Thursday, September 5, 2013

Through the mountains
Hello friends,


We apologize for the long silence, we have been very busy.
Faithful transit crew

As we retired from the western-most bar on the Atlantic, we were feeling very nervous about our Canal transit. The air hung heavy, expectant, and still around us; the seasonal onshore trades that had been long been holding the temperature and humidity to the low 90's had died, and millions of bird-sized dragonflies flew unerringly west through the marina. Howler monkeys rumbled in the jungle, and as we stepped aboard, a boa constrictor uncoiled menacingly from behind the steering wheel. We would be glad to move on.

The Canal Authority requires a minimum of five people plus a pilot aboard any boat transiting the canal. On the morning of our transit, Orca was still short. We put the word out, and the sailing community responded. A french doctor, an American home insulation consultant, and an Australian sailor--from a boat even smaller than Orca—each volunteered the two days to get us into the Pacific. A dozen used car tires lashed around the rail for extra protection, and four hundred feet of dockline completed our preparations.
Flooding the chambers

A heavily populated Orca puttered out of the marina, meeting a pilot boat on approach to the first set of locks where we shipped two pilots—one in training. Now overloaded with seven people aboard we rafted to a pair of fifty foot sailboats and nosed into the first lock chamber. It seemed very narrow and impossibly tall, the land-side figures manning our lines along the rim scurried about like ants. The gates boomed closed behind us, while ahead, sixty vertical feet of rusty riveted iron held back the weight of Lake Gatun. At mast-top height, water trickled from the seam between the double doors. A cruise ship was maneuvered carefully into position at an adjacent lock, its waterline fifty feet above our heads. Orca suddenly felt tiny, smaller than she ever had at sea. The massive submerged valves were opened and suddenly the water was churning. A Honda-sized whirlpool boiled past, the water rising quickly. Our triple
Cooling off
raft-up surged and twisted, and Orca's cleats and blocks took loads from all three lurching boats, lines bar-tight and creaking under the strain. Elevator-like we rose surprisingly quickly, all of our volunteer crew glistening sweat as they worked to keep the lines tight and the boats centered. After three repetitions, we emerged onto the lake, where the pilots quickly directed us to our night's mooring. They cruelly left us with a stern warning against swimming: man-eating caiman, a variety of alligator in the 10-12 foot range. The temperate and humidity were both pegged in triple digits. Steam rose thick from the jungle.
sharing the road

We dove in, hell with the caiman. Underwater, we felt a change in ambient viscosity but, disappointingly, no reduction in temperature. We suffered an endless night and were glad to run up the rusty diesel at 4am to pick up a new pilot for the lake crossing. Lake Gatun began as a misty, muddy, and muggy jungle swamp. Vines hung over the water, and monkey and toucan calls pierced the haze easily above the dark mirror water. The feeling of prehistoric, unnerving timelessness seeped again and again through our crew, intermittently interrupted by brightly colored panamax freighters 80 feet high and 1,000 feet long tearing out of the jungle and fog at 17 knots to send wakes washing over Orca's deck. Eventually, we emerged into a long and unnaturally straight channel, lined with huge dredging machinery battling the continuous mudslides along either bank. Orca followed the cut and sailed blithely through a mountain range, into the locks, and out into the Pacific.
Pacific Sailing

We love the Pacific, but it takes experience in the other oceans to fully appreciate it. Only in the Pacific could we depart Panama and have 47 days nonstop smooth sailing to Hawaii. We sweltered our way south, out of the gulf of Panama. On day five we brushed past the cold Humboldt current flowing up from Cape Horn. I even felt a bit of a chill during a rain squall once, and brewed a hot cup of tea – the first in nearly a month – and while huddled around it Kara noticed the thermometer had plunged into the high eighties and even braved a sip herself.

Honolulu arrival
Kara insisted we sail a conservative course to Hawaii, incorporating an extra 1,000 mile loop south to avoid the burgeoning North Pacific hurricane season. Over the next seven weeks, we watched several tropical storms and a full hurricane blossom along the more direct route, and I had to admit that it had been an excellent decision. On day 27 we crossed our 42 month-old path between Mexico and the Marquesas. Orca had sailed around the world.


By day 46, Mauna Loa was close but still lost in cloud. The city lights on Maui, low and golden between rainsqualls, crept along the rail. We entered the notorious Molokai Channel, finally rounding Diamond Head in a balmy 12 knot breeze. Kara's resident Hawaii family met us on the docks, reaching through the cyclone fencing and razor wire coils of the quarantine zone. U.S. Homeland Security officials held us while working tirelessly to ascertain the threat level our homebrewing equipment constituted and its possible effects on

national security. When they released us, I stepped onto US soil for the first time in almost four years. A friendly yachtie lobbed us a pair of icy Budweisers, the cans proudly emblazoned with the stars and stripes.
We'd scarcely managed to get the boat attached to the dock when we were whisked away. Apparently, while Orca was at sea, a fly-in welcoming committee had formed among Kara's Californian family, reached critical mass, and snowballed to include extended family and beyond. Visitors were pouring in from all over the country, entire airplanes must have been booked. We were bounced from hug to handshake, house to hotel, and drinks to dinner to desert until the next thing we knew, Aunt Abby was lashing a tropical bouquet to the bow pulpit, Uncle Bart was singing Aloha 'Oe, and cousins were lei-ing us as we set out into the dregs of Hurricane Yasi on the final offshore leg of our journey: passage to Alaska.


Thanks to all, especially Kara's family who took such good care of us during our stay on Oahu.


John & Kara