Turtle Cay Marina and the beginning of rainy season

<<We are not made of sugar.>> Kate assures me as we are walking on the beach under a heavy downpur. It makes me smile. I should revisit my own attitude towards the rain. Sometimes I just can get soaked, enjoying it for one time, instead of retreating into a dry spot or wearing rain gear.

We are heading back from a walk on the deserted beach between Turtle Cay Marina and the little town of Viento Frio. While rain is coming down I focus on the edge of the dark shelf cloud moving above and past us carrying the shower West. Beautiful black tentacles of vapor hang from it, the new smells coming from the jungle signal that the vegetation reacts to the atmospherical change. Howler monkeys from afar sound their call. Everybody knows it’s raining, even the silver surface of the waves that continue its motion shows a new skin pierced by the raindrops.

I am just getting wet. Water drips from my hair onto my face, my t-shirt gets wet and heavy on my shoulder. I’ll be dry when I get back. It’s no big deal.

Rainy season is on us, and even if it is not yet at its peak we are frequently visited by moisturizing drops falling from the sky. We arrived in Turtle Cay Marina at the beginning of May for a yard period in which we focus on painting jobs. Not the best time of the year to do it, but not the worst either.

Turtle Cay Marina is a waterfront development few miles off the pueblo of Nombre De Dios. As far as places to haul out our boat it is as remote as it gets on the Atlantic Coast of Panama, ideal for a small boat and her expert crew.

The downside is that if we forgot to get a part in our job list supply we need a taxi and two buses to get to a shopping area probably having to stay overnight in Panama City. The advantage is that we easily put our attention on the work, as there are not many forms of distraction around here, other than wonderful wildlife and landscape.

It is also affordable, which is another good reason to be here.

Tranquility took a ride on the travel lift before being dropped on stands. Gravity pushing her on a hard ground is not the best situation for a boat, but hopefully it won’t last long. We quickly adapted to the tall ladder we have to climb to go in and out of the boat, to the retrofit of the grey water system draining into a bucket and to the fact that as dusk is approaching we have to close down the boat and hide inside, or bugs will eat us.

We also got used very quickly to nice, clean and functioning bathrooms with shower, laundromat, wi-fi, and the view of the beach from the cockpit, and the nice restaurant on the beach. It may sounds weird, but it is exceptional in this area.

It is complicated to rate a boatyard, but so far this has the best views.

Painting the topsides of Tranquility had been a long discussed project. The one part paint we applied prior to the first launch in New Bedford dated 2013 and it was constantly peeling off. Something bogus happened during that first application that messed up the adhesion of the paint. Busy as we were assembling Tranquility like a model boat from a box kit, we slapped that one part grey paint on her and moved to the very next project, anxious to get out of New England before the worst of winter.

 

For five years we have seen layers of paint coming off at the slightest friction with a solid object, like the dinghy, anchor chain, the occasional leaning to a hard surface like a dock. That drove Kate crazy as she kept touching up the scratches with the same one part Kingston Grey paint we used originally and Tranquility soon looked like some advanced stealth vessel, with grey camo. It was perfect for Georgia, maybe, but when we decided it was time to pull Tranquility out of the drink, Kate soon lobbied for a brand new paint job.

I resisted at first. Aestethics sits quite down in my list of priority, and I also knew that it was a lot of work, physical, dirty, finicky work. It took days to remove the previous coating, and to prepare the surface for primer, then dry days for application, more sanding, taping. And so on. But eventually I recognized the urgency that Kate was feeling. Most of the times she is right anyway, I am learning as time passes.

Maria from the vessel Joana recommended Jotun, a brand of paints from Norway which she described as “high quality industrial paint” that was available in Panama. I liked the focus on industrial because back in the States I spent too much time dealing with “spiffy yacht coatings” that eventually did not stand the harsh environment of the ocean and are targeted to people who constantly redo their paint jobs, as if boat owners were damned in one ring of Inferno, forced to constantly repaint their boats, with the diabolic marketers laughing at them. This time we are hoping for a less shiny but definitely more tenacious paint job, hopefully tug boat grade.

Industrial also means cheaper. Jotun serves the Shipping Industry so they sell by the bulk. For tiny Tranquility that translated in the purchase of a 20 liter (more than 5 gallons) drum of self polishing antifouling paint for 650$. It is a lot of money but it is also a lot of paint, and we had no way to purchase less from the warehouse in Zona Libre just outside Colon. 130$ per gallon is not a bad price at all for antifouling, even though now we have at least two gallons more than necessary.

Most cruisers we spoke to suggested that we apply it all, the more the better they say. Following the calculation from our last haul out in St.Marys, GA that quantity should translate in five or more coats of bottom paint. If putting more paint on will grant us more time between haul outs it could save us a lot of cash, so we are going to try the heavy application.

Of course painting outdoor in the rainy season is not the easiest task. It is down right frustrating. But as we cannot control weather we move past frustration and make the best possible with it. I would not have written this post if it wasn’t raining outside, I would be dealing with the next stage of this apparently interminable task.

Writing is a good activity for rainy days. I am working on two publication deadlines for June. One, already delivered, is for Small Boat Monthly, and it’s about a traditional sailing race in Guna Yala, that should appear on June’s edition. Then I also have a long piece about the last two years of sailing for Wand’rly Magazine that I am completing, really hoping to deliver it in time for the June issue too.

If it rains a lot, I have a prompt reason to console me for the delay in painting.