Outdoor Adventures – Page 3 – On the Horizon Line

honeymoon island beach caves brianna rob

Honeymoon in Niue

Lime green and lavender. These are the colors of our honeymoon in Niue. Wait, honeymoon? Didn’t you guys get married a year and a month ago? Yup. But we never took a honeymoon, since we were gearing up for our sailing + travel adventure.

After six weeks aboard Compass Rose(y) and five months at sea on other people’s boats, we were ready for our very own bedroom. As much as we have enjoyed sailing on Rose(y), our crewing situation has got two main drawbacks: we have no bed or door. Rob and I sleep on separate settees (translation from boat speak = “narrow couch”) in the main cabin. As the tiny island nation of Niue came into view after several passages in a row, I sat next to Rob on deck and said: “Let’s get a room, honey.”

Rob upped the ante by announcing it would be our late honeymoon. Perfect. We found the last available room for rent in Niue and booked it for three nights (it’s high season in Niue, which means the one flight per week is full of at least 50 tourists).

Our first night on land after five months was AWESOME. Except when it started pouring in the middle of the night, and we both jumped out of bed trying to close the hatches … that didn’t exist … and realized that the floor was pitching and tilting like we were riding 10-foot waves instead of standing on solid ground. Weird. We jumped back in our big, cozy bed and promptely fell back asleep.

We slept so well, actually, that we extended the stay from “weekend” to “week.” The room we rented was in a local’s home right downtown, and we enjoyed the owner’s company — Lawes, a Niuean who now lives in Australia part-time — as well as his hot water heater, refrigerator, electricity, washing machine, and the patio that didn’t move.

Since it was our honeymoon, we decided to splurge on the most romantic thing we could possible think of — a motorcycle.

Motorcycles are the perfect honeymoon craft. You have to hold on tight to your loved one as he careens over wet, slippery roads. You have to wear helmets that make you look like a popsicle, and that bang together in a plastic-y love-kiss when the cycle jerks forward. You can’t talk, so you get to share a secret language of nuanced physical touches: a death-grip on a shoulder means “slow down, damnit!” and a vise-squeeze around the hips means “let’s stay out of the potholes, ok?”

Just kidding. It was super fun to have a motorcycle, especially once my legs unclenched after the first day (I’ve only ridden a motorcycle once for 45 seconds). Rob was a stellar driver, and didn’t throw me off the back even once. It did rain most of the time, so we had to wear our green rubber coats, which made us look even more like delicious lime popsicles. To top it all off, we got to use the cute little horn often to “beep beep” all the chickens off the road.

Back to the colors: lime green and lavendar don’t just refer to the color of our rain coats and helmets. Niue is 100 square-mile island plateau that rises 200 feet out of the sea, and is home to a whopping 1,600 people. It’s nicknamed “The Rock,” since the ground is made up of old, dead coral and limestone. The limestone is what makes the water look green. The coralline algae encrusting the rocks and caves is lavender.

Beneath the island is a lens of freshwater, which pours out of the island into the sea. This creates all kinds of awesome caves, chasms, and crevices to explore on land and underwater. It also creates a crazy blending of fresh and salt water along the shore, which makes things look blurry when the cold and warm waters mix. All sorts of fish frolic in the clear water, and whales pass by, too.

Niue (pronounced “new-ay”) is from ‘niu,’ which means coconut, and ‘e,’ which means behold. So, basically, the first settlers a few hundred years ago exclaimed: “Hey, check out all these coconuts.” One other fascinating tidbit: Captain Cook never succeeded in landing here. The natives all had red-stained mouths from a local root, and it scared the bejesus out of Cook and his crew, who named Niue “The Savage Island.”

All told, we’ve spent 10 solid days exploring this one-of-a-kind island, and highly recommend it as a honeymoon destination. Unfortunately, there are only two ways to get here: sail or catch the one flight per week from New Zealand. The other downside is that tomatoes cost $4 each — produce in general is scarce, and more expensive than jewelry.

As we bid “The Rock” a fond farewell tomorrow when we sail to Tonga, we’ll remember these top highlights from our Niuean honeymoon:

> Rob faced his biggest fear: sea snakes. The venemous striped sea snakes are ALL OVER the reefs here. Other than one chasing me for a few minutes one morning, they are totally harmless, since their mouths don’t fit over any part of a human body. Whew!
> Whales spouting just offshore, and singing under water.
> As many showers as we wanted, with water as hot as we could stand.
> Climbing through forests carpeted in coral into caves.
> $5 Indian rotis at the restaurant next door to our rented room.

Outdoor Adventures

The Ninemile Vortex

We got this awesome email from Paul Parsons here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Paul replaced Rob at Trout Unlimited, and sent this great update on Rob’s old stomping grounds fixing streams in the Ninemile Valley just west of Missoula in Montana. We appreciate hearing the news, and were glad to here no wolves died during the vortex experience.

The upper Ninemile vortex caught up with me and deflated my pickle truck tire. And the spare. At the end of the day, sitting at mile marker 18 with two flats and a bed full of beautiful Ninemile landscape rock I started the walk out headed for the Pontrelli mansion.

I had spent the afternoon with Amy Sacry and a mini excavator digging around in the floodplain and piles looking for clues. Fortunately they found several indicators showing what they believe to be the remnant floodplain elevation. Most of the piles consist of sandy loams and cobbles. Great news for reconstructing the floodplain. John Muhlfield was also cruising around and had some great ideas for Sawpit. Part of me wishes we were going to construction this year.

So with John, Amy and the mini-ex headed down the road in front of me I thought I would stop and gather some rock I had spotted earlier in the day. I not so quickly filled my truck bed with colorful, moss covered rocks. Satisfied with my haul I discovered my front tire had a nice sharp rock poking through the tread. Unloaded the deflated spare and quickly thought, “what a great night for a walk down the Ninemile”. Turned my back on the sorry looking pickle truck and put boots to dirt.

After crossing Pine Creek around mile marker 13, I heard a truck coming down the road. I looked up the road into the sun and stuck out my thumb; dude jammed on the brakes and dusted me out. He pushed the passenger door open and smiled a toothy grin, minus some teeth. It took me awhile to take it all in. In the passenger seat rested a nicely honed homemade hatchet, a pistol and taking up most of the cab was beautiful black powder rifle. After making eye contact with the guy I looked down to see he was wearing only a loin cloth and buckskin moccasins. The loin cloth was loose fitting at best.

The guy asked me “where ya headed or are ya just out for a hike?” while he was sliding the pistol, hatchet and Last of the Mohicans DVD towards himself to make room. I told him I was almost to my destination but took him up on his offer to give me a ride. As we drove he told me of the day’s bear hunt and how he likes the experience of buckskin and black powder. All I could think of was trying to navigate over and through the thick Ninemile blowdown with only a loin cloth protecting my dangledown.

Midway through a sentence describing his sneak on a black bear through thick blowdown, I interrupted with “that’s a wolf” he interrupted my quick interruption with “that sum-a-bitch” and reached for his pistol. Maybe he was reaching for his hatchet or Last of the Mohicans DVD. I’m not quite sure as it all happened so quickly. The wolf came within 10 yards of the truck. He wasn’t a particularly handsome wolf, grey with black ears and running with his tail between his legs. I had never seen wolf behavior like that before and I almost felt sorry for it. Run more stoically and faster I thought, this guy is gonna throw a hatchet at you.

With wolf season over two months ago, the guy realized that I was in the truck with him. Might have been a dead wolf otherwise. We were both jacked with energy but maybe for different reasons and continued bouncing down the dusty road. He approached Pontrelli’s driveway and let me out. I thanked him and told him good luck with the rest of bear season. As he drove off, I stood on the side of the Ninemile road for a brief moment. Not quite stunned but in a fog thinking did that shit really just happen?

I was hoping for a continuation of surrealness to end the evening. Not much luck there. Dave wasn’t home and his compound was locked tight. With no phone and the sun looking lower than I’d hoped for I was sitting on the porch wondering if Pontrelli was the type of guy to hide a key. I heard a truck coming down the valley from far away. Thinking traffic is light and this might be my last chance to catch a ride out, I grabbed my backpack and sprinted down the driveway towards the road only to see a mega diesel truck with a gooseneck trailer roar by. Shit. Missed it. And I was getting hungry.

I started the walk again and soon a guy in an old Audi turbo was flying down the road. He was watching the turkeys in the timber on the hill and blew right past my outstretched thumb. He must have seen me at the last second because he stopped and backed up nearly as fast as he had blown by me. He also asked where I need to go or if I was just out for a hike. I told him I was just at Dave’s house to try to use a phone. He knew Dave and offered to drive me all the way to Missoula. Then he realized the guy with the mega diesel, aka his buddy, was headed to the Bitterroot. So the turbo came into play and we caught the guy with the gooseneck. I hopped in with him and shortly found myself standing on the side of Reserve Street.

Looking towards the M and knowing my little home was near the base of Mt. Sentinel I put boots to pavement. Missoula seemed smaller than ever and I was semi-excited to see how long it would take me to walk from Reserve to Tremont Street. Three generous rides and one wolf was all it took to get home.

sharks scuba diving in the tuamotus on the horizon line travel and sailing blog brianna and rob

Ocean Tales, Outdoor Adventures

Cue the Soundtrack from Jaws

A lone sailboat speeds from the lagoon to the open ocean through a narrow pass in a remote island. Waves break on either side of this pass, crashing on pink-white sands as the sea floor rises abruptly from 2,000 feet deep to zero at the shore of this Pacific atoll. Sailing through the pass is carefully timed during slack tide to avoid the waves and eddies created by the 8 knot current as the sea rushes in and out of the lagoon. Just as the sailboat clears the pass, two people jump overboard. The sailboat keeps going.

Cue the soundtrack from Jaws.

This was the scene as Kayanos left Kauehi, and Rob and I were the ones who jumped off. On purpose. And so excited to snorkel the pass that we almost peed our pants. After we both dove overboard, Rob — who got his mask on first — immediately said, “Wow. There’s a shark right here, Bri!” I shoved on my gear so I wouldn’t miss the shark sighting, as I had on a few of our previous snorkeling trips. I looked below to see not one shark, but dozens of sharks swimming towards us out of the crystal blue depths. I made a calm and appreciative noise through my snorkel that sounded roughly like, “Mmpharrghgh!?!!!”

Talk about freaky. Sure, I knew the Marquesas and Tuamotus are renowned for having healthy, thriving shark populations. And I’d seen them swimming around in Nuku Hiva, following fishing boats for scraps. But I’d only seen a shark underwater exactly twice before. And they both swam away from me, not at me. Adrenaline pumping, I slowed my breathing and followed Rob toward the reef and shallower water.

I should clarify that my body followed Rob while my head followed the progress of the 7 or 8 sharks following us. They stayed a respectful 10 feet away, curious about why the hell humans would jump off a moving boat in the middle of a deep blue sea. I was starting to feel curious about that myself. Once we could see bottom, though, I immediately felt safer — a completely illogical reaction, since the sharks could eat us just easily in five feet of water as 1,000 feet of water. But these sharks weren’t going to eat us. First off, they were “small” blacktip and whitetip sharks, only about 5 or 6 feet long. Second, they had plenty of other food.

Once over the reef, we could see hundreds, maybe thousands, of fish. Big jacks, mackeral, snapper, grouper, parrotfish. Colorful butterfly fish, trigger fish, squirrel fish, angel fish and wrasses. The visibility was probably 80 feet, and the coral was a diverse blanket of living color. All around us were moving mini-dramas of fish mating, fighting, eating, hiding, swooping. The sharks lost interest in us, and resumed their slow cruise back and forth between the reef and the depths. It was the most amazing snorkeling experience I’ve ever had.

After about 15 minutes, Rob and I began the second part of the Remote Pass Snorkel Adventure: getting back on the sailboat. We swam against the current to make our way out of the pass toward the ocean. Kayanos was hove-to (as close to parked as a sailboat gets) about one mile away from us. We waved our arms several times as we swam to a more mellow spot, signaling we were ready for pickup. Ben and Sarah sailed toward us at about 6 knots, then once again expertly heaved-to to slow down.

They threw out a floating line, and Rob made sure I was holding on before he latched on behind me. We were getting dragged fast enough behind the boat that my bathing suit bottoms came off, but managed to pull ourselves hand over hand until we reached the stern. Sarah let down a rubber fender as a step. Rob had to push my butt up as I hauled myself over the rail four feet above my head. By the time we both flopped into the cockpit, we were breathing heavy and totally amped on endorphins.

I know most people in their right mind wouldn’t jump off a moving sailboat into unknown shark-infested waters in the middle of nowhere. But they’re definitely missing out. I highly recommend the Remote Pass Snorkel Adventure, and hope that someday we’ll find another accomodating (and skilled) captain who let’s us dive overboard to investigate the deep crystal blue.

snorkeling in tuamotus, bri on the horizon line travel and sailing blog south pacific

Ocean Tales, Outdoor Adventures

We’re in love (with psychedelic clams).

Sorry for the long radio silence. Turns out that paradise doesn’t include internet. Plus, Rob and I have been a pretty distracted the past few weeks. Why?

Because we’re in love. Giddy, giggly, bubbly blissful love. Not necessarily with each other, though our giddiness certainly overflows into more hugs and hand-holding. Rob and I are in love with the Tuamotus, the volcano atolls that formed rings of shallow coral in the middle of a deep sea. We’re in love with green water, blue hues, white sands, fringing coconut trees, tiny purple fish, giant psychedelic clams, sea cucumbers as thick as my leg, stealthy sharks, flying manta rays and diving fairy terns.

During the year before we left, Rob and I had a little tradition. Some nights just before we crawled into bed, exhausted from a day of playing, working, and living fully in Missoula, we’d pull up Google Earth on the laptop. We’d huddle close to the screen and zoom in on islands and bays we hoped to visit on our voyage. The ones that called us back time and again were the strange-looking thin circles in the middle of the Pacific: hollowed-out islands that looked like a lifesaver or a really skinny doughnut. But instead of a cream-filled center, these narrow coral islands encircled marvelous blue-green lagoons, teeming with some of the richest marine life on earth. The Tuamotus.

And now we’re here. We get to spend every day inside of Google Earth, and it’s way better up close. We snorkel before breakfast, and then head to shore. I dance in front of some coconut trees, and watch Rob stalk the white sand flats with his 9-weight fly rod, playing with sharks, bonefish and jacks. “Isn’t it awesome?” he calls over his shoulder as we watch a pair of trigger fish mow down on some bait fish. “It’s like hunting, but in the ocean.” Lunch break consists of tuna on crackers, some raisins and almonds, and coconut water straight from a fresh-plucked nut. Then it’s on to more snorkeling, fish stalking, or beach-combing and biking with the local kids.

These islands are why we wanted to leave our beloved mountain home, why we left good jobs and great friends in search of unknown shores. The French sailboat anchored in front of us in Kauehi City (a village of 200 people and 2 roads) has been here for over a year. I can see exactly why, and would probably do the same if French Polynesia wasn’t strict about stowaways in their gorgeous, coveted country. If you’re not a citizen of the E.U., the government only allows you to spend 90 days in French Polynesia.

Unless Rob or I suddenly fall in love with a Tuamotuan or a Tahitian who wants to marry one (or both?) of us, we only have until the end of August to indulge our love affair with these spectacular coral atolls. Which means it’s time to stop writing and dive overboard to caress the psychedelic clams and majestic mantas again.

galapagos brianna randall on the horizon line blog turtle

Ocean Tales, Outdoor Adventures, Traveling

48 Dreamy Hours in the Galapagos

We never thought we’d get to see the Galapagos on this journey. It wasn’t in the plan, mostly because it was so far out of everyone’s budget. Tourism fees are steep, and Llyr’s crew doesn’t have the time or money to fully explore these protected equatorial islands. In a twist of fate, though, our skipper decided to stop to refuel in the Galapagos and our boat was granted 48 hours in San Cristobal without having to clear in and pay the traditional fees. (Apparently, it’s usually only a 12-hour window, but the bureaucrats were taking a siesta when we arrived.)

Rob and I made the most of those 48 hours. We wandered the quaint seaside town, ate really good food like cheese-stuffed plantains and fish stews, hung out on park benches with sea lions, swam with giant sea turtles, chased big iguanas over volcanic rocks, and poked around shrubs looking at birds. While we’d love to spend a solid week or two exploring the amazing wildlife here, we both feel blessed to have been given this unexpected window to experience the Galapagos. Plus, the 2 solid nights of sleep without watches were almost as cool as the turtles. Check out some of the pictures of from our stop below.

Outdoor Adventures

Seven Women

We are put on this planet only once, and to limit ourselves to the familiar is a crime against our minds. – Roger Ebert

There was little about what I put myself through last Sunday that was familiar. I completed the Peaks to Prairie adventure race – 68+ miles of running, road biking, and paddling some of the most breathtaking country in Montana, from the Beartooth mountains to the Yellowstone river.

I have had more than my fair share of adventures that leave me lost on unfamiliar ground – but I’d never done a triathlon. I’d never ridden a road bike until a month before this race. And there was something about the challenge of this that I could not turn away from. Some would call this masochism – but I am of the tribe that calls it a good story in the making.

There are things that you can look back on that you thought at the time were the hardest things you had ever done – and now it has become a good story and bragging rights. You block out the pain and remember only the high at the end – that you are alive, that your body has surprised you, that you had transcended the familiar.

Paddling 21 miles out of Cataract Canyon to Lake Powell with a mean headwind, no current, and only half a bagel, for example. Taking an hour to navigate ¾ of a mile off an unnamed bowl in the Mission mountains, now known as one of the more heinous backcountry ski exits ever. Hiking 18 miles from the trailhead to Half Dome at night just to watch the sunrise from the top. I’ve already forgotten the misery involved in all of these adventures and others that have since evolved into suspiciously painless good stories.

The Peaks to Prairie race was one of the harder things I have done, and I have sensed the pain of it fading from my mind over the last days.

I’ve only done one other race, a 12-hour adventure race involving orienteering, running, mountain biking, and whitewater paddling, where skill and strategy counted jor just as much as speed and endurance, if not more. Sacrificing my body to a race where speed and endurance are the only spaces to play left me on unfamiliar territory – which happens to be one of my favorite places to be.

But there was another major piece that gave me butterflies. Most people run this race as a relay, and racers are fresh on each leg. Out of the 450+ people registered, only 37 were the brave souls known as soloists. And only 7 of those were women. I wanted to be strong enough to stand in their company.

I don’t think of myself as an athlete. My goals in this race were to enjoy myself as much as possible, and not to crawl over the finish line dead last.

It’s amazing how far emotions can roam in the space of 68 miles. From nerves and adrenaline at the starting line to demoralizing doubt on the painful 9.3 mile run downhill on pavement.

Joy and exhilaration on the rolling and sometimes unforgiving hills of the 49-mile road bike ride – until the last 14 miles. Those were the longest miles in my life (because I’ve blocked out all those other long miles from what are now painless good stories, remember) . The only reason I smoked the bike leg was that nothing motivates a woman to get off a bike seat like riding nearly 50 miles without padding.

Confidence cutting through the river. Remember the Cataract Canyon adventure? 10 miles on the quiet Yellowstone was nothing – a beautiful ending to spend my remaining energy. Until relief to be sitting turns to spasms as legs that have been firing for 4 hours are stuffed into a kayak and forced to stay there for another hour.

The finish line. The endorphin high. The best part. There’s nothing like it. It draws me back again and again to the unfamiliar territory that leaves me a stronger person.

The emotional wave when the endorphin rush subsides that leaves you hollowed – because you have nothing left, because you’ve given everything, because you are empty and proud and you know the definition of exhaustion.

To now, when the pain has faded, and the story remains. And I am left with amazement that I was one of only 7 women – out of more than 450 athletes – that traveled almost 70 miles under my own power.

I am so proud to stand in their company.

transit panama canal in yacht - sailboat blog - on the horizon line

Outdoor Adventures, Sailing

The Monkey’s Fist (in your face)

We did it! Our first Panama Canal transit was a success. And by success, I mean none of the scary things happened that most yacht owners worry about. Those scary things include:

Hitting one of the concrete walls in the 106-foot wide locks and damaging your sailboat as billions of gallons of incoming freshwater boil and roil around you, creating unpredictable eddies and turbulence.
Running into a 950-foot-long container ship steaming past you at 15 knots in a narrow channel.
Taking a bow wave on the beam or getting sucked into the wake of a passing freighter.
Tearing off a cleat or another important sailboat part while tied tightly to 2 other very expensive sailboats as they all motor along together in a giant, slow-moving, un-agile clump (making the perfect target for the speedy mega-ton container ships passing by).
Getting a monkey’s fist to the face.

Obviously, #5 is the most terrifying of the potential Canal dangers. It’s also the most likely to occur. Although none of the above events came to pass (knock on lots of wood) during our transit, all of them were a distinct possibility at certain points. With common sense, a pilot who can see really large ships, and basic laws of physics, most of these factors can be controlled.

But you can’t control the monkey’s fist.

This deadly ball of flying lead-loaded death is unassuming. It’s a miniscule object, compared to the other multi-ton objects that could cause disaster in the Panama Canal. But it could take you out. Or your solar panel. Definitely a window, and probably your eye.

What in the hell, you ask, is a monkey’s fist? As you’ve likely guessed, it’s not the hand of the mammal that swings from trees, but rather the name of a fancy knot. In the case of a Canal transit, it happens to be a fancy knot wrapped over pieces of lead, which is tossed at your boat from a nonchalant, cigarette-smoking Panamanian line-handler standing 50+ feet above your boat on the walls of the lock.

The monkey’s fist is attached to a long, thin, gnarled, algae-covered rope perfectly sized to give you a rope burn. The reasons the Panamanians throw them at your boat (besides the entertainment value associated with watching foreigners run and duck) is so that you can tie it to a longer, thicker, sturdier rope (called “lines” on a boat, remember) designed to keep your boat well away from the nasty boat-crunching concrete walls of the lock. The nonchalant line-handler pulls both the thin and thick ropes back up (eventually), and hooks it to a bollard (also known as a really big peg) on the top of the lock.

As the line handlers on Maunie, a lovely 38-foot Vancouver owned by a lovely British couple named Graham and Dianne, Rob and I were in charge of, first, avoiding the monkey’s fist, and, second, running quickly to grab it from where it thumped down. After tying on our dock line and securing the other end to the sailboat, we then spent the 10-15 minutes in each lock pulling in slack or letting out slack, depending on whether that lock was raising or lowering Maunie.

Not rocket science. But remarkably more difficult than one would think when you have 3 sailboats rafted-up together, complete with 3 different skippers, 12 different line handlers, 3 different Canal pilot guides (required to transit the Canal), and assorted children, pets and ferry-boat tourists all giving conflicting orders and advice. It’s kind of hilarious. A little bit stressful. And all around an interesting experience.

Luckily, Rob and I were thrilled to be aboard Maunie for our virgin Canal crossing, as Graham and Dianne are first-class sailors and very calm and patient people. We learned a lot from them, and are all set to help Llyr brave the freighters and concrete walls on Saturday. We’ll show those monkeys’ fists who’s boss again, too … right after we duck and cover, of course.

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Outdoor Adventures, Sailing

Panama Canal (Take One): “You Want US to be line handlers?”

Rob and I are going to serve as line handlers on a 38-foot monohull sailboat heading through the Panama Canal tomorrow. Those of you familiar with our intended itinerary are probably confused, since you know we’re crewing on Llyr through the Canal en route to the South Pacific. Here’s the deal: we get to cross twice!

A very nice British couple approached Llyr yesterday while we were scraping blisters from the keel and applying sealant (glamorous work, for sure). They desperately needed 2 more line handlers in order to meet the requirements for a Canal crossing, and offered us 3 meals and a paid cab ride from Panama City back to the marina in return for our presence on their pretty sailboat, Mauna, for 24 hours. “Hell, yes,” I replied. “I can’t wait to see this Canal in action.”

llyr research vessel - on the horizon line sailing blog - panama canal crossing — Connor, the oldest of the 3 sons aboard Llyr, prepping to paint the bottom.

About 130 boats are camped out here at Shelter Bay Marina, and most are waiting in line for their turn to cross the man-made engineering wonder that connects the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. A ship has to be lifted 85 feet, cross a 31-mile freshwater lake, drop 85 feet and cross another mile-long lake to reach the Pacific. It takes two dams, 5 locks, and 53 million gallons of fresh water to get a boat from one side to the other.

It ain’t no cakewalk to go through the Canal, either: small vessels (i.e. anything that’s not a freighter or cruise ship) need to hire an agent to make sure they get a slot in for the crossing. Yachts are also required a have a “guide” who helps the skipper pilot through the locks as well as 4 “line handlers:” 2 on either side of the bow and stern. Note for non-nautical reader: all ropes are called “lines” on a boat (unless it’s called a “sheet,” of course) mostly to make non-nautical people feel dumb when they call it a rope.

In reality, the majority of privately-owned pleasure yachts don’t have to do too much line work, since they are often rafted-up next to the giant mega-sized boats. That means big boats typically tie onto the sides of the locks as they fill or empty, and the smaller sailboats fill in around the cargo ships like puzzle pieces (or those Styrofoam peanuts in mail packages). Ideally, the small boats are then buffered by tying into the non-wall side of the big ship, and avoid the constant tying/untying of lines. In reality, I have no idea how any of this really works, and I’m eager to learn tomorrow.

We leave at 1pm tomorrow and will spend the night anchored in Lake Gatun. Around noon on Tuesday, we should be heading under the Bridge of the Americas and splashing into the Pacific. Rob and I will be back aboard Llyr in time for dinner. Hopefully, we’ll return with helpful hints for a second smooth Canal crossing, a few stories of crocodile sightings in the lake, and no tales of poorly-handled lines.

on the horizon line travel and sailling blog - gringo in baja california - feet

Outdoor Adventures, Reflections on Life

My Body is a Shellfish

My whole body feels a like the inside of a shellfish. My skin is like an oyster, tender and supple, elastic and thin. My feet are as soft and smooshy as a snail, while my hands are as delicate and smooth as a scallop.

My shell has been pulled off, exposing me to a harsh new world. After being sheltered by walls and roofs for so many years, the buffer of buildings is suddenly gone. I have no office or house to protect me from the elements. My soft shellfish body is laid bare to sun, and uncovered for wind and sand to scour.

Rather than being swallowed whole like an oyster, I will metamorphose. My tender skin is toasting slowly in the desert sun, stretching tighter over my bones and ligaments. My soft feet, abraded daily by sand and stickers, are growing their own impenetrable barrier to protect my roots. My delicate hands are getting stronger, forming calluses that allow me to lift, carry, sift and pull.

This transformation is not a painless process. But the discomfort is a fair price to pay to make my body my new shelter.

Outdoor Adventures, Traveling

A Typical Baja Beginning

We made it to Mark and Katie! And it only took an extra 3 hours more than planned, with only half the expected cost. In Mexico, that’s quite a success story.

After leaving Missoula at 5:30 AM in the dark, chilly mountain air, we landed in SanJose del Cabo Airport at the southern tip of the Baja Californ
ia peninsula at 3:45 PM. We’d hoped to take a bus directly from the airport at 4:30 PM, but …. well, it’s Mexico. Though we had boarding passes written up by the cashier, we were a tad late in handing over the pesos, so the driver left without us. “Siento,” he said, in an un-sorry voice. “Bus is full. They will call another driver.” And how long would that take, did he think? “Oh, 40 minutes. Maybe 2 hours. Hard to say.”

After much hemming and hawing in a mix of two languages, turns out the cashier REALLY wanted to go home. She said it would be “mas rapido” to take a taxi to the nearest tiny town and grab a different bus from there. Santa Anita didn’t have a lot going for it, except for the highway running through its center. After a confusing round of differing instructions from a variety of helpful (but not always right) people, we finally bought tickets for the 6:00 PM bus (which showed up at 7:00).

The coolest part of the delay: as we waited with ice cream sandwiches on the side of the highway for our bus, Rob spotted a humming bird fly into a scrubby tree on the highway median. He snuck up and saw it sitting on a nest … the first hummingbird we’ve ever seen on a nest! And beneath it? Two tiny eggs the size of Altoid mints.

Mark and Katie were planning to greet us at the Malecon in La Paz at 730 PM after our 3 hour bus ride. Luckily, we used our handy DeLorme InReach (more on this nifty tool later) to send them a message that we’d arrive at 10:00 PM instead. After a Pacifico and empanadas, we all snuggled down on Selkie for the night. And I did some dock yoga this morning, too.

Now we’re packing up to go explore some remote beaches for a bit. Well, Rob and I are already packed. The trick is fitting the 4 of us, our big bags, a golden retriever and an inflatable kayak in a tiny Subaru for a week of camping. Stay tuned for pictures of that tetris game. Hasta luego!