SailingKnitter

I have to say it...Columbian food is UGLY! Not only is it scary looking, but it is also bland - no spicy kick whatsoever, and much of the street food is deep fat fried. But, after whining about it for a couple of weeks, we have discovered some really tasty items!

Here's an example - the traditional Tamale Tolimenses. I buy these little bundles at the local grocery store. It is a precooked full meal in a banana leaf for about $2 US! I just have to cut the twine, unwrap, and spread it out on a plate to heat in the microwave. Next, I hunt through the blob of food to find the chunk of pork fat and toss it in the trash.
So what is here anyway? There is always a small chunk of chicken on the bone, a tiny piece of pork ribs, about 1/2 of a hard-




boiled egg, potato slices, yellow whole peas, and a carrot piece. These are all mixed together with a delicious dough of corn and rice flours. Yep. The flavor is wonderful! Rich, and earthy.

Finally! I found an adorable model for my Snuggle Time Baby Blanket & Hat Set! This little tyke is Daisy from the sailing vessel Emma. She was born here in Columbia to her British parents. Daisy's reward for behaving like a perfect angel during our photo shoot was to receive the blanket and hat. Yes! She does need these warm items as the family will be traveling back to England in a few months and we all know that it can be quite chilly there.
And these are the latest pair of socks for the Akkol Orphanage as part of the Mittens for Akkol yahoo group's 2009 Sock Challenge. The yarn was given to me a few years ago and I'm not sure which brand it is, but the red & blue colorations came automatically from it. Because it was a partial skein, I supplemented with some Regia sock yarn that I had form another project for the heels. Then I knit both socks at the same time (on two sets of double point needles) until the yarn ran out. Then I finished the toes in the matching Regia yarn. Ta-da! Another kid's feet will be warm next winter in Kazakhstan.

If you want a quick splash of coffee here in Cartagena, Columbia, listen for the tinkling of a little bell. That sound signals the arrival of the coffee vendor. These wandering street vendors - always young men - sell hot, strong coffee sweetened with panela (a semi-processed sugar) called tinto. He will pour your beverage from one of an assortment of thermos containers with great flair.

And when I say a quick "splash" I mean exactly that. Check out the size of the cup! The cost? A litle less than 10 cents US. Actually, in the late afternoon this size of coffee is exactly right for me - a little pick-me-up. In this heat, I don't want a lot of hot drink. Seeing as coffee is grown here in Columbia I'm surprised that I don't see more being consumed - or available in the grocery stores.

And when I'm all recharged - I knit! Here are my "Cartagena Socks". The pattern is currently being tested by several knitters and will soon be available for sale on my website. It is worked with two 50gr balls of sock yarn. For the sample socks, I used a solid color for the vertical lace sections, and a multi-colored yarn for the garter/stockinette sections. These are a quick knit and a good use of stash yarns especially if you have a couple of odd balls that will work together. Enjoy!

Having survived the transit through the Panama Canal, we spent two nights at the Shelter Bay Marina tied to a dock to relax. We put Sal, our hired-hand into a taxi that his father had sent to pick him up for the 2-hour drive back to Panama City. Because we took 2 days to get through the canal we were obligated (gladly) to pay him for 2 days of line-handling @ $90 per day - $180 US dollars.

The rest of our crew explored the rainforest and beaches around the marina and spent several hours in the swimming pool (I did laundry as it was my last chance for a while). Brett volunteered to ride the marina's van with me into the mean, nasty city of Colon to re-provision with yet more groceries. I had grossly underestimated the consumption requirements of young people as far as bread, juice and eggs are concerned. We got to drive across a gate in the canal which was very interesting. Colon has a terrible reputation - high crime area - so we just went to the grocery store.
Finally! We sailed out to Portobello, and then the Kuna Yala, San Blas Islands. It was time for lobster and crab feasts, kayaking, snorkling, and of course heady afternoon snoozes.

Here's Stephanie sprawled out in her V-Berth stateroom (up in the pointy end of the boat). Doesn't she look like a sleeping goddess? She deserved a little nap after all of the water activities. (Yes, I taught her how to knit and she went home with rosewood knitting needles!)

Ryan and Stephanie swam out to a tiny islet snorkling most of the way. You can't really see in this photo - but they are both there, walking around in the soft sand and looking at whatever was there. They reported that there were exactly 7 palm trees on that islet.

So, time to eat! The San Blas Islands are a seafood lover's paradise! The Kuna indians came by occasionaly with lobster, crabs, and fresh fish. We had lobster for dinner one night, and then crabs another night. The killing and cleaning of these critters was horrible! I couldn't do it! Thank goodness we had Josh onboard who really seemed to relish the butchering. Hmmmm...scary?
We were all amazed by the size of one of the lobsters - check out this beauty that Ryan is holding!!A little bit of melted butter, some side dishes and we ate every morsel available.

The crew" wanted to dinghy around the islands so they loaded themselves into our dinghy (named Scooty Puff Jr.). This was a rather new experience - the dinghy wiggles and heaves as more people get in it and move about."Move your foot" "Don't touch my sunburned knee" "How the heck do you make this thing go?" "I'm holding on, but don't rock the boat". Soon they were settled in and ready to go out and explore. Bye explorers!

But too soon, it was time for the big "Goodbye". They all had to go back to their jobs and lives. We motored on over to the shore of the mainland to a tiny place called Carti. The airport on the main island of Porvenir was closed for repairs. Now, you need to know that we are using the term "airport" rather loosely.

Early the next morning we took our guests to shore and walked to the Carti airport. Okay...here's the group...doing what we have all been trained to do...waiting. This is the airport building. Yep. This is it. Inside is a counter where they collect the $3 per person tax, and a small kitchen where we got scrambled eggs on bread for about $1 per person.

As we waited, we saw many SUV's and jeeps exit the jungle, cross the airstrip and offload their passengers. This is how some of the local folks travel to the cities in Panama. Carti is the end of the road. There are no more roads south of here - only jungle. There is no road that connects Panama to Columbia and therefore Central to South America. And the road to Carti is only passable during the dry season. During the wet season the road is flooded.

Eventually the little plane arrived, circled the field and landed. Our guests tossed their duffle bags in the luggage compartment and climbed the stairs into the Twin Otter airplane.

Here are my babies, who will always be my little boys, waving good-by to their mom and dad from the tiny windows of the airplane.







Bye!!! Bye!!! Come back again!! Jonesy stood out along the airstrip and waved goodbye to our boys and guests. We sure enjoyed their company and they were the BEST line-handlers. Josh had brought Jonesy his very favorite candy (Abba-Zabbas and Big Hunks) down from the states. Jonesy is still enjoying them - one treat per day. I especially enjoyed having another female onboard. There's a special bond between women and I instantly felt relaxed and happy around Stephanie. We miss you guys every day!

Introducing...the YANERIS Socks! These are another one of my new sock designs this summer. They are knit from the top-down, with traditional heel flap and gusset construction at the ankle. The tiny 2-st cables start in the cuff, move around to create a lacy motif from dropped stitches. Yep, drop stitches on purpose.

At the ankle, the cables move around again and return to the same patterning as the cuff on the heel and top of the foot.

The lovely test knitters on Ravelry are busy testing the pattern which will available for sale soon on both my website and Ravelry. Enjoy!

After a rainy night out on Gatun lake in the rainforest, we awoke to begin waiting. Waiting for a new Advisor to arrive by boat so that we could head out on our trek through the 3 locks stepping down to the Atlantic Ocean / Caribbean Sea. Interesting wildlife shared our boat that morning – dragonflies on the fingers and a giant beetle to oogle. You know that HAS to by our oldest son, Ryan's hands - he's the only one of us who can tolerate touching these critters.

Then we were off! The second day of our adventure went quite smoothly. All tossed lines were caught and we looked like professionals. Of course, we only had to catch lines that were tossed a short distance as now we entered the locks when the water level was almost to the top of the walls so we were close to the canal workers. Then the gates would close behind us and the water level would drop quickly.

So where’s Terry in all these photos? Well, I was the cook! Yep. Somebody had to feed this crew of 8 hungry people and that took a lot of meal, beverage and snack preparation and clean-up. As the only member of the crew, besides Jonesy who was at the helm, who doesn’t get seasick, I’m assigned the “down below” chores. My boys love to cook – but they just hadn’t been on the boat again long enough to get their sea tummies. And our friends were having a tough go of it too.


The "fun" began when we left the last lock and entered the big ocean. Wind! Lots of wind - at least 25 knots right on the nose. With this wind came waves. Welcome to the Caribbean! Our poor crew were once again popping sea sickness pills and looking a little pale around their sunburns. We motored towards the Shelter Bay Marina where we planned to spend a couple of nights resting. There were big ships moored everywhere and we had to dodge these monsters in the rough seas, figure out where to go, and avoid the shallow spots where other sailboats had run aground. Quite stressful for Jonesy at the helm.

The marina was our only option as just a few weeks before, the company which operates the freight terminal had bulldozed the Panama Yacht Club! So there was no use going to anchor over in that area (known as "the flats") because there was no way to get to shore anymore - no dinghy dock.

But, we made it safe and sound. Brett had even thought enough ahead to have bought a bottle of champagne so we toasted the sucessful transit (note the classy plastic glasses). Next adventure...the San Blas Islands of the Kuna Yala.

First, I have a confession. When I did it with Jonesy, it wasn’t my first time. Nope. I had strayed. At the last minute, our friends on the sailing vessel Sailfish needed another line-handler so my first experience transiting the Panama Canal was on another sailboat the week before our transit. I had a blast with the family on Sailfish (Hi Xiao-li, Taj, Jaki & Digger who are now in Nova Scotia!)

The transit of the Niki Wiki:
Because we were crossing from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic/Caribbean Sea (northward, yes, really – look at a map), we were scheduled for departure in the morning with the expectation that we would be out of the last lock by 5 or 6pm on the same day. Pleasure boats coming the other way (southward) leave in the evenings and spend the night on Gatun Lake in the center of the isthmus of Panama. They then continue their journeys the next day.

Jonesy had gotten up at the crack of dawn to dinghy over to the pier and pick up our hired line-handler, Sal, who was the teenage son of our driver Federico. We were standing-by the VHF radio and ready to go at 7:30am as instructed. Our rented long lines (120 feet) were coiled on deck, 18 used tires were hanging along our sides as bumpers, Mexican sleeping floor pads were secured over our solar panels, food was packed in every available space onboard, and our nerves were tingling.

Count the legs on this burro - 5? Naw, the "leg" on the left side of this photo is actually the Burro Kickstand. Yep. Drive your burro up to the delivery site, drop the kickstand and unload your bags of gravel. Actually, it's a good idea. The kickstand takes the weight of the cart off of the burro while the cart is stationary.

This little guy was hauling loads of gravel for the new dock that is being built here at Club Natutico in Cartegena. I fed him a carrot and a couple of cubes of "panela" which is a delicious local minimally-processed sugar. Locals make hot and cold drinks from this sugar, and candies of all sorts, and put it in their coffee.

The guys in the photo are chuckling because I wanted to take this photo of a burro. Silly gringa.

In April we had some very special guests - Our BOYS! Plus friends! We had all been planning this for a long time – coordinating our travels and their lives so that everyone could be here for the passage through the Panama Canal. We had to have 4 "line-handlers" plus a captain who drove the boat to go through the canal - so why not have our big strong kids? It’s so hard for them to get time away for work and to scrounge up the extra bucks for travel – but we love it when they do!

So here we all are on the Amador Causeway outside of the anchorage in Panama City with the city in the background. From left to right that’s Jonesy, our oldest son Ryan, me, our younger son Brett, and friends Josh and Stephanie. Those tall buildings in the background are locally known as "Cocaine Towers" - buildings that drug money built and are largely unoccupied. I was told that they launder the cash by borrowing money (clean $) from the banks to build these condos, then pay back the bank with the drug (dirty) cash.

One of the best things about having guests is that it gets us out of our routine. We go see the tourist attractions – not just the inside of boat yards and hardware stores. Everyone wanted to see some jungle wildlife so we hauled ourselves out of our bunks super early the next morning for an adventure. (Everyone except Jonesy – he wanted to do “boat chores” and I gave everyone the choice of jungle trip or boat chores. Which would you choose?)

Our local driver – Federico, took us for the long ride out to a nature observation site on the world famous Pipeline Road. This area, in the interior of Panama, is known for the large number of species of birds. As we were crawling along the dirt road to the facility, we passed quite a few “birders”. Real “birders” – folks who are totally into bird watching. They had all the gear; high powered binoculars, cameras, jungle outfits, made me feel sorta ill-prepared with my entry-level binos and only 2 bird identification books.

Anyway, we paid our fees ($20 per person) and picked up our own personal guide. He led us to the observation tower in the jungle. Great! Where’s the elevator? Oh. Stairs. So we tramped up the winding staircase to the top.

What a view! Our guide had a high-powered scope and he would find the birds or monkeys and then let us all look at them.




We saw toucans, and, um…well…um…yellow birds and blue ones and woodpeckers and beautiful butterflies. I guess I should have had Ryan (our family bird expert) write them all down for me because I’ve forgotten what everything was called. At the visitor center there were literally a hundred hummingbirds! We just hung out on the tower, scanning the tree tops, searching our bird books to identify what we could find and enjoying the view.

Finally, we decided to go down to the jungle floor and walk over to a lake for more bird life. The Panama Canal and Gatun lake were close by. Along the trail we spotted these 4” wide bare strips of earth. What were they? Looking closer we saw that they were ant trails! If you dropped a leaf in the way, the ants would quickly get together and move the leaf to the side, clearing the trail. Fascinating!

Right next to the “La Playita” (free) anchorage in Panama City, there is a Smithsonian Research Institute and a little visitor center ($2). We wandered around the grounds and saw a large number of iguanas in the trees. And – this sloth. He was just creeping along upside down along the arbor trellis. It wasn't a fence to keep him (her?) in at all - he's just wild and free. So, now I know…they are 3-toed sloths!

Next blog will be about the Panama Canal transit!