Anduril Sailing Blog: March 2020

All over the world, and in their time, ill winds will blow. Rarely, however, is it that all over the world it is the same wind that blows ill, and from everywhere the same direction. Worse still when the wind is tinged with a contaminating rain.

Fear of contagion is one of those cases where the scale of the human fight-or-flee response becomes overwhelming. At the individual level it induces stupidity and knee-jerk reactions. At the group level it also induces stupid reactions, with the unfortunate effect that this stupidity becomes zeitgeist validated; a stupid action repeated becomes a stupid action now demanded by all. Consequences pile upon each other, dumpster fires everywhere.

It is an experience that is hardly new to humanity, but to our generation - as to every generation that has also faced it - all seems once again altogether new. The lessons of contagion are ill taught without hands-on experience.

In this time of dislocation everyone has their own stories of personal disruption. In the grand universe of stories ours is a blip of hardship, a tiny ping. All over the world, klaxons of doom are sounding still. The reaper’s machines are gearing up for mass harvest; in every human animal there creeps a silent fear of how close to you and yours the threshing machine will come. Hunkered down in our safe spaces and reverting to basics, all of us now wait.

What to do with our time? This could be the end of times. Or not. No one knows. Update our blog? Here goes.

At last writing, the boat was northward bound and a family emergency had called Alice back to Canada; her lovely dad Tony was concluding his life journey and she would be with him, providing comfort. While she was away, the needs of schedule would have Greg on his own, advancing the boat northward along the Costa Rican coast. There were a lot of miles to cover and we were scheduled to meet our friends Steve and Andrea in El Salvador on March 22nd.

While the boat moved up the coast, a line of little ants started climbing up the worry tree. Though not yet in full world-wide flight, fear of contagion had begun.

International flights were just starting to get cancelled when Alice arrived back in Costa Rica on the afternoon of March 2nd. Exit paperwork for the boat could not start until she arrived, but we wasted no time. The aduana (customs) office is at the airport and Greg got the temporary import permit for the boat cancelled while he waited for Alice to clear in.

The morning was a rush to complete our exit processing (4 more office stops) and to top up our provisions. We were underway by noon, bound for an anchorage just short of Cabo Santa Elena. The thing about capes is that they tend to exaggerate local winds and currents, making for tough sailing. Because it is in the papagayo zone, Costa Rica can be particularly gusty and nasty, especially going around a cabo.

Arriving at our anchorage the main was already doused but we still had our jib out. In ten seconds it went from nearly nothing to 45 knots. Shit! Our head-up-and-furl maneuver was not well executed. With the sail furled almost all the way in, the madly flogging clew caused a sheet to jam in a fairlead. A part in the furler drum suddenly broke and with the sail flogging like a crazed animal we watched it unfurl itself back into the wind.

The douse to the deck was also not well executed. By the time we set the anchor, both of Anduril’s crew were unhappy. Greg investigated the broken furler drum. Alice repaired the sail. We settled in for the night. We knew that in the early morning we would be rounding the cape and heading the bow directly into the area of the strongest papagayo winds. Not ideal, but the weather forecast would only be getting worse, so we had to go.

Without a working jib furler our sail plan was reduced to a double-reefed main and a storm jib. Our storm jib is a weeny little thing that doesn’t do much. Winds were sometimes strong but they were on the beam and with such a conservative sail plan the boat can’t easily be overpowered. The shot northward past San Juan del Sur (the focal point of the papagayo winds) went fine. At day’s end we were able to approach the beach and drop our hook at Masachapas.

The following day was another long one which brought us just short of the entrance of the estuary at Puesta del Sol, Nicaragua. It was too dark and also the wrong tide for us to safely negotiate the complicated passage into the marina. We had planned to again anchor on the beach that night. Rough seas completely scotched that plan. One option was to carry on through the night and to head straight for El Salvador. We were not fond of that option. From prior trips into the marina we already knew the safe track-line through the outside pass and into the estuary. As dusk faded into blackness we skirted the entrance breakers and dropped our anchor just inside the pass. The water was flat there and we slept a relieved sleep waiting for the morning high tide that would bring us dockside.

With the forecast now showing that Mr. Papagayo would be blowing his heart out for several days we booked a rental car and headed for Granada. Our road trip was a pleasant interlude during which we would be keeping up with increasingly alarming news of failed disease containment and governments clamping down on travel.

The prospects of meeting our friends in El Salvador were dimming daily but we didn’t close the door: it closed on us. Just as we returned to our boat the president of El Salvador was the first world leader to announce that he was completely shutting their borders.

For governmental agencies, the plight of cruising sailors are almost always an afterthought: a nuisance problem that no bureaucrat has considered. Yet a bureaucrat’s whim can completely upend a cruiser’s well-laid plan. Sailboats transit the seas and seasons within an overall safety plan. A safe place now will not be a safe place later. Embarking on a voyage and not knowing whether you will be turned away at your destination is no small worry - one that can escalate to being literally stranded at sea. For example, boats arriving today in French Polynesia after a 30 day passage are being asked to divert to Hawaii, where if the crew does not 100% consist of American citizens, they will also be refused.

Our choice was to stay where we were or try getting to Mexico. It was a hard choice, with both options having advantages and disadvantages. The boat would be relatively safe tied up dockside, but it had been two years in the water and really needed to see the dry side of a yard. There was the risk of being denied entry to Mexico after a three day passage. There were questions about what flight options might be available and where they may stop in between; flight itineraries with landings in the USA were a bad idea for Canadians and that was all there was available from Managua.

The choice to leave a safe but not necessarily ideal harbour for one that *might* prove later to be better is not an easy one, but it seemed that the advantages probably outweighed the risks. Having decided on a course of action, we asked for our clearing out procedures to be completed ASAP. They handed us a stamped international exit zarpe and we promptly departed through the pass, bound for Chiapas, Mexico and three nights at sea.

Our decision worked out. Mexico has chosen the International Rebel route and has kept its borders open and all its businesses running. Time will tell as to whether this was good national leadership or bad. For us it meant that after arrival we could sweat hard for five days and get the boat prepped and stored for the long-term up in the yard. It meant we could book a direct flight from Mexico City to Vancouver.

Fourteen days of quarantine awaited us on arrival in Vancouver. And here we are, now six days in. Like everyone else we are running out of routine house projects. Boredom looms over the day. The news brings awful daily statistics and no conclusions as to how long or how bad the outcomes will eventually be. The words of the day, the week, and the year are set: cross your fingers, do what you can to help and hope for the best.

May you and yours stay safe and healthy.

Post-script: This morning Mexico closed all their sea-ports. We send thoughts of solace to boats now at sea. The entire Pacific coast of North and South America is now closed.

Post-post-script: Realizing that it would turn into a disaster if visiting boats could not re-position (the hurricane season is coming, among other factors), Mexico quickly relented on their hastily issued port closure order. Nevertheless, the cruising plans of thousands of small boats all over the world remain in a condition of uncertainty and potential danger. Cruisers prepare for all sorts of contingencies, but virtually no one had world-wide border closures on their preparedness list.

Rounding Cabo Santa Elena, Costa Rica to head north through the papagayo winds.

Broke the jib furler so carried on with a double reefed main and storm jib.

Happy to anchor inside the estuary at Puesta del Sol, Nicaragua, after several 12 hour days and 2 road steads. The boat was safe while the wind howled out at sea.

Rented a car for a 4 day road trip. Beautiful historic Granada.

Purchased artwork from this charity that supports education for girls from poor families.

Mombacho Volcano Hike

Casa Marimba at Laguna de Apoyo - view from our balcony.

Masaya / Santiago Volcano

Back to Puesta del Sol. Quick! Board the ship and let's head for the promised land of Mexico.

Bye, bye, kids and pigs of Nicaragua.

Sailed 3 nights north to Mexico.

Brought this odd looking boobie with us for an overnight stay. His bathroom behaviour was appalling.

Puerto Madero (Chiapas) at sunrise.

Let's have lunch! Business as usual in Mexico.

Handy Greg installed an air conditioner.

Anduril on dry dock at Marina Chiapas, Mexico. A tall ladder is required to board. Can zombies climb ladders? Will there be zombies?

It is at the moment of a person’s greatest trial that their inner strengths will rise up and challenge the task. As they say in Game of Thrones, “this is known.”

Another aphorism goes: “don’t let your bullshit get in the way of your story.” That one could be reversed and would be just as true. The real truth, not fabulist bullshit truth, is that bad shit is just as likely to hit you when you are ready as when you are not. Assholes show up on timing that suits them, not you. And most of the time it is exactly the same asshole as the one you already had to deal with before.

Some types of assholery are at the same time both annoying and boring. Mr. Hot Sun is that kind of asshole. When underway on the boat there is no place to hide from him and he definitely puts a trial on your day. He has surprises too: with the help of a cheap plastic watch band that leaks chemicals into your skin, Mr. Sun can cause what is called a photallergic eruption. This is a whole-body rash that makes for four straight days of itchy, itchy. But except for those itched, Mr. Sun is in a word, boring!

Another asshole is Mr. Paneinback (nickname MuscleSpaz). He makes you hunch over and moan. Single-handling a boat when Mr. Paneinback is aboard makes it really hard to get around. A fella doesn’t even want to get out of bed, let alone operate a sea-going sailboat. Obviously we don’t like having Paneinback aboard. But is he interesting? Nope. Boring!

Both of the above-mentioned assholes, along with Mr. GottaFlu and Mr. Bored&Lonely, accompanied Greg on his 250 mile solo boat delivery trip through Pacific Costa Rica. He sailed alone because Alice was a good daughter and had gone home to Ontario to tend to her dying dad (Tony was a kind and quiet man: he was as salt of the earth as men are made - may he Rest In Peace).

The plan at the end of this solo trip was for the lovely couple to rendezvous at an equally lovely northern Costa Rican bay called Playas del Coco. This bahia is known for its beautiful white beach and its perpetually calm and windless anchorage. Here, on Alice rejoining her loving husband, all the birds would sing. It was an especially propitious moment because just prior to arrival Greg had finally evicted his accompanying crew gremlins. But an empty stage invites actors. A guy named Mr. Papagayo had been patiently waiting for his moment under the lights.

For those who don’t know Mr. Papagayo, he is the living amalgam of all the worst people you have ever met over the course of your life. Despite all your prior experience, no one is ever ready for Mr. Papagayo when he appears.

Sailing into Cocos in light winds, Greg pointed the bow up, slowed the boat and dropped anchor. Boat-bound and having been sick for the past week he was keen to go ashore ASAP. He launched the dinghy, lowered the outboard onto its transom and secured it. Everything was ready and perfect. Just a few things to gather from below for the shore trip and then it would be a quick buzz with the dinghy to civilization at the beach. A beer and pizza sounded awesome. Oh look, that’s a wind shift, isn’t it? Hmph, 180 degrees. Well good then, that makes it coming from off the shore, so the water will be nice and flat.

One of the annoying things about Mr. Papagayo is he is sneaks up on you and then immediately starts making really loud noises. Whoooo, he yells! I am Mr. Wind and I do whatever I want! I can blow 50 knots and I will. You there: stupid sailor? Do you know what 50 knots can do? See that dinghy of yours that you just put in the water? It’s not a dinghy, it’s an airplane. Pffft!! See? Now it is an upside down airplane that has crashed into the water. You don’t like that, eh? You don’t like your outboard motor submerged in sea water? Well I am Mr. Wind, and you aren’t going anywhere!

You asshole! Do you realize how much work it is going to be to fix that water-logged engine?

Ha, tough shit. You had nothing better to do today. Pffft! You didn’t need that roll of paper towels or that hat either, did you?

And so Mr. Papagayo noise-maked and partied through the afternoon and the night. There would be no pizza and beer for Greg. Boiled potatoes and carrots with noodles would have to do. Greasy hands and scratched shins from man-handling a heavy outboard in a lurching boat would be his only reward for arriving to meet his wife.

“I hate you Mr. Papagayo,” he said, “I always have”.