Wind, wind, go away… (in Ensenada Benao, Panama)

Leah's-Cabin-Fever

Cabin fever is officially setting in! 🙂

We’ve been on Brio for 5 days, mostly in this very windy little bay called ‘Benao’, and the effects are starting to show…

For example, we now break in to spontaneous wind-themed song… “tomorrow, tomorrow, it’s gonna be windy, tomooooorrrow” and “wind, wind, go away, don’t come back til we’re in Panama Ci-i-tay” (ok, that one’s a little rough, but you get the idea)

We dream of ice cream… “chocolate?” “no, cookie dough!” “ooh yeah, with maybe a scoop of coffee on top??” “or a banana split?” “do they make those in Panama??” “I don’t know but we can look!”

We radio chat with the other boats in the bay waiting for a weather window… “still look windy to you?” “yep, still looks windy to me” “ya same here” “guess we keep waiting?” “guess so”…

We make the most of an amazing wifi connection and the gift of other cruisers who have already scoped out the password for us… 😉

We discuss the current wind conditions incessantly… “seems like 20 knots to me”, Jon will say. “No, no, it’s only 18,” I’ll reply. We’ll argue over this 2 knot discrepancy for a good while, until finally we settle it all with “one day we really should get wind instruments”…

We (I) make Jon listen to my stories of the ‘olden days’… like the time we were stuck in a wind-crazy anchorage in the Red Sea for NINE WINDY DAYS and it was so windy we broke 3 anchor snubbers (I’d wake up and yell “DAD!!!”, he’d run outside to fix the situation, and I’d go back to sleep in the vberth until I heard the next “bang!”)…

Not to mention that it was too windy to put the dinghy in the water, so my sister and I would just sit in the cockpit and wave forlornly at our friends on the other kid boats, only 100′ away but completely unreachable… wondering if we’d ever be able to pickup our UNO tournaments again… (sometimes we were drama queens :P)

On that note, Jon and I debate putting the dinghy in the water… “but it’s kind of nice to just hang out on the boat, don’t you think? And then we don’t have to deal with the humongous dinghy or long-shaft outboard flailing in the breeze??” … to which Jon unfailingly replies, “we need a smaller dinghy” 🙂

We do small projects (like zipper switcheroos on the bimini’s sun shades and engine fluid checks and top-ups and leaking stanchion repairs)…

We sit and listen to the wind shriek and smile that we’re calmly at anchor and not out there bashing our guts against this… It’s not the fanciest of bays but to us it’s the most wonderful anchorage we could possibly imagine right now…

We read (many books), and watch movies, and play Candy Crush (my new guilty obsession… I’m ashamed to even admit this one :P), and debate what to have for dinner (“well we could open that jar of pickles we’ve had stashed, and I know we’ve still got some pasta tucked away and maybe half an avocado…”), and occasionally we go run in place in the cockpit to burn a little energy…

And of course, we check the weather obsessively. Passage Weather is bookmarked. Sail Flow is always open. The morning Pan Pacific net’s forecast is recorded. We are weather informed

… and really, we’re also secretly enjoying this little enforced interlude, a time to relax and enjoy little things and get mentally ready for a canal transit and a whole new ocean.

We know the weather window will come eventually…

Maybe — with any luck — even tomorrow morning 🙂

Panama City is calling!

– LMK

 


Comments

Wind, wind, go away… (in Ensenada Benao, Panama) — 1 Comment

  1. I like your graphic 🙂
    Hope the winds calm down for you soon! Transiting the canal is cool, and then you have the Caribbean coast of Panama before you. Gonna be awesome!

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