Discovery Transits the Panama Canal
After saying sad goodbyes to the whole crew in Bocas we took two days trying to get some sleep, then departed for Colon. It was a fast, easy sail. With building winds out of the north Discovery took flight as she hadn’t in weeks, covering the 140 miles in no time. We arrived the Shelter Bay Marina by late Wednesday afternoon and quickly began arranging our transit of the Panama Canal. We’d already lined up an agent, a giant of a guy named Stanley who doesn’t waste time. We’d no sooner tied up the boat when he arrived, cell phone ringing incessantly, favors being called in, dollar signs adding up. But he got it done. Some boats wait for weeks to get through the canal. He arranged a slot for us Friday evening, 48 hours and closing.
Our new group arrived on the 29th, the first sunny day we’d had in a week. Evidence of Global Warming is everywhere these days, and the weather is any thing but predictable. But somehow we keep getting lucky and wind or sun would be in no shortage for the next week.
After hauling the boat in Cartagena and getting Discovery ready for another year in the water, Nico and I spent a few days on maintenance items and provisioning, then on a perfectly calm hot morning departed for the San Blas. 5 hours out the winds came on like someone had thrown a switch and within minutes the sails were up and we were ripping towards Panama. We covered the 206 miles in 23 hours- not a bad run. We chose an anchorage near Porvenir to make it easy to pick up Jody early the next morning and were quickly visited by a few Kuna families in dugout canoes offering big smiles, Molas (intricate hand sewn handicrafts), lobster fish and crab. The crab are related to king crab- huge rock crab with big claws and a menacing look. Nico decided they would be dinner. I decided immediately I’d be liking the San Blas.
Our first trip to Los Aves proved worthy of a return, which has completely altered our planned itinerary, but all for the good. This time the crew of Discovery only had 4 days to prep both the boat and ourselves for our next guests, Thomas and Adriena Scheuring and their daughter Clara from Germany, and Martin Stockl and Keith Cockrum who would join us from the States. Martin and Keith were on our “try before you buy” gig and I’m happy to say now ten days later that they are our most recent owners! I’m not sure if it was the boat, the food, the locations, or what was the deciding element because unfortunately this trip it probably was not the wind. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Bonaire is hardly remote. It’s been on the scuba diving map for 3 decades and sports a healthy tourism industry, due to the sound management of its ecological treasures. But it feels way off the map, and we’re finding much to love. With Los Aves so nearby, exploring the two on one trip makes for one hell of a journey. And #11 was wicked in the best of ways.
We finished up the last 4 days of the Best trip in Los Roques with just two guests onboard, Ian Huschle, the CEO of Best, out for his second trip on The Best Odyssey, and Michael Bigger, one of Best’s investors. We’d had nearly perfect conditions for the first 10 days, but somehow the winds got even better and really cranked for the final go. Jody still wanted to nail some shots on the outer reef with two of the wrecks, so we headed east out to the barrier reef one last time. 
I have to admit something that will likely reap some funny looks. Jody and I are told by just about everyone who comes out here that our job is incredible. We run a boat that is going around the world seeking remote and special places to kiteboard and explore that most people will never see. OK, put that way I too think it sounds pretty grand. Hell, it’s why we put the expedition together in the first place. But until this trip with Best Jody and I were both seeing a pretty small light at the end of a very long tunnel. No days off, no income, lots of debt, rarely doing any of the things our owners and guests got to do in abundance. Maintenance, cleaning, chores, always racing to be ready for the next group and never really catching up have been adding to up to very long days and very little peace. Yes, we’ve got a great office, but you start to lose perspective. You know you’re in trouble when turquoise water and gorgeous sunsets are glossed over like yesterday’s paper.
We’ve got the Best crew for 15 days in Los Roques, which they’ve split into 3 trips of 5 days each. The first go brings us Gavin Butler, Best’s photographer, Alvaro Onieva, currently 3rd in the world on the PKRA, Rou Chater from Ikitesurf magazine, and the two lucky winners of Best’s retail challenge to win a free trip on The Best Odyssey, Harm Wattel and Martin Kooger from Xwatersports in Holland.
We’d gotten a couple nice evening sessions in Tortuga and were planning our early morning departure for Los Roques when we got “wind” of Hurricane Dean. My forecast had light wind and little swell on the horizon, but upon further investigation we found the beast bearing down on Martinique, forecasted to sweep 180 miles north of Los Roques in two days. I felt that was a little too close for comfort, so we decided to spend another day in Tortuga. 
We had an interestingly painful week in port prepping for #9, the trip we are now on. I had two large shipments to navigate through customs and in some ways was unsuccessful with both. The first were 8 solar panels which had been shipped to Miami two months ago and then brought down to Margarita by boat. I’d done this to avoid the hefty import taxes Venezuela places on “luxury items”. The second was our paragliding tow winch, which was coming from Slovenia via Air France freight, to arrive in Caracas.