26th January

We upped the anchor and moved eastwards towards the middle of the Hollandes Cays this morning. This is a small anchorage protected by a large reef with mangroves on one side of us and another island inhabited by a family of fishermen and coconut farmers.

We went ashore to see if they had any fresh fish and came back with a ‘takeaway’ which consisted of 3 freshly smoked fish and a large coconut. I was invited into their cookhouse to pick which fish I would like – it was like stepping back in time. I could quite imagine that this was how we lived in the middle ages and yet here I was in the 21st century, to me this is squalor but it is how they have lived for centuries and know nothing better. They were a lovely family and made us most welcome, the Father told me his name was Robert and was most impressed when I told him my son was also called Robert! Everything came to $4 – so maybe I will go back and buy a mola or 2 from them – this is a pittance to us but they can live on $10 a week quite easily here.

What at first appeared to be a tranquil anchorage soon turned into a riotous afternoon when several crew from the other yachts here (all Frenchies!) decided to party on the beach. After having the audacity to ask us to switch our wind generator off because it was too noisy (we don’t call it ‘Das Stuka’ for nothing) they proceeded to sing and shout all afternoon – including chanting their national anthem. We were tempted to play Abba’s ‘Waterloo’ at full blast – or invade the beach – after all the Frogs are used to having their beaches invaded – they just got lucky at Hastings in 1066!

27 -30th

For the past 3 days we have been back in Porvenir, we were intending to have just the one night here but we have been held up by a cold front that has brought high winds and high seas. Nothing that the boat or us couldn’t handle its just that we really don’t want to put us or the boat through anymore stress than we have to.

Still – we have had great fun, there are another couple of British boats that are in and we have become good friends with their crews. Most nights we have ventured ashore for a ‘session’ at Hotel Porvenir, with our evenings finished with a stroll back along the runway and onto the jetty for a bouncy wet ride back to Honalee out in the anchorage.

Water is getting to be a premium onboard at the moment, we are down to one tank so we are being VERY careful as we don’t know when we are going to be able to fill the tanks. This evening we went ashore for a shower at the hotel which cost us a dollar to use the room and shower. When I say room – I can only liken this to a concrete room with 2 beds, a breeze block wall that divides the toilet from the bedroom. The shower is a spout that comes out of the wall – now when you haven’t had a proper shower this year it seems like pure luxury even if it is cold and intermittent. Washing is done off the back of the yacht with a fresh water rinse – better get used to this as we may have to go a month without washing on our way to the Marquesa Islands.

The past couple of nights have been interesting, one of the boats started to come loose and was bouncing off its neighbours in the night with much shouting and abuse (it was a German boat hitting English ones). Today our dinghy came loose from Honalee and drifted off to the mainland 20 miles away. Luckily it was spotted and we managed to get her back, without this we would have been well and truly snookered.

Our next port of call should be Portobello a few miles from the Panama Canal. Portobello is where Sir Francis Drake was buried, he was taken out to sea and buried in a lead lined coffin, to this day legend has it round here that you can hear Drake’s drum beating on a still calm night. Most nights round hear all our neighbours can hear is ‘Das Stuka’ off the back of Honalee as she generates enough power for me to recharge the computer to write my blog.

30th

Sadly we left Porvenir this morning at 6am, I will miss this place as we’ve had a great time here. Its only a tiny place run by a bunch of old age pensioners but it has a certain charm, and although they must get 100’s of visitors a year they went out of there way to make us feel so welcome. We made the effort to say goodbye to all of them, even the little lady who did our laundry came out to say goodbye us.

We didn’t make it to Portobello it was getting late and so we headed into Isla Linton 8 miles further east. As we were coming in we could hear whistling coming from below, Nigel went to investigate and started to shout that there was smoke coming from the engine compartment – Oh sh*t! It seemed as if our engine was on fire, thankfully the smoke turned out to be steam, but the engine was severely over heating and we had to get in fast. God knows what would have happened if we had been further out or coming through shoals or reefs. Long and short if it is that the impellor for the salt water intake has disintegrated and the engine will have to be stripped tomorrow.