Sea Venture’s repairs waited only for my cousin, Tom McKnight, to arrive on February 19 with the new steering system bearings and mounting hardware. They reprovisioned and checked out of Costa Rica on Monday, then headed south.
Tom, being a racer, spent hours tweaking headsails. Michael assured him that Sea Venture’s regular crew adjusted sails…oh, at least every few days. Of course, that’s an exaggeration, but Tom is the premier sailor, so what could Michael say? Tom also had fun with the trappings of a cruising boat: a radar and an autopilot.
Food arrives.
After a few days at sea, they were ready for a rest. Here, at an anchorage in Panama, locals arrive in their dugout canoe to offer bananas for barter. Another brought a pineapple and some odd fruit no one recognized.
The tidal range on the Pacific side Panama is over 15 feet, and the outgoing current can be fierce. Sea Venture fought wind and current and made a measly 3 knots over ground, which delayed their arrival in the Canal Zone until the afternoon of the 28th.
