#lagoon 380

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Lagoon 380 Version propriétaire pour ce Lagoon 380 qui n'a jamais été loué. Rigoureusement entretenu par ses propriétaires actuels.

[kristinastanley]

One Writer's Happiness

One Writer’s Happiness

Thirty seconds was all it took for me to get that little thrill of happiness as a writer.

I’d just returned from my morning run along the beach and decided to check my email before having breakfast.

This is what I found.  A lovely note. A person out there read my book and took the time to tell me what they thought.

Just finished your book and really enjoyed it! It kept me glued to until I could…

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[kristinastanley]

WiFi, Goats, Sailing, and Writing

WiFi, Goats, Sailing, and Writing

One day closer…Getting nervous. But why am I talking about goats and WiFi?

In Look the Other Way, the love interests, Shannon and Jake have to get used to being out of communication with the rest of the world. Something we’re just not used to. Can they rely on each other and stay safe? Especially when a murderer is in the area.

SUBMERGED BENEATH THE DEPTHS IS A SEA OF SECRETS

Imagine being…

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[kristinastanley]

Lobster Hunting, Provisioning, and Books

Lobster Hunting, Provisioning, and Books

You all know I’m in the count down to the publication of  Look The Other Way and I can barely site still. It’s like waiting for Christmas morning when I was seven. How am I supposed to get anything done?

Writing this story was a journey into my own life. Don’t get me wrong, the story is completely made up, and no one was murdered while I was sailing, but I did spend 5 years living on a sailboat.

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[kristinastanley]

Storms at Sea! Research for A Novel.

Storms at Sea! Research for A Novel.

One Week! That’s all I have to wait until Look The Other Way is published. Geez – this never gets old.

Look the Other Way started ages ago, and now it’s almost here.

I wrote the first draft during the summer of 2012, but long before that my life had already started to influence what I would write.

In the fall of 2009, my husband, Mathew, and I started our journey across the Gulf Stream from…

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Lagoon 380 version propriétaire Part. Vend Lagoon 380 version propriétaire, 3 cabines. Année 2003, excellent etat. Plus de détails et photos sur : taolagoon.unblog.fr

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New Post has been published on The Nomad Trip

New Post has been published on http://www.thenomadtrip.com/sailing/san-blas-sailing-part-2/

San Blas Sailing - Part 2

This is the second part of my trip to Panama – San Blas sailing.  San Blas is a remote island chain on the Caribbean side of Panama. It’s inhabited only by the Kuna Indians, who are independent of the local Panamanian government.  It was the beginning of the rainy season there, so we had a nice mixture of clouds and bright (blinding, hot) sunshine.  I received the worst sunburn of my life here, despite bathing in sunscreen every day.

Sailing to (and around) San Blas

  With everything onboard and the diesels warmed up, we pulled up to the mooring ball and unhooked.  Free at last.

Motoring out of the anchorage at Puerto Lindo was a little more tricky than I would have thought, but easy enough if you knew the way.  Finally out in the Pacific, we raised the mainsail and unfurled the Genoa.  We were doing 5 knots in no time, with windspeed being about 12 knots.  Not too shabby, but not exactly speeding either.

Once we were underway I set the autopilot and dropped down to set the rods up for some trolling.  I have a few lures, but need some more – and the reels need to be broken down and cleaned.  Nonetheless – we trolled.  We had a couple of bites on the way, but nothing pulled in.

The winds were changing often, which required adjusting the sails often.  Eventually we were taking wind head-on so we fired up the diesels again (we wanted to reach San Blas before the light ran out), easily making 7 knots.

Chichime sunset

We arrived at Chichime just before dusk and navigated into the anchorage (which can be a little tricky), and dropped anchor in a sea of other sailboats.  We were not the only ones with this idea.  Tino (the previous owner of my Lagoon 380) has a thing for Cuba Libre’s (the liar’s drink), so we fixed one and started unwinding.  We broke out the pate, cheese and crackers.  Then we opened up a nice bottle of wine.

Not a bad life, this one.

  Diving Again, Finally

Tino was more interested in showing me around than diving.  Which was smart – after all, it’s more important to learn the boat and the islands.  Then I can dive whenever.  But I hadn’t been in the water for way too long.  So I insisted and we made our way outside of the reef to get lunch.

Getting over the reef was a challenge in the dinghy, with rough surf breaking.  We anchored in about 15 foot of water, and I dove down the anchor line and secured the anchor.  Done.  Time to dive.  The visibility and the reef structure was nice, but the fish were noticeably absent.  And the ones we found had clearly seen divers before.  Crafty buggers.

Our dive was cut short when I looked up and saw our dinghy loose, heading for the reef.  Luckily Tino made it to the dinghy before it was capsized and smashed on the reef – that would have made the trip pretty crappy.  Apparently when Tino tied the anchor to the anchor-line, he didn’t make a great knot and it came untied – leaving our anchor somewhere in the blue.  Close call.  Our diving for the day was over.

  San Blas Sailing

San Blas sailing is phenomenal.  We had decent wind a couple of days – making 8 and even 9 knots at one point.  Averaging (again) a little less than half-windspeed.  I was beginning to feel comfortable trimming and adjusting the sails.  Anchoring wasn’t too difficult either, and having twin engines allowed me to move the catamaran in very tight spaces.

My boat, from the islands

At one point I wanted to get in behind a particularly nice island, but Tino was a little nervous about the entrance.  It was shallow and windy, with reef patches not on the charts.  But we have a shallow draft on the Lagoon 380, and it was sunny enough to figure out what was what.  We made it to the island easily, but we did have a close call on a sandy-bottom.  Not an emergency, and we didn’t scrape – but it raised the pucker-factor.

Our little slice of paradise

  I think it was worth it.

The Kuna

We visited the island pictured below and found a couple of Kuna making repairs on their canoe and cleaning the island.  I found a coconut and they helped us open it up.  That was a win for the home-team.  A little coconut in pan-fried fish is a treat.  Tino spoke with them for a while, and I explored the island.  The only structure on it was a small thatched hut and a smoke-house, where the Kuna smoke fish with coconut husks.

A Kuna dugout

  Cayo Hollandes

The next day we sailed through the islands to Cayo Hollandes. Tino has a favorite anchorage here that was occupied by a much larger Lagoon.  So we moved past and found a nearby anchorage.  This was, hands-down, my favorite of the spots we visited.

Stark contrast of cultures

I desperately wanted to freedive and spearfish a bit – as much to clear my head as to get dinner.  Luckily there was a small inshore reef right off our Port bow.  I wasted no time getting rigged to do some diving.  I was using some ancient spearguns with rotting rubber, make unknown.  The spearguns were Tino’s, as I brought a pole-spear, but I was worried about getting in range.  In hindsight, the polespear would have been better. The spearguns may have had a 4 foot range.

Freediving here felt great.  It always starts out with me not being able to dive very deep, but within an hour I was comfortably hitting 50 foot. Then 60.  I didn’t push much deeper as Tino was doing his own thing.  Again – not much fish life.  There were a few mackerels swimming around, but they’d seen divers before and I couldn’t get within range.  I ended up settling for a couple of monster lionfish, which I’d heard were good eating (though they have poisonous spines that must be removed).  Having done my part for the local ecosystem (lionfish are invasive and nothing eats them) – I got back onboard.  Cleaning the lionfish was a little tricky – but after cutting the spines off, I manage to get some nice, white fillets – which we promptly cooked for a late lunch.  And washed down with Atlas beer.

Not a bad life, this one.

  Running Out of Rum

It was an emergency.  Nothing can kill a good day sailing, but not having a drink at sundown is serious business.  So we headed into town, if it can be called that, and picked up the necessities – a couple of tomatoes, a bottle of cheap rum (which, incidentally, wasn’t cheap at $12), and some more gas for the dinghy.

When we bought the tomatoes, there was bout $.50 leftover in change.  I left it with the girl running the counter, and you would have thought I gave her a $100 bill.  She beamed a big smile back at me.  I’ll never win any awards for most-charitable, but it felt really good.  Tino said they never get tipped here, and remarked that we could have bought another Coke to replenish our dwindling supply of Cuba Libre making materials.

The “town” was interesting – all thatched roof huts.  Electricity was available, but sparse - rumor has it that it’s provided by the engine of a large boat that wrecked on the reefs.  I regret not taking pictures, but the reality of hauling a huge DSLR camera across the ocean to a “town” where they have nothing… Well, it just didn’t make sense.  Next time I guess.

  Eating Bonita

If you’re a fisherman in the States, you either a) throw Bonita back or b) use them for bait.  They are rumored to be poor eating, although a cousin of the tuna.  We hooked one while sailing and trolling, and when I said I was going to throw it back – Tino gave me a dirty look.  So I removed some big fillets for our dinner.  I usually eat pelagic fish undercooked or raw, but Tino made a marinade from soy, vinegar, garlic, and oil for the fish to sit in.  An hour later he pulled the whole concoction (and the fish) in a pan and sautéed it.  I was skeptical, but willing to try.

It was delicious.  Absolutely fantastic.  Usually these types of fish (heavy, dark red meat) aren’t good cooked-through.  They get dry and almost inedible. This was an exception to the rule.  Fantastic.  Of course, a cold beer really helped.  I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Atlas (a local beer), but it’s really nice cold on a hot/humid day.  Its official; when sailing in San Blas – cold Atlas is a treat.

Not a bad life, this one.

Chichime Again

Our last day was spent sailing back West, to Chichime so that we could begin sailing to Puerto Lindo early the next morning.  We arrived before dusk and had the obligatory Cuba Libre.  I wasn’t sleepy so we stayed up late and talked, attempted to fish off the back of the boat, and drank. Another good bottle of wine was sacrificed.

Chichime, sailboats, and sunsets

Shortly after sundown, the boats around us came alive.  A large blue monohull in front of us was smoking marijuana by the ton – much closer and we’d have had a contact high.  And then there were fires on the beach, some music, and some general rabble-rousing.  I was tempted to go, but Tino wasn’t too keen.  He let me know, disapprovingly, that any drug one might want could be found onshore when this crowd was here.  That didn’t deter me, but I was willing to oblige Tino.  Truth be told, I was a little worried that if I went ashore and had anything else to drink, I might not be fit to run the dinghy back to the mothership.  So we drank aboard, and slept soundly.

It was the end of my time sailing San Blas – but far from the end of my little adventure.