Over Sherrell's birthday we took a trip to Panama to buy a year's supply of her cancer meds, do some shopping and maybe celebrate a little. Getting her medicine has been an ordeal because the credit card won't work in the hospital scanner. These meds aren't sold in many places so we've been desperate to get this to work. Really this is our second attempt to buy them because last time we were here they had the same problem. On Sherrell's b-day the plan was to swipe the card then head to the mountains. No go. After trying a few machines they found one in the hospital that worked. Despite trying to arrange this weeks ago, they still didn't have the stock we needed. So we paid for everything and they were going to airfreight them from Panama City. I really tried to get this setup before we got there, but I think they thought we were trying to scam them or something since the card didn't work when we tried to buy them earlier. So we spent Sherrell's b-day arguing with the pharmacy. To make it up to her, I decided we should rent a car. With a car we could do our shopping, then lug all our stuff around up into the mountains, return to get the medicine, then get a cab to the border back to Costa Rica. I'm really glad we splurged. We drove up towards Boquete and found a fantastic used book store that was one of the best we've seen since Seattle! We drove up and up to Boquete, through the so-so town and up into the hills. The narrow winding roads, oxygen rich clean air and the greeeeeeen pine forests were a healing change. Breathing in the cool air and enjoying the waterfalls was a blast. We had so much fun driving through the hills and rivers we forgot our troubles.There was a hot springs too in Caldera, so we drove out there through rough dirt roads (poor rental car). We hiked into the hot springs and in 20 minutes felt cured. It was soooo nice letting the hot volcanic water bubble up all around us.
Returning to Golifto reminded us of all the work we needed to finish. We repaired our outboard. I had to use marine-tex epoxy and stainless parts to build a new carburetor bowl (took 4 days). Our oars needed to be stripped, dried out, epoxy sealed and painted (took 3 days). I did some spying for Land Sea on their network to try to catch someone sharing illegal files which caused them to have their internet access blocked for a few days. We re-epoxied our table (try #2) after Tari repainted everything again (please cure stupid epoxy)! Oh the list goes on - repaired a deck leak that ruined some cook books, cut and sanded about 60 wood plugs from the mast/table modifications, we did....

Last but not least, I pimped out our website to google ads. I know it sucks. Our homepage now has a string of ads somewhat related to our site's theme. I only did this because I found out that other people are actually making money doing it. So if you see an ad that looks interesting don't be shy, click it. We earn a little moo-lah off that click. It's a brave new world. I might add them to this page too (depressing sigh).

So I was reading this dramatic story on the internet about how a scientist has found a way to literally turn "life" on and off. Seriously. He found a way to prevent cellular damage caused by rapidly dropping oxygen levels (i.e. irrecoverable death). Basically he uses a poison to stop the damage from lack of oxygen. Then the organism "dies" without any cellular damage, only to be "restarted" again later, sometimes several hours later. He is working on ways to extend this technique to larger and larger animals, like us humans. So you could clinically be dead while they operate on you (or your dead body at least), then when the time is right...BAM! Re-animation! IT LIVES!

I was thinking that if scientists can switch life on and off, why can't I stop things from breaking on the boat? At least for a while. It seems that fixing them doesn't really help as things break faster than I can fix them. Maybe there is a way to stop this entropy for a while so the boat stays suspended. I can fix everything then have a beer to celebrate being done, before I turn entropy back on and something breaks.

Well, so much for fantasy and procrastination...back to work.

Our "side project" of painting the mast turned out to be a HUGE amount of work. But after hours and hours of sanding and layering paint on the oxidized spots, it took only an hour with the sprayer to put 3 final coats on the mast. The results look really good. Here's a photo of the mast after we moved it from under the roofed building and we're getting ready to hoist it. I'm at the end hooking up the antenna and windex and Robert, Kelita, Dana and Steven look at our sparkly paint job.

We managed to wrestle it back onto the boat without breaking anything or even scratch the new paint. And what a relief! The new compression supports are nice and solid. We pulled a chain plate and the bolts just to inspect them and they all looked good. Now I'm in the process of re-tuning the mast as things have changed slightly after the compression post work and it all sitting in the yard for a while. I installed a LED tricolor/anchor light and rigged our steaming/bow light so that for the first time EVER we will have a working deck light.


The great part is we are almost finished with our 3 month bonding period with Costa Rica Customs, so we will be able to get another 3 month cruising permit and be free.

A big thanks to all those who helped us get the mast back on:
Tim - LANDSEA
Robert & Kelita -- S/V FREEDOM
Steven & Darusha -- S/V SCREAM
Dana -- S/V VIDA LIBRE

I was back in the US helping out my family and visiting when I received an email detailing how tragedy strikes instantly. The tsunami in the Samoas wiped out villages, boats and a friend of ours. Dan and his wife Joan gave us some great touring advice for northern Peru when we were anchored in Ecuador together. Dan was swept from the boat and drowned. It is so sad.

Another boat we know was swept though the town and all torn up. The owner was forced to grab what he could and abandon it to looters who were harrassing him.

It reminds me that sometimes even if things seem bad, they could be a lot worse and it could happen in an instant. Be happy for right now.

With the mast down we have been slaving on the boat. Weeks of work and the compression post is finally finished! There was a subtle problem with how the boat was orginally built and over the past 32 years things started to compress. The mast applies a downward force on the deck that is blanced by a compression post below (shown in brown). Unfortunately our compression post (strong teak) was mounted on top of a plywood sub-floor and ceiling (shown in light blue). The plywood compressed slightly over time and shifting the post.
I no likey. Here's how it was built with the orignal on top and new-improved construction on the bottom:

Step 6,039 was to pull off the compression post, table, wiring, molding, and just about everything that looked nice.

Anyway, step 10,104 was to cut out the compressed ceiling and fiberglass it. I should mention I no likey fiberglassing overhead. This foto shows the area that needs to be cut out and glassed.

This photo shows the sub-floor that needs to be replaced with something stronger. Purple heart was the wood I used as it is hard as concrete.

Our compression post isn't right under the mast, which is a bit odd. Due to the inside structures we couldn't move the post to the center, so I distributed the force using a 1/4" thick peice of stainless steel...very heavy duty.
In this photo, step 12,600, you can see the new (purple) sub-floor under the compression post. I haven't cleaned up the area yet, but things are coming together.

After building some new molding that fit flush to everything and reinstalling most of it. Step 14,212 was to take a photo of the almost finished work.


Now we just need about 50 teak plugs and our table back to finish this project. We decided to cut our table to a more narrow size and rip off the tacky formica. We have an artist working on a cool painting for our table top! It's going to look so fantastic!

While doing all this sanding and manual labor my thoughts have wandered to strange happenings. Like these Tea Party people. WTF? Where have these people been living? Oh, let's see where have we seen rapid government expansion?

• Government buying bank shares [Bush started Government Bailouts with Banks]
• Huge perscription drug plan with NO funding [can you say deficit?] while cutting taxes.
• Spending went from 1.5 Trillion 2001 to 3.1 Trillion 2008+ [2009 Budget Summary via Government Printing Office, reported all as part of Bush's Budget Plans]
• Iraq War cost $711 billion and climbing
• Home Land Security -- Largest Fed. expansion in 50 years
• Patriot Act 1 & 2 -- we need to know what books you are checking out of the library
• No Child Left Behind -- massive federalization of schools [that socialist!]

"We have now presided over the largest increase in the size of government since the Great Society," said Sen. John McCain, the Republican candidate vying to replace Mr. Bush 2004.

Along came a cat.

We've been watching this older black and white street cat for over a month now. It was hit by a car and hasn't been able to heal. Someone tried to treat it with some iodine, but this cat needs to be kept isolated and heavily treated. We sadly watched it get worse as a bad staff infection set in. The kitty doesn't have any owners and often hangs out by the fishermen. Somone has been feeding it scraps, but we can't really find anyone who claims the old guy.

The other day I was making some cuts on a table saw and I spotted him under a parked car. He was looking really weak. Another friend of ours, Tari, has also been watching his plight and encouraged us to trap him and see if he could be treated or put down.

So we put our wild cat capturing skills back into action and brought him up to Tari's. His injuries were a lot worse than we expected and he was suffering. It tore us apart, but we called the vet to put the old guy down. I went out and dug a hole for him and Tari picked some flowers. When the vet examined him he said the cat had a poor chance at living and the treatment would be very painful. He thought it was right thing to put him down too.

I miss seeing the old guy hanging out in the shade in random places, but he isn't suffering anymore.

Latin music doesn't really do much for me or Sherrell. But there is one band from Puerto Rico which I really like. Here's one of their latest songs that is fun to sing along to. I like the way Spanish rhymes so well.

No hay nadie como tu (There is no one like you)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38-cNUyOXqw

I first heard of this band when I heard what has become my all time favorite Spanish language song: AtrÃ?Æ?©vete-te-te! (Dare to to to...) It's about daring girls to be more sexual and real. It's trite, but I like the rhyme....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcOknZbStOY&feature=channel

They have a lot of different sounds and are usually controversial.

We have been delaying the inevitable. Our mast sits on the deck, and beneath the deck is a post that supports the deck. All fine and good. However over time and a lot of sailing the post started to compress into the floor and ceiling. Hmmm. A few years ago in El Salvador, we loosened all the stays, carefully jacked up the support and inserted two stainless plates on the top and bottom to both shim it up and distribute the force. We also built a new support around the plates.

Well like the exhaust, I knew this problem needed to be addressed in a more serious fashion, meaning taking the mast out, then the post and rebuilding everything. Prior to doing any long off shore passages like crossing the Pacific this had to be fixed. So I started searching Mexico for places where I could take the mast off and do the work with the boat in the water (saving money by not being in the boat yard).

The prices in Mexico have steadily crept up since we left. I was a bit disappointed, but then I found a guy with a crane here and a basin where we could get our boat in during high tide. The price was good, so we decided to try it.

How to pull out the mast? Get a bunch of volunteers to help, one crane and keep your fingers crossed.

At high tide we entered the basin with just about every thing ready. Once the crane hooked up to the lifting rope I set up we began to disconnect the rigging.

(Rosemary and Richard helping me hunched down at the base)

The crane operator and Tim (from Land Sea) look on at our frantic de-rigging.

We then lifted it from the boat while trying to guide it and stabilize it while the crane operator drives around. A bit chaotic, but no damage! They even put it under the roof so it will be out of the sun and rain!
(Richard, David and I wrestling the mast)

With the mast gone, our boat looks a little silly. Here we are parked against the wall before heading back to Fish Hook.