatt hotels and up to the Pier 66 Marina, which, as you may know, is very chi-chi and has all conveniences.

Our friend, Tim Johnson, a Fraser Yachts broker, at the dock, met us and he quickly arranged convenient moorage for us and helped out with the celebratory champagne. He brought along Captain Bob whose duty it will be to take the boat up ‘the river’ someplace where it will be out of hurricane danger until we return, perhaps next November or so.

I have to say I was relieved to tie up for the last time on this voyage and to contemplate life under firmer footing for a while. Seems like Mary Ann and I have been aboard forever, although it’s been only four or five months; long enough for me anyway. I have another seemingly endless punchlist of items to repair or replace, but they are by and large minor things, which do not involve essential ship operations. One of the big things, the air conditioning, is working now while we are underway thanks to Scott who figured out that running the air for the whole boat at one time was causing the system to overload with hot water. He shut down the salon and pilot house air and that left the staterooms cool and sleepable, to our great pleasure.

I’m not sure I understand all I know about this but for whatever reason the last leg was much more comfortable air wise than the preceding sections. Although I have been annoyed to death by the continual malfunction of this or that component, I am very pleased with the seaworthiness of the vessel and the hull. It’s a very dry boat and about as good in the heavy weather as one could ask of a pleasure yacht.

So, until we meet again, adios and buena suerte from the Mary Ann.

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Friday, May 30, 2003 1530
Pier 66 Marina, Fort Lauderdale 26,06/80.07

In retrospect; Reflections from Captain and crewperson, Mary Ann.

The adventure ends and, thankfully, “not with a bang but a whimper”: the lack of bang meaning that we have succeeded in avoiding a conflict with the rocks. The whimper is mine alone. It makes me sad—always—to admit to something being “over”, like this trip is over. The Hannahs have described this as being “a once in a life time experience”. I hope that will not be the case for John and me and that, come fall and the end of hurricane season, we will be on the third leg of a forever continuing saga.

The log has often read like an engineer’s journal. Not surprising. Captain John, sometimes aided by anyone of three mechanically competent male guests who have been aboard this vessel, has spent more than a little time in the engine room . . . getting his hands dirty. Problems are bound to arise on a new boat on its first long voyage shake down cruise. A friend of ours, Walter Rowan, who for years has been the professional captain aboard a much larger yacht than ours, the 154’ Roxanna, told us before we sailed that this would be the case. “John”, he advised, “if you insist on running your own boat get an engineer aboard. There are seamen who are trained to do nothing but take care of mechanical problems, to keep the boat running when you are on it, and to stay with it when you are off it. Get a crew! Your boat is too big for one man to handle!”

Walter is an East Coast man where the term “Owner Operator” is a foreign concept and where women are part a crew only if they are employed as cooks. But even though we have very different philosophies about what makes boating a joy for the owners, after five months aboard this vessel I have come to agree with Walter on one point. The Mary Ann does need an able bodied seaman aboard.

She needs a man who knows engines and air conditioners and water pumps and sewage disposal pumps. She needs a man who can crawl into itty bitty spaces, a man who can easily hoist giant fenders, and who can throw a one-inch line twenty feet. Such a man would make us all happy. The guests could be guests, fishing all day and enjoying their cocktails at 6:00 p.m. John would be in the engine room only for his pre-run check. I would give up my part time crew position. Therefore I would be taking no more flack from John. The flack would be redirected to the new able-bodies seaman and to Isabel. Isabel would continue on as crewperson, a job she has learned very well, and one that she loves and works at very skillfully. Having earned her tenure over this last five months, her job on deck would be secure and she would be senior over the new able-bodied seaman. Last but far from least, John and I would both be in our helm seats in the pilot house devoting our full time to captain stuff like charting courses and avoiding rocks. Those are things that I have had thoughts about when I am alone and on a night sea watch.

I leave this boat with mixed emotions. It feels like a real accomplishment to have been one of the permanent crew of three that took this 90 foot boat down the Pacific Coast, through the Panama Canal, and back up the Atlantic Coast to Florida. It was a trip that none of will forget because so much was new to us. We took a new boat where we had never gone before. That was the challenge. That was the excitement. But it has been a long journey. I return without regret to the place that my heart calls home: the beautiful waters of the Pacific Northwest, Canada, and Alaska. There is no better place to cruise. Let the saga continue there where we can again explore the hundreds of inlets, secret coves, and islands that we have learned to love so much.

For now we all say good-bye to those of you who have followed this web site. We have enjoyed hearing from many of you. An adventure is always much more fun when it is shared.

Until next time (?) The Crew of the Motor Yacht Mary Ann

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