The Isthmus of Panama, only about 80 Km (50 miles) wide at its narrowest point, is characterised by mountains, impenetrable jungle, deep swamps, torrential rains, hot sun, debilitating humidity, pestilence and some of the most geologically complex land formations in the world.
The islands of the Bocas del Toro archipelago were formed 8,000 to 10,000 years ago when the sea level rose with the melting of the polar caps at the end of the Ice Age. These islands were separated from the rest of Central America and so flora and fauna evolved that are unique to the region.
The archipelago encompasses some of Central America's largest rainforests. It also has 9 main islands, 52 cays and hundreds of islets with coral reefs and mangroves, the latter which we definitely see while riding on water taxis, known locally as “pangas”, or indeed, while in the marina of the Red Frog Island Resort, which is basically built amongst the mangroves.
Because of the biological diversity here, Bocas del Toro has become one of the main ecotourism destinations in Panama and Central America. The seas surrounding the archipelago had more than 95% of the coral species found in all of the Caribbean Sea, but sadly much of it is dead now. A little research provided part of the answer as to why the corals have died; in 2017 the Smithsonian Institute identified hypoxia, the depletion of oxygen in the water, as the main cause, but what caused the hypoxia wasn’t stated. Fortunately the archipelago still has more than 32 mammals that have been documented on the islands alone, including sloths, howler monkeys and the very poisonous tiny red frogs, after which the resort and marina we’re in, is named. The latter brightly coloured, minute amphibian stands out in the forest, unperturbed about becoming a delectable morsel on some predator’s menu, thanks to what they eat. Akin to micro-machines, these tiny, tropical frogs are about the size of a human thumb nail or smaller, but are toxic and, therefore, deadly to consume. The defensive chemicals derive from the ground-dwelling ants and mites they eat. This is how they obtain the poisons that their bright colors loudly advertise to predators. Certain ants contain formic acid, and mites contain alkaloids that wreak a poison-packed punch. After consuming these invertebrates, the frog’s body sequesters these chemicals and secretes them out of their porous skin, hence making them toxic for consumption. If we’re lucky enough on our walks we get to see sloths and monkeys too.
The indigenous people of the archipelago are known as the “Naso” (“Teribe” or “Térraba”), people who have traditionally occupied the mountainous jungle regions of the western Bocas del Toro province, where they continue to identify with the lands along the river that became known in the Spanish speaking world as the “Teribe” or “Tjër Di in Naso”.
“Di” means water and “Tjër” is their mythical “Grandmother” who was endowed by God with the secrets of botanical medicine. Until as recently as three or four generations ago the “Naso” people led a remarkably autonomous existence. Dispersed among their clans and homesteads and geographically isolated from most of the world, the “Naso” developed and nurtured their cultural self-sufficiency through the idiom and the institution of the family. This tribe is also indigenous to southern Costa Rica. It is one of the few Native American indigenous groups or tribes that continue to have a monarchy.
Isla Bastimentos, where the Red Frog Island Resort and Marina is located, was discovered by Christopher Columbus when he landed his boat here in 1502 on his 4th voyage and called the island Bastimentos, which means “Provisions”. Historically the island was referred to as merely the “Old Bank”, but now the island of Bastimentos is one of the most popular destinations to stay and visit while in the Bocas del Toro archipelago, with its crystal clear waters, a constant temperature of 26-28 ºC (79-82 °F) and its types of waves, make it a top holiday and surfing destination.
The town of Bocas on Isla Colón was founded in 1826 and became an important town of Panama during the late 19th century and the early 20th century when the United Fruit Company, the large banana producer, known for its Chiquita Brands, was based here to manage the banana production. Banana exports remain an important income for the country.
That said, starting this article or indeed writing it has proven to be more difficult than Elaine imagined, but she’s not altogether sure why. Maybe it was because she became poignantly aware, after signing the contract for the sale of Paw Paw, that this could likely be the last article she writes on the Adventures of Paw Paw or, at least, the penultimate one. This was accompanied by thoughts of how a lifelong dream for Roy has been fulfilled, one that was 16 years in the making, which included our 6 years of planning, execution and part-time cruising prior to becoming full-time cruisers in 2014, resulting in an adventure that exceeded everything we dreamt of and exceeded both our expectations in every way, but it was drawing to a close. This reality caused reflection on how it all began with Roy telling Elaine more than 43 years ago, soon after they’d met, that he wanted to sail around the world. At the time Elaine made it abundantly clear that Roy had definitely found the wrong girl for that and it was never mentioned again, until a beautiful sunny day off the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland in 2008, as we sat amongst the wild flowers and donkeys, the latter curiously watching us as we ate our lunch atop a hill we’d hiked up. As we sat looking out over a stunning royal blue, calm Atlantic Ocean, Elaine turned to Roy and said: “Do you still want to go sailing around the world?”. “Yes”, said Roy, “but you made it quite clear years ago you weren’t interested!”. “Well,” said Elaine, “I know, but I think we’re going to be bored shitless in our retirement at the cabin, so I think we should rather go sailing”. Needless to say, after all those years, when we’d just spent a few years working towards our 5th Retirement Plan and had planned on moving to our cabin in the White Mountains of Arizona as soon as Keenan was settled at university, after a rocky start to his first year, Roy was surprised, but excited to say the least. “If we do, though, I need training first, I need to know that I know what I’m doing, I need to feel comfortable and knowledgeable on a yacht”, Elaine interjected and, with that, the plan was hatched.
In true planning fashion, for which Elaine was renowned during her working career, within weeks of returning home to Arizona, Elaine had completed a Master Plan, detailing every activity that needed to be done and the timeframes thereof, starting with our first sailing certification; our ASA101, sailing a little Jaguar 22 and thus the journey began. On reflection Elaine realised just how much time, effort and money had gone into achieving this sailing lifestyle from that first small step 16 years ago!
Joining Boat Clubs in San Diego and San Francisco allowed us to get the practice we needed and sail a variety of different yachts as we progressed through our training programme. Interim weekends were spent at our cabin revising and preparing for each written examination for each certification and by the end of 2013 we were wrapping up our Celestial Navigation certification, we’d travelled back and forth to numerous boat shows and had bought Paw Paw, we’d sold our home in the Valley of the Sun, which included all the furniture and furnishings as part of the sale, we’d sold our cabin in the White Mountains, we’d donated a heap of unwanted possessions to charity, we’d packed a small storage unit with the few sentimental possessions we wanted to keep, we’d shipped everything we wanted on Paw Paw to make her feel like home, Keenan had graduated from university with his double major, Elaine had officially retired, we’d sold the cars and life on the water beckoned. Roy, however, needed a few weeks at the start of 2014 to wrap up our business and the rest is history!
Now, going through the process of packing up our lives on Paw Paw to return to a landlubber life in a country we’ve never lived in, it’s hard to believe more than 10 years have passed since we moved onboard. We’ve seen the world, we’ve met so many wonderful people on our journey, we’ve experienced so many different cultures, customs, cuisines, religions and history. We’ve experienced the magical underwater world, with a boundless variety of sea-life and corals, we’ve experienced bioluminescence sparkling in Paw Paw’s wake as she moved through a dark starry night on passage, we’ve had whales, dolphins, turtles, manta rays and stingrays for company. We’ve even had a snake or two! We’ve seen places we never imagined we would visit. We’ve gone stealth as we traversed Pirate Alley in the Gulf of Aden. We’ve crossed the busiest shipping lanes in the world, we’ve transited both of the world’s major canals. We’ve walked on the world’s most stunning beaches, with crystal clear turquoise waters lapping around our ankles. We’ve hiked to the top of mountains to explore ancient castles. We’ve stood deadly still as a Komodo Dragon ran towards us. We’ve stood on the craters edge of an active volcano; the memories were boundless and came flooding back, overwhelming us at times, as we tried to concentrate on the task at hand; clearing-out, donating, discarding, packing or bagging and tagging items for the new owners, stripping all the bedding to be washed, dried and stowed, cleaning and neatly arranging everything as we progressed from locker to locker, cabin to cabin, cupboard to cupboard. At times the tears were tripping Elaine, but onward we went, the impeding dread of saying goodbye drawing ever closer.
Simultaneously we continued to receive news from Ireland on Elaine’s dad and waited in anticipation of an appointment at the Royal Hospital in Belfast to get input from the consultant on possible next steps and a revised prognosis for Elaine’s dad, given that he’d long surpassed their last prognosis of 3-4 weeks.
However, receiving the confirmation that both options open to him will result in his death, left us all reeling; amputations of both lower limbs, but Elaine’s dad was informed that he would not survive the procedure or accept that the gangrene will progress unabated and result in his death.
While a very difficult and heartbreaking day that left Elaine’s dad utterly devastated and soul destroyed at being told he won’t be recovering and going home, Elaine’s parents settled for the latter option, but the decision was also taken to transfer Elaine’s dad to a nursing home, the Slieve Dhu, in his “happy place”, the seaside town of Newcastle, nestled at the foothills of the Mourne Mountains, a few minutes walk from the home him and Elaine’s mom had shared since returning to Ireland. A brief chat to her dad revealed just how delighted he was to be moved, a small gesture given the circumstances.
Content and as pain-free as medically possible, he has continued to live out his life in a beautifully decorated room with a view of the gardens and a DVD Player connected to his TV to watch all his old cowboy movies. On one bright, sunny day he was taken out into the garden and has enjoyed visits from family and friends living in close proximity to the nursing home. He’s had days of complete clarity, making these visits very pleasant for Elaine’s mom and sister and, at times, they indicated it was like visiting him under “normal circumstances“ when he was his pleasant, funny, joking self. Sadly these moments didn’t last. Before long the state of confusion returned, but they were precious gifts regardless. All in all, it was the most we could all ask for at this stage.
As upsetting as the situation has been, we felt somehow better about it all, though, knowing he was much happier than he had been at Wood Lodge in Castlewellan. He was indirectly home and, with his tremendous fight for life and will to live, he gave us all the precious gift of time with him; Keenan got to see him again for the first time in 10 years, while, Brooke and his great-grandchildren got to meet him, Elaine’s brother got to spend time with him, we got to spend precious time with him, his youngest brother and his in-laws got to visit, his other grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who were able to make the journey, got to see him and his remaining time with Elaine’s mom and her sister in Ireland is helping them come to terms with it all. Prayers continued to be said, though, as time ticked by; 7 weeks in fact, before Elaine’s youngest sister could get to see him, a possibility that looked more precarious with each passing day as he’s pain medications keep him sedated and the gangrene progressed. That, however, was until Thursday, 12th September 2024, when he was caught by the nursing staff walking 6 steps from his chair to his bed, after the pressure alarm went off when he stood up from his chair, smiling once he’d reached the bed and telling Elaine’s mom: “I told you I’d walk again” and, with that, he climbed into bed and dosed off to sleep. Besides being truly in awe of this man and his unmatched fortitude, we all knew then that he’d intended to stick around until Elaine’s youngest sister arrived in Ireland.
Our time since we’ve been back in Bocas del Toro, after returning from Ireland, can be segregated into three phases; one, getting Paw Paw ready for the viewings we had pre-arranged, second, taking Paw Paw to Shelter Bay for the out-of-water survey and third, returning to Bocas del Toro and the endless waiting.
While we awaited a weather window to depart for Shelter Bay and with most jobs finished on Paw Paw, one particular morning we enjoyed a walk through the rainforest followed by breakfast at the Beach Club. Other days we enjoyed late afternoon walks, followed by a sundowner on the beach.
By Monday, 5th August 2024, we’d changed our departure date to an earlier slot, given that the less desirable weather was arriving later in the week. That decision resulted in a trip to Bocas town to collect our two new solar panels, get provisions to tide us over, install the new panels and prepare Paw Paw for departure.
On the early morning of Tuesday, 6th August 2024, we cast off the dock and set sail for Shelter Bay, the marina at the entrance to the Panama Canal and somewhere we never thought we’d ever be returning to when we first transited the canal in January 2016 with the World ARC. It was staggering to think, and still incredulous actually, that we’d since crossed three oceans and completed our circumnavigation.
From a weather perspective, it started off raining as expected, then cleared, although it remained overcast. It wasn’t long, though, before we were enjoying the magic carpet ride on the Caribbean countercurrent, something we knew would be creating a very slow passage on our return leg. Even though there was little wind, we still managed a SOG (Speed Over Ground) of 7 Kts. There was, however, a very odd large rolling swell, reminding us of our last visit to New Caledonia, where a similar swell occurred following an earthquake. Regardless, we were grateful that we hadn’t encountered any thunderstorms by this point, albeit that they were in the forecast.
As the night drew in, the wind veered giving us a better angle to sail, but thunderstorms could be seen in the distance and it didn’t take long before they were forming around us. Thankfully most moved passed us without incident, but one formed overhead during Roy’s watch, forcing a few manoeuvres to avoid the worst of it; Elaine slept through it all!
We’d made good timing, though, entering the breakwater of Cristobal Bay and reaching the anchorage outside the marina at around 0700. It had been a good sail, assisted by the current and wind and waves behind us, but it had also been a difficult 24 hours, primarily for Elaine, because she felt very nauseous the entire passage, exacerbated by the awful news we’d received the day before from the consultant regarding her dad’s prognosis, not to mention how tiring it was for her. It was a struggle, to say the least, and it’s not often Elaine doesn’t enjoy being out on the water sailing. Quite frankly she could have seen this trip far enough! It was all just terrible timing, hot on the heels of all the emotional upheaval with her dad. She was simply too upset to enjoy anything and just wanted the survey and the sale to be over and done with! Unfortunately the return trip was worse, horrendous in fact!
After catching up on some sleep in the anchorage, Paw Paw was secure in her berth by 1000 in Shelter Bay Marina, but not before the marina staff had first suggested the smallest berth they had vacant, when a perfectly good sized berth was available on the other side of the dock. The mind she boggles, although they did apologise later, explaining that they’d misunderstood Paw Paw’s dimensions and realised they’d made a mistake as we entered the marina; she is rather imposing at first sight! This was not the end of the saga, however. Deciding to enter the berth bow-to in order to have some privacy, a price tag of $128USD, which the chandlery tried to charge Roy for a $20USD plug, required to add our extension lead to get shore power, resulted in us simply turning Paw Paw around instead and entering the berth stern-to! There was no way in hell Roy was going to be ripped off like that and didn’t exactly endear himself to the owners of the chandlery when he told them that in no uncertain terms.
Once settled, Roy removed the helmstation weather guard and, armed with the new plastic we’d had delivered to Bocas del Toro, he set off in search of the sailmaker to have the plastic windows redone, something we last had done in Türkiye, but they had basically disintegrated for some unknown reason. Taking advantage of having the availability of a sailmaker, we had one of the hatch covers repaired too, something Elaine could have undertaken herself had she not given away her sewing machine in St Lucia, thinking Paw Paw was sold at that point.
Then, while Elaine visited the marina office to clear in, Roy strolled over to the yard to confirm arrangements for the haulout and to finalise arrangements for the Yanmar mechanics to service the engines, saildrives and generator, including the oil changes and fuel filter changes, cleaning the exhaust elbows on both engines, replacing the oil seals on the saildrives and replacing the propeller zincs.
Being back in Shelter Bay Marina brought back a flood of memories too, especially taking the shopping bus to Colón and crossing over the Panama Canal. It was here that Keenan, Brooke and William, who was just 9 months old at the time, joined us for our transit through the Panama Canal. It was rather apt that on 8th August 2024, we woke to the wonderful news that our little smarty pants had exceeded the school district and state mathematical proficiency tests and had, in fact, performed above mastery in Operations, Algebraic Thinking and Numbers in Base Ten, performed above mastery in Numbers and Operations -
Fractions, performed at or near mastery in Measurement, Data, and Geometry, showed a strong understanding of the expectations for the tested grade and was likely ready for mathematics in the next grade.
This was the start of various family achievements and celebrations to come over the following weeks, including Brooke completing the theoretical aspects of her studies with straight As in all her subjects and had started her externship, our granddaughter, Capri, passing her driving examination and acquiring her learner’s driving permit, Elaine’s eldest great-niece passing her GCSEs with flying colours, her great-nephew starting high school and her youngest great-niece starting pre-school. On the sporting front, her nephew had played his best round of golf ever, winning his competition as a tribute to his Granda, who had spent years coaching him from the tender age of 3 and, by no means least, we welcomed a new member to the family, Elaine’s youngest great-nephew, Luka, Elaine’s brother’s second grandson.
On Saturday, 10th August 2024, we were up early for the haulout and thankfully the surveyor was prompt and thorough. For some inexplicable reason, though, Elaine just couldn’t stop crying that entire morning; it was yet another bittersweet event on this adventure. We were glad the sale had reached this stage, the last hoop to jump through, other than to get Paw Paw safely back to Bocas del Toro for the closing, but it was going to be yet another difficult goodbye, having already had the awful experience of saying goodbye to Elaine’s dad just a few weeks earlier. As usual though, after not having a breath of air and tolerating sweltering heat for the preceding days following our arrival in Shelter Bay Marina, we woke to a strong crosswind as we manoeuvred Paw Paw into the haulout bay. Thankfully by 0830 she was on the hard, but remained in the sling; this was to be a quick haul and splash and by that afternoon we were back in our berth. All we needed now was to get the last of the jobs completed, collect our refurbished helmstation weather guard and set sail for Bocas del Toro. It was the latter that delayed our return, however, taking the sailmaker almost two weeks to complete the job and when he eventually did finish, he would only take payment in cash. Ordinarily that doesn’t present much of an issue, except in this case, we’d just been to town the day before, a 3 1/2 hour round trip, on the courtesy bus, a trip Roy had to repeat the following day to get the cash we needed; very frustrating!
Once we received the weather guard and perusal of the weather indicated we needed to leave sooner rather than later to avoid being stuck in Shelter Bay Marina for another week, a situation we both desperately wanted to avoid, given that this marina was not our favourite and indeed no comparison to the Red Frog Island Resort and Marina. This resulted in a hasty departure from Shelter Bay Marina on Monday, 12th August 2024, but not before we had to wait until almost 1100 before the mechanics returned to do a final check of the engines, after Roy went to track them down on two separate occasions, but, thankfully, everything was working as intended. The second delay was waiting on the marina office to prepare our final invoice. The latter was another exercise involving a mob of office workers trying to figure out how they could refund us against a shorter stay and withdraw our discount using their very convoluted sliding scale of charges depending on the length of a stay. Eventually, by noon, we were exiting the marina and by 1400 we were motor-sailing under sunny skies, with winds out of the northwest at 7 Kts and against the countercurrent at 2.3 Kts, the latter something we expected and knew would result in a crawl back to Bocas del Toro. We’d had a similar experience on our passage from Curacao to Bocas del Toro back in May this year. By 1620 we had a 3 Kt current against us, but hopeful that it would alleviate somewhat as we passed the exit curve of the large bay, Golfo Delosmosquitos.
Our first night at sea was under a rare “blue supermoon”. Despite being called a blue moon, the moon doesn't actually turn blue. In this instance it was, in fact, red in various parts of the world as smoke from the wildfires in North America hung in the atmosphere.
Since the lunar cycle is 29.5 days, this eventually gets out of sync with our Gregorian calendar, where you normally have one full moon a month. While in some parts of the world, blue moons are most commonly defined when there is an extra 13th full moon in the year, where the second full moon in a month becomes the blue moon, the traditional definition, however, is explained as the lunar cycle resulting in any season having four, not three, full moons; the third full moon is then given the status of a blue moon. As blue moons are not that common, it's thought that the phrase: "Once in a blue moon" comes from this phenomenon.
This full moon also happened to be a "supermoon", which occurs when the full moon coincides with the moon being at its closest point to earth in its orbit, the perigee, thus appearing brighter and larger in the night sky.
However, by 0300, with much of the sky overcast, we didn’t enjoy much guidance from the “blue supermoon” and, after the forecast had indicated light and variable winds in slight seas and definitely no mention of frontal weather for the duration of our passage, instead, we had wind speeds of 20-30 Kts on the nose in 2-3 metre seas and thunderstorms appearing in every direction we looked. At one point, on Elaine’s watch, we barely had a SOG of 1.5 Kts, calling for some drastic measures; turn to starboard, albeit out into the stronger part of the current, but at a much better wind angle to sail, a better angle to the waves and a tack that took us away from the thunderstorms that lined the coast. This worked, but required a lot of tacking, back and forth, not only to keep a half decent SOG, but to avoid the continuous bands of thunderstorms that kept popping up. By the time Roy came on watch again, the current had subsided a little, which helped our SOG again as we altered cause to get a better VMG (Velocity Made Good), but was negated by one of the worst lightning storms we’ve encountered, although thankfully not as bad as the storm we encountered in Boro Bora in 2016. Regardless, as the thunderstorm developed above us and surrounded us, we thought we were about to be blown to smithereens when three massive lightning bolts struck the water at a distance that was definitely too close for comfort, creating the loudest thunder clap we’ve ever heard and causing us both to nearly jump out of our skin, but forced a swift decision to do a 180 degree turn to let the storm pass over us as quickly as possible, praying there wouldn’t be any lightning strikes in our path as we did so. Then, after bobbing around for a while, to be completely sure the storm had moved off into the distance, leaving us with a safe distance to proceed, we continued on our way. At our wits end by this point, though, we were both extremely vigilant for the remainder of the passage, to the point we developed alternative plans to tuck into either Laguna de Chiroqui or sneak behind Cayos Zapatilla so as to avoid a repeat performance of the night we’d just had, if conditions deteriorated again.
Thankfully the gods decided to smile on us after that incident. Although it rained on and off all day, we didn’t encountered another storm for the rest of the passage, arriving at Punto Cauro, the northern point of the archipelago, to enter the marked channel between Isla Colón and the Panama mainland at around 0500, in lighter winds and flatter sea. As we picked up cell phone connectivity again, we also received the good news that the buyers had received the Survey Report and no issues were reported. To the contrary, words like “excellent” and “very good” were scattered throughout the report.
By 0730 we were safely back in our berth in the marina of the Red Frog Island Resort, hopeful that that would be our last passage. All we needed to do now was to “winterise” Paw Paw, settle into the serenity and peacefulness of life in the Bocas del Toro archipelago and await the closing of the sale, having paid the piper on a horrendous passage.
Our immediate tasks included the removal of all the emergency equipment from the lifelines, all the jacklines and the running rigging and ensuring everything was clean and dry before being tagged for the new owners and stowed, giving both engines a fresh water flush again, raising the boom and covering the stackpack with a tarpaulin to keep the mainsail dry, as well as topping up the diesel tanks with the remaining diesel in the jerry cans, washing and sterilising all the water jerry cans before stowing the lot and stowing all the unused fenders and docklines. Finally, it was time to complete the last yacht task after getting assistance from one of the dockhands to winch Roy up the mast; replace the anchor light!
Although we acknowledge it’s time to sell Paw Paw and we both want this sale to go through, given that we’ve been living in limbo since completing our circumnavigation in December last year and would like that to come to an end sooner rather than later, it’s still hard to move on from a lifestyle that we’ve loved so much, especially when we’ll be moving into a vacuum of complete uncertainty. This uncertainty is exacerbated by concerns we have about our decision on choosing Ireland as the country in which to live out our lives, given the challenges the country is currently facing, having no home to go to and concerns about what type of property we will actually end up with, moving back to a landlubber life that we’ve never experienced before without our careers and businesses to keep us occupied and wondering what on earth we’re actually going to do to keep ourselves productive. Concerns about what kind of healthcare Elaine will be exposed to, and indeed the availability and promptness thereof, considering the extremely long waiting list still prevalent three years after the COVID-19 pandemic, especially since private healthcare insurers are not willing to cover her until a 5 year qualifying period has elapsed, while having to pay monthly premiums for the duration of that time. Concerns about our overall happiness and wellbeing, when all this is added to the melting pot. The questions are endless, fuelling our disquiet of what this next chapter holds for us. It’s fair to say that this is the first time in our lives that we feel so directionless. So many years were consumed in preparing and readying ourselves for our vagabond lifestyle and it seems to be all over in a flash and we’re now somewhat unprepared for this next chapter, given that nothing seems tangible at the moment. It doesn’t help matters either, but since we set foot back in the western culture after setting sail from Türkiye we can’t help but notice there’s a prevailing worldview that seems to be more apathetic, nihilistic and hedonistic.
To help mitigate these feelings, not surprisingly, Elaine has put together another Master Plan, but due to the number of intangible aspects and circumstances out of our control, it still feels rather airy fairy, which isn’t really instilling one morsel of confidence. We draw solace, however, in the fact that these feelings are similar to the ones we experienced when we first set off on our sailing adventure and, indeed, whenever we undertook a passage, drawing on the motto of: “Prepare for the worst and expect the best!”
To this end, we’d undertaken a huge amount of preparation in getting Paw Paw ready to be sold, including all the work required to stage her for all the photographs we needed to advertise her and the video we put together. Collating a detailed specification of her inventory and then building a website to portray all this information, as well as advertise her on the various industry standard websites at a substantial cost. With numerous inquiries we had to ensure she was “putting her best foot forward“ when those inquiries turned to viewings and then investigating and collating all the legal aspects which had to be in situ for a sale.
Additionally, we have toured Ireland at every opportunity to undertake a reconnaissance of the various parts of the country to determine areas where we would consider living and then undertook a detailed analysis of those areas in terms of population density and determining the impact on available resources, including access to medical facilities particularly. Crime rates, access to various amenities, including supermarkets, shops, cafés and restaurants, proximity to outdoor activities, availability of local and national public transportation networks, macro weather trends, etc, were all analysed too, with the intention of trying to avoid a very expensive mistake.
Back in our world on the water, we settled into the slower pace of the archipelago and passed our time enjoying early morning walks through the rainforest or evening strolls followed by a sundowner on the beach, walks to the Beach Club for lunch and / or a swim in the pools, or indeed, to play Mexican train dominoes with friends, Noelene and Geoff, off Onyx, whom we first met in Bonaire. Some sundowner evenings involved a larger crowd when cruising friends of Onyx joined us. Taking trips to Bocas town on the complementary water taxi to do our weekly provisioning and eventually collecting our long overdue cruising permit helped stave off the monotony too. These trips inevitably started with a morning coffee first at the Cat in the Hat café, more often than not, with Nolene and Geoff, before we’d all dash off to run our errands after a good “chinwag”. As time passed we also discovered that trips to Bocas town were best made on a Tuesday when the fresh produce supply boats arrived with fruit and vegetables.
The opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics and Paralympics helped pass the time too, thinking how ironic it was that “My Way”, Elaine’s dad’s favourite song and one he used to sing all the time, was the last song that brought the Olympics to a close.
The weather has been a mixed bag. Generally we’ve had sunny skies with temperatures no hotter than 28-30C, but the humidity is the killer most days. That’s resulted in us spending our days onboard in the coolness of our air-conditioned saloon. Fortunately the early mornings, evenings and nights are cooler, making exercise and sleep comfortable. However, there have also been some incredible storms, accompanied by wind, a deluge of torrential rain, thunder and lightning, each causing flash flooding in Bocas town and had us grabbing all our electronic devices and placing them in the oven to act as a faraday cage.
On Monday 26th August 2024, however, the day didn’t end quite the way we’d expected. Not feeling too great when she woke up, Elaine still opted to accompany Roy to Bocas town, but, by that evening she was in the local hospital. Fortunately after being treated for a viral gastro infection, which included a drip and a series of blood tests, urine tests, etc, she was discharged later that same night, armed with a prescription and strict instructions on the diet she was to adhere to for the rest of that week. While the doctor had indicated it would take at least 3-5 days to start feeling better, it was, in fact, almost a fortnight, but we subsequently discovered a number of cruisers had fallen victim to the same illness. Further discussions disclosed the source of the infection; a worker at the Mama Nachos café on the beach. Needless to say, we haven’t visited there since, but they’ve been closed throughout the month of September anyway, a normal occurrence apparently when staff take their holidays; probably a good thing, given the number of people we know who got sick. Regardless, Elaine wasn’t taking any more chances on eating out or drinking anything that didn’t come out of a sealed bottle or can when we did go out!
What surprised Elaine, however, was how quickly the illness worsened over the course of an afternoon and then how washed out she felt for weeks afterwards. This, of course, forced her to slow down whether she wanted to or not. Thankfully the incident didn’t resulted in a flare.
Once she felt better, we continued our activities of clearing out, cleaning and re-organising the remaining areas of Paw Paw. This included all the food storage areas onboard, the tools bunk and the cleaning products bunk, as well as getting all the remaining bedding and towels washed and dried for the new owners, with the exception of what we’re still using. Other activities have included polishing the galley countertops and the sole of the saloon, researching travel options, including the better route to take to Ireland, flights, hotels, baggage allowances, or indeed, extra baggage allowances and pricing, given the number of bags we’ll be carting with us to Ireland, as well as our exit / handover strategy.
To take a break from all the yacht centric efforts, besides catching up on all our outstanding videos and cataloguing photographs, Elaine also enjoyed a treatment at the resort spa, only a short walk from the entrance to the marina. Listening to the sounds of the rainforest while being pampered in a jungle hut was definitely a new and unique experience, one definitely to be repeated in the not too distant future. Roy has enjoyed his well deserved downtime perfecting his sourdough and crusty loaves, as well as throwing in the odd batch of cranberry muffins; delicious!
By Saturday, 7th September 2024, we’d learnt of a slight wobble with the sale of Paw Paw on the buyers side, but we were all still hopeful the situation could be rectified and the sale would close as planned.
Setting that hiccup aside, we decided to go on a dinghy excursion and explore other areas of the archipelago. Our reconnaissance took us to Crawl Cay on the far eastern side of Isla Bastimentos, as we weaved through mangroves and rainforest clad islands and coves as far as the eye could see. Closer to our destination we discovered a myriad of snorkelers in the water at two different locations, but, although we could clearly see the bottom covered in sea grass with patches of sand as we dinghied along, given how clear the water was, we didn’t see much in the way of sea-life, so we weren’t altogether sure what the tourists were actually looking at, but we were lucky enough to see the most beautiful bright yellow starfish as we manoeuvred through the mangroves. Since we haven’t seen locals out fishing in and around the archipelago either, we’re surmising the sea-life is depleted and any fresh fish available to buy in town is most likely coming from the Pacific Ocean side.
As we approached Crawl Cay, we spotted two separate sets of buildings on the water’s edge. One was teaming with tourists and pangas filled every inch of the docks. It seemed to have bar and restaurant facilities, but looked like a classic tourist trap. Deciding to dinghy to the slightly further buildings, we discovered a far nicer establishment, filled with locals enjoying their weekend. After stopping there for a drink, we returned to Paw Paw, a round trip that took most of the morning, but we were surprised to find the first establishment completely deserted by this time; there wasn’t a panga or tourist in sight, not even in the water snorkelling. This confirmed our initial suspicions, although it was rather bizarre to see, given the number of people that were there just an hour earlier. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our outing, passing numerous traditional dugouts en route, used by the indigenous Indians for their transportation around the archipelago. We also passed a variety of stunning homes on the waterfront or hidden high in the jungle, assumed to belong to the numerous American expatriates, whom, we learnt shortly after arriving in Bocas del Toro, have made this part of the world their home, given the relative ease at which a permanent residence permit can be obtained and the far cheaper medical services.
Although, over the course of our stay in Bocas del Toro, we’ve had copious amounts of time on our hands, because of the humidity making the ambient temperatures so much more intense and having received numerous recommendations from other cruisers in the marina, we enlisted the services of Fernando to clean and polish the exterior of Paw Paw, rather than tackle the task ourselves.
We can honestly say that, although we’ve spent an inordinate amount of our own time and energy over the years cleaning and polishing Paw Paw, Fernando took this activity to a whole new level. Taking a small section at a time, every inch, nook and cranny was scrubbed, washed, hand polished or machine polished, whichever ensured the best outcome and stainless was left glittering, leaving Paw Paw shining so brightly it hurt our eyes to inspect his workmanship under sunny skies. This was certainly money well spent! We’d never seen Paw Paw so clean!
Chatting to family and friends have been interspersed with whatever activities we had planned for a day, but being able to chat to Elaine’s dad on occasion and receiving surprise text or audio messages, or indeed phone calls from the grandchildren, never ceased to brighten our days!
By Monday, 16th September 2024, Elaine’s youngest sister had arrived in Ireland; prayers had been answered once again when she too got the opportunity to spend precious time with our dad. He recognised her voice immediately as she approached his room, lightening up his face as she entered. It was clear that he had “hung on” to see her after constantly stating over the months of his illness: “Someone’s missing! Who’s missing?” and being told it was Deborah, but that she was coming. He could now rest easy; he’d seen all of his love ones.
Although time seems to be crawling along at a snails pace as we await the closing, it was hard to believe that another Autumnal Equinox was upon us and it had been a year since we first advertised Paw Paw for sale.
The word “Equinox” derives from the Latin for "Equal to night". This phenomenon occurs twice a year when day and night are equal in length. At the precise moment of Equinox, the sun crosses the earth's equatorial plane, a projection of the terrestrial equator out into space. Equinox is a short plateau of apparent equal light and dark in our days of mid-Spring and mid-Autumn. At the Autumnal Equinox in September, the sun moves from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere and for many in the northern hemisphere, the shortening evenings bring an early shiver, not so much because of a cooler temperature, but more from an anticipation of the darker, colder days of Winter.
Yet in Ireland, the Celtic festival of Autumnal Equinox calls folks away from such an energy sapping outlook to embrace this "pause between Autumn and Winter", allowing one to experience the short liminal space as the hours and minutes of darkness begin to outdo those of daylight and provide the precious opportunity to synchronise our lives with that brief spell of equanimity.
It may be surprising to know that this is the last festival in the Irish native year; the next being the festival of “Samhain”, which was regarded as a celebration of the Irish indigenous New Year, hence this last quarter Autumnal Equinox Festival, known as “Conacht Fómhair” in Gaelic, is extremely special. It is a chance to consciously stir intentions on how to live the final weeks of a declining year with alignment and balance. The Autumnal Equinox reminds us to recalibrate the “yin” and the “yang”, the light and the dark as Mother Nature comes to a point of equanimity. In ancient times, rituals were held at this time to cleanse out old energy and welcome in the new. This is seen as a time of struggle between light and darkness, life and death; something that is a clear reflection of where we find ourselves this Autumnal Equinox.
By Tuesday, 24th September 2024, we were also celebrating yet another wedding anniversary. It was hard to believe another year had passed since we celebrated our Ruby Anniversary with family in Ireland and, a year on, we were still not living back in Ireland as we’d planned. It was most certainly a case of “man proposed and God laughed!”
By Monday, 1 July 2024, after our week in Türkiye, where we had attended a variety of medical appointments, we were settled back in Newcastle and back into our routine of visiting Elaine’s dad at the Lodge.
It’s fair to say the doctors hadn’t quite got the timing of Elaine dad’s prognosis right, having given him a life expectancy of 3-4 weeks after he’d been discharged from hospital; it had been 4 weeks on Saturday, 29 June 2024, but seeing him a week later, we didn’t think they were going to be too far off the mark; we could definitely see the further decline and progression. He was in good spirits though, looked very comfortable and still able to joke and laugh with us. It certainly helped that he was on much stronger medication by this point, which was keeping his pain levels under control. Regardless, we were as surprised as anyone that he was still this side of the grass and had even been selected as “Patient of the Month”. It was simply astonishing actually!
However, our visits became an emotional rollercoaster of not knowing what to expect as the days passed. Some visits he slept right through them, unable to surface at all, others he would ramble on about all sorts of things and others he was upset and anxious, but there were also times when he joked and laughed, retaining his sense of humour through it all. These were the best days, but regardless, we were happy to still have time with him as heartbreaking as it all was. He continued to eat everything we brought him as a treat although didn’t gain a single pound; everything he was eating was going straight through him as we’d been warned, but he enjoyed the treats and we were happy to oblige.
When our visits butted up against dinnertime and we had to leave, he always thanked us for coming and wanted affirmation that we’d be “back tomorrow” and indeed we were, although most days he’d forgotten we’d even been there the day before. His world revolved around the present and wanting to know when next he’d see us. This was true for Elaine’s mom and sister’s visits too and the odd occasion when Roy drove Elaine’s mom up for an additional surprise visit.
When not visiting Elaine’s dad we enjoyed walks along the waterfront, coffee morning outings and purchasing odds and ends we needed to bring back with us to Paw Paw. This included two trips to Kilkeel to the chandlery in the hopes of purchasing stainless bolts we needed. Unfortunately our first trip coincided with their stocktaking and the second proved fruitless as well, given that they didn’t have what we needed.
On Thursday, 4 July 2024, we had a wonderful visit reminiscing about old times and, in particular, Elaine’s dad’s love of golf and teaching Elaine and her brother and all the grandchildren how to play, all of whom still play to this day. Our trip down memory lane recalled his coaching days at a golf club in Cheshire when Elaine’s parents first arrived in England. It was amazing that in all the years Elaine had never known where or how his love of golf started; she found out during this visit. It was in Zambia, of all places, as he regaled us with tales of skipping out of work early to get in a game of golf.
By Friday, 5 July 2024, our time in Newcastle was drawing to a close and the exact situation we had hoped to avoid was upon us; we had to say our final goodbye to Elaine’s dad and await the news of his passing from a distance. Except we didn’t actually tell him we were leaving because we simply didn’t have the heart, given the state we found him in after arriving for our afternoon visit that day.
He’d clearly been waiting anxiously for someone to visit and the minute we walked into his room we could see how upset he was; unexpectedly he was totally lucid and had figured our where he was, making it abundantly clear that he didn’t want to stay, asking us to help get him home. He also wanted to know why he was stuck in this “matchbox”, (aka his cot), and why he couldn’t move, explaining that he felt he was in a prison and needed to be able to get up and go for a walk.
Unable to calm him down by explaining how ill he was, reminding him he’d been in hospital, how he had contracted multiple infections, including COVID-19 and had had a stroke and that he could no longer walk, nothing pacified him. In an attempt to help his recollection of what had occurred Elaine asked him if he remembered Keenan, Brooke and the grandchildren visiting; “Of course!” he replied. That she then explained as the correlation with him being in the Ulster Hospital in Belfast. Elaine got the same answer when she asked if he remembered her brother visiting; that she correlated with the time he was in the Down Hospital in Downpatrick. By now he wanted to know how long we’d been visiting him; it was approaching six weeks. Trying to do the mental arithmetic he wanted to know how long he’d been ill; “Approaching three months”, Elaine replied. Flabbergasted he exclaimed that that was impossible and that someone must be sedating him. Regardless, no matter what Elaine told him he wanted to go home and he wanted us to help him. Heartbroken and destroyed at having to tell him that wasn’t possible, Elaine eventually requested the experience of the on duty staff nurse, who had not expected his lucidity either, but certainly helped manage the situation.
Deciding not to upset Elaine’s mom at this juncture, Elaine called her sister instead who drove up immediately. We’d concluded that having someone stay with him who’d been through the entire ordeal with him and could possibly help fill in the blanks was preferable to leaving him on his own at this point, especially with Elaine and Roy’s imminent departure.
While the staff nurse had managed to pacify him and the presence of Elaine’s sister calmed him, we decided to say goodbye just like every other day in the hope that he’d remembered our conversation the day before about us leaving on Saturday to return to Panama to sell Paw Paw and that we’d be back as soon as we could. This, however, evaporated when he wanted to know: “Will you be back tomorrow?” All Elaine could muster was: “We’re not sure, we have a few matters to deal with, but we’ll be back as soon as we can”. With that, we walked out of his room, waving and blowing him kisses. Needless to say, tears were tripping Elaine before she even got to the car and she cried at the drop of a hat all the way back to Panama. It was simply awful! Goodbyes to Elaine’s mom and sister which swiftly followed weren’t much better, but the knowledge that we were off to view houses before returning to Panama to sell Paw Paw helped ease the pain; we were returning to Ireland as soon as we could and looking for our new home.
By 11 July 2024 we were back at Dublin airport for our return journey to Panama via Atlanta, but not before we’d replaced our Hyundai Kona electric vehicle for a Volkswagen ID-4 and completed another road trip to the counties we’d narrowed down in our research and to view houses where we’d prearranged appointments with the relevant realtors.
Before collecting our replacement electric vehicle though, we inadvertently had a walking tour of Dublin city centre, trailing our suitcases behind us because of the unavailability of a taxi to Stephens Green from Docklands, the latter where we’d returned the Kona. Thankfully it wasn’t raining, although noticeably chillier. It was, however, the state of the city centre that caught our attention; grubby and littered, a far cry from the beautiful city we last visited in 1998.
After a coffee and baked delight at Stephens Green, it was close to 1400 by the time we’d found the hired car and we were heading out of the city for our first port-of-call, the beautiful village and surroundings of Cong in County Galway, where the Quite Man was filmed, starring one of Elaine’s dad’s favourite actors, John Wayne, before continuing on to our hotel for the night in Claregalway, a rather nondescript little place that was not quite the quaint village we’d read about online, but we enjoyed a delicious meal at the hotel’s restaurant before retiring for the night.
The next morning we were up early for our two hour drive to Carrick-on-Shannon where we were meeting the realtors of a few properties we were interested in, all completely different in terms of style, age and setting, but provided options worth considering.
Our accommodation for the night was the Bush Hotel in the centre of Carrick-on-Shannon, where we enjoyed another tasty meal at one of the local restaurants and had the opportunity to explore the picturesque town centre and riverfront boardwalk.
Our trip to view a house in County Sligo on Monday, 8 July 2024, was a huge disappointment, but the countryside and coastline was stunning, adding another option to our search area, before returning to one of our favourite areas, County Donegal, and driving through Ballyshannon, another little town we’d wanted to see before settling in at the Mill Park Hotel once again.
Opting for an evening stroll, followed by dinner in the familiar setting of the hotel, we had a lot to mull over before our last excursion back along the northern coast of Donegal Bay to revisit some areas like Killybegs, which we concluded was definitely too industrial for us and the house definitely didn’t have the sea view it was advertised as having. Additionally, Andara wasn’t quite the picturesque little village Roy had remembered. Our travels also took us back to view houses in other areas we’d previously liked, including Creevy and Portnoo, but, more importantly, to explore slightly further afield, going as far as Kilcar and Dungloe, the latter on the western coast of the county.
Again, we were presented with a mix bag of disappointment and delight at the houses we looked at. All in all our exploration and potential options offered completely different lifestyles, providing plenty of food for thought and a lot to digest, particularly the buying and selling process in Ireland and the various methods revealed through information received from the realtors and through our own research.
Out and about in County Donegal, though, we couldn’t help but notice the teddy bears hanging off fences and gates everywhere. Later research revealed that this was associated with Sandra’s Run, an annual event held in memory of Sandra Boyle, who sadly passed away from leukaemia just before her 18th birthday in 1991. With 400 bikers hitting the roads, the locals had, once again, come out in force to support the event by placing hundreds of teddies along the route to show their support and to wish them well.
On our second night in Donegal town, we opted to walk into the town centre for dinner to help clear our heads and enjoy a chat to Keenan, who was on a stopover in Hawaii, before returning to the hotel for a nightcap.
Armed with plenty of new information and having determined our final list of areas in which we would consider living, our first priority was getting back to Panama to meet the various potential buyers who were flying in to view the yacht. These arrangements had been made to coincide with our return date, but also to allow some time to get a few yacht projects completed ahead of time, given that we were returning with a few parts we needed or had arranged the delivery of others for our return.
By the evening of Wednesday, 10 July 2024, we had returned the hired car and settled into the hotel we’d booked for the night in Dublin, given our early morning departure to Atlanta and then onto Panama City. Dinner at a nearby restaurant followed by an evening stroll through a nearby park sealed the day and our time in Ireland. On this return leg, however, we were able to catch a connecting flight to Bocas del Toro from Panama City without having to spend yet another night in a hotel, but, regardless, we had to spend the night in Atlanta. Thankfully though, the only hiccup was getting to our hotel in Atlanta, given that there was only a handful of buses running to the hotel shuttle terminus for all the international flights arriving in Atlanta, resulting in Roy having to stand in the queue for nearly two hours before it was our turn to board a bus; process engineering at its finest! The rest of the journey was uneventful. It definitely helped matters that the wheelchair assistance, although unavailable for our arrival in Atlanta, was available for our departure and allowed us to skip the mile-long queues for Immigration and Security; a godsend actually. That said, we would have saved ourselves the two hour wait for the transfer bus the afternoon before had the wheelchair assistance materialised on our arrival in Atlanta. Our stay was exacerbated by the fact that the hotel we’d chosen for the night didn’t have a restaurant, so, as tired as we were, we had to walk another mile to the closest restaurant for dinner. We did, however, have a good night’s sleep, which made the stopover worthwhile.
By 1800 on Thursday, 11 July 2024, after catching a water taxi from Bocas town we were back onboard Paw Paw, delighted that we’d chosen the Bocas del Toro archipelago for the hurricane season over staying in Grenada, especially considering Hurricane Beryl that barrelled through Carricou and the Grenadine islands while we were in Ireland, leaving a path of destruction, flattening homes, devastating agriculture and wrecking numerous yachts in its wake, shocking meteorologists at how fast it intensified in taking just 42 hours to go from a tropical depression to a major hurricane,
just a few short weeks after we’d been in the Windward Islands.
Fortunately we’d stopped at one of the little grocery stores in Bocas town for a few essentials, so a light bite to eat, a shower and our beds followed in quick succession. It was hard to believe we were back in Bocas del Toro, though, after everything we’d dealt with over the preceding weeks, including the traumatic goodbyes, only to be playing the waiting game once again, but we will remain forever grateful for the precious time we got to spend with Elaine’s dad, for time with family and that Elaine’s surgery had been a huge success, changing her world on so many levels.
It didn’t take long for our life in the Red Frog Beach Island Marina to become another whirlpool of unpacking, stowing, sorting out laundry, cleaning, polishing, fixing, replacing, etc, as well as checking the engines, generator and all the electronics to make sure everything was still working as intended. Fortunately the interior of Paw Paw had stayed clean from our earlier efforts following our initial arrival in Panama, but the exterior was in desperate need of another good clean. We, however, had barely finished getting the outside sparkling, with help on the decks and topsides from Mother Nature as it poured down for a few hours, when the inside was turned upside down and looked like a bomb had hit Paw Paw as Roy replaced the hot-water heater on the starboard side, replaced the wooden steps on the swim ladder and handles on the transom seat, but not before those were varnished and dried, checked the watermaker area to make sure everything was in order there, packed away the spare fenders, removed our ever so fancy passerelle, since we wouldn’t be needing that anytime soon and finished a number of other bits and bobs that needed doing, all in preparation for the viewings we’d arranged. It didn’t help matters that the cockpit was a soggy mess too because we hadn’t put the side skirts down to prevent a tripping hazard for Roy as he went about his business to get all the yachts tasks completed.
By Friday, 19 July 2024, everything was ready and Paw Paw looked like our home again with everything back in place and the new saloon throw cushion making a vast difference as the finishing touches. All we had to do now was sit back and show her off.
In between all this mayhem we’ve enjoyed settling into life in the Bocas del Toro archipelago. This includes trips in the complementary water taxi to Bocas town to enjoy a morning coffee and a baked delight or a freshly squeezed fruit juice at one of the many cafés and to run our errands. We also enjoy early morning walks through the rainforest or a mid-morning walk over to the windward side of the island where we enjoy a morning coffee at one of the restaurants on the beach. Evening sundowners on the beach with new found friends or a swim and a meal at the La Rosa Beach Club have entertained us as well.
Besides that, we’ve enjoyed time with family and friends on video calls and Zoom Family Get-togethers, the latter so Elaine’s dad can “see” us all. “Seeing” the grandchildren is always a highlight, but it’s hard to believe they’re all back at school for their new school year and, fortunately, they all like their new teachers; definitely a good start! Brayden had already got an acknowledgment certificate, so he was off to a flying start, but seeing the twins looking like toothless wanderers with their missing teeth brings home how time waits for no man; they’re growing up far too quickly before our eyes!
Finding our way around Bocas town has revealed a number of treasure troves, including the best place to buy our meat, the best place to purchase our fresh fruit and vegetables, the best place to get our staples and a fabulous 3-storey shop carrying at least one of everything you can think of in the way of household goods and furnishings, as well as a slightly different variety of groceries; definitely a “go-to” shop.
The weather has been cooler than we expected, with daytime temperatures never exceeding 30C, but on certain days the humidity makes it feel hotter. As a result our air-conditioners have been working to keep us cool on occasion, especially when there isn’t the slightest breeze. It is the overnight and early morning thunderstorms that are worthy of note, however, reminding us of life on the Highveld in South Africa as the night skies light up and the thunder rumbles through. Thankfully the majority of the storms are in the distance from where we are nestled amongst the mangroves on the leeward side of Isla Bastimentos. A lesson definitely learnt, however, was not to leave the dinghy off the davits and floating in the water for any length of time, unless we want to spend a great deal of time bailing out the rain water.
It is the constant progression of these downpours though, that turn the streets in Bocas town into a muddy mess, exacerbated by the ongoing roadworks trying to fix the roads, that sadly give the town a tatty feel at first glance. A closer look, however, reveals numerous clean, well stocked shops alongside numerous cafés and restaurants, most on stilts over the waters edge. But, with all this rain, there are actually water restrictions here; very bizarre!
Our trips into town are usually made to coincide with the constant collection of our shipped items from Miami, using a fabulous service called Red ‘n Blue. There’s nothing we haven’t been able to get delivered, including a new anchor light, new grommets for the trampoline and the new hot-water tank; a godsend as we complete our hurricane season To Do List, which seems to have come around far too quickly this year somehow. Detailed cleaning activities have included cleaning the fridge and freezer, all the blinds, the bilges and under the floorboards. Other activities we’ve completed since the viewings have included checking and servicing all the hatches, removing and replacing all the grommets on the trampoline, but not before actually untying the trampoline, a mission in itself so as not to have the whole lot end up in the water. Getting it back in place was certainly not the easiest of jobs either, but no worse than getting all the old grommets off to begin with.
Less strenuous activities have included sorting out what needs to be packed and clearing out as we progress, sorting out all the yacht documentation and system manuals, etc and bagging and labelling all the spares so as not to confuse any future owner. Paw Paw’s waterline is the highest it’s been in ten years!
As the end of July approached and the uncertainty in our lives continues, we content ourselves with the fact that we have no other choice, but to live each day as it comes, while we await the ending of this chapter of our lives and the start of the next, taking comfort in the fact that some day we will enjoy some Irish culture like Garland Sunday, celebrated on 28 July 2024 this year, also known as Bilberry Sunday or Reek Sunday.
In Ireland of the past, July was a month marked by scarcity of food before the harvest and people looked forward to the end of "Hungry July", anticipating the harvest to come and celebrating accordingly.
Like most old Irish pagan festivals, it was co-opted as a Christian one, yet had been celebrated long ago in prehistory. Its origins are in the pagan festival of Lughnasadh, named after the god Lugh and one of the four major seasonal festivals, along with Samhain, Imbolc and Bealtaine. While Lá Lughnasa occurs on 1st August every year, Garland Sunday celebrations occur on the last Sunday in July.
It is an annual day of pilgrimage for the climb of Croagh Patrick, County Mayo, known as Ireland's holiest mountain. It is where St Patrick is said to have spent 40 days and nights fasting. To honour him, pilgrims ascend the mountain on this day, praying for special intentions or as an act of penance. Many of them climb barefoot, performing circuits of certain sites on the mountain before attending Mass in a modern, purpose-built church on the summit.
In some parts of the country, the day is known as Domhnach Chrom Dubh (Crom Dubh's Sunday). Crom Dubh, the Dark Stooped One, was an old tyrannical god with evil powers who opposed the youthful and strong sun-like god Lugh. It is believed that Lugh fought and defeated the older god Crom Dubh to take back the harvest. Traditionally, Lughnasa was also marked by games held in honour of Lugh's mother, Tailtiu.
Many other sites across the country are also associated with this day such as Keshcorran Hill in County Sligo, Mount Brandon in County Kerry, Slieve Donard in County Down and Máméan in County Galway.
The end of the hungry season was also marked by a little feasting; a time to serve the first official meal of the season, potatoes served with meat and barmbracks, the latter made with bilberries (blueberries), also known as whortleberries, whinberries, blaeberries or heatherberries and used in ancient times for cooking, medicine and as a purple dye.
In modern times it is a day not only for pilgrimages to such holy sites, but also outdoor gatherings for leisure, often near water and mostly on hills. The gatherings include sport and fairs, with stalls full of harvest treats.
It’s fair to say, while we look forward to enjoying these traditions, we definitely have concerns over the illegal immigration issues the country is facing at the moment. According to IPAs (International Protection Applicants) statistics, 10,604 people applied for asylum in Ireland since January this year; a 93.9% increase on the figure for the same period in 2023, with the highest number of applications coming from Nigeria, Jordan, Pakistan, Somalia and Bangladesh, all countries we fail to see as countries that are considered “unsafe” per se, since none are war torn and none have citizens who are suffering widespread persecution, with a few exceptions; something is horribly amiss, but we hope the government gets the situation under control sooner rather than later, given the numerous ramifications associated with such an accelerated influx!
On a positive note, Roy also achieved a major milestone by the end of July 2024; he had walked 2,661,552 steps in the past year, equivalent to 2,102.6 Km. Quite an achievement and testament to our sailing lifestyle where we walk just about everywhere when we’re not sailing!
After our arrival in the Bocas del Toro archipelago on Wednesday, 29 May 2024 and getting settled in the Red Frog Beach Island Marina, the following days were a whirlwind of booking flights and hotels to Ireland and getting Paw Paw cleaned as best we could with the limited time we had; she was absolutely filthy from all the Bonaire red dust. Everything we looked at needed to be cleaned. Mother Nature assisted, though, with nice long steady rain showers from time to time. As we progressed with the cleaning activities we simultaneously started the tasks required to leave Paw Paw unattended. Elaine also got everything ready to be packed, a challenge in itself because we were only taking hand luggage for a 6 week trip and half a suitcase was already taken up with Elaine’s daily, weekly and just-in-case medications alone.
By Saturday, 1 June 2024, we received the news that Elaine’s dad had been transferred to the nursing home in one of the little towns, Castlewellan, about a 10 minute drive from Newcastle, where he would be receiving palliative care, a reality we all expected, but it was still difficult to have confirmed. Additionally, it wasn’t the ideal location for Elaine’s mom to visit, by there is a bus service and he seemed to settle in nicely, even being taken to join the other residents in his wheelchair.
For us, it was a race against his destiny though; trying to get to Ireland to see him while he was still this side of the grass. At the time of initially writing this article that outcome was still to be determined, exacerbated by delays in our travel plans.
However, before we even left Bocas del Toro, we had to deal with “operation suitcases”. Taking only carry-on luggage because some of our flights were planned to use Keenan’s standby benefits, a decision that later backfired, when we pulled the two suitable suitcases out of the port forepeak cabin, one suitcase was in perfect working order, while it’s identical twin didn’t have one zip that worked; they were all seized in the closed position. After trying everything to release them, Roy got to work on one, a zip on an outside pocket that looked the least crusted. Getting that to eventually move allowed Elaine to cut the inner lining and pack the suitcase from there, since trying to find another one in Bocas town at the 11th hour was something neither of us felt like dealing with.
It had been a hectic few days of getting the laundry done, cleaning inside and out, including getting all the cockpit cushions washed and dried in the glorious sunshine, removing all the safety gear from the lifelines, removing the jacklines, stowing everything from the cockpit below deck, giving the engines a freshwater flush, pickling the watermaker and Roy having to return to Immigration in Bocas town, using the resort’s complementary water taxi, because the officer had forgotten to take a particular form from us. Getting back to the resort was a little more challenging however. Not wanting to wait a few hours for the resort’s return complementary water taxi, he’d left his wallet on Paw Paw. Fortunately a local water taxi was happy to bring him back to the marina’s public dock, where Elaine met them to pay the fare.
By lunchtime on Sunday, 2 June 2024, with the water taxi booked for pickup at 0900 the following morning, Paw Paw cleaned and ready to be left unattended, our suitcases packed and the scheduled viewing of Paw Paw with potential buyers on Sunday afternoon, the only outstanding activity, we enjoyed some much needed R&R at the private La Rosa Beach Club, which included lunch and a few cold beverages at the poolside café, but not before Roy enjoyed another early morning walk, while Elaine prepared a cooked breakfast, including freshly baked soda bread, leaving us with a minimal excess of fresh produce, which Roy subsequently gave to the laundry lady, much to her delight. Although our cleaning efforts ended up being more work than we originally intended because of the unexpected viewing schedule for Sunday afternoon, thankfully enquiries continued to flow in on our private advertising efforts, since our yacht broker was proving to be completely useless.
Fortunately packing our rather small hand luggage suitcases with at least a week’s worth of clothing was a breeze after Roy found an ingenious method online; best demonstrated in a video we’ll post at a later date, but a few photographs provide the gist.
On Saturday, 1 June 2024, before getting through all our activities, the gentle sound of rain tapping on Paw Paw’s deck woke us just before sunrise. Given the lovely cool temperature, we decided on an early morning walk, separating at one of the pathway junctions, where Elaine then walked to the Beach Club in the coolness of the rainforest canopy, listening to a variety of birds chirping happily while looking for sloths. Although she didn’t have any luck with that, she did encounter a friendly dog which seemed to have gone walkabout without his owner, but provided some entertainment as he was a real character. She also noticed that the local population seemed to be more indigenous Indian and were very friendly and jolly, with most walking while listening to music.
By the time Elaine reached the Beach Club, Roy arrived minutes later, having taken the forest trail. After snooping around, he continued on his walk and Elaine returned to the marina, where she met two of the cruising ladies on the dock, enjoyed a chat and received a bit more information we needed; how to get spares and parts sourced and delivered, activities in the area and a little history on their sailing adventures. As it transpires, S/Y Tribe, which Elaine and Roy had both recognised from our travels, but couldn’t quite place, was indeed the same yacht we’d seen throughout the Caribbean and the South Pacific, as we were all sailing in these waters at the same time over the past ten years. Yogi had recognised Paw Paw too. Crazy ol’ world!
On Monday, 3 June 2024, we were up early for the long journey ahead of us to Ireland, one that was going to involve a first for Elaine; wheelchair assistance. She unfortunately had no choice, but to set her pride aside, given the torturous experience air travel had become for her, particularly the endless standing in mile long queues.
A swift water taxi transfer, followed by a land taxi, got us to the local airport minutes before the heavens opened and it absolutely bucketed down, with thunder and lightning booming through the airport. Needless to say, this was the start of our delays, but, since we were staying over in Panama City, it didn’t present any problems, although the pilot was clearly a wannabe Formula One race car driver, given the speeds at which he taxied around the airport after landing in the bad weather. Being bumped off the flight to Atlanta the following day, however, did present a major issue, resulting in us having to spend a small fortune to book positive space on all our remaining flights to Dublin in lieu of our preferred choice of flying standby. What we determined is that, although, there were seats available on the flight to Atlanta, generally these cannot be occupied because of weight and payload limitations on these flights; seemingly a regular issue associated with the weight of a good percentage of the passengers using this route. To be honest, we’d never seen such a collection of massively obese people in all our travels. Regardless, we wouldn’t be flying standby any time soon and returned to the hotel with tickets booked for the following day, the delay exacerbated by all the airline booking systems advertising flights at ~$1000USD each, but then increasing to ~$6000USD the minute we went to pay online. This happened with just about every online booking system until we eventually got tickets directly through Delta Airlines for the bargain basement rate of $3000USD for oneway tickets only to Dublin via Atlanta and New York, arriving Friday morning, 7 June 2024, after a stopover in yet another hotel in Atlanta. We’d decided to deal with our return travel arrangements at a later date. The immediate urgency was getting to Dublin and onwards to Newcastle and Castlewellan. All in all, though, it was yet another one of our classic travel clusters. At this point, we were both utterly exhausted and Elaine ached all over after sitting on hard seats all day for nothing; she could have cried when they told us we weren’t getting on the flight.
To add insult to injury, the wheelchair ordered for Elaine didn’t show up, we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and, since we were corralled into a closed off section of the airport after a second security screening, we had no access to food, drinks or toilets for hours!
By now Elaine was crystal clear on one thing; she absolutely hated flying and, once we’re living in Ireland, she doesn’t plan on ever going anywhere near another airport again in her life! All she longs for now is a comfy little house, with a nice view and to go on little day trips or midweek breaks in our car whenever we feel like it. In fact, she doesn’t believe she’ll even leave the island of Ireland, except to go out to the little islands on the west coast!
On the bright side, however, we managed to find a hotel room for the night in Panama City versus spending the night at the airport. It didn’t help matters, though, that we would use four of our seven outfits each before even getting to Ireland, given our very small suitcases, because we thought we’d be flying standby. Guess laundry will be one of our first tasks after greeting and spending time with our loved ones.
That evening we booked our return tickets for the bargain basement price of $2000USD, with the hope that we won’t require an overnight hotel in Panama City, but rather actually catch our connecting flight to Bocas del Toro on the same day; guess time will tell!
Wednesday, 5 June 2024, was our Take Two on getting to Atlanta. With allocated seats and Elaine actually getting the wheelchair assistance previously booked this time, we progressed through Immigration and the first and second Security screenings without a hitch, jumping the long queues in the process. Things were looking up! Alas, something had to happen, right! Well, it must have looked completely ridiculous after Elaine was singled out for a third Security screening. With every other passenger, including Roy, looking on, Elaine was requested to stand up out of the wheelchair, patted down, had various parts of her body swabbed and her handbag searched, before being told to return to her wheelchair. We really couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried! What disempowered idiots exist in this world! There’s always a bright side, though. With seats allocated to us a few rows apart, at least neither of us had an oversized individual sitting next to us, a miracle actually, since at least a third of the flight consisted of obese passengers, and the person sitting next to Elaine wasn’t coughing and spluttering.
Thankfully, although we had to wait for a wheelchair on arrival in Atlanta, Elaine was very appreciative of this service, given the queues to move through Immigration and Customs and miles required to walk from one concourse to the next for two separate shuttle transfers to the hotel we’d booked for the night.
It was 2130 by the time we dropped off our luggage in our hotel room and sat down to dinner. At the risk of sounding like moaning old fools, the hotel reception and dining area didn’t resemble any of the photographs advertising this Raddison Hotel, but when our dinner arrived on plastic plates with plastic utensils and our drinks in plastic cups, it was clear we’d paid a lot of money for a very cheap establishment, never mind our dislike for all things plastic after witnessing first hand during our sailing adventures the devastation these products cause to the environment. Breakfast the next morning was a repeat performance, exacerbated by the very expensive price tag of $50USD each for a substandard, tasteless “healthy choice” meal. The laugh of it all was the sleeve on our plastic cup of a hot drink was made from recycled paper. The irony was definitely not lost on us!
The next morning our travel woes continued after we were dropped off by the shuttle bus on the northern side of the domestic terminal, but our gate was on the southern side and not a wheelchair service in sight. After walking past every conceivable airline’s wheelchair assistance service en route to the United Airline’s service, they informed us they didn’t have any wheelchairs. To avoid any further aggravation, Elaine decided to walk the rest of the way, albeit in discomfort. Some battles are just not worth the fight! Fortunately Elaine is capable of walking; it’s the standing in queues that cause the most problems for her, but we hate to think what happens to the unfortunate individual who can’t walk or hobble at all, especially when a simple solution exists; one wheelchair assistance pickup point for the entire airport at a convenient drop-off point, rather than separate ones for each airline at vast distances from any drop-off point.
Sadly, although Elaine is exhausted all over again at just writing about this, it seemed the travel gods were prepared to rain all over our parade every step of the way.
After landing at Newark Airport on time, we discovered we had to take a shuttle to a different terminal that would preclude us from having to go back through a security screening, but the wheelchair assistance would stop at the bus stop. No problem - right! Well, after getting the shuttle and climbing the set of stairs at the drop-off point to enter our destination terminal, we discovered we’d been directed to the wrong terminal. That resulted in us having to walk all the way to the correct terminal, check in again, although we had no suitcases, since these were checked all the way through to Dublin from Atlanta and then clearing security again. The final straw was an idiot sending Elaine flying after tripping her with his suitcase and then receiving two different messages that our suitcases have been unloaded for collection in Newark and another indicating that they were checked through to Dublin. By this stage Elaine felt like sitting down and crying and not moving one more step until someone carried her to Dublin. She was so tired and ached all over, never mind her foul mood, while poor Roy tried to get a wheelchair for her and unravel the mystery with our luggage after being questioned at the check-in counter about our three bags. When Roy indicated that we only had two bags checked in at Atlanta through to Dublin, a chain of events were set in motion, resulting in finding two bags; one ours and one a mystery bag. Further investigations recovered our correct second suitcase, but not before the mysterious disappearance of the third bag, which appeared to have been offloaded in Atlanta. Regardless, thankfully our luggage was found and bound for Dublin as planned and the wheelchair arrived, precluding Elaine from having to face the longest security screening queue ever. The travel gods had finally taken pity on us and our guardian angels were watching over us after all, especially after learning that the flight had been overbooked and people were being bumped off the plane.
To say we were relieved when we eventually arrived on the redeye flight into Dublin that landed at around 0500 on Friday, 7 June 3024, with our luggage in tow, would be an understatement indeed.
Wheelchair assistance dropped us at the closest coffee shop, where we refuelled on caffeine and sugar and waited for the bus into Dublin city centre to collect our hired car, this time a Hyundai Kona electric vehicle, having decided to explore what one gets for the money at the cheaper end of the electric car spectrum or rather what one doesn’t get for the price.
Thankfully our drive to Newcastle was uneventful and after initial greetings, an afternoon nap and a phone call to the nursing home facility to ensure no infectious diseases were circulating, we were ready for the drive to the nursing home to visit Elaine’s dad; he was still this side of the grass and recognised us both immediately as soon as we walked into his private room, even though Elaine was donned with mask, visor and gloves, a precaution recommended by the manager of the facility to be sure, to be sure. Prayers had been answered once again!
While it was heartbreaking to see him in such a frail state, we had a lovely wee chat. The visit, although not long, included Roy popping out to get him a coffee and doughnut which he happily consumed after first eating a banana. Fitting a café-style net curtain, which Elaine’s mom had bought to furnish the room a bit more together with a nice colourful mat, moving his new clock to a different wall so he could see it properly, placing some nicknacks from home around the room and moving the wall paintings around, followed by the staff moving the bedroom furniture around the following day to allow Elaine’s dad to see the television properly and enjoy the garden views from his window made the room far less sterile. It wasn’t home, but Elaine’s dad was comfortable and was receiving the best care possible from wonderful, caring staff; the most we could ask for at this stage.
Our second visit involved a wee singalong, surprising us all to hear Elaine’s dad singing and remembering all the words to his favourite songs, some definitely bringing a tear to our eyes as we recalled the wonderful memories associated with many of the songs he sang over the years, a time when his life was full of vitality. Regardless, while heartbreaking, we had a lovely evening together and he loved it, recalling, of all things, the times he danced with Elaine’s mom in Mozambique and Zambia and saying it was like old times at the Buurendal Hotel in Newcastle on a Sunday night. It was indeed a night to remember under the worst of circumstances.
By 11 June 2024, we received more bad news when the on duty nursing staff member informed Elaine and her mom that Elaine’s dad was getting weaker by the day and that they needed to know “his wishes”. This was in preparation for the upcoming review, required to make him a permanent resident of the Lodge. The latter was, in many ways, a significant day; the Lodge staff were brought up to date on Elaine’s dad’s medical history and what events preceded and succeeded his latest episode that ended in him coming to the Lodge, we were informed the palliative care team would now attend to him, his slight grievance of being very uncomfortable about interacting with the other residents suffering from Alzheimers and Dementia resulted in him being taken to a different common area during those times when he was able, and indeed, wanted to socialise, his detailed care was reviewed, which included all his nursing care ie administering tablets, checking vitals, checking his blood sugar levels, etc, and he would now receive a stronger and more regular dose of pain medication. It was reiterated that he would not be transferred to a hospital to help prolong his life in any way, except if he had a fall and broke a bone, for instance.
The review also involved a visit from his local doctor to explain and sign off on all the paperwork, agreeing to his future care, wishes and monies to be paid. It was receiving the news that the doctors had estimated his remaining life expectancy to be 3-4 weeks after being discharged from hospital, that was the enormous shock to us all, especially since half that time had already passed by the time we were notified. It didn’t take long for Elaine’s dad to figure out something was wrong with the situation he found himself in and that we were hiding something from him, culminating in Elaine’s dad asking her mom whether or not he was “ever getting out of this place”. After a family “conflab”, we made the decision to tell him, if and only if, he brought up the subject again, a bridge that was crossed a few days later, leaving us all devastated and sending Elaine’s mom into a tailspin.
It was clear he enjoyed our visits and was always pleased to see us when we arrived, but it was also abundantly clear that he missed Elaine’s mom terribly, constantly asking for her and wanting to know where she was, adding another dimension to our heartache. We always knew he never wanted to be in a nursing home, but this choice was taken away after this latest health incident which left him bedridden and requiring constant nursing care, something we all agreed as a family was impossible to accommodate at home. This fact, however, placed an enormous burden on Elaine’s mom, who eventually buckled under the strain. Seeing such a strong woman fall to pieces, was devastating to witness, but crystallised the need for us to focus on both Elaine’s parents, not just her dad. Thankfully, getting her feelings out in the open, rather than trying to be strong for the rest of us, helped tremendously, strangely enough, and having Dean, her eldest grandson, stay with her overnight during his short visit was a godsend.
With each passing day we had absolutely no idea what to expect on our visits, alarming us with the sudden and drastic changes from one day to the next, but we agreed to split the visits between us all to give him something to look forward to throughout his day and, given that his anxiety and confusion levels seemed to increase when time between visits were extended for unforeseen circumstances, especially confusion about the fact that he couldn’t get out of bed to “get ready for the day”. To avoid this as much as possible, visits usually involved Elaine and Roy visiting in the morning or afternoon outside mealtimes and depending on whether or not the staff took him down to the conservatory for activities and some social interaction with the other residents, all of which was dependent on his ability and willingness to participate on any given day. Evening visits were undertaken by Elaine’s mom and sister, although Elaine’s sister also alternated with our morning or afternoon visits and all visits were accompanied by whichever other family member was able to fly in for a few days to see him. Visits also included video calls with Elaine’s siblings in South Africa and Elaine reading special messages to him sent from family abroad and the grandchildren, all of which he acknowledged and loved receiving, bringing a smile to his face. We were all struggling, but doing our best to cherish every remaining moment we had with him, even on his bad days.
To manage our stress levels as best we could, besides enjoying walks on the waterfront or hiking up the Mourne Mountains, short outings for lunch were undertaken to Strangford, located on the shores of Strangford Lough and to Carlingford, stopping in at Rostrevor, a village lying at the foot of Slieve Martin on the coast of Carlingford Lough. On one of such outings which Elaine and Roy took on their own to County Monaghan, they specifically drove to see the village of Emyvale and view a few houses in the vicinity. Sadly this was a huge disappointment, but stumbling upon Glaslough was a wonderful surprise; a neat little village adjacent to the Castle Lesley Estate. We were so impressed we took Elaine’s mom and sister back to see the area a few weeks later and enjoy a delicious lunch at the estate, stopping in at Aughnacloy, on our return, a village in South Tyrone, where our great, great grandparents are from.
Back to our reality though, what started to amaze us, and certainly had us questioning the prognosis, was that Elaine’s dad was eating and drinking everything we brought him, from coffee to jam doughnuts, slices of cake, sausage rolls, croissants, bananas, pears, grapes, etc. He even wanted to know how he could get an invite to the dinners Roy was cooking for us all at home prior to the evening visits, resulting in small dinner portions being taken to him. We could even see his strength returning as he regained his ability to move himself in his bed. Things simply didn’t add up. There were times when he had finished eating everything we had brought him and he’d then say: “So now what?”, our cue to put on the music to enjoy a little singalong and a dance.
Regardless, as we all valued our time with him, we knew this was his final journey and it was important to have his loved ones beside him every step of the way. As far as we were concerned his emotional state was far more important than his physical state at this juncture and, with all things considered, we endeavoured to have very calm, tranquil and peaceful visits under awful circumstances.
By Sunday, 23 June 2024, it was time for another airport, another delayed flight, another country; we were heading back to Türkiye for all Elaine’s medical treatments, including cataract surgery, both of us having a full dermatological checkup and seeing a rheumatologist for the first time since leaving Türkiye early last year, the latter an unavoidable situation, given our difficulty in securing the services of a rheumatologist in other parts of the world we’ve visited during the intervening months. It had become abundantly clear to us, however, that all we seemed to be doing lately was ping-ponging between the world’s two largest cul-de-sacs. We never thought in a million years we’d be back in Antalya, but Türkiye was the only country we could find the medical care we needed; a rather sad indictment of the western world’s healthcare systems.
On the afternoon of Monday, 24 June 2024, after an initial wander through the Old Town, Kaleiçi, we were both in desperate need of an afternoon nap; everything seemed to catch up with us all at once.
The following days were spent in various hospitals around the city, commencing with Dünyagöz Hastanesi for Elaine’s cataract surgery. This involved a full day of tests, including an eye examination to determine what lens would be needed, ensuring the health of her eye for surgery through an OCT scan and a topography scan, followed by tests to ensure her body was healthy enough for the surgery because of her existing health conditions, including an EKG, blood tests and seeing the anaesthetist to ensure no complications arose with sedation.
By midday on Wednesday, 26 June 2024, it was all over and what a professional, proficient and caring experience it was. The cherry on the cake came the following morning during her post-op checkup after the eye patch was removed; a whole new world had opened up, emphasising just how blind Elaine was prior to the surgery. She was ecstatic!
That Thursday involved a visit to the largest hospital either of us had ever visited, the public Akdeniz Üniversitesi Hastanesi, the second largest in Türkiye, where Elaine received a consultation from the rheumatologist, followed by our dermatology appointments on Friday at the private Memorial Hastanesi, the latter a complete contrast to our experience the previous day; money talks no matter where in the world one finds oneself, but, given that Elaine’s rheumatologist was no longer practicing at the Memorial, we had no choice. The rheumatology visit, however, re-emphasised our need to get Paw Paw sold and get settled in Ireland in order for Elaine to receive consistent and updated biological treatments, a message that had previously been relayed to her last February. The last medical activity for the week was collecting all our prescription medications sourced by a local pharmacy for us. All in all, it was a very successful week, although Elaine felt like a pin cushion with bruises on both arms, but it was actually a sad indictment of the health care systems in all the western countries we are citizens of. After numerous attempts, we simply couldn’t get the services we needed without dealing with the horrendous waiting lists or, indeed, paying a fortune to avail ourselves of the private services. Our total cost, including our flights and accommodation in Türkiye was a fraction of the cost we would have incurred for cataract surgery on just one eye. Shameful really!
Our visit fortunately wasn’t all medically related, though, providing time to visit a few old favourite establishments located within walking distance of the boutique hotel we’d chosen for this visit, Hotel 1207. These included Sudd Coffee café for their decadent chocolate doughnuts, some of our favourite restaurants, including Luna and Vanilla and doing a bit of shopping to replenish Elaine’s light summer trousers and Roy’s polo shirts. We also discovered a few new restaurants and areas of Kaleiçi we hadn’t stumbled upon before, including the Cava restaurant and the Patron Boutique hotel, both of which had lovely gardens and secluded walled patios with a wonderful ambiance to while away an evening over a delicious meal. Pre-dinner drinks were also enjoyed at one of the many watering holes along the waterfront near the Old Town Harbour. Of course it didn’t take long to be reminded of the calls-to-pray from the various mosques surrounding the hotel.
While this entire trip was necessary on numerous fronts, the adhoc nature of our travel arrangements compromised Elaine’s health extensively, particularly the visits to the numerous hospitals, the congestion at the airports, as well as on the fully booked flights and while out and about amongst throngs of people, particularly the numerous little “germ bags” accompanying their parents on the family summer holiday; we simply couldn’t have travelled at a worse possible time of the year. All we could do to minimise the potential impact was to keep our masks firmly glued to our faces, particularly Elaine, keep our hands sanitised, refrain from eating or drink anything when in close quarters, avoid visits to the public toilets as much as possible and pray.
By Sunday, 30 June 2024, we were back in Ireland, albeit that our return flight was slightly delayed; an improvement on previous endeavours however, for which we were very grateful!
The bus ride from the airport into Dublin city centre to collect our hire car was definitely slower than previous trips though; not surprising after realising that “Swifties” from all over Ireland and further afield had descended on Dublin for the Taylor Swift concert. This together with road works and diversions on our trip back to Northern Ireland as we transited through South Down, changed our original plans to visit Elaine’s dad after dropping all our luggage back in Newcastle, getting unpacked, getting the laundry done and getting something to eat. Instead we headed straight to the Lodge and enjoyed another fun visit with a few laughs and jokes. It was a relief to find Elaine’s dad looking contented, relaxed and comfortable. Sadly this was to be one of our last more enjoyable visits.
On Thursday morning, 23 May 2024, we woke before the alarm, weighed anchor and exited Spanish Waters, finding little to no wind, after it had been blowing a gale for more than two weeks. Regardless, we set a course to pass Aruba to our port side, bound for Bocas del Toro, Panama, another passage we hadn’t bargained on, but, since Paw Paw was still not sold, we had no choice; it was Bocas del Toro or the northeast coast of the US to satisfy our yacht insurance stipulation of avoiding a named storm materialising during the upcoming hurricane season.
By 1100 we were motor-sailing on one engine with a light breeze out of the east-southeast as we approached the northern end of Curacao, hoping to pick up the forecast easterly winds once we were out of the shadow of the island.
Thankfully, the winds kicked in as forecast and by 1230 we were sailing on headsail alone, enjoying a SOG (Speed Over Ground) of 6 Kts in a light breeze. However, the lumpy seas that had developed didn’t quite correlate with the light winds we had and we certainly didn’t care much for the nasty northeasterly swell that gave us a side swipe every few minutes, knocking Paw Paw off her stride.
Fortunately the lumpy seas were a precursor to the stronger winds that arrived later in the day and stayed with us throughout the night, allowing us to trundle along with a SOG of anything from 6.9-7.8 Kts as hourly averages, under a beautiful full moon to light our way, making for a very pleasant first night at sea.
When Elaine came up for her early morning watch at 0400 on the morning of Friday, 24 May 2024, the wind had started to lighten, forcing us to motor-sail again for a few hours to keep our speed up, given that we wanted to capitalise on the progress we’d made and possibly shave off a night at sea.
Over breakfast, since we were unable to procure a simcard for our Iridium-Go service, we tuned into the SSB/HF radio weather broadcast out of the US. This was to become a daily ritual for the remainder of this passage.
By 1030 the winds had kicked in again, allowing us to jibe and set up a wing-on-wing configuration to continue on our course to give the Colombian Cape a wide berth. By then the overcast skies, which had been with us since the start of our passage, had started to clear too, allowing the sun to peek through. Unfortunately this didn’t last long and by 1430, the skies had clouded over again, but we were still scooting along nicely with just over 650NM to go. Thankfully we hadn’t had to contend with any squalls either.
Overnight the winds picked up a little more, giving us a SOG, at times, of 9.4 Kts, averaging 8.1 Kts. We were delighted to be making such good progress. However, during the midnight change of watch when we turned Paw Paw into an Outremer for a few minutes, hitting 13.2 Kts, we decided it was time to reef again, putting a few turns in the headsail, since the main was already double-reefed.
By noon on Saturday, 25 May 2024, after jibing and trying a configuration change to a broad reach, we settled back to wing-on-wing instead, accompanied by
a slight change to the wind-vane angle in order to maximise our VMG (Velocity Made Good) as apposed to continuing to hurtle west-northwest after the winds changed to east-southeast and caused us to loose VMG. A SOG averaging 6.5 Kts was better than nothing; we were still sailing!
This passage, while very pleasant from a sailing perspective, was very difficult from an emotional perspective, given that we had no idea what the outcome was with Elaine’s dad; was he still in hospital or had he been transferred to the nursing home and was sat propped up in his comfy new home getting the professional care he needed or had he passed away. The anguish was unbearable at times, but there was simply nothing we could do about it, but to soldier on to our destination in the hopes of picking up cell phone connectivity the closer we got to land. This was indeed the worst possible time not to have data connectivity, but that was Murphy’s Law; the one and only time in all the years of sailing when we needed data connectivity, we didn’t have it!
Setting that aside, we went through our normal passage routines; our three hours on, three hours off watch schedule, eating meals together, reading or writing in between. There was, however, no fishing on this passage, since we’d given all our fishing gear away during our clear out in St Lucia in December thinking Paw Paw had been sold. Silly us for jumping the gun!
From a weather perspective the overcast skies that settled back in continued, although the waning gibbous did peek through from time to time overnight.
During Elaine’s first watch of the night, our third night at sea, we crossed the halfway mark; we were on the downhill run, although rougher seas and stronger winds forced us to reef the headsail to stop us surfing, but we were still making good time with an average SOG of 6.5-7 Kts.
On Sunday 26 May 2024, the winds lightened again to around 15-18 Kts, the sea state settled too, except for the occasional series of large following swells, the sun came out during the late morning and the altocumulus and cirrus clouds, which had been hanging around for days, looked like they were trying to burn off. With the moon rising much later, it was also the first night we could see stars, including a shooting star, much to Elaine’s delight.
However, since our VMG had dropped significantly, we had to jibe at around midnight. To avoid dealing with the headsail in the dark in order to bring it over to continue wing-on-wing, we decided to drop the mainsail instead, jibe and continue on the headsail alone. This set our COG (Course Over Ground) exactly to our waypoint at Bocas del Toro and improved our VMG to match our SOG, instead of loosing more than a knot on the previous tack.
During Roy’s early morning watch, unfortunately the wind dropped and the current turned against us, forcing us to start an engine to retain the possibility of shaving two nights off our passage. We were determined not to loose the gains we’d made at the cost of burning diesel. Adding isolated squalls to the mix provided that extra dollop of fun we definitely didn’t want to be dealing with at this stage of the passage, but we’d been lucky enough to avoid them thus far. Fortunately, less than two hours into Elaine’s watch she was able to turn the engine off providing a far more peaceful sail.
Roy’s morning watch on Monday, 27 May 2024, was pretty uneventful until Elaine surfaced at around 1030. We’d barely finished our morning coffee when we got clobbered with our first storm of the passage. With an associated wind reversal, coupled with the length of the storm, we figured a coastal front must have moved over. Regardless, it forced us to furl the headsail and change course to port to get behind the storm as quickly as possible. It took roughly an hour before we could adjust our COG again, unfurl the headsail and switch off the engines. Fortunately the bulk of the storm passed in front or behind us and, while the rain wasn’t enough to give Paw Paw a good freshwater rinse, but rather turned all the dust to mud, we were thankful for the cooler temperatures. The heat and humidity had been brutal the entire passage, making sleep difficult.
With less than 180NM to go by 1230, we were on track to shave two nights of our passage, giving us an ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) of sometime late on Tuesday, 28 May 2024 and making this our fastest passage ever; we were flying on the wings of angels. Gaining an hour on the time zone change would hopefully afford us the opportunity to get anchored well before sunset.
It was hard to believe, based on the way the cookie had crumbled, that we had spent the last year sailing from one massive cul-de-sac to another, both with the only exits either back the way we came or through one of the manmade canals; either the Suez Canal from Türkiye or the Panama Canal from the Caribbean. This was definitely not preconceived or planned, but rather a forced hand of fate. For what reason we have yet to discover!
By 1400 the wind had dropped completely as we entered the well renowned bubble of the Panama Basin, an area of light and variable winds with flat seas, or so we thought! At this point we had envisaged motor-sailing anyway the rest of the way per the forecast. While we were certainly grateful for the winds we’d had, we had no idea what awaited us. On the upside we’d spotted land ahoy a few minutes later. It was the coastline of Colon, the entrance to the Panama Canal.
However, it’s fair to say by 1700 we definitely weren’t very happy bunnies at all and couldn’t believe the conditions we found ourselves in; our best laid plan of shaving two nights off our passage was in serious jeopardy. Within minutes we had 15 Kts of wind on the nose; yes, out of the west-northwest, and a 2 Kts of current against us, turning Paw Paw into a bucking bronco. With 150NM still to go and, with each passing hour, our average SOG dropped from a respectable 6.3 Kts to 4.4 Kts with both engines on as the counter-current strengthened further. Clearly we weren’t going to be in our anchorage the following evening as originally thought. What made matters worse was the extremely uncomfortable sea state; it felt like we’d been transported back to the Red Sea as Paw Paw slammed into standing waves. After enjoying a very pleasant, fast sail up until this point, this was an unexpected twist indeed. It was about to deteriorate further, though.
By midnight we were surrounded by thunderstorms, each with their own spectacular display of lightning. While most were in the distance, the best we could do, for those that developed closer, was navigate between them and by midday on Tuesday, 28 May 2024, with just over 60NM to go, we were still surrounded in storms and our SOG was down to 3.4 Kts with both engines running; the deal was sealed; another night at sea!
With that we turned off one of the engines and settled in for the long-haul. While Elaine found a corner in her cabin in which to curl up, she eventually got some sleep. Since Roy was on watch during this time, he baked soda bread for lunch and made his famous homemade soup for dinner. We were both clearly in need of some comfort food!
Trepidation mounted for other reasons too. With each passing nautical mile, albeit a very painfully slow progress, we were a nautical mile closer to land and data connectivity; within the next few hours we were going to know the status on Elaine’s dad, news Elaine was absolutely dreading!
When the current increased in strength again during the afternoon and our SOG was hovering around 2.9 Kts, we resigned ourselves to putting on the second engine again and soldiered on, bouncing around in the delightful - NOT - sea state. This was beyond painful and more frustrating after finding text hidden in the cruising guide that indicated two things for the area we were traversing; one, during the wet season SOMETIMES winds blow out of the west, although the forecast had shown light and variable for this entire area and two, a LIGHT equatorial counter-current flows eastward. We had anything but light! According to the guide hugging the coastline within a nautical mile is what is recommended when leaving Colon for Bocas del Toro, a route we never intended to take on this passage, although when we spotted land ahoy on Monday, we discussed changing plans and heading to Shelter Bay to clear in there and take a break before continuing on to Bocas del Toro in a few days. Opting to stick to our original plan, given the great progress we’d made, turned out to be six of one and half a dozen of the other; we still had a 2Kt current against us right up until we entered the channel into the archipelago and we definitely wouldn’t hug a coast at 1NM out at night anywhere. The bottom line is that apparently these weather conditions arise from time to time and we happened to hit them on this occasion.
On Tuesday, 28 May 2024, after crawling along at a snails pace in the extremely uncomfortable sea state, fortunately we didn’t have to deal with anymore thunderstorms, only a few isolated showers. By 0300 we’d picked up data connectivity again and received the latest news regarding Elaine’s dad; he was still alive under the most extraordinary circumstances. The latest blood tests and a lung x-ray revealed that the lung infection was back and the cause of his delirium was due to a blood infection. To make matters worse, if that was at all possible, he’d also contracted COVID-19 and had fallen out of bed while trying to get out of bed. Thankfully when he fell, he had the good sense to pull the blankets and pillows with him, providing for a softer landing and allowed him to place a pillow under his head while he awaited help. Of course he wasn’t anywhere near his call button at this point! After being resettled in bed and administered another antibiotic drip, the following day he was sitting up and joking about his failed escape.
Currently we await news of his transfer to the nursing home today, Thursday, 30 May 2024, and our flights to Ireland and stopover hotels en route have been arranged, making for a few very busy days ahead of us to get Paw Paw cleaned and ready to be left unattended for a while.
Early yesterday morning, in the dark, we navigated our way through the marked channel and entered the protected waters of the Bocas del Toro archipelago. By 0700 local time we were anchored off the main town of Bocas and awaited the arrival of the officials to clear us in to Panama. Breakfast and a nap preceded their arrival. Once all the paperwork was completed, we were taken ashore for a drive to the local airport, where our final immigration process was completed. A water taxi ride returned us to Paw Paw and by lunchtime we were safely berthed in the Red Frog Beach Island Marina, having enjoyed the unusual, but beautiful, scenery along the way. This was truly a unique destination with mangroves surrounding the many forest cladded islands backed by the mountains of the mainland. As the immigration officer pointed out to us this morning; this was “a place where you felt closer to God”. By the time we’d explored our new home for the next six months we were in no doubt we’d found paradise! It was perfect!
After clearing in at the marina office and completing our golf cart tour of the island’s facilities, our day came to a close while sipping on a cold beverage in the shade of Nachyo Mommas beach café overlooking the Caribbean Sea, where no stupid people were allowed!
The remainder of our time in Bonaire was a whirlwind blur, marred by Elaine’s dad taking a turn for the worst after being rushed to hospital with a bacterial infection in one lung, pneumonia in the other, both leaving him gasping to breathe, and gangrene that had set in in some of his toes of one foot. How he got into such a state when he was under the care of a pulmonologist and a podiatrist at the time will never be explained, but being told by the emergency services at the Ulster Hospital in Belfast that it was touch and go as to whether or not he would pull through was the worst news to receive. Making matters worse was that Elaine was unable to visit him, given her susceptibility to the infections he had. For the first time since being diagnosed, she absolutely hated her disease, realising just how cruel it had become.
So, instead Keenan and the grandsons hopped on a flight and prayers were answered when they made it without their granda / great-granda passing away before he had the opportunity to see Keenan again for the first time in ten years, having become a husband and a father in the intervening years, as well as meeting his great-grandsons for the first time; a very emotional reunion needless to say, but one that brought immense joy to everyone. Fortunately luck was on their side in more ways than one; they managed to get the last four available seats on their connecting flight out of JFK airport, which placed William in Delta One; what a fabulous memory for a child on his first international adventure, while Keenan and the twins got to sit in coach next to the toilets. Murphy’s Law!
By Friday, 25 April 2024, Brooke and Capri were able to travel to Ireland too, making for a wonderful supportive environment for Elaine’s mom and sister. By Thursday, 2 May 2024, Elaine’s brother from South Africa had arrived just as Keenan and the family were returning to the US. More prayers were answered; although Elaine’s dad had continued to deteriorate, her brother was able to spend quality time with him and the family under the worst of circumstances. To be honest, no one thought Keenan and the family or Elaine’s brother would see him alive; it was such a relief when they all got there. We really didn’t want any of them going through the agony of being too late; that would have been simply awful and would have made a bad situation far worse.
Sadly, although Elaine’s dad managed to fight off the infections, while possibly suffering a stroke in the process, the ordeal and struggle left his lungs severely scared, weakened his heart further, affected his ability to swallow and has left him bedridden.
Thankfully a request for a transfer to the local Down Hospital in Downpatrick was granted, making him more comfortable in a familiar environment; one he has always preferred, given that all the clinic staff who have monitored him over the years are at this facility and know him. It also made visiting much easier for the family as apposed to having to drive to Belfast.
While a number of difficult goodbyes had to be said over the past weeks as visiting family flew home, Elaine’s dad remains in hospital, undergoing treatment for the gangrene and further tests to determine the underlying reason for his sudden memory loss and delirious behaviour that developed overnight a week ago. The good news is that a vacancy at a local nursing home has become available and the placement is being kept for him while the doctors unravel the latest baffling symptom. In the interim, children and grandchildren from across the world, who have been unable to make the journey to see him, are continuing to keep his spirits high with video calls made during evening visiting hours and scheduled so as not to overwhelm him. So, onwards we all go, acutely aware of the bleak prognosis. However, regardless of the reality we all face and to the amazement of all the medical staff involved in his care these past five weeks, it’s fair to say, if nothing else, he has the heart of a lion with his will and determination to live, against the odds, one that has left the family in awe. A remarkable man he remains indeed!
Trying to come to terms with this traumatic and heartbreaking new reality, while struggling to keep her emotions under control to prevent a major flare up, an attempt she failed at dismally, Elaine spent her mornings either sleeping in, swimming or attending her noodling sessions, while Roy enjoyed his early morning walks and enjoyed a swim from time to time too, although snorkelling was kept firmly out of the mix to avoid any further upset at the devastation of the reefs we’d witnessed soon after our arrival. Having to have emergency dental surgery for a wisdom tooth extraction, however, was definitely not something either of us expected when Roy paid a visit to the local dentist after developing a toothache. To add insult to injury, during all this mayhem Elaine experienced a complication, requiring an appointment with a dermatologist which was only available in Curacao.
By Saturday, 27 April 2024, after the island had just celebrated Rincon Day, Kralendijk was definitely rocking; it looked like the entire population of the island had descended on the capital to celebrate the King’s Birthday. Enjoying a birds eye view of proceedings while sipping on a cold beverage on the patio of the Sunshine cafè, our cue to leave the celebrations occurred when the booming nightclub-style music, which nearly blew our eardrums, started in earnest.
While we awaited our departure for Curacao, efforts continued on the creation of all our outstanding videos as did our participation in our online Irish lessons, while coffee mornings, sometimes accompanied by our new favourite, Dutch pancakes, lunches, sundowners or dinners, interspersed with gelato treats, helped fill the remaining hours in our day, although these outings were dictated by whether or not a cruise ship was docked. There were also some highlights during the remainder of our stay, in particular, a lovely coffee morning with Onyx (Noelene and Geoff), whom we met soon after our arrival in Bonaire before their departure to Columbia and an unexpected invite to Peggi and Chuck’s home on the waterfront to enjoy a delicious dinner with them, after Elaine and Peggi had met during a noodling session. Before saying our goodbyes to Bonaire, we enjoyed another fun evening with them, our treat, as a thank you for their kindness and generosity.
All in all, we made the best of our time in Bonaire, but Elaine continued to struggle to get in and out of the dinghy at the one and only “new” dinghy dock, a dock we all had to pay to use, because the management company refused to move their oversized dinghy which blocked the ladder, the sole function of which was to make embarking and disembarking easier. Even after a request and explanation as to why we needed access to the ladder, they refused to move it. In fact, going as far as returning it to its original spot after Elaine took it upon herself to move it and all that was needed was to move it one cleat down on the dock; about 1.2m / 4Ft. Instead the staff preferred to let Elaine injure herself, falling on two occasions, rather than assist. It was very disturbing to know that these people had blatant disregard for someone constrained by their physical inabilities, devaluing Elaine’s life so dismissively. If it wasn’t for Roy constraining her, Elaine would have gladly punctured it in retaliation. Needless to say, we never received a refund on the marine reserve fees we had to pay either, albeit that, after a month, we were still unable to use a dive / mooring buoy to snorkel, since the dive boats continued to monopolise them. Couple this with the unbearable heat we endured during our visit, forcing us to run the generator and air-conditioners at night to get some sleep, by Wednesday, 8 May 2024, we were happy to be up with the alarm for a dawn departure, setting our course for Curacao.
On headsail alone we enjoyed a lovely sail with a SOG (Speed Over Ground) of 6.5-7Kts in 15-20 Kts of wind out of the east-southeast. Elaine had barely retired for a morning nap when she woke to find land on our starboard side; we had just rounded the southern tip of the island and on our approach to the entrance into Spanish Waters. With that it was hello again Curacao, a place we never thought we’d return to, given that it had remained in the bottom three of our least favourite places we’d visited over the years.
The first sign of change, however, was the resort at the entrance; it was now a Sandals establishment, meaning that we wouldn’t be able to visit it as we’d done in the past, having used the swimming pool and enjoyed coffee mornings, sundowners and a wedding anniversary dinner there. A real pity!
The second change was the absence of all the old rusted wrecks scattered around the anchorage, although many locals had installed private mooring balls within the allocated anchorage areas, limiting space significantly.
The most positive change was the establishment of the Sailor’s Services Club offering a variety of services and arranged social gatherings.
Clearing in and out, however, remained the painful exercise it always was of getting the bus into Willemstad and walking a country mile, first to the Port Authority, then Immigration and back over the swing bridge to Customs. It didn’t help matters that, on this occasion, the Port Authority official refused to serve us, since it was late afternoon ahead of a public holiday and told us to return the following Monday.
We also noticed that the bus service and the town centre no longer had the free wifi connectivity and the buses were definitely a far cry from those we had enjoyed using in Samoa, Australia, Turkey and Spain, the former bringing back fond memories of the colourfully decorated and very jolly service, with upbeat music playing and friendly locals interested to know where we had come from, but, at least, there was a bus service for which we were grateful.
Most of our time in Curacao was spent formulating a number of different strategies for selling Paw Paw, each to be executed in stages and trying to find further
medical treatment we both need moving forward, the latter turning into a shambles neither of us had expected.
By 11 May 2024, we’d contacted a host of medical service providers in eight different countries including Bonaire, Curacao, Aruba, Panama, Ireland, UK (including Northern Ireland and Gibraltar) and Türkiye, but to no avail, except for securing an appointment with the dermatologist in Curacao, the latter the reason for us changing our sailing itinerary to stop here, having previously decided to continue on to Aruba. This development, together with our research that revealed the ridiculous clearing in process in Aruba, where we were required to tie Paw Paw up to an old commercial concrete dock, something neither of us were prepared to do, forced the decision to simply bypass Aruba altogether, although this meant a longer stay in Curacao and a longer sail to Bocas del Toro.
With Ireland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar ruled out due to astronomical costs for private medical care and the precarious complexity and difficulty of securing appointments, we were down to trying to arrange dental care in Bocas del Toro and rheumatology and ophthalmology care in Panama City or Türkiye, a rather sad indictment of the state of healthcare in western societies, something we hadn’t experienced anywhere until leaving Türkiye. Be that as it may, to date we have not been able to finalise appointments other than an ophthalmologist in Türkiye. With the exception of the three top international hospitals, who indicated they did not offer the services we needed oddly enough, not one other establishment in Panama City responded to Elaine’s inquiries.
Deciding to kill two birds with one stone and fly to Ireland en route to Türkiye, on the assumption that whatever infections Elaine’s dad has would be cleared by the time we got there and hopeful that he’d still be alive, although the latter is purely wishful thinking at this point, the situation was exacerbated by having to track down the rheumatologist that had been treating Elaine in Türkiye, since he was no longer practicing at the Antalya Memorial Hospital. Unfortunately, although we uncovered his whereabouts, we have yet to secure an appointment, after a mixup with his availability and our travel plans.
Prior to these developments and expecting to be able to receive the medical care we needed in Panama City, we had essentially been passing time in Bonaire so as not to get to Panama too early. That way we could get the full six month visa we need to remain compliant with our yacht insurance stipulations. This all became a moot point, though, after Elaine received her treatment at the dermatologist and after making the decision that we would be leaving Paw Paw in Panama for a few weeks anyway, all of which meant we were now on weather watch to get to Panama sooner rather than later.
While many parts of the world got to enjoy the spectacular colourful displays of the aurora dance across the sky on the night of Friday, 10 May 2024, Sunday, 12 May 2024, was Mother’s Day, enjoyed at Papagayo Beach after an early morning walk, passing the salt-pans en route, and where we enjoyed breakfast, happy to see all the establishments were still thriving. Indeed the Willemstad waterfront, with all its pretty coloured buildings, were as immaculate as ever too and it was lovely to see all the Venezuelian fresh produce boats lining the canal. Needless to say, we didn’t hesitate in purchasing some of their delicious fruit.
The surroundings of Spanish Waters revealed the most significant changes, though, with all the previous restaurants we had frequented ten years ago now non-existent. Pirate’s Cove, with its colourful little chalets had been replaced with two different establishments, Villa Vista and The Pier, the latter where we enjoyed sundowners one evening, but aside from that, everything else was gone, replaced with houses and apartments mostly.
We also attended a few social events organised by the Sailor’s Services Club, which were sociable enough and helped stave off the boredom. However, our gripes associated with the generational gap between ourselves as “baby boomers” and the “Y” and “Z” generations continued, concluding that this was a worldwide trait after the apple pie we ordered on one occasion arrived a half an hour after we’d finished drinking our coffee, but the spoons to eat the apple pie arrived with the coffee, although napkins apparently weren’t part of the service until Elaine asked for them and this at one of Curacao’s top restaurants, the Gouverneur. Our breakfast at Papagayo Beach Resort had a similar outcome. It appeared that ordering a coffee, a hot English Breakfast tea with milk and a bottle of water proved to be far too much for the intellectual capability of the individual serving us, resulting in only the coffee and water arriving at our table. At least something registered somewhere because the waitress knew she’d forgotten something and asked Elaine what else she’d ordered, the penny dropping when Elaine reminded her. Very deep breaths were required when the milk didn’t arrive. Coffee ordered at the Zest Restaurant & Beach Cafe proved to be far more successful, thankfully!
There’s a distinct possibility that we’ve become old and grumpy, but, honestly, these simple orders are not rocket science, yet they become a lucky dip experience every time! It just seems that there’s no pride anymore in providing a good service anywhere we go, but we’re charged an astronomical amount of money nonetheless for the privilege, never mind the service fee that is automatically added to the bill!
Coffee at Number 10 in Bonaire took the cake, though. After a month of visiting this lovely café, there wasn’t a single occasion where Elaine didn’t receive the tiniest sugar container with an enormous dessert spoon as a teaspoon. So what’s the problem you ask. Well, there was no way of using the spoon to access the sugar in the tiny container without turning the spoon around and using the handle, which in itself was almost too large for the opening of the container and, because it was brown clumpy sugar, there was no way of pouring the sugar out!
Our son, being a millennial, gave us a different perspective on this generation, indicating that, besides a lack of decent training provided, many of these young adults have experienced their parents loose everything during the financial crisis in 2007 / 2008, they’ve had their schooling interrupted by the pandemic and are now having to deal with a cost of living crisis, the worst in more than a decade or two, where most are more worried about where their rent money or their next meal is coming from, never mind ensuring some grumpy old bat gets a napkin or a teaspoon with her coffee and baked delight. Guess that sets us straight!
Besides our chores and errands that needed to be run, including hopping on the grocery bus organised by the Sailor’s Services Club, to do our provisioning, Elaine also managed to catalogue and upload all our latest photographs to the gallery on our website, as well as prepare all the materials needed for the next set of outstanding videos; our adventures through Italy. We also got to celebrate our grandson, William’s birthday with him via video. Oh the joys of our modern world. Irish lessons continued too as did Roy’s early morning walks, returning with freshly baked croissants for breakfast and perfecting his latest baking endeavours; fruit loaf.
It was rather sad, though, to see Carin Trimbach arrive back in Curacao, thus completing her single-handed circumnavigation, but with no one to greet her or welcome her back. We were informed of her impending arrival as she entered Spanish Waters on the morning of 17 May 2024; a real shame considering her achievement. This was the very reason Elaine wanted to join the ARC 2023 rally, ensuring there were plenty of celebrations to be had on the completion of our circumnavigation.
By Sunday, 19 May 2024, it was close to a fortnight since we’d arrived in Curacao and we hadn’t had one day without howling wind. It was relentless keeping us yacht bound for most of the time in sustained winds of 25-30 Kts, gusting to 33 Kts. Afternoon naps were out of the question too, given the intense heat.
As the weeks passed Elaine’s dad continued to deteriorate overall, particularly the unusual symptom of sudden delirium and the loss of his cognitive abilities, when just a few short weeks ago he had told Keenan he could remember his entire life in minute detail, regaling Keenan with the highlights. A brain scan revealed nothing sinister, but further microbiological tests were undertaken to determine whether or not an infection had caused this. Regardless it was clear we would be setting sail, not knowing the outcome, given that we were unable to procure another sim card for our Iridium-Go service and would, therefore, be off grid for the duration of our passage. Thankfully, though, her dad recognised Elaine during a video call to him just prior to our departure. More than this we cannot ask for at this stage.
By Tuesday, 21 May 2024, preparations were underway for our imminent departure. These included a diesel and petrol run and completing all the paperwork needed for entry into Panama. The following morning we undertook the reverse of what we’d done to clear in, although this time we had to hunt for the temporary Customs office after a fire broke out in the permanent building a few days earlier. Getting through the crowds to the Immigration office was another challenge after a cruise ship docked. Regardless, we were happy to be leaving and delighted to have found a suitable weather window. It seemed our lives have become a series of lasts, since we don’t plan on being back in this part of the world again either.
After a fabulous, although challenging sail from St Lucia, primarily due to the number of sail plan changes required, we arrived in Bonaire on the morning of 8th April 2024. It was definitely a little surreal to be back after 10 years, but it was a visit we were both looking forward to, since Bonaire had remained one of our all time favourite Top-3 destinations after sailing all the way around the world.
Approaching the anchorage was the first sign that things had changed, given the unusual dispersement of yachts in the mooring field. It was no longer the well organised two neat rows of mooring balls and it seamed like a partial third row had been added somewhat haphazardly too. The number of yachts, or lack thereof, was the second indicator.
These anomalies were later explained to us by the marina staff, a marina that was now almost packed to capacity with local motorboats of varying sizes, compared to the handful that had occupied berths when we first arrived in Bonaire. Apparently a third row of balls had been added to keep up with the demand. Then a few years ago, local authorities took a number of decisions that has placed Bonaire on a trajectory that will forever change the island, a change that is already apparent.
As part of these changes, cruisers are now having to pay astronomical fees for the privilege of visiting this island. These include an increase of the mooring fees from $10USD to $35USD per night. Additionally, all the dinghy docks that were originally free, have been removed and consolidated into one dock at a cost of $35USD per month. A tourist tax fee of $75USD each is charged in lieu of hotel and car hire taxes, which has nothing to do with cruising, but we had to
pay it regardless and, finally, a charge of $40USD each for swimming, snorkelling and/or diving, regardless of the fact that, to date, we haven’t been able to tie up to a single dedicated dive / snorkelling buoy as these are permanently occupied by dive boats and only one vessel is permitted at a time per buoy. This was yet another change, as previously we could snorkel or dive anywhere. Needless to say, the additional costs make it too expensive now for cruisers to visit Bonaire for an entire hurricane season, resulting in most mooring balls being dropped in the water, after demand decreased significantly from last year, thus explaining the haphazard array of limited mooring balls still visible.
The most striking changes, however, were along the waterfront. Miles of new construction, including shops, restaurants, apartment blocks and chain resorts, which, besides being a major strategic change in direction to allow chain conglomerates onto Bonaire, has had the consequence of closing down most of the mom and pop boutique hotels and dive operations. There’s no doubt that the pandemic contributed to this outcome too, but sad, nonetheless to see. Add the numerous cruise ship visitors to the mix and we felt like we’d arrived somewhere entirely different. Fortunately some of the beautifully refurbished little historic houses are still present.
The most disappointing change, though, related to the single reason we loved Bonaire so much and was the islands greatest treasure; its abundance and variety of sea life and corals. The first clue that something was seriously wrong was our first swim off the back of Paw Paw and a glance under the water. Sadly we were not greeted by massive schools of fish and stunning colourful corals of all shapes and sizes as we’d experienced in the past. Instead, what we saw were a handful of tiny sergeant majors and desecrated bleached coral.
Deciding to explore further afield the following morning, after breakfast we donned our swimsuits, grabbed our snorkelling gear and, armed with the new map we’d been given on where we were allowed to snorkel now, we headed out for our first snorkelling adventure back on Bonaire.
What a disappointment this turned out to be. Not only were the snorkelling sites few and far between, but the two we found were completely devoid of sea life and the area was just scattered with dead bleached coral. This was exacerbated by the fact that we couldn’t get to any other snorkelling spots after deciding to dinghy over to Klein Bonaire to see how widespread this devastation was, because the dive boats were monopolising all the buoys.
A swim to our favourite little reef from Paw Paw that afternoon revealed the same situation. It was completely soul destroying to see. Returning to Paw Paw, it’s fair to say, Elaine was not in a good place. The disappointed was so profound, she couldn’t even put into words how she felt. She simply could not get over what we were witnessing.
Reports from other cruisers and locals we spoke to, confirmed the same thing, indicating that it was fairly widespread. The huge playful parrotfish were nowhere to be found, the myriad of large colourful angelfish were nonexistent, never mind trying to spot a turtle. Apparently at either end of the island sea life and corals are in better shape, but mostly all that remains are small schools of tiny fish, resembling more of a nursery than the fabulous natural underwater paradise we’d loved so much on our first visit, when we felt like we were floating on top of a giant aquarium.
An article released a few days later on most of the world’s major news outlets emphasised the situation; along coastlines from Australia to Kenya to Mexico, many of the world's colourful coral reefs have turned a ghostly white in what scientists have said amounted to the fourth global bleaching event in the last three decades.
At least 54 countries and territories have experienced mass bleaching among their reefs since February 2023 as climate change warms the ocean's surface waters, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch, the world's top coral reef monitoring body. More than 54% of the reef areas in the global oceans are experiencing “bleaching-level heat stress”. Scientists have expressed concern that many of the world's reefs will not recover from the intense, prolonged heat stress, indicating that what is happening this time is new for them and to science. Simply heartbreaking, especially since we had a benchmark to compare to; our first visit 10 years ago, and could see the devastation firsthand.
As a result, snorkelling is not an activity we are partaking in now; just too upsetting to see. Instead Roy is enjoying his early morning walks and Elaine is participating in the noodling sessions every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings, frequented by cruisers, locals and an inordinate number of American and Canadian expatriates, the latter as a result of a major immigration influx from these countries in the past few years. While these sessions are great exercise they are also very sociable and include a weekly coffee morning afterwards. Other social outings have been with cruisers we’ve met since our arrival, including Zipper (Sophie and Jamie), Onyx (Nolene and Jeff), Ice Flow (Susan and George) and Mama Tried (Guy), where dinner outings resemble the league of nations; an aspect of Bonaire that has not changed. However, “Burger and Rum” night is sorely missed, since the pandemic forced Patreece to close his restaurant. Karels Beach Bar is still in business and thriving, though, evident by the major renovations and makeover resembling a South Pacific establishment, sitting on stilts with its high peaked thatched roof.
Coffee mornings, breakfasts, sundowners and dinners are enjoyed ashore at some old favourites, including El Mundo, Divers Diner, It Rains Fishes, but also includes new adventures such as Between2Buns, Number 10 Bonaire, a very quaint, eclectic little place, and Hooked on Sunsets, to name a few. Additionally, reading, listening to podcasts, evening walks to enjoy the sunsets and working towards finishing and uploading the huge number of our outstanding videos is also keeping us busy.
Another service that is now defunct is the free bus service that used to take cruisers to the main supermarket on the island, Van den Tweel, twice a week, so it’s back to walking or hiring a car. Fortunately Roy coincides our top up provisioning with his exercise walks and has the added bonus of bringing back freshly baked French pastries for breakfast, straight out of the oven. Doesn’t get much better than that. It helps that prices are far more reasonable here too.
Other activities, which one can never escape as a yacht owner, are the endless yacht tasks. Wanting to enjoy some R&R on Bonaire, though, these have been limited to activities like cleaning the stainless steel, cleaning the rubber trim and replacing our swim ladder teak steps which inadvertently got broken while we were being splashed in Grenada.
A definite bonus of being back in Bonaire, is feeling comfortable enough to sleep with the hatches open again, unlike our recent visit to the Windward Islands. Having fresh air all night definitely helps our sleeping patterns, leaving us more refreshed in the mornings. It is, however, the stunning sunsets, enjoyed over sundowners, that still make this a magical place!
Having time to linger, though, rather than being continuously on the move, has its drawbacks and in many ways is exacerbating our endless feeling of being completely stuck, given that we have been unable to sell Paw Paw as yet. It’s forced us to deal with situations we never expected to still be dealing with or indeed undertaking activities we thought would be behind us by now. Examples of this include the safety and security concerns we had in the Windwards Islands, having to do another haulout, undertaking passages again, dealing with ridiculous restrictions from our yacht insurance company in so far as where we have to be located for hurricane season, contending with the outrageous prices of goods and services since arriving back in the Caribbean, including having to pay for services we can’t actually use, etc. Everything feels like it’s certainly not all that scintillating as it once was! The fun seems to be ebbing away! In many ways this could be a good thing, ironically enough, as it may make our transition back to landlubber life a little easier, if that event ever occurs!
And now for another titbit of Irish tradition and custom; storytelling.
Seanchoíche - pronounced 'shanna-key-huh' - invites people to come to listen and engage with spoken stories, ranging from personal anecdotes to poetry pieces.
Seanchaí is the Irish word for a storyteller, and the plural is seanchaithe. Oíche is the Irish word for night. Together, seanchaí and oíche create Seanchoíche - or storytellers' night, where people from the audience are also invited to share their stories too. This is another tradition we’re looking forward to, whether listening or sharing a story or two ourselves. For now, though, we have to keep our focus on enjoying each day as it comes and remaining focused on the present. Again, not necessarily a bad thing!
After setting our course for Bonaire on Friday, 5th April 2024, we enjoyed a great start with winds as forecast, giving us a SOG (Speed Over Ground) of 7 Kts. It helped that Elaine’s back was also feeling better after she’d hurt it while in St Anne’s and could enjoy the passage.
Unfortunately at about 20NM out, the wind petered out leaving us to crawl along at barely 5 Kts, exacerbated by the tidal current against us.
By 1100 the winds had picked up again, much to our relief, but then lightened from every direction, prompting us to change our sail plan from wing-on-wing to a broad reach. Unfortunately a terrible side swell kept knocking us around too and flogging the mainsail, but, by 1300, the consistent 15-20 Kt winds we expected kicked in and we settled into a groove, scooting along at a SOG of 8.5-9.5 Kts.
We did, however, have a more challenging night as the wind backed to east-northeast, which was less preferable by putting us on a course that was more southerly, although speeds remained in the 15-20 Kt range. The persistent side swell, though, was a stark reminder of our Atlantic Ocean crossing, except then, we had a swell hitting us on either side at different intervals.
On the upside, being a pitch black night, we had the most magnificent starry sky and we were delighted to see the Southern Cross again. Throw in a shooting star or two and it was simply perfect! Elaine, however, missed her partner in crime, Justine, on her watches. There was no one to stargaze with or have her in stitches of laughter about whatever silly thing happened.
With a beautiful crescent moon making its appearance at around 0400, daybreak followed soon thereafter and our second day at sea commerced.
When Roy surfaced for his morning watch, we jibed yet again and changed the sail plan back to wing-on-wing, which placed us on a far better course, one that was more comfortable too. Over breakfast we tuned into Chris Parker’s SSB/HF radio net for the latest weather briefing, pleased to hear the forecast had remained as expected.
A further change of the sail plan was required when Elaine surfaced around mid-morning, jibing and putting Paw Paw back on a broad reach, allowing us to continue at a SOG of 6.5-7.5 Kts, with winds out of the east-southeast at 10-15 Kts. These sail plan changes became a pattern over the course of the passage as the wind veered and backed.
By noon we had 276NM to go; we’d passed the 1/3-way mark, but we’d only had one cargo ship for company the entire time.
By sunset we reefed the mainsail, since we were expecting stronger winds overnight and, given that there was no moon, we didn’t want to be faffing around in the pitch blackness. It was, however, the current that was brutal, setting northerly at 2.7-3.6 Kts and creating an astronomical leeway angle, forcing another sail plan change at midnight to put us back on a wing-on-wing configuration. We were on the downhill run, though, having passed the 1/2-way mark just before 2000 and we had another clear, pitch black starry night sky to enjoy.
At 0600 on the morning of Sunday, 7th April 2024, we changed the sail plan again, jibing and then back on a broad reach as the wind veered. Thankfully the brutal current had dissipated and stayed that way for the remainder of the passage.
When Elaine came back on watch at 1000, Paw Paw was surrounded by sea birds of every description. Roy had been watching them feed for hours. It was lovely to see an abundance of sea-life again, including some rather large fish jumping out of the water, after years of being in populated areas devoid of this, except for the odd turtle or dolphin. We’d completely given up on snorkelling because there was precious little to see.
Under sunny clear skies we were still scooting along nicely on a double-reefed mainsail and a half-reefed headsail, given that the winds had picked up to 18-22Kts. Bonaire was in our sights with less than 67NM to go by 1700.
However, by the time Elaine came on watch at 2100 and Paw Paw had reached a SOG of 14 Kts wing-on-wing, our slowest point of sail, as the winds hit 25 Kts, the executive decision was taken to drop the mainsail and proceed on a reefed headsail alone. This was no easy feat in 25 Kts of wind, lumpy seas and on a pitch black night; the exact situation we’d tried to avoid by reefing the mainsail early the previous night. Regardless, it was the safest option all things considered, even though we’d both had a cardio workout by the time matters were back under control.
Having had plenty of time to reflect during her watches and having looked back on our very unpleasant and challenging Atlantic Ocean crossing, there was a reason Paw Paw wasn’t sold as we had expected and that that wasn’t to be our last passage. It occurred to Elaine that maybe there was a reward to be had for our tenacity in completing our circumnavigation against the odds. This thought had started to formulate with each “favourite” spot we revisited over the past few months and all the new places we thoroughly enjoyed seeing in the Windward Islands, as well as the unplanned and wonderful encounters which materialised with cruising friends of old, including spending time with Anne and Stuart, off Time Bandit, and the very special event of being able to see Rowena again, meet the family and participate in Richard’s sendoff, then being given the opportunity to return to Bonaire, through circumstances beyond our control, a destination still on our all time favourite Top-3 List after sailing all around the world. We indeed had seen the best first during our first hurricane season on Paw Paw and it suddenly seemed very fitting that we got to return to this underwater paradise ten years later.
These thoughts solidified with each passing day of this passage, a passage full of nature’s wonders. It was all reward enough, but we still had plenty to look forward to and we’d managed to shave off an extra day at sea.
When Elaine surfaced on Monday, 8th April 2024, it was already 0530 and Paw Paw was already sailing up the leeward coast of Bonaire. Roy had allowed Elaine to sleep through her early morning watch which was very naughty of him, but greatly appreciated. By 0700 we were tied to a mooring ball, surprised to see so many yachts here already this early in the season. Either that, it was hello again Bonaire!
And on that note, we’d like to wish Roy’s brother Len, a very Happy Birthday and hope that he had a fabulous day.
