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As the pale tones of twilight’s starry skies give way to a brilliant show

Another Caribbean morning is born.

Now I see this sliver moon disappear
Retreating from a radiant dawn
Blazing along
Running down this great frontier

This group of frothy adventurers was primed and amped for the Caribbean Sea so we set-off bright and early at noon Tuesday. Feeling good about our weather window from Antigua to Panama, we made a b-line so we could get in line for our turn through the canal. On a broad reach, we cruised by the East side of Montsarrat doing 9 knots with the genneker barber hauled and the forward hatches open. Suddenly we heard the brake on the fishing reel crack announcing fish on. Soon the barracuda and tuna were joining us on the deck. It was a great way to start a passage. It felt good to be self-sustained, heading for another new stamp on the passport. I’ve read some “worst passage of my life” stories about our route to Panama, but nothing seemed to matter as we sailed into the sunset.
The next day we were accompanied by the playful escorts of the open sea. Our crew seemed to working out great. Kahlil had already proved his worth at the helm and the Tazmanian Devil chowhound was keeping the galley from being destroyed by this ravenous pack. We set up watch to have 2 on for 3 hours at a time and it seemed to be working out good as we had someone new rotate every hour and half.
Our third day at sea we flew “Vadar” the black spinnaker but it was a pain in the ass and didn’t really help our cause. We soon experimented with a new set-up and left the spinnaker pole up but connected the gennaker to it. It seemed to fly faster with half the maintenance.
The following morning we had a 10am visit from the Coast Guard. No, we weren’t boarded but it seemed worse than that at first. I first spotted a blip on the horizon when I heard a humming off in the distance. All of a sudden, it looked like we were a target for a kamikazi pilot. Apparently they wanted a look at us and weren’t at all afraid to fly well below the radar. After we watched a Blue Angel style performance we saw a huge baitball feeding frenzy of birds and fish but failed to reel any of them in until around noon the following day. It was choice, we pulled in a fatty with the reel then noticed we had another fish on our short line. It looked like we were in for another fresh dinner and our freezer would be well stocked by the time we made it to Colon.

Mulletman Kahlil visited Dizzy’s Barbershop on the transom for a transformation. Once the sheers had come to a rest, Lawless’s new hairdo defined his indian spirit name; Mullet Hawk.

TO BE CONTINUED…

-Ben_Jamin