Be the captain...

After 6 hours on a bus, and stepping off into the scorching Central American noon heat, I walked for what seemed like ages across a bridge and down a tiny dirt path which led to the customs office at the border of Costa Rica and Panama. It consisted of four walls, a cement floor, a table (not a desk), and one chair behind it, in which sat the customs officer. She asked to look at my passport, informed me that Panama no longer charges an entrance fee (which used to be $4), and instructed me to proceed to immigration. I had done this crossing countless times while living in Bocas del Toro, so I felt completely at home. With beads of sweat like bullets running down my forehead, I thanked her, and went to see my friends at immigration. They recognized me straight away, which made me feel excited about being back. After leafing through the dozens of Costa Rican and Panamanian stamps that fill my passport, he pressed the stamp to the paper, and with a downward motion of his hand and a loud “thwack”, I was officially back in Panama. I caught a little bus to Almirante, a town 45 minutes away from the border, where I would catch a panga out to the islands. The pangas seat about 30 people and are run on two 60 horsepower Yamahas. The trip from Almirante to Isla Colon, the principal island in the Bocas chain, took another 45 minutes. Once arriving on the island, I walked  with all of my baggage (pictured at the end of the last story) to where I could catch a smaller panga which would take me out to the boats at anchor (PS still scorching hot). My heart was leaping out of my chest from excitement because I was just minutes away from my dream come true (or maybe because I was about to die of heat exhaustion).

Once I arrived on the boat, was greeted by my friend Ben who owned it at the time, and sat down on the wooden deck, I finally had a chance to look around and see that it all had happened. Mara Noka! We meet again!!! It felt stupendous to aboard my new home. “Fuckin’ Bocas…” I murmured out loud to myself. I had left this place a few times before, each time telling myself I wouldn’t ever have to come back. Yet I kept finding myself here, again and again. But I didn’t intend on staying this time either, I had plans to follow through with. I thought to myself, however, that this time I would leave on an “I’ll see you later” note instead…

My first sunset aboard Mara Noka, anchored off Isla Colon in Bocas del Toro.

My plans were to sail Mara Noka from Bocas del Toro to Puerto Lindo, and then to leave Panama heading towards the west side of Cuba and enter the Gulf Stream, where we’d make our way to Miami. But even being aboard Mara Noka, I still had no idea how I’d be able to accomplish it. Most certainly not alone. But this I had, surprisingly, planned for. A friend of mine had agreed to help deliver Mara Noka and me safely to Florida, and he arrived aboard the following day—immediately work commenced. We spent 4 days in town provisioning and purchasing supplies, and then headed out into the mangrove islands in Bocas, anchoring in front of the house of some old friends. I spent time getting to know to nooks and crannies of the boat, doing small odd jobs, and frantically trying to learn how to use tools for the first time (vibrations do what???). My friend worked on building a servo-pendulum wind vane, which would act as our autopilot. After a few days of preparations, we decided the boat was ready enough at least to make it to our next stop, Puerto Lindo, roughly 160nm away. And so, at dawn, we lifted sails, and set off… Though more at a snail’s pace than that of a jet’s, as we only had a fluky 6 knots pushing us out of the mouth of the bull, and into the Caribbean Sea.

“Alright, we’re really doing this. Wait… pinch yourself. *ouch* Yeah, we’re really doing this…” I thought to myself as we drifted downwind around the rocky cape of Bahia Azul. I was used to this costal Panamanian sailing weather, so I wasn’t surprised to see a couple of rain squalls approaching in the distance. These squalls would be the only thing we would be able to count on to carry us the distance we needed to go, as we’d be too far off the coast to utilize any land breezes and there would be no steady winds to rely on. We ate supper, set up a watch schedule, and settled in for the maiden voyage (shakedown sail/sea trial is more what it was, but for romanticism’s sake…).

The next two days and nights passed smoothly, with the interchanging of watches, fighting sea sickness with packets of crackers and chicken noodle soup, and listening intently to all the sounds of the boat. I was beginning to be reminded, however, of how much I loved having my own space. Mara Noka is fairly large, at 41 feet long and almost 19 feet wide, however the livable space inside is very small, and all that is left is the open deck, and the doghouse. So as on many boats, you are almost constantly face-to-face with anyone else aboard.

Anyone who knows me personally, would know how quickly this would get on my nerves, but I thought I would be able to handle the lack of privacy for the sake of the trip. What most people would appreciate privacy for, however, are not the reasons I was yearning for it. I had already gotten over the fact that on a boat such as mine, anyone else aboard would know, or even see you, when you’d be taking a poo or showering, as there is no shower or head (there was the same situation aboard Ontong Java, so I was long accustomed to it). But I like to be alone. I like to do things at my own pace. I don’t like to always have to talk to someone. I prefer to make mistakes with no one watching. And I hate being questioned. I suppose my lack of patience and my insecurities were getting the best of me, because I was beginning to feel distressed. I had only been sharing space with this person for less than two weeks, and already I was letting that part of myself that I incessantly spoil get the best of me. But another part of me kept saying, “you don’t know enough. If he leaves, you won’t be able to do this.” I was conflicted, but I was also at sea, and this tends to happen.

Over this time, another kind of dynamic had been forming as well, which came with its own tension. It was that of an older man with more knowledge, and of a young woman who decided to buy a boat with zero capabilities of maintaining it. Who was even the captain here??? It was clearly agreed upon at the beginning, that no matter what, I was the captain and would get final say; but this was all new to me, and I had very little way of knowing when to be asking for guidance and when to be holding true to my own decision. I felt vulnerable. I hate feeling vulnerable. “But this is what it’s all about, Kiana,” I reminded myself, “this is what is happening right now, and this is how you learn. It’s all happening… learn to be the captain!” It’s all happening… My lover in California was always good at making me realize that… it’s all happening. With him in mind, however, I realized that I had yet another problem I would have to face. It had been planned that my lover would sail with my friend and me to Florida, so that he would be able to get sea experience as well. But with the situation with my friend becoming more tense by the day, and him beginning to express jealousy regarding my lover, and also my partner, Hans, who was in Puerto Lindo finishing off his new deck, I began to realize I had gotten myself into a much bigger mess than just buying a boat… Oh yeah, you read that right... my partner, the captain of Ontong Java, was still in Panama at this time and I was coming back home but on my own boat, much to his disliking. Does this sound complicated yet? “What the fuck did you do, Kiana…” I whispered to myself, as I lay in my bunk listening to the rhythmic splash of the water hitting the hulls as we glided along at 3.5 knots—meanwhile, my mind was traveling at a million miles per second.

“I can’t sleep like this! Everything is fucking wet!” I heard shouting coming from the starboard hull, and my friend then came stomping up on deck with his pillow and blanket and plopped it down on the deck. It was around midnight, I was on watch, and the wind had been steadily increasing. The seas were becoming choppier as well, and there was a lot of water being tossed over the bow and under the net every time we came upon a wave. Water was squirting into the starboard fore-cabin at every hit, and when we inspected the deck it wasn’t any more comforting. The metal fitting which was supporting the beam to the deck at that spot was beginning to rip the deck away from the hull, causing large cracks which allowed water to pour in. We were almost there. By morning we would be in the shipping lanes of the Panama Canal, and then we only had 20 miles (factoring in tacking up wind, though, make that 40 miles) to go before making it to Puerto Lindo.

As the sun began to rise, the lights in the distance became actual ships at anchor and the port of Colon. It was blowing maybe 18 knots, but to me it seemed to be howling a gale. This was the first time I was actually experiencing all of the weather, movements, sail adjustments, and sounds—the type of things you have to get to know when it’s your boat, but don’t really pay attention to while on someone else’s boat, or before you gain experience. “Do you hear that?? Do you feel that?? Put your hand here, feel. Listen! The boat is falling apart!” The wind was getting gustier, and my friend kept saying these things. I was getting nervous. No, I didn’t feel this, and I didn’t hear that. This was the third morning of my first sail, and I still had no connection with the boat, and no idea what was (or more importantly, was not) supposed to be happening. “I hope we make it to Puerto Lindo before the boat falls apart,” he said. “DAMMIT KIANA, you have got to make a decision NOW. Tell him we’re continuing on. We’re almost there. You’re the captain,” I pleaded with myself.

As I was having this debate with myself, I heard something metal crash to the deck with a loud “ping.” We scurried around the deck looking for what fell, and noticed it was a piece of steel pipe. When we noticed the yankee sail was loose, we realized the piece of steel was part of the roller furling’s torque tube. This meant the forestay was attached to the the furler only by the tack, and the furler attached to the capitation stays only by a frail piece of steel. The wind had no intention of calming, and we were in trouble. I hadn’t even a concept of what could be done. My friend quickly sprang into action and tied a line going from each bow through what was left of the attachment to the forestay, and tightened. It seemed secure enough—that was close. We sat on the deck for the next couple of hours while tacking up and down through the shipping lanes, avoiding the ships entering and exiting the breakwaters, and those at anchor. I was listening intently, and attempting to feel the strange movements my friend was talking about. Bump, bump, bump. It felt like the beams were moving up and down and, hitting the upper deck. We had a look at it and noticed that all of the bolts holding the metal fittings to the beams had been sheared off. We checked as many attachments as we could, and each one showed a number of loose, sheared bolts. “Great, he’s right. We are falling apart,” I thought to myself. ZIP. Flap flap flap. “What the fuck was that?!” This time, the inner jib was flogging. My friend again sprang into action, and went to figure it out. The shackle holding up the stainless steel halyard for jib came loose, and the sail was no longer attached at the top (it had been my job to check the rigging and attachments before we left Bocas. Good job, Kiana). As we flew up and down waves, and I attempted to slow the boat down steering with the windvane, my friend climbed to the top of the mast and fixed the problem. “Let’s head in and anchor in the breakwaters until we figure out what we need to do,” I said finally, exhausted and afraid.

Greatly disappointed in myself for not knowing how to react in those situations, and more yet, for still hardly knowing how to sail or have a feel for my boat, I tacked the boat over in direction of the entrance the breakwaters of the Panama Canal.